Edgar I the Peaceful ( ; c.
7 August 943 – 8 July
975), also called the Peaceable, was a king of England
(r.
959–75). Edgar was the younger son of
Edmund I of England.
Accession
His
cognomen, "The Peaceable", was not
necessarily a comment on the deeds of his life, for he was a strong
leader, shown by his seizure of the Northumbrian
and Mercian
kingdoms
from his older brother, Eadwig, in
958. A conclave of nobles held Edgar to be king north of the
Thames, and Edgar aspired to succeed to the English throne.
Government
Though Edgar was not a particularly peaceable man, his reign was a
peaceful one. The kingdom of
England was at its height. Edgar
consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By
the end of Edgar's reign, England was sufficiently unified that it
was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival
kingships, like it had to an extent under Eadred's reign.
Edgar and Dunstan
Upon Eadwig's death in October 959, Edgar immediately recalled
Dunstan (eventually
canonised as St. Dunstan) from exile to have
him made
Bishop of Worcester
(and subsequently
Bishop of London
and
Archbishop of
Canterbury). The allegation Dunstan at first refused to crown
Edgar because of disapproval for his way of life is a discreet
reference in popular histories to Edgar's abduction of Wulfthryth,
a nun at Wilton, who bore him a daughter
Eadgyth. Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor
throughout his reign.
Coins of Edgar I (959–975).
Benedictine Reform
The Monastic Reform Movement that restored the
Benedictine Rule to England's undisciplined
monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan,
Æthelwold, and
Oswald. (Historians continue to debate
the extent and significance of this movement.)
Coronation at Bath (AD 973)
Edgar was
crowned at Bath
, but not
until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation,
but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a
great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised
by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the
basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.
The symbolic
coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and
gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester
.
Six kings
in Britain, including the kings of Scotland
and of
Strathclyde, pledged their
faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and
land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all
plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the
River Dee. Such embellishments may not be
factual, but the main outlines of the "submission at Chester"
appear true. (See
History of
Chester.)
Death (AD 975)
Edgar died
on 8 July 975 at Winchester
, and was buried at Glastonbury Abbey
. He left two sons, the elder named
Edward, who was probably his illegitimate
son by Æthelflæd (not to be confused with the
Lady of the Mercians), and
Æthelred, the younger, the child
of his wife
Ælfthryth. He was succeeded
by Edward. Edgar's illegitimate daughter
Eadgyth became a nun at Wilton and was
eventually canonised as St. Edith.
From Edgar’s death to the
Norman
Conquest, there was not a single succession to the throne that
was not contested. Some see Edgar’s death as the beginning of the
end of Anglo-Saxon England, followed as it was by three successful
11th-century conquests — two Danish and one Norman.
Genealogy
For a more complete genealogy including ancestors and descendants,
see
House of Wessex family
tree.
Diagram based on the information found
on Wikipedia
Further reading
- Scragg, Donald (ed.). Edgar, King of the English, 959–975:
New Interpretations. Publications of the Manchester Centre for
Anglo-Saxon Studies. Manchester: Boydell Press, 2008. ISBN
1843833999. Contents (external link).
- Williams, Ann. "Edgar (943/4–975)." Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press,
2004.
- Keynes, Simon. "England, c. 900–1016." In The New
Cambridge Medieval History III. c.900–c.1024, ed. Timothy
Reuter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 456-84.
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