Description
Alfred the Great died in 899, leaving behind him two children who shaped the politics of southern England for the next two decades: Edward, King of Wessex, and Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians. Much of what is known about Æthelflæd comes from a set of annals preserved in the B, C, and D-texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: the Mercian Register. The content of the Register was drawn from a non-extant Mercian text that focused on Æthelflæd’s rule to the exclusion of Wessex and Edward. A correspondingly myopic continuation can be found in the Chronicle A-text. Dubbed ‘the Edward Annals’ by Pauline Stafford, this covers the years 915–20 and lauds the West Saxons while ignoring the successes of their Mercian allies. Read together, both sets of annals provide a reasonably comprehensive political history of Wessex and Mercia in the opening decades of the tenth century. However, there is clear tension between the narratives they present, and it is on this tension that this paper focuses. Homing in on Æthelflæd herself, I will explore her exclusion from the ‘Edward Annals’, the composition of the Register, and what its language tells us about its audience.| Period | 23 Nov 2023 |
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| Event title | Conflicts, Connections, and Communities in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles |
| Event type | Conference |
| Degree of Recognition | National |