#king edgar

[baebeylik]

Coin. During the reign of Eadgar the Peaceful. English. 943-44 to 975 CE.

The British Museum.

[kaitowotd]

Kaito's Word of the Day: King

An old blue friend arrived today. However, he's going to have a hard time trying to get me away from Kaito!

[trapped-in-hell-askblog]

So guys, I’m debating whether I should ship Edgar with Freya or not. I feel like they would be really cute together but I want you guys opinions on it!

Should I ship them?

Yes

No

Voting ended onOct 20, 2024

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I read your post on the philosophical defence of monarchy and I’m impressed with the way you mounted such a formidable argument in favour of it. The flaw in your argument is how old you portray the monarchy’s ancient origins to lend legitimacy to its rule. How can you say the rituals and traditions of the British monarchy are ancient if the coronation itself took place in an Anglican church after the Reformation? That makes it a modern invention not ancient. Your fancy intellectualizing is built on a house of cards.

Thank you for at least reading my post even if you haven’t quite understood what I did write. The flaw in your reasoning is to conflate the British monarchy with the the tumultuous changes of the Reformation in England alongside the establishment of the sovereign as the head of the Church of Engand.

The coronation of a new monarch in the Anglican church had not been going on since the Reformation but goes back even further before the Reformation. Your mistake is to wrongly date the Anglican church. People forget this but the Church of England was established by St Augustine of Canterbury in 597 CE.

Almost nothing is known of the early life of the man who brought Christianity to medieval England. Augustine was most likely living as a monk in Rome when in 595, Pope Gregory the Great chose him to lead a mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith. Christianity had been present in England during Roman times, but with the arrival of the Saxons, most of the country had once again reverted to paganism.

England in the 6th century was divided into many warring kingdoms. Of these, it was Kent that was chosen as the place to begin Augustine’s mission in England, most likely because of the powerful position of its ruler, King Æthelberht.

The story of St Augustine’s arrival in England has become the stuff of legend, and was first told by the 8th-century monk and historian Bede, writing 140 years after the events took place. Bede describes how when Augustine arrived in Kent, Æthelberht met the monk and his 40 companions outdoors, because the pagan king was scared of the new arrivals practising sorcery.

The monks are said to have held up a silver cross and a panel painted with the image of Christ. We are told that King Æthelberht, while wary of his visitors, did allow them to preach to the gathering.

King Æthelberht was most likely accompanied by his wife, Queen Bertha. Bertha was a Frankish princess who was already a Christian, despite her marriage to a pagan king. It is thought that the presence of Bertha may have been another reason for Augustine to begin his mission in Kent. She is known to have been in contact with the Pope around this time, and the fact that her husband allowed her to practise Christianity perhaps suggested that he might also be sympathetic to Augustine’s mission.

King Æthelberht did not immediately convert to Christianity, but he did treat Augustine and his companions with hospitality. They were given freedom to preach and invited to reside in Canterbury, the capital of Kent. Augustine and his companions held services in the ancient church of St Martin’s, which is believed to be the church that Queen Bertha herself worshipped in.

Eventually, King Æthelberht did convert, and the abbey of St Peter and Paul (later rededicated to St Augustine) was founded in Canterbury in about 598. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, a role that to this day is still the most senior cleric in the Church of England.

There were many advantages for Augustine in gaining royal support for his mission. King Æthelbert’s gifts enabled the creation of a school and a library at the abbey, which in turn established it as an important seat of learning. Pope Gregory even sent books from Rome to fill the abbey’s bookshelves.

Æthelberht also provided protection to the new Christian church. He made laws that protected church property and punished transgressions against the Church even more harshly than those against the Crown. These charters may have been drawn up under the guidance of Augustine himself. Augustine was clearly a shrewd man who knew that royal support was essential if his mission was to be successful.

It is known that Augustine died on 26 May, though scholars still argue over whether the year was 604 or perhaps 609. Christianity continued to spread throughout the other English kingdoms in the years that followed St Augustine’s first mission, but its progression was not smooth. Not all of the successors to the converted Anglo-Saxon kings were Christian, including some of those that followed Æthelberht in Kent. The Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was finally completed at the end of the 7th century, when the Isle of Wight’s last pagan king, Aruald, died in 686.

It was Edgar (known as King Edgar the Peaceful) who became the first king to be coronated under the sacred auspices of the Church of England. When he was coronated in 973, this was the first time a king was coronated as king of England.  When his uncle Aethelstan had united the various kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia, this was achieved over time, whereas Edgar came to power as King of a united England.

His coronation as King of England has become the model for coronations, and the oath he gave at his coronation in 973 is the oath still given by British monarchs upon their coronations. The oath required the king to carry out three duties: first, to protect the church and the peace of the land; second, to establish the rule of law and forbid criminally in all classes of subjects, even the nobles; and third, to use justice and mercy in all judgments, which is to say, to be impartial, fair, and not vindictive or cruel, nor to show favoritism or let friends off easily.

Edgar consolidated the unity of England established by his uncle (his father’s much-older half-brother) Aethelstan the Glorious (ruled 924-940) so that England never afterwards experienced a long-term division back into the minor kingdoms (of York, Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, etc.) 

Edgar, lest we forget, was a great-grandson of Alfred the Great. Edgar was the father of Edward the Martyr (ruled 975-978) and Aethelred The Badly-Counseled (“Aethelred the Unready”, who ruled 978-1016). He was thus the grandfather of Edmund Ironside (ruled 1016) and Edward the Confessor (ruled 1042-1066). And then we get to William the Conqueror and 1066 and all that...

So in effect all that happened at the Reformation under Henry VIII is that the Church of England declared its independence from the Pope; its internal administrative structure remained the same.

Freed from Papal control, the Anglican Church went on to diverge in doctrine as well over the following years, though not as much as most other Protestant churches.

The coronation ceremony for British monarchs based on the rites first used to crown King Edgar in the year 973 continued to be used after Henry VIII’s time. 

The modern ceremony is not identical, of course; for one thing, it’s in modern English not Anglo-Saxon or Latin. However, each new version of the ceremony to crown a new monarch was based on the previous ceremony, in a direct chain of evolution.

The liturgy described in the Liber Regalis, written in the 14th century and itself based on earlier precedent, is still regarded as definitive. The mediaeval manuscript is kept in Westminster Abbey, the Anglican cathedral where most new monarchs have been crowned ever since 1066.

Interestingly, James VI of Scotland had the Liber Regalis translated into English for his own coronation in England in 1603, and subsequent coronations have drawn from it as their basis: though with variations and changes to suit their particular requirements. In the 20th century there was a movement to bring back more elements of the more ‘authentic’ early ceremony.

A ceremony which was first performed 1045 years ago and still follows the same basic format today surely qualifies as ‘ancient’ by most standards and doesn’t need ‘fancy intellectualising’.

Thanks for your question.

[arianadevareux]

Top 10 Hottest for November

I know there wasn’t one for October, but December’s really gonna make up for it. At least to me. I’m going to be entertained by it.

The Monkey King (Jet Li, The Forbidden Kingdom)

Does this make me a furry? Maybe. He’s so mischievous and that’s what I appreciates about him.

Sam McGuire (Robert Carradine, Lizzie McGuire)

Y’all had a crush on her dad, right? Because I definitely would’ve had a slight issue being her friend.

Lone Starr (Bill Pullman, Spaceballs)

I know he’s a parody Han Solo, but his level of himbo is more attractive to me than Han’s.

M’Baku (Winston Duke, Black Panther)

This tweet sums up exactly how I feel.

Lord Voldemort (Joe Walker, A Very Potter Musical)

He tap dances, gets drunk, and is a snarky bitch. Huge improvement on canon Tom.

Mrs. Basil E (Jodi Long, Dash and Lily)

Want to be and be on. 100/10

Mando (Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian)

Masks and helmets are hot. Especially when they’ve got that swagger.

Anck Su Namun (Patricia Velasquez, The Mummy + The Mummy Returns)

Not only is she a badass warrior, but she also looks incredible in full body paint.

King Edgar (Cary Elwes, Ella Enchanted)

He’s a conniving asshole but, like, it works. I might be a lil bit biased.

Uber-Morlock (Jeremy Irons, The Time Machine)

There’s a chance that if Jeremy Irons’s voice wasn’t under this face I wouldn’t be attracted to him. But as fate would have it, he played the character and here we are.

[earlyenglishsuggestion]

Kidnap your next wife from the local nunnery

[maypoleman1]

18th March

St Edward the Martyr’s Day

Edward the Martyr. Source: Alamy Stock Photos

On this day in 979, the descriptively named Edward the Martyr was murdered. Edward was king of the relatively recently united England, but his legitimacy to succeed his father King Edgar was not uncontested. On the day of his death, Edward was enjoying a boar hunt and stopped at the manor of his step mother, Dowager Queen AElfthryth at Corfe Gate on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, who greeted him and offered the young man a refreshing cup of wine. As the king drank however, a hired assassin crept up behind him and stabbed him - literally - in the back. On feeling the blow, the surprised king instinctively spurred his horse forward to escape the attack, but the assassin had done his work. Edward tumbled dying from the horse and was dragged along the ground by a single stirrup as his steed bolted. His body was never found. AElfthryth however issued the story that Edward had been killed in a riding accident and ensured her son, Aethelred assumed the throne.

This Shakespearean story of murder most foul was not over however. The road between Corfe and Wareham in succeeding years became a place of miracles on which blind men found they could see, cripples were able to walk, and the deaf found they could hear. These phenomena were attributed to Edward and so gravediggers were sent to investigate. Edward’s body was found in a shallow roadside grave, in pristine condition and his tell-tale wound clearly visible. The former king was duly canonised and declared a martyr and his relics became a centre of pilgrimage in Shaftesbury. Although no charges were ever brought against AElfthryth, public opinion had no doubt, and the dowager queen ended her days in repentance as a nun at Wherwell in Hampshire. As for her son, he did not enjoy a happy reign - he was corrupt and weak and would be besieged by Viking invaders. He became known to history as Aethelred the Unready.

[fuzzysparrow]

Which English king was crowned at Bath Abbey by Saint Dunstan?

Bath Abbey in Bath, Somerset, is where King Edgar the Peaceful was crowned in AD 973. A stained-glass window on the north side of the abbey depicts the coronation, which was devised by Saint Dunstan, and has remained the basis of coronation ceremonies ever since. Dunstan (909-988) was an English bishop who served as the Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. Dunstan became famous for the many stories about his dealings with the Devil. Allegedly, Dunstan resisted the Devil’s temptations by holding the Devil’s face between a pair of red-hot tongs. The only evidence of this event are accounts written at least 100 years after Dunstan’s death.

Edgar was the son of King Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. He came to the throne as a teenager following the death of his older brother, King Eadwig. Saint Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign, which was peaceful with no warfare. Although Edgar's coronation took place in 973, he had been ruling as king since 959. Two years after officially being crowned, Edgar died and was buried at Glastonbury Abbey.

At the time of Edgar's coronation, Bath Abbey was a monastic church, which had been erected in 781 by King Offa of Mercia. As king, Edgar encouraged the monks of the abbey to adopt the 'Rule of Saint Benedict', a book of instruction written in 516 by Benedict of Nursia (c. AD 480–550).