TY - JOUR
AU - Marten, Lucy
AB - Abstract The purpose of this article is to re-examine the evidence for the shiring of East Anglia and to challenge the widely-held assumption that the creation and imposition of this West Saxon administrative structure was an immediate consequence of Edward the Elder's campaigns of 917. Instead, it will be argued that 917 marked only the beginning of what turned out to be a century-long process as the former kingdom was gradually integrated into the political and administrative apparatus that characterized West Saxon/English regional governance. Evidence will be given that East Anglia was still a functioning political unit during the reign of Æthelred II and it will be suggested that the process of ‘shiring’ actually took place as part of a package of religious and administrative reforms during the reign of Cnut (1016–35). Traditionally, debate concerning the purpose and dating of the creation of the familiar landscape of shires or counties across England has been centred in either Wessex or Mercia. One consequence of this has been the effective sidelining of such evidence as there is for the dating for this process in East Anglia. This article argues that, for too long, historians have worked under the supposition that the emergence of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk from the older political unit of East Anglia was an immediate consequence of the so-called ‘re-conquest of the Eastern Danelaw’ by Edward the Elder in c.917. Many aspects of the reign of Edward the Elder have been re-interpreted and re-evaluated over the past decades, although little work has been done in relation to East Anglia, and the assumption that this king was able to introduce new administrative structures into the region is still influential in historical interpretations of the period.1 After presenting evidence to challenge the accepted dating for this process, this article will propose an alternative time frame for the introduction of these new administrative structures and royal personnel – a full century after Edward the Elder's campaigns. It will be suggested that the introduction of shires and sheriffs was part of a far-reaching programme of political, religious and administrative reform implemented during the reign of Cnut (1016–35) that finally brought the institutions and structures of the region into line with the rest of southern England. In part, these reforms were a response to the circumstances of Cnut's accession and the role that East Anglia played in resisting Danish attacks during the reign of Æthelred II. Employed within a framework of symbolic association, it will be argued that these reforms were used as tools of political reconciliation and integration, but that the context within which they were accomplished belongs to the eleventh, not the tenth century. The dating for the shiring of various parts of what would become ‘England’ is important because of the pivotal role that the shire played in English government and governance from the tenth century onwards. As Pauline Stafford notes, ‘Administrative boundaries played an important role in defining communities, turning groups on either side of an imaginary line in different directions’.2 The shire was much more than just an administrative structure, through its legal, military and judicial functions, and through the presence and agency of the sheriff; it was a vehicle for West Saxon royal control – the conduit between the king's court and the localities, and a potential agency to act as a check upon the power and authority of ealdormen. For East Anglia, the assumption that such a system was part of the aftermath of Edward the Elder's campaign of 917, in which he supposedly ‘stormed through East Anglia’, invites further suppositions about the strength and nature of royal control in the region that are not always supported by the extant evidence. Some basic facts should be noted at the outset. The counties of Norfolk and Suffolk themselves do not appear in the documentary record until the mid eleventh century, and when used in Domesday Book there is some evidence of their late development in relation to other territorial and administrative boundaries.3 They overlie some parochial boundaries for example;4 some vills have their Domesday records or geld assessment split between counties,5 while for others, the county line cut across manorial dues.6 Perhaps the most interesting example (and one to which this article will return) is the borough of Thetford, which was bisected by the county boundary: Domesday records land ‘on the Norfolk side of the river’ as well as that ‘on the Suffolk side’.7 It should also be noted that the counties or shires of Norfolk and Suffolk do not follow the pattern of those established elsewhere under Edward the Elder. In Mercia, where the shiring process can be more firmly dated to Edward's reign, the pattern is one of administrative districts based around burghal centres and named for them.8 In East Anglia, documentary references, together with numismatic and archaeological evidence, suggest that Thetford continued to be the region's principal borough throughout the tenth century, overshadowing the (later) county towns of Ipswich and Norwich. As the date at which it has frequently been said that the kingdom of ‘East Anglia was absorbed into the growing West Saxon state’, 917 seems an appropriate place to begin.9 The events of that year, and the other years of campaigning by Edward the Elder, are recounted in the contemporary annals of the ‘A’ text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recently described as a ‘Chronicle of the Triumphs of Edward’.10 Surprisingly, what has not been discussed in this context is an important distinction made in the language employed by the Chronicle for the terms agreed between the various regions and King Edward. What might be considered the norm can be illustrated by a quotation from the annal for 914: ‘Jarl Thurcytel submitted to him [King Edward] (‘gesohte him to hlaforde’), and all the [Scandinavian] landholders (‘holdas’), and almost all the chief men who owed allegiance to Bedford.’11 The language of submission and lordship is used again in 917: ‘Jarl Thurferth and the [Scandinavian] landholders (‘holdas’), submitted to him, together with the entire host which owed allegiance to Northampton and made submission to him as their lord and protector (‘to hlaforde 7 to mundboran’)’. The same entry also records that ‘the host which owed allegiance to Cambridge chose him especially as its lord and protector and confirmed that with oaths just as he determined’.12 This use of the language of lordship is repeated in subsequent years in relation to the men of Stamford (‘7 ðæt folc eal ðe to ðeare norþerran byrig hierde him beah to 7 sohton hine him to hlaforde’) and the kings of the Welsh (‘7 þa cyningas on Norþweallcyn …. hine sohton him to hlaforde’), and even the submission of the king of Scots and the Strathclyde Britons is couched in similar terms; they ‘accepted him as father and lord’ (‘7 hine geces to þa to fæder 7 to hlaforde’).13 To return to the 917 annal, in between the submission of the men of Northampton and those of Cambridge, the oaths recorded as being sworn by the East Anglians are very different: ‘And the entire Danish host in East Anglia swore union with him, that they wished all that he wished, protecting all that he protected, by sea and on land’ (‘7 eal se here on Eastenglum him swor annesse, þæt hie eal þæt wolden þæt he wolde, 7 eall þæt friþian wolden þæt se cyng friþian wolde, ægþer ge on sæ, ge on lande’).14 There is no mention of submission. Instead, what the Chronicle may be recording is another in a series of treaties between the East Anglians and the West Saxon kings. The most famous of these is, of course, the ‘Alfred-Guthrum’ treaty, agreed upon and ‘confirmed with oaths’ approximately thirty years before.15 That more examples once existed can be inferred. In 905, ‘peace was secured at Tiddingford, just as King Edward ordained, both with the East Anglians and the Northumbrians’ (‘7 on þæm ilcan gere mon fæstnode þone friðæt Yttingaforda, swa swa Eadweard cyng gerædde, ægðer wið Eastengle ge wið Norðhymbre’).16 One of Edward's own law codes refers to ‘treaties’ or ‘peace-writings’ (‘friðgewritu’) in the plural and also acknowledges the same three-fold structure (greater Wessex, East Anglia and Northumbria) as the Tiddingford peace.17 The use of lyrical repetition in the phrasing of this Chronicle extract certainly suggests that it originated in a genuine oath. What has been described as the ‘oral-formulaic’ structure is also found in the Swerian text, part of a group of legal texts included in an early eleventh-century compilation.18 Here a series of oaths are given; that of swearing loyalty to a lord, for example, includes the phrase ‘and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns’.19 A recent analysis of this textual group suggests that the dating of this oath in particular might be placed during the reign of Edward the Elder, making it the exact contemporary of the Chronicle entry.20 It is clear that the negotiations of 917 did not result in the continued independence of an East Anglian kingdom, as ‘Alfred-Guthrum’ had done. Quite aside from Edward's impressive military record in forcing the submission of other areas, one reason for the change may have been a leadership crisis in the region. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 905 records the death of King Eohric of East Anglia (alongside Edward's cousin, Æthelwold), and the unnamed king killed in 917 at Tempsford, alongside several jarls, was probably also East Anglian.21 Whatever the exact nature of the political arrangement indicated by the Chronicle entry for 917 – and that may now be unrecoverable – this author would suggest that it marked not the complete submission of East Anglia to the West Saxon king and government, but a negotiated ‘union’ that was the beginning of a long process of political integration. What cannot be assumed from the description of this ‘union’ is that the imposition of West Saxon administrative structures was an inevitable and immediate consequence of the events of 917. Other sources, too, cast doubt upon the strength of West Saxon royal influence in East Anglia in the decades following Edward the Elder's reign. There is no recorded bishop of the East Angles from the beginning of Danish rule (872) until possibly the nine-fifties, when the profession of an ‘Eadwulf’ to the archbishop of Canterbury is recorded, although there are some doubts about the authenticity of this document. An ‘Athulf, bishop of Elmham’ does attest charters in the nine-sixties.22 It is perhaps a leap of faith for historians to assume that shires and shire-court structures could have been either imposed or introduced into a region that had no bishop of its own. During the nine-forties it seems clear that Theodred, bishop of London, had some responsibility for the region; his will details bequests to many named places in Suffolk and left ten pounds for prayers for his soul to be distributed at his episcopal demesne at Hoxne (‘And ic an at Hoxne at mine biscopriche þat men dele x pund for mine soule’).23 His presence, while an indicator of East Anglia's gradual inclusion into the ecclesiastical and governmental structures that helped to define ‘England’ during this period, also shows that the gap in the source material for bishops of the East Angles is a genuine one. This lack of an ecclesiastical hierarchy partially answerable to the monarch probably also explains why East Anglia was omitted from the terms of King Eadred's will, drawn up c.951 × 955.24 In this, Eadred left specific and generous amounts to various named bishops for ‘the good of his people, that they may be able to purchase for themselves relief from want and from the heathen army’: in the process he named many of the West Saxon shires and made provision for Mercia, but he did not mention East Anglia at all, despite the fact that the region was likely to have been in the front line for any ‘heathen army’ raiding England. King Eadred evidently had the authority to order ‘many put to death’ in Thetford in 952 in retaliation for the death of Abbot Eadhelm, an incident about which we know no more.25 It has been suggested that Eadhelm, probably abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, may have been there either to found a religious community or to collect royal taxes. Either way, he was evidently not welcomed. Numismatic evidence also suggests that Edward the Elder's authority in East Anglia was nowhere near as complete as historians might assume. A recent analysis by Mark Blackburn concluded that ‘Edward never really managed to extend his authority over East Anglia effectively.’26 Similarly, Stewart Lyon has questioned whether ‘Edward ever had monetary control in Norfolk at least’.27 The control over the minting of coins was a specifically royal and symbolically important act: Edward's inability to put his regnal stamp on this activity in East Anglia must be a reflection of the nature of his control there. A longer and much slower process of political integration may also help to explain the paucity of charter evidence for East Anglia. During a period when so many written sources emanate from the royal court, this fact in itself raises interesting questions. It has sometimes been assumed that the lack of extant charters for the region is due to losses in Danish raids, but this is a supposition rooted in the belief that the West Saxon monarchy of the tenth century was in a position to issue many charters that were then apparently lost. Such ‘losses’ are the more curious when the extensive survival of other types of documentary evidence from the period (in the archive of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, for example) is considered.28 It is impossible to draw conclusions from this absence of evidence, but an examination of those charters that do exist indicates that their production may be directly linked to the use of dynastic marriage alliances as a part of the process of political integration. Both King Edmund (940–6) and King Edgar (959–75) married women with East Anglian connections. These are the only tenth-century kings for whom charters concerning the region are extant and the influence of their spouses is clear in the surviving texts. King Edmund took as his second wife Æthelflæd, a representative of a wealthy East Anglian family whose extant wills record their religious patronage of Bury St. Edmunds and their own foundation at Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk.29 A charter dated to the same year as the marriage (945) records the grant of the immediate environs of the shrine of St. Edmund to the community there by the king. The community at Beadricsworth was one patronized by several generations of Æthelflæd's family and the charter may represent an opportunity taken by the community to have their rights over the area confirmed in writing by the saint's namesake king, using the new queen as intermediary.30 Later, Edmund's younger son, King Edgar, granted his step-mother, Æthelflæd matrona, an estate at Chelsworth (Suffolk) in c.962 which was probably always intended to revert to Bury.31 Edgar himself married Ælfthryth, the widow of Æthelwold, ealdorman of East Anglia, and was responsible for the only other remaining royal charters concerning East Anglian land.32 During the nine-seventies, his reform and re-foundation of Ely abbey in the Fenlands led to a charter of privileges that included rights over the ‘Wicklaw’ area of south-east Suffolk. The only record of this appears in the Liber Eliensis and the authenticity of some parts of this charter is open to question.33 In the Liber, the grant of the manor to which the ‘Wicklaw’ area was appended (Sudbourne) was explicitly linked with both Edgar and Ælfthryth.34 It is likely that the separate charter granting ten cassati of land at Stoche (Stoke, near Ipswich) to the abbey (in exchange for 100 mancuses of gold) was produced around the same time.35 Once again the influence of the queen is highlighted: both the contemporary endorsement and the Liber Eliensis record that the ‘grant’ was made specifically at the request of Queen Ælfthryth. Other charters of Edgar tend to simplify complex transactions and it is possible that the land in question actually came from Ælfthryth, probably as a result of her marriage to Æthelwold, rather than from Edgar. The only evidence for any other royal grant in the region comes from Bury. In a later record, the gift of Beccles and Elmswell by one of Edmund's sons, King Eadwig (955–9), was noted, although it was made ‘without a charter’ a fact that may be significant given that no coins of Eadwig are known from East Anglian mints.36 The family into which Ælfthryth had previously been married provided successive ealdormen of the East Angles as part of a much larger ealdordom for six decades of the tenth century. There is no evidence for the identity of any local rulers of East Anglia during the period following the swearing of oaths with Edward the Elder in 917 and the appointment of Ealdorman Athelstan in c.932.37 Athelstan (known as ‘Half-King’) and his sons (Æthelwold and Æthelwine) were to remain in control of the region until almost the close of the tenth century and there is some indication that they were aided in the day-to-day administration of their extensive ealdormanry by subordinate ealdormen.38 Evidence from the Liber Eliensis, for example, suggests that a man named Scule, given the title comes, had responsibility for the territorial unit known as the ‘Wicklaw’ in eastern Suffolk, later the liberty of St. Ætheldreda.39 An individual of that name is linked to a sale of land in Suffolk, and he may be identified with the man who attested twelve royal charters and one extant will, although none has any discernible connection to the region.40 A similar pattern of ealdormen and subordinates has been identified in Northumbria, a region not shired until after the Norman Conquest.41 It is evident that the tenth century in East Anglia was a period of developing and strengthening ties between the region and the successors to Edward the Elder, supported by the links created through marriage. Edward may not have had monetary control in East Anglia, but the famous ‘reform coinage’ of his grandson Edgar, produced in c.973, was minted at Ipswich, Norwich and Thetford.42 The reign of King Edgar (959–75) also provides some of the first clues as to governmental structures within the area. As well as the charter to Æthelflæd, 962 is the date given to another drawn up to record a grant by Wulfstan (probably Wulfstan of Dalham) to the community at Bury that was modelled upon a royal diploma.43 Edgar's charter of privileges at the re-foundation of Ely abbey indicates the existence of hundreds by c.970 when the ‘Wicklaw’ territory was described in those terms.44 There is, however, one fundamental development of Edgar's reign that was noticeably absent from East Anglia: the symbolic mix of royal politics and religion known as the ‘tenth-century monastic reform movement’. There are known early links between King Edgar, Athelstan ‘Half-King’ and his sons, Æthelwold and Æthelwine, and Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury which make the lack of reformed monasticism in the region seem even more anomalous.45 Edgar helped to re-found Ely abbey and Ealdorman Æthelwine was the lay founder of Ramsey abbey, but the neighbouring Fenlands were as close as the Black Monks came to East Anglia during the tenth century. Ely was granted rights over the area known as the ‘Wicklaw’ in Suffolk, but these were then leased to Æthelwine for ten pounds a year, which may explain why the otherwise rich source of the Liber Eliensis contains so little material relating to the abbey's large Suffolk franchise for this period.46 The political context for this religious reform movement in the Fens, as areas of Mercia were politically and symbolically placed under West Saxon control, is well known and it is in contrast to the position in East Anglia.47 Judging by Ely's own records of grants to the monastery of lands in Norfolk and Suffolk during this period (often accompanying children as oblates to the monastery), it is clear that the principles of reformed monasticism were appreciated by many in the region, and yet the fact remains that neither royal influence nor ealdormanly patronage brought Benedictine monks to East Anglia.48 One explanation for this may simply be that even King Edgar held very little land in East Anglia, and was therefore not in a position to provide the endowment for a monastery. As late as Domesday, the amount of land in royal hands is comparatively low, and much of that listed had been recently acquired through the forfeiture of Earl Ralph in 1075.49 There is no evidence for a massive redistribution of land following Edward the Elder's campaigns and the agreement of 917 and, once again, this is in contrast to neighbouring areas.50 The landed position of the tenth-century ealdormen in the region is unknown. There is very little indication of their landholding in the region and the family estates (mapped by Cyril Hart) clearly demonstrate the Wessex origins of the dynasty.51 Their religious patronage was confined to the reformed monasteries in Wessex and the Fens – despite the careful record-keeping of the abbey at Bury, for example, there is no record of any grant from any ealdorman of the East Angles during the tenth century. In another way, the ‘careful record-keeping’ of the keepers of St. Edmund's shrine may have served to mislead later generations. There is one reference, supposedly from the tenth century, that apparently names a sheriff for Suffolk and would thus appear to support the premise of West Saxon administrative structures and personnel in the region.52 The grounds for dating this episode, however, are unsafe, as an examination of the text makes clear. In De miraculis Sancti Eadmundi, written in the late eleventh century and attributed to a monk of Bury named Herman, there is a miracle story that relates Edmund's punishment of a wicked sheriff, Leofstan, who had dared to violate the sanctuary of the saint.53 This tale has been dated to between 940 and 970 because of its place within the chronological sequence of that part of the text.54 Much of the hagiographical material from Bury has been the subject of scrutiny over the past few decades; this part of Edmund's posthumous life has been overlooked, but merits further examination.55 The Leofstan incident appears near the beginning of the text. After relating the death of Edmund and bemoaning the lack of extant sources for his early miracles, the author runs through and names the West Saxon and English kings who reigned throughout the ninth and tenth centuries. This is not, unfortunately, taken from a local source but, as the author relates, from the ‘English Chronicle’. Herman finishes this section with the reign of Æthelred II (979–1013) and then notes that Edmund was translated during the reign of Athelstan (924–39). This is followed by the tale of Leofstan, and the text continues with episodes from the time of Swein Forkbeard that can be dated from other evidence to 1013, including the claim that St. Edmund was responsible for the king's death after Swein had imposed a severe tribute (Danegeld) upon the country, demanding it even from the people of Beadericesworth (Bury St. Edmunds) despite a previously granted exemption. Next is noted the return of Æthelred in 1014 and the reign of Edmund Ironside (1016), followed by a record of the attack on Ipswich by Thorkell the Tall in 1010, and the moving of Edmund's relics to the comparative safety of London for three years. The text then continues with episodes from the reign of Cnut, including the regularization of the community (c.1020). A fuller synopsis of the text has been given by Antonia Gransden, but even this crude précis demonstrates that a chronological continuum throughout this part of the text is simply not present, and certainly cannot be used to date one specific episode.56 What appears to have happened is that the author has inserted episodes relating to St. Edmund into an existing regnal list compiled from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. All these occurrences, with the exception of Leofstan's tale, can be dated either from internal or other evidence and none has been inserted in its correct chronological position. The monk Herman wrote this hagiographical piece under the auspices of Abbot Baldwin, a man known from other evidence to have manipulated documentary texts for the benefit of his abbey, and thought to have commissioned specially both this piece and a re-writing of the earlier Passio by Abbo of Fleury.57 In light of the post-conquest date for its composition, the fact that the first two miracles recorded offer a warning to royal officials and even monarchs not to interfere with the business of the saint and the abbey takes on a new complexion. The tenurial upheaval of the Norman Conquest and subsequent revolts offered new prospects for opportunistic royal officials such as sheriffs to profit.58 As Domesday and later chronicles relate, complaints against sheriffs are commonplace from the late eleventh century onwards, and Herman was writing in the years following an extremely high geld of six shillings on the hide imposed by William I, and during a period when the abbey claimed its right to immunity from royal taxation.59 This episode finds its place among other cautionary tales describing the fates of post-conquest Norman depredators of the saint. Whereas these, and the tale of King Swein, have been seen as part of a literary, but propagandist, campaign by Abbot Baldwin in his strenuous defence of the abbey's rights, the tale of Leofstan has not hitherto been viewed within that same framework.60 Leofstan may indeed have been the name of an early sheriff in the region, but this constructed piece of hagiography cannot be used to place his office-holding in the tenth century. The name is too common to allow for a positive identification, but it is interesting to note that a retainer of Queen Emma (who controlled the area of west Suffolk surrounding Bury during the reign of Cnut), with known local connections, was also named Leofstan.61 He may have held some form of administrative post in the area or simply acted as the inspiration for this cautionary tale. There is one final point to be made with reference to the tenth-century history of the region and the supposed division of East Anglia into shires, and that is the continued use of the term ‘East Anglia’ to describe both the geographical and political unit. Throughout the tenth and early eleventh century it is the identity of this unit that is perpetuated, occasionally in extraordinary terms. Cyril Hart noted that Byrhtferth of Ramsey, writing between 995 and 1005, several times referred to the region as the ‘principatum Orientalis regni’ or the ‘regnum’ of both Athelstan ‘Half-King’ and his son and successor as ealdorman, Æthelwold.62 While this cannot be taken at face value, it could be an acknowledgement that East Anglia was not quite structured in the same way as Wessex or even neighbouring Mercia. Ealdormen such as Athelstan, Æthelwold and Æthelwine were demonstrably an integral part of the close-knit aristocracy of the late tenth century that was bound to the throne by ties of affinity and kinship, yet the evidence does seem to be acknowledging regional differences. The rule of the West Saxon monarchy over the constituent parts of ‘England’ may not have been as homogeneous – even across southern England – as is sometimes assumed, and there is little evidence to imply the existence of shires or the shire-court structure as royal agencies in this particular region. Some of the references to the political unit of ‘East Anglia’ occur in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entries for the reign of Æthelred II, a fact that is the more remarkable because it is this same source that provides us with the first documentary reference for many of the Mercian shires, including the neighbouring areas controlled from Cambridge and Huntingdon.63 This information is given against the background of the military needs and responses of Æthelred's reign, and it is worth examining the references in some detail as they not only throw doubt upon the existence of East Anglian shires, but they help to suggest why a political and symbolic context may have been created that perhaps made widespread reform necessary during the reign of Æthelred's adversary and successor, Cnut. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle annals for the reign of Æthelred, references to East Anglia are linked with the heroic exploits of its military commander, Ulfcytel. Ulfcytel is an interesting character, not least because we read as much about him in Scandinavian skaldic verse as we do in English sources. He appears to have acted as de facto ealdorman of East Anglia, although contemporary sources do not actually name him as such; he attests charters simply as ‘minister’.64 His origins are obscure and he cannot be linked to any of the existing ealdormanly families that dominated late tenth-century politics.65 Ulfcytel first appears in the Chronicle in the annal for 1004. In the face of Danish attack, it was recorded that he took counsel with the East Anglian witan (‘pa witan on EastEnglum’) and decided to ‘buy peace from the here before they did too much damage in the country, for they had come unexpectedly and he had not time to gather his levies (‘his fyrde’) together’.66 The ploy was ultimately unsuccessful; the Danes ravaged Norwich and burnt Thetford, so Ulfcytel offered battle. There, the Chronicle relates, the East Anglian folc were killed (‘?ær wærð East Engla folces seo yld ofslagen’), although it admits that ‘had they been up to full strength’, things might have been different. Six years later, in 1010, the report of a battle at Hringmera (Ringmere Heath) distinguished between the men of East Anglia (‘EastEngla’) and those of Cambridgeshire.67 Like other recorded Danish raids and battles, the action took place at either Thetford or the nearby Ringmere Heath. The important and well-defended burgh of Thetford was probably the marshalling point for Ulfcytel's men.68 In addition to the Chronicle references, Ulfcytel earned an enviable reputation as a warrior throughout the Scandinavian world. The contemporary Liðsmannaflokkr praised his resistance at the siege of London (1016).69 The Norwegian court poet Sigvatr Thórðarson used his name to define the geographical area (he called the whole region ‘Ulfkell's land’) and he gave Ulfctyel the by-name snilling, usually translated as ‘valiant’ or ‘bold’.70 In a culture that celebrated exploits in war, even as a foe, Ulfcytel stood out as a warrior to be feared and respected. In the ‘Supplement to the Jómsvíkinga Saga’, Ulfcytel is said to have married a daughter of King Æthelred, Wulfhild, and he is probably to be identified with the man of that name who had given Æthelred's eldest son and presumed heir, Æthelstan, the ‘silver-hilted sword’ which the ætheling mentioned in his will.71 In the circumstances of Æthelred's reign, the close association of Ulfcytel with the territory that he controlled is more than just a convenient designation or a skaldic literary device. As the near-contemporary English poem ‘The Battle of Maldon’ also emphasized, the loyalty of men to their lord was not only symbolically resonant, but had practical aspects, particularly in a military situation.72 The Chronicle used the designations ‘Essex’, ‘Cambridgeshire’ and ‘East Anglia’ to describe the units from which military forces were raised to fight against the Danish invader. One version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, probably written in London between 1016 and 1023, lies behind the versions now extant for the whole period 983–1016. Its compilers were not, of course, impartial observers. Generally based on a view from the royal court, there were reasons for emphasizing the regional nature of the English response to Danish invasion during Æthelred's reign and, as Ann Williams has recently suggested, the example of Ulfcytel was probably used as a deliberate contrast to the actions of Ealdorman Ælfric of Hampshire.73 This does not undermine the essential veracity of the reports or the fact that the Chronicle's use of geopolitical terminology is likely to have been both correct and relevant. As well as being descriptive, the use of these terms informs us of the administrative organization that underpinned the raising of men for military need.74 Significantly, in a record of those places affected by Danish raids in 1011, the ‘C’ version of the Chronicle listed: Essex, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, half of Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Kent, Sussex, Hastings, Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire – and East Anglia.75 In this context, it is worth noting that the shire was not necessarily an essential component of the English military system. The references to Ulfcytel show him taking military decisions without reference to King Æthelred; it is he and the East Anglian witan, for example, who make the decision to attempt to buy off the Danish army. This is no surprise as communications must often have been difficult and the ability to defend a region was one of the primary duties of an ealdorman (or someone of Ulfcytel's status); a point also made by the contemporary homilist, Ælfric.76 The Chronicle also refers to the troops that Ulfcytel raised as ‘his levies’. Richard Abels has demonstrated that lordship and household forces lay at the heart of much of the military organization of this period; the reference to Ulfcytel's forces ‘not being up to full strength’ might indicate that in this initial stage there had not been time to call upon those whose conditions of land tenure made them responsible for attendance in the fyrd. The ‘shire-levy’ is usually thought of as the fundamental unit of the English fyrd– and that is evidently the rationale behind much of the Chronicle's choice of territorial vocabulary – yet contemporary sources often used the hundred, rather than the shire, as a basis for organization. Æthelweard's Chronicle wrote of ‘Ealdorman Weohstan with the hundreds of the people of Wiltshire’,77 and among other examples, there is a passage in the Huntingdonshire Domesday that indicates that fyrd-service was rendered in the hundred.78 The raising of troops through the calling out of the fyrd was thus perfectly possible in East Anglia without the institution of the ‘shire’, and while the absence of any mention of a sheriff or of the counties themselves evidently does not prove that such things did not exist, it is surely significant that the source which specifies units of military organization in other parts of the country does not use the shire in its description of East Anglia. A change in contemporary territorial descriptions of the region can thus be placed between the ‘East Anglia’ of Æthelred's reign and the references to ‘Norfolk’ and ‘Suffolk’, with a named sheriff, of the early years of Edward the Confessor's reign. The comparatively long reign of Cnut is perhaps an obvious choice as the time frame for administrative change, but one can reconstruct a political and symbolic context that not only explains the timing of administrative reform but also the motive and possible agency for such changes. Cnut's recent biographer described him as ‘skilled in the complex art of rulership’ and admired his ‘shrewd use of the country's administrative resources’.79 An integral part of that assessment is Cnut's use of the sheriff in the continuous governmental discourse between the centre and the localities: sheriffs appear in the address clauses of four out of eight of Cnut's surviving writs.80 As king he evidently saw the importance of, and relied upon, this level of royal administration. Although specific evidence is lacking, it is possible that the introduction of the shires of Norfolk and Suffolk was part of a much wider package of political, administrative and religious reforms implemented during Cnut's reign. Some of these reforms simply brought East Anglia into line with much of the rest of England, although they must have seemed far-reaching and extensive on a local level. In 1016, the battle of Assendun in Essex gave Cnut the kingship of the English. Both Ulfcytel and Æthelweard, the son of the former ealdorman Æthelwine, were killed there, giving the new king an uncontested opportunity to stamp his own authority upon a region famed in both English and Scandinavian sources for its resistance to Danish attack. As already noted, the primary borough in ‘Ulfkell's land’ at this time was Thetford.81 The existing communication network of the ‘Peddars Way’ and cross routes made Thetford a nodal point from which troops could be deployed across East Anglia.82 Archaeology has confirmed the existence of a ‘substantial’ town by the tenth century, defended by an impressive bank and ditch and containing twelve churches by the time of Domesday, when it was rated as a full hundred.83 During Æthelred's reign, the mint at Thetford (expressed as a percentage of known moneyers) ranked as sixth in the country, far outstripping those at Ipswich or Norwich (at tenth and eighteenth respectively).84 The town's former status as an administrative centre must have inspired the decision to move the episcopal see there in the ten-seventies.85 Nevertheless, the Domesday position of Thetford, bisected by a county boundary, is unusual to say the least and the lordship of the town continued to be divided in the post-conquest period.86 If Cnut's reign was indeed the period in which East Anglia was shired, then his action in dividing the borough of Thetford served to supplant Ulfcytel's regional capital with new county towns of Norwich and Ipswich. Such a policy of using his position and patronage to create new urban centres of political loyalty, with the intention of undermining those foci for resistance to the Danes during Æthelred's reign, has been identified elsewhere in Cnut's actions.87 Neither Ipswich nor Norwich was a new creation of the eleventh century; as their nomenclature suggests both were established centres of trade, Old English wics. At the same time, neither town could be described as a religious or political centre during the tenth century, although both were mint locations after 973. According to the archaeological record, Norwich saw a period of massive settlement expansion in the early eleventh century, with what has been described as ‘a kind of Late-Saxon “new town”’ established to the south of the River Wensum.88 Critically, it was undefended, which suggests that the threat from Danish raids was considered to be over at the time when the planned grid-iron patterning of streets was laid.89 Archaeologically, evidence from Ipswich is sparser, although it is noteworthy that pottery deposits indicate that the inter-regional trade (with London and Bedford) of the tenth century returned to the international trade of former centuries in the eleventh, indicating that the economic fortunes of the town had drastically improved.90 There is also evidence from numismatic sources that the Norwich mint production overtook that of Thetford during the crucial period of the early ten-twenties.91 It is surely an indication of Cnut's unease over the potential political loyalty of East Anglia that one of his first actions as king was to place the region under the control of his premier earl, Thorkell inn hávi (the Tall) in 1017. As the leader of a raiding army of his own, Thorkell had been responsible for attacks on East Anglia (among other regions) in 1010, until taking service with Æthelred in 1012 and finally giving his allegiance to Cnut, probably in either 1015 or 1016.92 Thorkell's appointment to rule the area that he had previously ravaged was a powerful expression of Cnut's political mastery, but the new king was also placing a seasoned warrior and leader in charge of a region from which he may have expected trouble. East Anglia's new earl has been described as ‘clearly one of the greatest warriors of his age’; a fitting successor to Ulfcytel, perhaps.93 Cnut was also setting the former viking firmly into the established political structure of his new kingdom; Thorkell is always placed first among the earls in his attestations of Cnut's charters and he is given a position of primacy in the address of Cnut's letter sent to England during his trip to Denmark in 1019–20. On a regional level, it has been stated that ‘nothing is known of arrangements in Thorkell's East Anglia’; from a governmental perspective, that is unfortunately true, but the close involvement of the earl in local affairs is noted in several sources.94 The ‘Supplement to the Jómsvíkinga Saga’ states that Thorkell avenged the death of his brother, Hemingr, by killing Ulfcytel of East Anglia at the battle of Assendun, and that he then married Ulfcytel's widow, King Æthelred's daughter, Wulfhild (John of Worcester names Thorkell's wife as Edith – either way her name would indicate that she was English).95 If Wulfhild/Edith were Æthelred's daughter (and the Jómsvíkinga Saga cannot be relied upon), then such a move would have been a symbolic act of both victory and reconciliation within the region analogous to Cnut's marriage to Æthelred's widow, Emma. Thorkell was conspicuously present at the foundation of Cnut's memorial church at the Essex site of the battle that had ultimately given him the kingship. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 1020 reads: ‘In this year the king and earl Thurkil went to Assendun, together with archbishop Wulfstan and other bishops and abbots and many monks, and consecrated the church at Assendun.’96 This important ceremony was a ‘set-piece’ occasion designed to emphasize a ritualized act of political and religious reconciliation, and an event to which Cnut would deliberately refer in his dealings with the community at Bury later in his reign. A mid eleventh-century marginal note in the Bury Psalter records the triumvirate of king, bishop and earl as involved in the Benedictine reform of the community there. Other Bury records also note Queen Emma's participation, and Thorkell's attendance was remarked upon by Herman in the De miraculis sancti Eadmundi.97 His presence must have appeared as partly penitential to the community at Bury, who later recorded that they had been forced to move the relics of the saint to the comparative safety of London as the result of Thorkell's raid in 1010.98 The reasons behind Thorkell's exile from England in 1021 remain obscure, but it must at least be a possibility that it was a breakdown in his relationships with others in England that made him a potential liability there. As the master of several kingdoms, Cnut needed governmental structures to work effectively in order to maintain control during his necessary absences. Thorkell was reconciled with Cnut in 1023, but was not restored to his English lands and offices. Instead, he was entrusted with the regency of Denmark and nothing more is documented about him. There is a hint in charter attestations that an Englishman, Godric, may have held some ministerial responsibility in Norfolk later in Cnut's reign (possibly as sheriff?), but there is no notification of a replacement earl for East Anglia.99 This in itself is not unusual: earldoms were offices in the king's gift with no obligation upon him to grant the office away, and any potential hereditary claim had been disrupted by English losses at Assendun. Yet, it seems unlikely that Cnut would have left the region without some form of royal officer, especially given his reliance upon the sheriff in other areas. If this was the period in which the county structure of Norfolk and Suffolk was created, then the new sheriffs might have an important royal ally in the person of the queen herself. Queen Emma's role within the region is particularly intriguing, and may give a further insight into Cnut's attitude and policy with respect to East Anglia. Writs from the reign of Edward the Confessor reveal that Emma had previously held responsibility for the ‘eight and a half hundreds’ of west Suffolk. The abbey of Bury St. Edmund's much vaunted and vociferously protected franchisal rights originate in Edward's grants which promised the ‘sake and soke as fully and as completely as my mother held them’.100 It has long been assumed that this district was the fossilized remnant of an ‘ancient shire’, thought possibly to date back to the seventh century, and probably always administered from Bury St. Edmunds. It is within this geographical area that the overwhelming majority of the monastery's lands were recorded in Domesday Book. There is, however, no documentary or archaeological evidence to support such a claim; that usually quoted comes from the archive at Bury itself and exists only as later interlineations in twelfth-century texts.101 The Domesday folios that record the abbey's possessions in Suffolk reverberate with its strident claims to its rights within the ‘Liberty of St. Edmund’– the eight and a half hundreds. Despite this, it is possible to extrapolate evidence that the boundary between west and central Suffolk may have been much more recent than usually supposed. One example can be found in the estate at Rickinghall, which was granted in its entirety to Bury by Ulfcytel around 1005;102 it is, however, recorded under two separate hundred rubrics in Domesday which lay either side of the liberty boundary.103 By 1086 the abbey had lost/sold/swapped or granted away most of that part of the estate which lay on the ‘other’ side of the franchise boundary, leading to the eventual formation of two separate villages, but enough clues remain to make their former position very clear; what was one estate in 1005 had been divided, and the process was well advanced by 1066. If ‘west Suffolk’ as a distinct province existed before the mid eleventh century, then it had no effect upon the formation of this large multiple estate with services owed to the central vill by many outlying areas, and neither had it affected the 1005 grant of Rickinghall. It may not be the case that the abbey's building up of its possessions within an ancient administrative territory somehow dictated the pattern of its landholding, rather that the shrine of St. Edmund had only attracted benefaction from the area immediately surrounding the mausoleum of the saint, or even that the community preferred grants and gifts within a close geographical area and negotiated with patrons to that effect. This author thinks it likely that the area known as west Suffolk, the eight-and-a-half hundreds, was actually a reflection of the abbey's existing pattern of landholding at the time of its regularization and reform in the early eleventh century, and that it was created for the abbey and placed under the direct control of Queen Emma.104 Emma's possession of rights over this district has been interpreted by historians as evidence of her dower or morning-gift, which could have come to her from either of her royal husbands, Æthelred or Cnut.105 Although this is undoubtedly a plausible explanation for eleventh-century landholding by women, this fact should not be assumed, especially when applied to a queen, and there is no contemporary evidence that it was the case. Indeed, the fact that Emma was stripped of these lands by her son Edward in 1043 without undue comment argues against this, since dower rights were protected under English law.106 The circumstances of Cnut's accession and his marriage to Emma gave her a status and a symbolic importance not usually afforded to English consorts.107 Her role was highlighted by changes to the coronation ordo which newly emphasized her role as consors imperii, the sharer of rule, and brought her consecration more into line with that of the king.108 Emma was to be a partner in Cnut's rule, her role as a ‘peace-weaver’ not merely symbolic, but strengthened through action: this function is confirmed by her position in attestation lists, by the emphasis on both monarchs in charters, writs, wills and grants, and by their joint benefaction to many monasteries.109 Her role at Bury has a parallel at the abbey of Evesham, where a lease of Abbot Ælfweard dated between 1016 and 1023 records that ‘Ælfgifu the Lady’ (‘Ælfgeofu seo hlæfdie’) was ruler of the monastery.110 Although Emma was often known by her English name, Ælfgifu, in this case the person referred to may have been Ælfgifu of Northampton, Cnut's first wife (later appointed as regent in Norway). In either case, it appears that Cnut was more than willing to use his wives as partners in the political control of certain monasteries.111 If Emma's possession of rights in west Suffolk was not simply a dower gift but a political act, then we need to reassess her role. Bury was not the only religious community in East Anglia reformed as Benedictine at this time; St. Benet, Holme in Norfolk never had the advantage of holding important relics as Bury did, but was reformed at the same time – interestingly, one reformed community in each county. The reform of the two communities was an act with both religious and political connotations. The political circumstances of the tenth-century reform movement of King Edgar, and particularly his establishment of the Fenland monasteries during the nine-seventies, as areas of Mercia were politically and symbolically placed under West Saxon control, is well known.112 Cnut's interest in East Anglia should probably be interpreted in a similar way, with an additional symbolic imperative. The shrine at Beadricsworth, later Bury St. Edmunds, was dedicated to an East Anglian king martyred by the Danes, indeed supposedly killed by Ívarr the Boneless.113 The political symbolism of this for the new Danish king of England, and the cult's potential as a focus for opposition, must have been increased by the fact that Cnut himself claimed descent from Ívarr, a connection celebrated at his court in contemporary skaldic verse.114 The resonance of this in the Scandinavian world would have taken on a different perspective when Cnut became king of England. To pre-empt potential opposition, Cnut became a patron of the shrine, a policy he also used in relation to the cult of Archbishop Ælfheah, killed by the Danes in 1012.115 At St. Benet and Bury, the introduction of Benedictine monks and the expulsion of clerks acted to disrupt the institutional life of the community, breaking some links with the past and establishing Cnut as putative founder.116 Royal patronage of Edmund's shrine certainly laid the foundations for its long-term success and was undoubtedly responsible for the ‘boom in the cult…. which, the liturgical calendars show, occurred in the 1020s’.117 Granting rights over the area within which the abbey at Bury held its lands to his wife and queen would obviously have been seen as an act of patronage, but Cnut was also using the symbolism of religious benefaction, and Emma's position as an English queen previously married to Æthelred, to effect political reconciliation. On another level, it may even have served to ‘feminize’ the cult of the warrior king. Although the Regularis Concordia allowed for the queen's lordship (dominium) to be sought by both abbots and abbesses, her gender made her primarily the protector of nunneries – politically of much lesser status.118 Placing Edmund under the protection of the queen subtly reduced the saint's status as a potential political figurehead and it also served to emphasize his defeat and submission to the victorious Danes in the ninth century. Cnut was certainly aware of the power of symbolic association and he acted within that framework, as is clear, for example, from his linking of Bury with the memorial foundation at Assendun.119 The reform of Bury prompted the building of a new church for the abbey, the consecration of which was an important occasion attended by Cnut himself. It took place on St. Luke's Day, 18 October 1032, a date chosen because it was the sixteenth anniversary of the battle of Assendun. The fact that this was not a Sunday in that year underlines the deliberate choice of date, and the whole ceremony would have reinforced the powerful message of royal and Danish superiority. While he supported and patronized the shrine, Cnut ruled because he had defeated King Edmund (Ironside), just as his ancestor Ívarr had defeated King Edmund (of East Anglia). Yet, Emma was not simply a figurehead and neither should her significance be viewed solely on the basis of assumptions determined by her gender.120 Her active role as a patron in East Anglian politics can be seen in the careers of those who held positions of responsibility and power in the region during the following decades. Both Stigand and his brother Æthelmaer held the bishopric of Elmham in succession from 1043 to 1070.121 Stigand was, of course, to rise to even greater heights, but the pattern of his landholding and that of his brother, together with the presence of their sister in Domesday Norfolk, indicate a local origin for the future archbishop. Stigand is first mentioned as a priest at the foundation at Assendun, and his close connection with Emma was to lead to his temporary political fall with her in 1043. The link between the two was made explicit by the ‘C’ version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: ‘Stigand was deprived of his see, and all that he possessed was confiscated to the king, because he [Stigand] was his mother's closest confidant, and she, as was supposed, followed his advice.’122 During the reign of Emma's son, Edward, the premier landholder in the region was Ralph ‘the Staller’, later earl of East Anglia under William I. It has been plausibly suggested by Katherine Keats-Rohan, that Ralph's father, a Breton of the Montfort-Gaël line, came to England with Emma when she initially crossed the water to marry Æthelred in 1002.123 An earlier holder of that by-name ‘staller’ was the slightly enigmatic figure Osgod clapa, a member of Cnut's household, whose outlawry, and later death, were notable enough to be recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.124 The only holdings of his that can be traced with any certainty were within Emma's territory of west Suffolk and, like Emma's lands, they were later granted to the abbey at Bury by Edward the Confessor.125 Osgod also appears as a Norfolk witness to the will of Thurstan, son of Wine, around 1044, which was incidentally the first authentic document to mention the counties by name.126 One of the wealthiest of the East Anglian thegns during this period was Ælfric, son of Wihtgar, whose estate can be traced in the Domesday lands of his son, also named Wihtgar.127 Much of Ælfric's wealth and reputation (he was described as a ‘comes famoses’ in a Bury document) came from his position as administrator of the eight-and-a-half hundreds of west Suffolk on Emma's behalf.128Ælfric also had family connections in the queen's household – he was left a bequest as ‘kinsman’ in the will of Leofgifu, dated 1035 × 1044, the only extant will addressed directly to the queen.129 The address clause suggests that Leofgifu was close to Emma (‘Leofgiue gret hyre leuedi godes gretinge’), and it is interesting that the will opens by stating her desire to be buried at Bury St. Edmunds, and that it also includes a bequest to Stigand.130 Emma's role left a larger documentary trail in Suffolk than in Norfolk, but it is fair to assume that her influence and patronage would have been important across the whole region, particularly after 1021 when East Anglia was without an earl. This situation would have removed one of the normal pathways for upward social mobility; Archbishop Wulfstan remarked in one of his homilies that a ceorl could gain the rank of a thegn through an earl's gift.131 Emma's lands in the region are more difficult to trace; her large (twelve carucate) estate at Mildenhall near Bury was held by Archbishop Stigand from the abbey at some point in Edward's reign and was consequently forfeited to King William with his other holdings in 1070.132 Other former estates of Emma's may be similarly obscured in Domesday; indeed, it is likely that many were in the hands of her daughter-in-law Queen Edith in 1066.133 Emma's role in East Anglia is crucial in understanding Cnut's policy towards what he must have seen as a potentially difficult region. The initial decision to place his right-hand man, Thorkell the Tall, in charge backfired with whatever led to the earl's exile in 1021. Yet, East Anglian affairs evidently required careful handling by someone very close to the king, and rather than place another man in as earl, Cnut entrusted them to his queen. Her position at the monastery of Bury places her at the centre of the belated introduction of Benedictine monasticism into the region, not just in the symbolic absorption of a potentially contentious cult by the new Anglo-Danish monarchy, but politically and practically as well – her control over the area within which St. Edmund held land can be supplemented by surviving writs documenting her grants and patronage of costly manuscripts. The reconstruction of lines of patronage demonstrates her very active role; in part she seems to have acted in place of an earl, while this author suspects that the introduction of shire courts and sheriffs helped with the administration. And administration was another facet of these reforms. Shiring East Anglia at this point undermined the region's previous existence as a centre of resistance to both Cnut and his father, Swein, in their attempts to take the throne, and it supplanted the regional capital at Thetford with new administrative county towns. Cnut and Emma succeeded in doing what generations of West Saxon and English kings had begun, but only partially completed – they turned the still functioning political and military unit of Æthelred's reign that was ‘East Anglia’ into the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk recorded in writs and wills of the ten-forties; in doing so they brought this slightly anomalous region administratively into line with the rest of southern England. In many ways, the evidence from East Anglia is confusing and occasionally at odds with that for other regions. This serves to illustrate a point not always appreciated in the drive to construct a ‘national history’, that is, that the acceptance of diverse regional histories was an integral part of the social and political world of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and only by investigating these regions on their own terms first can we begin to fit them into a national picture. Footnotes * This article is a revised version of a paper given at the ‘Earlier Middle Ages’ seminar, Institute of Historical Research on 19 Jan. 2005. It was subsequently awarded the 2005 Pollard Prize. The author would like to record her thanks to members of the seminar, whose perceptive questions and comments helped in the final preparation, and to Prof. James Campbell who kindly read and commented upon a draft of this article. 1 See, e.g., L. J. Abrams, ‘Edward the Elder's Danelaw’, in Edward the Elder, 899–924, ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (2001), pp. 128–43, at pp. 129–39; P. Wormald, ‘On da wœpnedhealfe: kingship and royal property from Æthelwulf to Edward the Elder’, in Higham and Hill, pp. 246–79, at p. 275; D. Roffe, ‘Introduction to the Norfolk Domesday’, in Little Domesday Book: Norfolk, ed. R. W. H. Erskine and A. Williams (2000), p. 1. 2 P. Stafford, The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1985), pp. 138–9. 3 The first documentary reference to either county appears in the will of Thurstan, son of Wine, dated c.1044 (D. Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930) (hereafter Whitelock, A.S.W.), no. 31; P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, ed. S. Kelly and others (rev. edn., 1968), no. 1531 (also available online <http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/chartwww/eSawyer.99/eSawyer2.html> [19 Apr. 2006])). It is possible that the division between Norfolk and Suffolk (essentially along the rivers Waveney and Ouse)re-used part of a boundary line that demarcated the division of the episcopal see c.673. The site of neither sedes (at Dumnoc and Elmham) can be clearly identified. The century-long break in the East Anglian episcopacy during the period of Danish rule seems to have been decisive and when the bishopric reappeared in the documentary record it was as a single see (J. Campbell, ‘The East Anglian sees before the Conquest’, in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096–1996, ed. I. Atherton and others (1996), pp. 3–21). 4 On the Norfolk/Suffolk border, the large minster parish of Mendham was divided by the county border (Little Domesday Book: a Facsimile, ed. A. Williams and G. H. Martin (2000) (hereafter L.D.B.), fos. 195v, 210v (Norfolk), 310v, 329v, 349, 355v, 368, 379v (Suffolk)). 5 E.g., Nayland lay in Essex, but was geldable in Suffolk (L.D.B., fos. 47, 401v); parts of the Essex vill of Toppesfield were recorded in Suffolk (fo. 372v) and the Norfolk parish and town of Diss was recorded under the Suffolk hundred rubric of Hartismere (fo. 282), while the entries for Knettishall were split between the two counties (fos. 120r–v, 321, 367v, 448v). 6 Twenty-four fishermen in Yarmouth (Norfolk) ‘belonged’ to the manor of Gorleston (Suffolk) (L.D.B., fo. 283r–v). 7 L.D.B., fo. 118v. 8 D. Hill, ‘The shiring of Mercia – again’, in Higham and Hill, pp. 144–59, at pp. 144–5. 9 The quotation is from T. Williamson, The Origins of Norfolk (Manchester, 1993), p. 106. Very similar phraseology is used by C. R. Hart, The Danelaw (1992), p. 15; and Roffe, ‘Introduction to the Norfolk Domesday’, p. 1. 10 M. R. Davidson, ‘The (non) submission of the northern kings in 920’, in Higham and Hill, pp. 200–11, at p. 204. 11 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (hereafter A.S.C.) ‘A’, 918 [recte 914]. A hold is the (Scandinavian) term used to denote one who held land, ranked below a jarl. 12 A.S.C. ‘A’, 921 [recte 917]. 13 A.S.C. ‘A’, 922 [recte 918]; 924 [recte 920]. For more on this, see Davidson, pp. 200–11. 14 A.S.C. ‘A’, 917. 15 The Laws of the Earliest English Kings, ed. F. L. Attenborough (New York, 1963), p. 98; D. Dumville, ‘The treaty of Alfred and Guthrum’, in D. Dumville, Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 1–27. 16 A.S.C.‘A’, 905. 17 II Edw. 5.2 in Attenborough, p. 121. P. Wormald, The Making of English Law. King Alfred to the 12th Century, i: Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 438–9 believed that the fact that Edward had ‘stormed through East Anglia in 916/7’ would have nullified any extant ‘peace-writings’. He therefore dated both law codes of Edward the Elder to before that date. In light of the evidence presented here, that dating may have to be reviewed. 18 The author thanks Ann Williams for this reference. 19 The ‘hold-að’ can found in Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History, ed. W. Stubbs (9th edn., Oxford, 1966), pp. 73–4. 20 The Swerian text is discussed in Wormald, The Making of English Law, pp. 232, 242; and see pp. 383–4 for the possible dating range. 21 A.S.C. ‘A’, 905, 917. 22 Canterbury Professions, ed. M. Richter (Canterbury and York Soc., lxvii, Torquay, 1973), no. 30 (dated 942 × 956). Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke (2 vols. in 4, Oxford, 1964–81), i, pt. 1, pp. 81–3 dates this profession between 951 and 955 but throws doubt upon its authenticity. It is the only surviving example from the 10th century (all the others are dated either 796 × 870 or are post-1070) and the bishop's name is given as ‘Eadwulf’ rather than ‘Athulf’. The wording is almost identical to that of Bishop Æthelnoth of London, 805 × 811 (Richter, no. 7). The possibility is raised that the profession could have been forged during the move of the see from Elmham to Thetford and finally to Norwich, in the late 11th century, a context within which it might have been necessary to prove that the see had been at Elmham during the archiepiscopate of Oda (942–58); Bishop Athulf attests Sawyer, no. 674. 23 Sawyer, no. 1526; Whitelock, A.S.W., no. 1. 24 Sawyer, no. 1515; Select English Historical Documents of the 9th and 10th Centuries, ed. F. E. Harmer (Cambridge, 1914), no. 21. 25 A.S.C. ‘D’, 952. 26 M. Blackburn, ‘Expansion and control: aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian minting south of the Humber’, in Vikings and the Danelaw: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the 13th Viking Congress, ed. J. Graham-Campbell and others (Oxford, 2001), pp. 125–42, at p. 138. 27 S. Lyon, ‘The coinage of Edward the Elder’, in Higham and Hill, pp. 67–78, at p. 74. 28 As an example, almost half (7 out of 16) of the 10th-century wills collected in Whitelock originate in East Anglia. 29 A.S.C. ‘D’, 946. The wills of Æthelflæd, her father Ealdorman Ælfgar and her sister Ælflæd are extant (Sawyer, nos. 1494, 1483, 1086; Whitelock, A.S.W., nos. 14, 2, 15). All are concerned with property in East Anglia and eastern Mercia, although their religious benefaction was generally concentrated in Suffolk, either directed at the shrine of St. Edmund or the family foundation at Stoke-by-Nayland where Ælfgar's ‘ancestors’ were buried (see Hart, Danelaw, pp. 127–35). 30 Sawyer, no. 507. A new edition of the early charters of Bury St. Edmunds is currently being prepared by Sarah Foot and Kathryn Lowe for the British Academy. The author is grateful to Professor Foot for discussing some early findings, including their belief that this charter is genuine. See Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (Camden 3rd ser., xcii, 1962), bk. ii, ch. 33 for another contemporary example of an abbey using secular patrons to help obtain grants. 31 Sawyer, no. 703; Hart, Danelaw, pp. 467–85. 32 P. Stafford, ‘Ælfthryth’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/194> [19 Apr. 2006]. 33 Sawyer, no. 781; Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 5 and app. D, pp. 414–15. 34 Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 39. 35 Sawyer, no. 781; Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 39 and app. D, pp. 416–17. 36 C. R. Hart, The Early Charters of Eastern England (Leicester, 1966), p. 248. The grant to Bury is noted in Cambridge University Library, MS. Ee.3.60, ‘Benefactors' list’ (hereafter ‘Benefactors' list’), from which it was printed in F. Hervey, The Pinchbeck Register (2 vols., Oxford, 1925), ii. 282–94. Included in the ‘Benefactors' list’ is the note that this grant was made without a charter (‘sed sine carta’), a note that Hart does not reproduce in the main text, but which appears in the ‘Addenda and corrigenda’ on p. 251. Many of the entries in this list can be verified from other sources; grants that appear only in this later list are so identified throughout. Bury held two carucates of land in Beccles in 1066 assessed for 30,000 herrings (L.D.B., fos. 369v−370) and two carucates at Elmswell (L.D.B., fo. 364v). For Eadwig's coinage, see Hart, Danelaw, p. 452, n. 26 although one possible example has since been tentatively identified (Early Medieval Corpus of Coin Finds, no. 2001.0667, <http://www-cm.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/coins/emc/> [19 Apr. 2006]). 37 As Cyril Hart pointed out in Danelaw, p. 575, n. 20, Athelstan is not actually given a territorial designation until 1170 (Chronicon Abbatiae Ramesiensis, ed. W. Dunn Macray (Rolls ser., 1886), p. 11) as such appellations were not generally contemporary usage. 38 For the bounds of Athelstan's territory, see Hart, Danelaw, p. 578, map 21.1. 39 Liber Eliensis, pp. xiv; bk. ii, ch. 37. 40 Scule sold land at Livermere in Suffolk to a thegn named as Ælfgar of Multune which was later included in a sale to the abbey of Ely (Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 36). Scule attested Sawyer, nos. 404 (land in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire; no appellation), 407 (land in Lancashire; as dux), 412 (land in Hampshire; as dux), 413 (land in Berkshire; as dux), 416 (land in Wiltshire; as dux), 417 (land in Hampshire; as dux), 425 (land in Sussex; as dux), 434 (land in Wiltshire; as dux), 528 (land in Surrey; as dux), 544 (land in Buckinghamshire; as eorl), 550 (land in Gloucestershire; no appellation), 552a (land possibly in Essex; as eorl), 1497 (various; as dux). 41 D. Whitelock, ‘The dealings of the kings of England with Northumbria in the 10th and 11th centuries’, in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in some Aspects of their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P. Clemoes (1959), pp. 70–88, at p. 78; Hart, Danelaw, p. 577. 42 K. Jonsson and G. van der Meer, ‘Mints and moneyers, c.973–1066’, in Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildrebrand, ed. K Jonsson (Stockholm, 1990), pp. 77, 93, 106–7. 43 Sawyer, no. 1213; ‘Benefactor's list’, fos. 320v−321. The role of Wulfstan of Dalham in the region merits more investigation than has been possible in this article (see A. Kennedy, ‘Law and litigation in the Libellus Æthelwoldi Episcopi’ , Anglo-Saxon England , xxiv ( 1995 ), 131 – 83 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 146; and A. Wareham, Lords and Communities in Early Medieval East Anglia (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 33–45). 44 ‘quinque centuriatuum in Wichelauue’ (Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 5); J. Campbell, ‘Hundreds and leets: a survey with suggestions’, in Medieval East Anglia, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 156. 45 The future King Edgar was fostered in the household of Athelstan where he must have had close links with Athelstan's sons. The relationship between Athelstan and Dunstan is suggested by C. R. Hart, ‘Athelstan “Half-King” and his family’ , Anglo-Saxon England , ii ( 1973 ), pp. 115 – 44 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close (repr. in Hart, Danelaw, pp. 579–80). 46 Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 41. The value of these rights did not appreciate much over the next century; in Domesday, they were said to be worth £11 (L.D.B., fo. 385v). 47 D. H. Farmer, ‘The progress of the monastic revival’, in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and ‘Regularis Concordia’, ed. D. Parsons (1975), pp. 10–19; N. Banton, ‘Monastic reform and the unification of 10th-century England’, in Religion and National Identity, ed. S. Mews (Studies in Church Hist., xviii, Oxford, 1982), pp. 71–85. 48 See, e.g., Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, chs. 35, 60–1, 65, 67, 68, 70. 49 Ralph's holdings in 1075 included comital estates, patrimonial lands and lands acquired on the deposition of Archbishop Stigand (L. Marten, ‘The rebellion of 1075 and its impact in East Anglia’, in Harper-Bill, Medieval East Anglia, pp. 168–83, at p. 181). 50 Cyril Hart proposed that certain estates in Essex and Huntingdonshire were used to endow new ealdordoms after 917 (Danelaw, pp. 134–5). In contrast, Lesley Abrams pointed out that, ‘In East Anglia, Edward does not seem to have received a mass of appropriations – or if he did, he failed to hold onto them for long’ (‘Edward the Elder's Danelaw’, in Higham and Hill, p. 139). 51 The spurious foundation charter of Ramsey abbey records the donation of two small estates in Norfolk from Ealdorman Æthelwine and one from his third wife, Wulfgifu (Sawyer, no. 798). Aside from the lease of the ‘Wicklaw’, Æthelwine also (eventually) bought land at Wangford (Suffolk) from Ely abbey (the full story of the transaction is given in Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 27). Hart, Danelaw, pp. 569–71 and map 21.1. Part of a dispute recorded in the Liber Eliensis notes that Ealdorman Athelstan's patrimony lay in Devon (Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 7). 52 Indeed the dating, if correct, would make him the earliest known sheriff in the country. The name ‘shire-reeve’ is not actually known before the reign of Cnut; before that there are some references to ‘high-reeves’ and two Kent references to ‘shire-men’ dated to the reign of Edgar (J. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154 (1990), p. 9). The individual in question, Leofstan, is identified in the text as holding the office of sheriff (honore vicecomitatus). 53 ‘De miraculis Sancti Eadmundi’, in Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, i, ed. T. Arnold (1890), (hereafter De miraculis), pp. 30–2. See also A. Gransden, ‘The composition and authorship of the De miraculis Sancti Eadmundi attributed to “Herman the Archdeacon”’ , Jour. Medieval Latin , v ( 1995 ), 1 – 52 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 54 See, e.g., Green, English Sheriffs, p. 76, although Leofstan is listed with a question mark beside his name. 55 See, e.g., D. Whitelock, ‘Fact and fiction in the legend of St. Edmund’ , Proc. Suffolk Institute of Archaeol. and Hist. , xxxi ( 1970 ), 217 – 33 ; Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close A. Gransden, ‘Baldwin, abbot of Bury St. Edmunds, 1065–97’ , Anglo-Norman Stud. , iv ( 1981 ), 65 – 76 ; Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close A. Gransden, ‘Legends and traditions concerning the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds’ , Eng. Hist. Rev. , c ( 1985 ), 1 – 24 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close ; S. Ridyard, ‘The cult of St. Edmund’, in S. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: a Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 211–33; E. Cownie, ‘The cult of St. Edmund in the 11th and 12th centuries: the language and communication of a medieval saint's cult’ , Neuphilologische Mittelungen , xcix ( 1998 ), 177 – 97 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 56 Gransden, ‘Composition and authorship’, pp. 10–17. 57 Gransden, ‘Baldwin’, pp. 65–76; Cownie, pp. 177–80. 58 R. Abels, ‘Sheriffs, lord-seeking and the Norman settlement of the south-east midlands’ , Anglo-Norman Stud. , xix ( 1997 ), 19 – 50 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 59 See, e.g., Great Domesday Book, Library Edition, ed. A. Williams and R. W. H. Erskine (6 vols., 1986–92) (hereafter G.D.B.), fo. 190; and Liber Eliensis, bk. ii, ch. 131. For geld, see A.S.C. ‘E’, 1085 [recte 1086]. See also J. Green, ‘The sheriffs of William the Conqueror’ , Anglo-Norman Stud. , v ( 1983 ), 129 – 145 ; Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close E. Amt, ‘The reputation of the sheriff, 1100–1216’ , Haskins Society Jour. , viii ( 1996 ), 91 – 8 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 60 Gransden, ‘Baldwin’, p. 68 states that the tale of Swein's death ‘may have been invented after the conquest to strengthen the abbey's right to immunity from royal taxation’. This would seem to conflict with her more recent statement that this episode may be based upon a ‘now lost work of St Edmund's miracles and cult composed late in Ethelred II's reign’ (Gransden, ‘Composition and authorship’, p. 26). As should be evident, this author thinks that the former statement is more likely. On the theme of the deliberate construction of hagiographical texts, see also J. Paxton, ‘Textual communities in the English Fenlands: a lay audience for monastic chronicles?’ , Anglo-Norman Stud. , xxvi ( 2004 ), 123 – 38 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 61 Two writs from the time of Edward the Confessor record Emma's possession of the estate of Kirby Cane (Norfolk) ‘as fully and completely as ever her retainer, Leofstan had it’ (Sawyer, no. 1076) and its subsequent grant to Bury St. Edmunds (Sawyer, no. 1077). 62 Hart, Danelaw, p. 597. 63 C. S. Taylor, ‘The origin of the Mercian shires’, in Gloucestershire Studies, ed. H. P. R. Finberg (Leicester, 1957), pp. 17–51, at pp. 23–4. 64 Sawyer, nos. 900, 903, 906–7, 910–12, 915–16, 918, 922, 926, 931, 933, 935, dated between 1002 and 1016. In those dated 1012 and after (Sawyer, nos. 926, 931, 933, 935) Ulfcytel attests first amongst those ranked as minister. 65 While it would be wrong to place too much emphasis on the Scandinavian etymology of his name, it must be a possibility that Ulfcytel was ‘employed’ by Æthelred to defend vulnerable territory in the same way as Thorkell the Tall was in 1012 (Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, ed. A. Campbell (Camden 3rd ser., lxxii, 1949; reissued 1998), app. iv, ‘Supplement to the Jómsvíkinga Saga’, p. 75, n. 3). If so, this would account for his reputation in Scandinavian sources (see below) and may explain his anomalous position regarding the ealdormanry. 66 A.S.C. ‘E’, 1004. 67 A.S.C., ‘E’, 1010. There is the possibility, related in skaldic verse, of another Danish raid in the region, at Newemouth, Orford (Suffolk), probably in 1011 × 1012 ( R. Poole, ‘Skaldic verse and Anglo-Saxon history: some aspects of the period 1009–1016’ , Speculum , lxii ( 1987 ), 265 – 98 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 268–9). 68 The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ii: the Annals from 450–1066, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk (Oxford, 1995) (hereafter Chronicle of John of Worcester), p. 464; Snorri Sturluson in Heimskringla: the Olaf Sagas, ed. F. Jónsson, trans. S. Laing, rev. J. Simpson (1964), p. 125. 69 References to Liðsmannaflokkr are to the edition in Poole, pp. 280–5. 70 A. Williams, Æthelread the Unready: the Ill-Counselled King (2003), p. 52; Sighvatr, Víkingavísur translated in English Historical Documents, i: c.500–1042 (1955), no. 12; Poole, p. 287. Ulfcytel was also mentioned in the Knútsdrápa of Óttarr Svarti (see Poole, p. 270). 71 Campbell, Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, app. iv, p. 93; Sawyer, no. 1503; Whitelock, A.S.W., no. 20. 72 The Battle of Maldon, ed. D. Scragg (Manchester, 1981). 73 S. Keynes, ‘The declining reputation of King Æthelred the Unready’, in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. D. Hill (Oxford, 1978), pp. 227–53. See also Williams, Æthelred the Unready, pp. 50–2, for a discussion of the dating of the entries for Æthelred's reign and the differences between the various recensions. For the changing nature of the Chronicle account, see C. Clark, ‘The narrative mode of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest’, in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. P. Clemoes and K. Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 215–35 (repr. in Words, Names and History: Selected Writings of Cecily Clark, ed. P. Jackson (Woodbridge, 1995), pp. 3–19). 74 A. Williams, Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c.500–c.1066 (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 120–1. 75 A.S.C. ‘C’, 1011. 76 Homilies of Ælfric: a Supplementary Collection, ed. J. Pope (2 vols., Early English Text Soc., old ser., cclx, 1968), ii. 728–32, quoted in S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ (978–1016): a Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 206–7. 77 As quoted in R. Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (1988), p. 182. 78 ‘Earl Harold had it [the manor of Swineshead], except that [the men] paid geld in the hundred, and went against the enemy with them’ (G.D.B., fo. 208). 79 M. K. Lawson, Cnut: the Danes in England in the Early 11th Century (1993), pp. 215, 217. 80 Willliams, Kingship and Government, p. 132; Sawyer, nos. 985, 987–8, 991; F. E. Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), nos. 26, 29–30, 48. 81 Williams, Æthelred the Unready, p. 100. 82 Poole, p. 279. 83 A. Crosby, A History of Thetford (Chichester, 1986), pp. 14–19; Williamson, pp. 134–5; L.D.B., fos. 118v−119. As a comparison, Norwich was also rated as a full hundred, although Ipswich was only a half-hundred, and neither Dunwich nor Bury St. Edmunds was separately rated in Domesday. 84 Keynes, ‘The declining reputation of Æthelred the Unready’, fig. 9.2. 85 The rural episcopal sees of Elmham, Lichfield, Sherbourne and Selsey ‘were re-sited in “cities” in accordance with the precepts of canon law’ (F. Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 1042–1216 (4th edn., 1988), p. 122). 86 L.D.B., fo. 118v divides the land in Thetford into that ‘on the Norfolk side of the river’ and that ‘On the other, Suffolk, side [of the river]’. There is an earlier parallel. The borough of Tamworth (‘often considered the “capital” of Mercia’) was deliberately bisected by shire boundaries during the complete administrative restructuring of Mercia, probably during the reign of Edward the Elder (D. Hill, ‘The shiring of Mercia – again’, p. 145). 87 D. Hill, ‘An urban policy for Cnut?’, in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, ed. A. Rumble (1994), pp. 101–5, at pp. 103–4. 88 Williamson, p. 134. 89 This is in contrast to the established settlement at Norwich and those of Ipswich and Thetford, all of which had ditch-and-bank defences in the 10th century (Williamson, pp. 134–5; and K. Wade, ‘Ipswich’, in The Rebirth of Towns in the West, A.D. 700–1050, ed. R. Hodges and B. Hobley (Council for British Archaeology Research Report, lxviii, 1988), pp. 93–100, at p. 97). 90 There are no imported pottery finds in 10th-century Ipswich deposits (Wade, p. 97). 91 ‘The weight distribution of the coins …. suggest[s] that although Thetford was more active than Norwich early in the issue, Norwich later became the more prolific mint’ (M. Blackburn and S. Lyon, ‘Regional die-production in Cnut's Quatrefoil issue’, in Anglo-Saxon Monetary History: Essays in Memory of Michael Dolley, ed. M. A. S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 223–72, at p. 241). It is difficult to date the Quatrefoil issue precisely; although a commencement date of c.1017 seems agreed upon, no definite date for the change to the Pointed Hat issue can yet be determined. In the meantime, scholars tend to follow Dolley in ascribing roughly equal periods to the coinage issues of Cnut's reign, giving a terminal date of c.1023–4. 92 Campbell, Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, pp. 20–3 (and see also S. Keynes ‘Introduction to the 1998 reprint: Queen Emma and the Encomium Emmæ Reginæ’, pp. lvii–lix). 93 Williams, Æthelred the Unready, p. 96. 94 S. Keynes, ‘Cnut's earls’, in Rumble, pp. 43–88, at p. 81. 95 Campbell, Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, app. iv, p. 93; Chronicle of John of Worcester, p. 506. 96 A.S.C. ‘D’, 1020. 97 Vatican Library, MS. Reg. lat. 12, the ‘Bury Psalter’, fo. 16v (discussed in E. Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900–1066 (Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, ii, 1976), pp. 100–2 and quoted in Keynes, ‘Cnut's earls’, p. 56, n. 65); De miraculis, p. 47. 98 De miraculis, p. 40. 99 Godric attests Sawyer, nos. 958 (for Ely abbey) and 984 (for St. Benet, Holme); Sawyer, no. 980 for Bury St. Edmunds has an identical witness list and is not independent of the St. Benet charter (Keynes, ‘Cnut's earls’, pp. 76–7). 100 Sawyer, nos. 1069, 1078, 1070, recently discussed in R. Sharpe, ‘The use of writs in the 11th century: a hypothesis based on the archive of Bury St. Edmunds’ , Anglo-Saxon England , xxxii ( 2004 ), 247 – 91 . Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close 101 Gransden, ‘Baldwin’, p. 72, n. 102; Gransden, ‘Legends and traditions’, p. 4, n. 4; Liber Eliensis, bk. i, ch. 1. For a similar case, see P. Wormald, ‘Oswaldlow: an “immunity”?’, in St. Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence, ed. N. Brooks and C. Cubitt (Leicester, 1996), pp. 117–28. 102 Sawyer, no. 1219; ‘Benefactors' list’, fo. 320. 103 See L.D.B., fos. 309v, 361, 370, 419, for entries in Hartismere hundred; and fos. 328, 364v for those listed as in Blackbourn hundred, which lay within the liberty of St. Edmund. There is no difference in nomenclature between the two sites recorded in Domesday. 104 Although Pauline Stafford repeats the statement that west Suffolk was ‘a miniature shire’ and thus ‘a unit likely to be considerably older than the gift of it to Emma’, she also notes that its unique status with its own shire court ‘parallels the late development of Rutland as a shire’ (P. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in 11th-Century England (Oxford, 1997), p. 133). 105 The assumption that Emma's rights over west Suffolk formed part of her dowry seems to have become accepted as ‘fact’ simply through the constant repetition of this statement by historians and despite the lack of contemporary evidence. H. W. C. Davis, ‘The liberties of Bury St. Edmunds’ , Eng. Hist. Rev. , xxiv ( 1909 ), 417 – 31 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 419, suggested that it had formed part of her morning-gift; H. Cam, ‘Early groups of hundreds’, in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. J. G. Edwards and others (Manchester, 1933), pp. 3–26 (repr. in H. Cam, Liberties and Communities in Medieval England (1963), pp. 91–107, at p. 100) and N. Hurnard, ‘The Anglo-Norman franchises’ , Eng. Hist. Rev. , lxiv ( 1949 ), 289 – 327 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 320, both describe the hundreds as royal dower lands; Harmer, Anglo-Saxon Writs, p. 145 states that they ‘in all probability had been the dowry of Emma’, a phrase also used by Hart, Danelaw, p. 198 and M. A. Meyer, ‘The queen's “demesne” in later Anglo-Saxon England’, in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Medieval History in Commemoration of Denis L. T. Bethell, ed. M. A. Meyer (1993), pp. 79–113, at p. 84; Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, p. 133 repeats the assertions of previous historians; D. Dymond and E. Martin, An Historical Atlas of Suffolk (3rd edn., Ipswich, 1999), p. 26 also refers to the area as ‘the dowry of Emma, wife of King Canute’. For land in Winchester, Exeter and Rutland where the evidence of queen's dowry is more explicit, see Meyer, ‘Queen's “demesne”’, pp. 87–9. 106 A.S.C., 1043; F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (2 vols., Cambridge, 1968), ii. 366; P. Stafford, Unification and Conquest: a Political and Social History of England in the 10th and 11th Centuries (1989), p. 176; J. Crick, ‘Women, posthumous benefaction, and family strategy in pre-Conquest England’ , Jour. British Stud. , xxxviii ( 1999 ), 399 – 422 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 411–12. 107 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, esp. pp. 172–85; and Campbell, Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, pp. xxiv–xxix. 108 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, p. 175. See also M. A. Meyer, ‘Women's estates in later Anglo-Saxon England: the politics of possession’, Haskins Society Jour., iii (1993 for 1991), 111–29, for a discussion on the landholdings of women (and specifically those close to the great earls) in the reign of Edward the Confessor. 109 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 182, 231–2; T. A. Heslop, ‘The production of de luxe manuscripts and the patronage of King Cnut and Queen Emma’ , Anglo-Saxon England , xix ( 1990 ), 151 – 95 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 156–8, details the known extent of their monastic patronage. The record of one gift of land from Emma to Bury survives in a writ of her son (Whitelock, A.S.W., no. 17; Sawyer, nos. 1076, 1077). 110 Sawyer, no. 1423; Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1956, reissued 1986), no. 81; H. P. R. Finberg, The Early Charters of the West Midlands (Leicester, 1961), no. 341. See also Lawson, Cnut, p. 155. 111 Abbot Ælfweard was described in the Evesham Chronicle as Cnut's relative (‘a consanguineuo suo rege Cnutone’) (Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, ed. W. D. Macray (1863), p. 83). It is thought unlikely that he belonged to Cnut's Danish kin as he was appointed by Ælthelred in 1014, and a connection with Ælfgifu of Northampton is more likely ( A. Williams, ‘“Cockles amongst the wheat”: Danes and the English in the western midlands in the 1st half of the 11th century’ , Midland Hist. , xi ( 1986 ), 1 – 22 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 8). For Ælfgifu as regent in Norway, see F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edn., Oxford, 1971), pp. 405–6. 112 Banton,‘Monastic reform’, pp. 71–85; T. Pestell, Landscapes of Monastic Foundation c.650–1200 (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 101–5. 113 Abbo, Passio sancti Eadmundi regis et martyris, in Three Lives of English Saints, ed. M. Winterbottom (Toronto, 1972), p. 72. 114 R. Frank, ‘King Cnut in the verse of his skalds’, in Rumble, pp. 106–24, at pp. 110–13. 115 Lawson, Cnut, pp. 140–6; ‘Translatio Sancti Ælfegi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris’ as ‘Textual appendix’, in Rumble, pp. 283–315; Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 232–3. 116 An extended discussion on the expulsion of clerks from Bury can be found in Gransden, ‘Legends and traditions’, pp. 14–16. 117 Gransden ‘Legends and traditions’, p. 11. 118 Regularis Corcordia, ch. 10, p. 7 (quoted in Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, p. 141). 119 Another example is evident in the circumstances of his visit to the tomb of Edmund Ironside (M. K. Lawson, ‘Cnut’, O.D.N.B. (Oxford, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4579> [30 May 2006]). 120 E. Searle, ‘Emma the conqueror’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill and others (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 281–8. 121 Except for the temporary tenure of Bishop Grimketel during Stigand's period of disgrace in 1043. 122 A.S.C. ‘C’, 1043; Sawyer, no. 1069. 123 K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166 (Woodbridge, 1999), p. 44. 124 A.S.C. ‘C’, 1046, 1049, 1054. 125 Sawyer, no. 1071 (Pakenham); Robertson, p. 445. He may also have held land in the Isle of Wight and Oxfordshire (Lawson, Cnut, p. 163). 126 Sawyer, no. 1531; Whitelock, A.S.W., no. 31. 127 P. Clarke, The English Nobility under Edward the Confessor (Oxford, 1994), pp. 357–63 notes that the estate was worth £182 3s in 1066, to which the sum of £102 16s 11d in lands held from Wihtgar or his men can be added. For the possibility that Wihtgar was a descendant of Wulfstan of Dalham, see Wareham, p. 35. 128 ‘Benefactors' list’, fo. 324. 129 Whitelock, A.S.W., no. 29 from the sacrist's register of Bury St. Edmund's abbey (C.U.L., FF2.33 fo. 48). 130 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, p. 112 places Leofgifu in the queen's service. 131 As quoted in F. M. Stenton, ‘The thriving of the Anglo-Saxon ceorl’, in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 383–93, at pp. 388–9. 132 L.D.B., fo. 288v. 133 Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 123–61; Meyer ‘Queen's “demesne”’, pp. 75–113. © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Institute of Historical Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © The Author(s) 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Institute of Historical Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
TI - The shiring of East Anglia: an alternative hypothesis
JF - Historical Research
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2006.00402.x
DA - 2008-02-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-shiring-of-east-anglia-an-alternative-hypothesis-ItYDDuCNev
SP - 1
EP - 27
VL - 81
IS - 211
DP - DeepDyve
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