The Children of Edgar (1) – Edith of Wilton

The Fall of Anglo-Saxon England Part II

The Saint who nearly became Queen
As we have seen in Part I King Edgar the Peaceful had relationships with three women who all bore him children. His marriage status in these liaisons is confused to say the least. According to 12th century chroniclers Edgar’s first child, a son named Edward, was the result of his relationship with Æthelflæd ‘Eneda’ (the White Duck), said to be the daughter of an ealdorman named Ordmær. Edgar is said to have married Æthelflæd while he was king of Mercia 957-959 and she died in the early 960’s shortly after their son Edward was born around 962. Yet Æthelflæd is not found in any contemporary source and is only named in Post-Conquest accounts.

St Edith of Wilton

We find a little more information on Edgar’s second relationship with a woman named Wulfthryth which produced a daughter, Edith (Eadgyth). Mother and daughter later both became Saints. But again, as with Æthelflæd ‘Eneda’, there is confusion over the king’s martial status with Wulfthryth who is often described by historians as the king’s concubine. If Edith was born around 961, as the sources claim, then it is possible it was an extramarital affair during his marriage to Æthelflæd. There is further confusion in the sources if Wulfthryth was actually a member of the religious community of Wilton Abbey at the time she was seduced by the king or was a novice awaiting orders. Whatever her status, Edgar is said to have abducted her and the child Edith was the result. It appears to have been a short term affair as Wulfthryth soon returned to the abbey with her young daughter.

The primary source for the life of St Edith is Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (c.1040-1106), later of St Augustine’s Canterbury, one of the most prolific hagiographers of female saints' lives in 11th century England. Goscelin was born in Flemish Brabant and became a monk of St Bertin's at Saint-Omer before moving to England. He visited English monasteries collecting materials for his work. A century after Edith’s death in 984 Goscelin was at Wilton Abbey serving as a chaplain where he gained much of the material for his Vita S. Edithae (The Life of St. Edith), written between 1078 and 1087, from the abbey’s community which we might therefore expect to be a reasonably accurate account.

However, historian Susan Ridyard, specialising in medieval religion and the history of sainthood, has noted several anomalies in Goscelin’s account between the histographies of William of Malmesbury (c. 1090-c. 1143). In William’s early-12th century Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Bishops) he tells us that at the time of her liaison with King Edgar, Wulfthryth was not a nun but a lay girl who had taken the veil in an attempt to thwart the king’s advances. She failed and became pregnant. William adds that Dunstan’s disapproval of the king’s behaviour resulted in the imposition of a seven year penance.

In the Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings, c.1125) William writes that Edgar’s seduction is of an ‘unnamed virgin dedicated to God’ which resulted in Dunstan imposing a seven year penance on the king. Then, in describing Edgar’s children, William again describes Edith’s mother as a lay girl who took the veil to prevent her being seduced by the king. Here William does not identify Wulfthryth as the ‘unnamed virgin’.

William account appears to follow the seduction story that first appears in the versions of ‘Life of St Dunstan’ by the Canterbury monks Osbern (c.1070-1080) and Eadmer (c.1100-1120). The earlier account of Osbern states that the young woman that the king seduced is an unnamed veiled virgin, whereas in Eadmer’s later account of St Dunstan he writes that she is an unnamed lay girl studying at Wilton who snatched a veil from one of the nuns, presumably to disguise herself as a nun, in order to protect herself from the amorous king.

In contrast in his Life of St Edith Goscelin does not suggest that there was anything improper about Edgar’s relationship with Wulfthryth stating that their ‘indissoluble vows’ could only be broken by her entry into the religious life. The implication here is that Wulfthryth and King Edgar are as good as married as they have taken vows. It is highly unlikely that Goscelin was not aware of the stories concerning King Edgar’s seduction of a nun at Wilton which resulted in their daughter Edith. Ridyard concludes that Goscelin preferred to ignore them. However, it must be noted that, excepting Osbern’s version, the accounts of Edgar’s seduction of a nun at Wilton are later than Goscelin’s writing on Edith.

Goscelin praises the devotion of Cnut, Danish King of England (r.1016 -1035), to St Edith and the enrichment of her tomb with a golden shrine at Wilton Abbey. However, William of Malmesbury is not so complimentary of Cnut who he claims derided St Edith in saying “Surely you do not expect me to believe that any daughter of Edgar’s could be a saint?”1

David Rollason concurs that St Edith’s cult was held in high regard by royalty being patronised by King Cnut with his Queen Emma and also by Queen Edith of Wessex, wife of Edward the Confessor (r.1042-1066).2 It seems likely that Cnut’s involvement with the cult of St Edith at Wilton was to strengthen his association with the West Saxon Royal House, which he had started by marrying Emma, widow of Æthelred the Unready, d.1016. Wilton Abbey clearly held a special place in the heart of Edith of Wessex,  daughter of Earl Godwine and last Anglo-Saxon Queen of England; she was educated there and rebuilt the abbey church in stone at sometime after Swein Forkbeard attacked the settlement of Wilton and burned it to the ground in 1003. It seems likely the abbey, favoured hunting grounds of the Vikings, was damaged during the attack although the abbey is not specifically mentioned in the attack as recorded in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle Canterbury (F) manuscript.

In his Life of St Edith, Goscelin includes the story of King Edward the Martyr’s murder in March 978. Goscelin writes that when the high nobility became aware of King Edward’s murder they declared that his younger half-brother Æthelred was not fit to rule and the throne was offered to Edgar’s daughter Edith of Wilton. Here Goscelin claims that Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia, was behind this initiative which is at odds with other sources which regarded the Mercian magnate as one of Æthelred’s foremost supporters. This version of the story is only found in Goscelin’s Life of St Edith, which Ridyard considers highly unlikely to be true. Whatever the truth of the matter, history tells us that Edith did not become Queen of England and spent her whole life at Wilton and even declined the position of abbess of three convents. Goscelin also claims that St Edith became abbess of her beloved abbey at Wilton.

When St Edith died, just 23 years of age, she was buried in an oratory dedicated to St Dionysius (St Denis) that she had built and funded herself. Goscelin claims that Edith’s translation at Wilton was carried out thirteen years after her death, for which St Edith summoned St Dunstan to Wilton to carry out the translation of her body to a shrine in the porticus dedicated to the Archangel Gabriel where miracles soon occurred.3 Edith died in 984, Dunstan died 988. Rollason states that St Edith’s translation was 13 years after her death, that is 997, long after Dunstan’s passing.4 Ridyard concludes that Goscelin either made an error in the date of her translation or the number of years between her death and translation, or it was carried out by another Bishop. Ridyard suspects that the error is due to Goscelin’s over-emphasis of the role of Dunstan in the life of Edith.5

As Goscelin claims his account of the life of Edith is based on oral accounts of the nuns at Wilton, which he visited a century after her death, none are contemporary accounts and seem to be based on muddled memories of the Wilton community.

The Seven Year Penance
Whichever account is the most truthful King Edgar has been remembered as a seducer of nuns. This would offer some explanation as to why St Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury, imposed a strict seven year penance on Edgar, presumably, if we are to believe these stories recorded in Saints’ Lifes, for abducting and seducing Wulfthryth. During this period the king could not wear his crown and was to distribute alms and fast regularly.

The seven year penance would explain why Edgar was not consecrated as king until 973 at a ceremony at Bath Abbey along with his third consort Ælfthryth who he had married in 964 or 965. Ælfthryth was the first 10th century Anglo Saxon woman to be titled Queen (regina). There is no record of an earlier coronation for Edgar. We know more of Ælfthryth than either of Edgar’s first two acquaintances; she was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon and widow of Æthelwold ealdorman of East Anglia, the son and successor of Æthelstan ‘Half King’. The union of Edgar and Ælfthryth produced two sons Edmund ætheling born around 966 and Æthelred around 968. Edmund died young, around 971.

The Cult of Royal Saints
It has been suggested that a possible alternative explanation for Edgar waiting until 973 for his consecration is that in that year he turned 30, significantly the age that bishops of the Anglo-Saxon church in England were generally required to be before episcopal consecration (anointing), the traditional age of Christ when he began his ministry. But generally the age of consecration does not appear to have been an issue for Anglo Saxon kings, for example, both of Edgar’s son Edward and Æthelred were consecrated very young. However for Edgar who was closely associated with Dunstan and the Benedictine Reform movement of the 10th century the age of consecration may have held special reverence.

Anglo Saxon kings and their lineage held a special place in pre-Conquest tradition; it was considered that there was an air of divinity about Anglo Saxon kings, they had been chosen by God, and were anointed with Holy oil putting them on a standing with Holy men. Consequently, the killing of an Anglo Saxon king was not just murder it was a sin of the highest order, a sin against God's anointed, an offence against God. Many murdered Anglo Saxon kings were quickly elevated to sainthood, perhaps the most well known example is Saint Oswald, king of Northumbria, killed and dismembered by the pagan King Penda of Mercia at Maserfelth in 642. The sign of a saint was typically that the body was found incorrupt (undecayed) on translation to a new shrine where miracles occurred. Later kings would richly embellish their shrines.

A cult of Royal saints emerged during the Anglo Saxon era which was a time when there was no formal process of canonization, the church responding to local communities where regional bishops would declare martyrs and confessors as saints. It was not until 993 that the first formal canonization took place when Pope John XV held a papal enquiry prior to declaring Ulrich of Augsburg a saint.

Lanfranc, the first Norman archbishop of Canterbury appointed in 1070, who described himself as the ‘new Englishman’ (novus Anglus), was sceptical of the validity of many of the Anglo Saxon saints, questioning English hagiographical traditions. Shortly after his appointment he began to replace the British Bishops with Norman prelates who began testing the authenticity of native saints' relics resulting in many Royal Saints being removed from liturgical calendars.

In Lanfranc's initial list of festivals for his Monastic Constitution, St Ælfheah (Alphege), former Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred by the Vikings in 1012, was the only Anglo-Saxon saint included, even St Dunstan was omitted. However, Lanfranc overcame his initial scepticism of many Anglo-Saxon saints and seems likely to have commissioned Osbern of Canterbury to write Miracula Dunstani (Miracles of Saint Dunstan, c.1090) after the saint had cured him of a life threatening sickness. Goscelin dedicated his Life of St Edith to Lanfranc, in which he refers to the Norman Archbishop as the ‘most efficacious vicar of St Dunstan’.6

The process of local sanctification was resolved in 1170 when Pope Alexander III declared that the act of canonization belonged exclusively to the Pope.

King Edgar The Saint
Following his death on 8th July 975 at age 32 Edgar’s body was taken to Glastonbury Abbey where his grandfather Edmund I had been buried. Glastonbury held a special association with Dunstan, close advisor and confidante to Edgar, and former abbot of the abbey which had been at the forefront of monastic reforms pushed through by King and Archbishop.

With both his son Edward and daughter Edith venerated as saints it was inevitable that Edgar’s sanctity would be declared at some point. Yet, the only evidence of Edgar’ sanctity is from Glastonbury itself, as a saint he is absent from the Secgan, the 10th century list of Saints’s resting places, and is not mentioned in pre-1100 calendars. It would seem his veneration was limited to Glastonbury. 

William of Malmesbury was employed by Glastonbury in the early 12th century to write the early history of the monastery.7 In his De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (c.1129-35) William noted that abbot Æthelweard, c.1024-53, the penultimate Saxon abbot at Glastonbury, had prepared a reliquary for Edgar’s remains, assuming that by now it would be just dust and bones. On opening Edgar’s tomb in 1052 the abbot found the body incorrupt, a sign of sanctity. As the reliquary was too small to accommodate the whole body Æthelweard carved up the corpse to make it fit. As he cut into the corpse blood began to flow, which was also regarded as a sign of sanctity. Miracles were later witnessed at Edgar’s shrine above the High Altar in the abbey church were it remained until the Dissolution in the 16th century.8 The outcome for abbot Æthelweard was not so pleasant, he is said to have gone mad for his harsh treatment of the saint’s body. Soon afterwards he fell as he left the church and broke his neck.9

Notes & References:
1. Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp.42-44.
2. David Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo Saxon England, Basil Blackwell, 1989, p.140.
3. John Crook, English Medieval Shrines, The Boydell Press, 2011, p.95.
4. David Rollason, Saints and Relics, p.140.
5. Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints, pp.40-41.
6. John Crook, English Medieval Shrines, p.118.
7. John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury Abbey: An Edition, Translation, and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, Boydell Press, 1981, pp.134-5.
8.  David Rollason, Saints and Relics, pp.140-41.
9. James P Carley, Glastonbury Abbey: The Holy House at the Head of the Moors Adventurous, Gothic Image, 1996, p.13.

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