Nobility in Pre-Norman England. the Evolution and Transformation of the Thengly Class, 900-1066

Nobility in pre-Norman England. The evolution and transformation of the thengly class, 900-1066.

The study of the role of aristocracy in Anglo-Saxon society has a long and rich ongoing tradition, the roots of which can be traced back into the 19th century. Alongside general trends in medieval history, the strong, undiminishing interest can be explained by prevalence of a certain class of nobility throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon period. Though changing names, this stratum never left the historic arena. Scholars agree that Anglo-Saxon society was never static, but by a unanimous consensus, self-understanding as a being composed of ‘noblemen’ versus ‘commoners’ was its inherent feature. Hence, no work, be it strictly academic or more accessible, that touches this problem, can avoid a chapter, that has, typically, King Alfred’s alliterated phrase ge ceorle, ge eorle (‘the highborn and the lowborn’) in its title (Alfred, 4,2). Early essays on this problem, as a part of wider projects, appeared as early as the 19th century. Following the general enthusiasm for social studies, the major fields in that time were those of Constitutional History (formulated by Sir W. Stubbs) and agrarian history, but both employed nobility as an important argument for one standpoint or the other. This can be revealed, for instance, by the classical dispute between ‘romanists’ and ‘germanists’ and the most famous representative of the latter, F. Seebohm, who argued for the existence of a manor among Ger- manic tribes in the age of Tacitus1. 20th century historians also researched the topic of Anglo-Saxon nobility. Such famed scholars as F. Stenton, E. John, H. Loyn defined the very nature of the Anglo-Saxon state as ‘aristocratic’, following the idea of a class of military nobility, deliberately created by Germanic kings.2 The next generation, represented by such respectable historians as D. Whitelock, P. Blair, H. Richardson, paid special attention to the role of the aristocracy in local government and to the formation of feudalism in England.3 From the 60’s onward, more narrow topics, such as the political, military and economic functions of noblemen, were approached. A major research by S. Keynes, ‘The diplomas of King Aethelred 'The Unready' 978-1016: A study in their use as historical evidence’ (1980), was an important milestone among other works of the second half of the 20th century.4 It is noteworthy that in the centre of the most studies so far there used to stand the role of the thegns in political structures of the time. The enquiry below is a claim for a short, but comprehensive examination of the position of the so-called ‘thegns’ (OE þegn, ‘a servant’) in late Anglo-Saxon society, with a special attention to the emergence and development of this social group in time. The chronological period examined commences in 899 with the death of King Alfred and concludes in 1066 with the notorious Battle of Hastings. Alfred’s immediate successors repelled the Scandinavian threat, emerged in the previous century, thus gradually uniting the country under their sceptre by 954 with the annexation of the Viking kingdom of York and securing peace for the following three decades in the newly formed Englalond. With the death of king Edgar in 975, the murder of his elder son, Edward the Martyr, and the accession to the throne of his

1 See: Seebohm F. The English village community. London, 1883. 2 See: Stenton F.M. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, 1942; John E. Land tenure in early England. Leicester, 1960; Loyn H.R. Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest. London, 1970, et. al. 3 Richardson H.G., Sayles G.O. The governance in medieval England. Edinburgh, 1963; Blair P.H. An introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Cabridge, 1956; Whitelock D. The Beginnings of English society. Baltimore, 1952, et al. 4 Due to the format of the current work, only a short abstract of relevant literature was included. The actual amount of bibliography, touching the thegnly class, is much larger. 1 younger, Æthelred, there soon started a period of a deep decay, caused by the second wave of Viking raids in c. 980-1016, culminating in a full-scale conquest by King Swein the Forkbeard and his son, Cnut. The last fifty years before the Battle of Hastings saw a continuous crisis of the throne succession, concluded by the restoration of the West Saxon dynasty, but at the same time these events were not that harmful for the majority of the population. This relatively peaceful period was then interrupted by the destructive Norman invasion and the irreversible end of the Anglo-Saxon age.1 According to the long-established view of thegns in earlier historiography, during the pre- Alfredian period, the elite of the early Anglo-Saxon society was referred to as gesiths, a conclu- sively presumed synonym of thegns, and denoted noblemen, whose weregild2 exceeded that of a commoner (ceorl) by six times: 1200 shillings against 200. Yet by the 9th century, due to its ar- chaism, the word gesith went out of use, and the term thegn replaced it for the same social group from then on. This concept originates from ‘Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions’ by H. Chadwick3. It is also widely accepted that any free holder of five hides4 was awarded the rank of a thegn. However, this view seems to be a generalized perspective, composed of uneven and inconsistent sources. Many authors tend to mix up pieces of evidence from different periods and geographical regions, thus creating a synthetic and anachronistic portrait of an ‘average thegn’, because throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon age, the country had never reached a monolithic political entity, and, even after the uniting by West Saxon monarchs, there remained strong local features, which varied from region to region and prevailed as late as the early 12th century.5 Moreover, in the case of Danelaw, we have to deal with a synthesis of Anglo-Saxon and Scandi- navian institutions. To better understand the complex process of the evolution of the thegnly class, we need to turn to thegns’ position in the pre-Alfredian age, thoroughly examined by H.R. Loyn on the evident material of narrative sources.6 He revealed that despite the disappearance of the word gesith from legal lexicon by the reign of King Alfred,7 it still occured in Anglo-Saxon translations of Latin works alongside with the term thegn. By gesiths translators usually denoted aristo- crats, more or less independent of the royal authority and in some cases even able to oppose it; a thegn in their interpretation was a servant of a free origin of any kind, and if such person found himself in the service of a king, he was usually a closer member of his retinue than a gesith. Loyn didn’t express himself explicitly, why the word gesith went out of use, but his observations

1 For regnal dates and genealogical support, see Fig. 9. 2 A weregild was a fine for murder, widely spread among Germanic peoples throughout Europe during the Dark Ages. 3 Chadwick H.M. Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions. Cambridge, 1905. P. 325–326. 4 A hide (hida or rarely hiwisc) was a measure of land in Wessex, supposed to be enough to provide for one family during a year, depending on soil’s fertility; it could vary from 40 to 120 acres. See: Charles-Edwards T.M. Kinship, Status and the Origins of the Hide // Past & Present. 1972. №. 56. P. 5. 5 Campbell J. Observations on English Government from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century // Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, (Fifth Series). 1975. Vol. 25. P. 43; Runciman W. G. Accelerating Social Mobility – The Case of Anglo-Saxon England // Past & Present. 1984. № 104. P. 7. 6 Loyn H.R. The Term Ealdorman in the Translations Prepared at the Time of King Alfred // The English Historical Review. 1953. Vol. 68. №. 269 PP. 513-525; Gesiths and Thegns in Anglo-Saxon England from the Seventh to the Tenth Century // The English Historical Review. 1955. Vol. 70. №277. P. 529–549. 7 With the only exception of Norðleoda lagu (see below). 2 incline us to think that gesiths ceased to exist as a social group due to the Viking invasion of the 9th century and ‘the revival of West Saxon monarchy’1. The royal legislation of the 10th century reveals a significant change to thegns as a social stratum at the time. Prior to any thorough analysis of this process, a short exposition and critics of our source must be proposed. To the present day we have a massive corpus of Anglo-Saxon laws, written in vernacular or translated into Latin, and preserved in approximately 80 extant texts before 1200, two of which particularly stand out as the most complete: the Textus Rofensis and the Cambridge, Cor- pus Christi College 383. These compilations cover most of the Dark Ages, with the earliest law code coming from King Æthelbert of Kent (602) and the latest – from King Cnut (c. 1027- 1034).2 Aside from these, there has been preserved a collection of non-royal codes, recorded in the first quarter of the 11th century and commonly associated with the voluminous literary herit- age of archbishop Wulfstan of York (1002-1023).3 Nevertheless, the vast majority of these sources correspond only with the last 150 years before the Conquest, which means that though records of thegns in legal materials are numerous (51 over the whole period), their distribution in time is far from even: 40% of them originate from non-royal legislation, and that 2/3 of such records in royal codes derive from the latest period (978-1066). The chart below can help visual- ize this distribution. Non-royal codes (written down Private compila- Date Royal codes Total in c. 1000-1025) tions 600-900 34 – – 3 900-975 95 66 – 15 978-1012 87 (+1)8 19 – 10 1012-1066 910 611 812 23 Total 29 (+1) 13 8 51 Coupled with the nature of such codes, namely rather a written fixation of wetenagemots’ decrees and decisions on topical subjects and events13 than a codification of law in the modern meaning, this circumstance must always be borne in mind whenever the social position of thegns undergoes a conceptualization: most of our knowledge is of late origin, which most historians seem to have been underestimating so far.

1 Loyn H.R. Gesiths and Thegns... P. 540. 2 The saw-called ‘Laws of King Edward the Confessor’ are only extant in a Latin translation of the early 12th century, and their correspondence with the actual legislation of 1042-1066 is hard to establish. 3 Bethurum D. Six Anonymous Old English Codes // The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 1950. Vol. 49. № 4. P. 457; 462. 4 Wihtræd, 5; Ine, 45; Alfred and Guthrum, 3. 5 Æþelstan V, 1,4; Æþelstan IV, 6,2; Æþelstan VI, 11; Eadgar II, 1,1, 2; Eadgar III, 3; Eadgar IV, 1,8, 2a, 13. 6 Norðleoda lagu, 5, 9-12; Mircna laga, 1,1. 7 Æðelred I, 1,2, 1,8, 1,12; Æðelred III, 3,1, 11, 13,2-3; Æðelred V, 9,1. 8 Thegns are also mentioned in a Welsh-English treaty Dunsæteland giltige (c. 980-1000). 9 The so-called ‘Regulation of the Thegns’ Guild in Campridge’. 10 Cnut II 15,1, 22,2, 31,1(а), 71,1-5, а также, судя по всему, титул 78. 11 Norðhymbra preosta lagu, 48, 51, 52, 57,2, 58, 60. 12 Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, 1; Geþynсðo, 1-6; Hadbot, 1. 13 A witenagemot (‘an assembly of the wise’) was a royal council that included a wide range of members: princes of Church, king’s kinsmen, royal officials et al. 3

King Æthelstan’s law codes shows that as late as the second quarter of the 10th century thegns started to act as royal officials: developing his father’s legislation (Eadweard II, 8),1 Æth- elstan reserves the function of a judge not only for gerefas2, but for thegns as well (Æþelstan V, 1,3-4); alongside other leading men of the kingdom, they can also protect a murderer against pursuit of avengers during vendetta (Æþelstan IV, 6,1-2). But most importantly, it is only this legislation that first mentions the possibility of land tenancy (bocland, or ‘bookland’: ‘an estate secured to its holder by a royal chater or «book»’)3 for them: if a king’s thegn that has landed property opposes his monarch’s will, he is to pay 60 shillings (Æþelstan VI, 11). Thirty years later King Edgar brings three more innovations to the position of thegns. First, he speaks of a certain ‘dignity’ or ‘rank’ (scipe) of a thegn, that an unjust judge must lose forever (unless he swears an oath that he ‘didn’t know a better judgement, Eadgar III, 3),4 and that royal thegns in his time are to have as in his father’s time (Eadgar IV, 2а). Second, land owning seems to have become a regularity for thegns, for Edgar does not mention any landless thegns, on the contrary, he insists on the tithe payment for a thegn’s inland (Eadgar II, 1,1); in addition, we learn that king’s thegns have herds of cattle (Eadgar IV, 1,8) and even churches (or, maybe, chapels) on their ‘booklands’ (Eadgar II, 2). Third, Edgar speaks of thegns as of men of his close circle (‘my thegns and I’, Eadgar IV, 1,8); it is noteworthy thereupon to say, that we have some extant charters of this time, calling kings’ relatives (though not by blood) and future ealdormen5 thegns, too.6 By the reign of King Æthelred’s, the ‘dignity of a thegn’ seems to have evolved into a legal term: the king grants þegenweres ond þegenrihtes [the werigild and the rights] of a thegn to every priest, who maintains celibacy (Æðelred V, 9,1; Æðelred VI, 5,3). Thegns also kept their position as judges: we see companies of twelve thegns presiding in courts in Danelaw (Æðelred III, 3,1; Æðelred III, 13,2). Finally, for the first time there occur thegns, who have lords other than a king: they can swear an oath to prove their lord’s innocence, should he be accused of committing a crime (Æðelred III, 11; Æðelred I, 1,8; 1,12). After their emergence during Æthelred’s reign, these ‘non-royal’ thegns received further development in the subsequent years. King Cnut’s code, beside literal repeating some of Æthel- stan and Æthelred’s clauses,7 explicitly states the existence of different categories of thegns in his time: thegns of the Crown, who can, apart from being Danish, stand close to the king or not, and ‘middle’ or ‘other’ thegns (medem or oðer þegn), comprising those of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. These groups were distinguished by the amount of heriot8 each category had to pay,

1 The formula of a reference to royal legislation is as follows: Eadweard – the name of the legislator, II – the number of the code, 8 – the number of the article (the numbers are those used by F. Lieberman in ‘Die Gesetze der An- gelsachsen. Bd. I-III. Halle, 1903-1916’). 2 The term gerefa underwent some changes during the Anglo-Saxon period, but its conceptual core remained the same: it was a reeve, usually in royal service. 3 Stenton F.M. Anglo-Saxon England. P. 307. 4 However, the next clause curiously states: this ‘rank’ can be purchased back with the king’s permission. 5 At the time under examination, an ealdoman was a usually a royal official, ‘set in charge of a shire… by his lord and removable at his pleasure’ (Stenton F.M. Anglo-Saxon England. P. 305). 6 Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History. Vol. 1-3: A.D. 430-985. Lon- don, 1885–1893; №948, 1030, 906, 917, 878, 882, 750, 800, 818, 829, 867, 878, 730, 814 (hereinafter – C.S.). 7 In fact, many of Cnut’s laws are taken from his predecessors’ legislation. There has been proposed a hypothesis that Cnut’s lay laws were a modified code, prepared during the closing months of Æthelred’s reign. See: Stafford P. The laws of Cnut and the history of Anglo-Saxon royal promises. Anglo-Saxon England, Volume 10, December 1981, pp. 173-190. 8 A heriot (or here geatwa, ‘warriors equipment’) was a special form of payment required for the heirs of the de- ceased to pay in favour of the king in order to keep their patrimony. 4 with the lowest assigned for a king’s thegn, who does not stand close to the monarch ‘and has less [property]’, and the largest – for a royal thegn in close relationship with the Crown (Cnut II, 71,1-5). Curiously, thegns in Danelaw (Mercian, East Anglian and Danish) had to pay only various sums of money, while their royal and West Saxon ‘counterparts’ were also required to provide some actual military equipment. Non-royal legislation and private compilations are also of particular importance. Two of them contain the only extant information about thegns’ werigild for the whole Anglo-Saxon age: Norðleoda lagu (‘The laws of the northern people [i.e. Northumbrians in this context]’) and Mircna laga (‘The laws of the Mercians’). Most historians believe these codes to represent the facts prior to the terminal submission of the Viking kingdom of York and the Danish Mercia by the West Saxon kings in 954-959. However, linguistic analysis reveals their late record in the first quarter of the 11th century, and there is strong evidence of their modification by the compos- er, unanimously attributed as archbishop Wulfstan. According to Mircna laga 1.1, a thegn’s weregild was six times higher than that of a ceorl, which makes 1200 shillings. But at the same time, this proportion is differed in Danelaw: 2000 trymsas against 256 trymsas, respectively, or ‘200 shillings by the Mercian law’ (Norðleoda lagu, 5-6). A short set of calculations makes it obvious that these figures do not tally by themselves, and the only way to balance the equation lies in the allowance of local varieties in thegns’ a status, or at least different weregilds, so that it would make 1562,5 shillings in Danelaw and 1200 in Mercia, or 2000 and 1536 trymsas, respectively.1 Supporting this conclusion, another curious source worth noting throws light on thegns’ (or, maybe, some of them) position in Danelaw, the ‘Regulation of the Thegns’ Guild in Cambridge’, c. 970-990.2 The primary interest of the anonymous author concentrates around different cases of vendetta, and it seems very probable that this so-called ‘guild’ was actually a Scandinavian type of fraternity, commonly known as félag (though the latter could also be a trading company),3 which falls in well with ar- cheological data that places the rise of Cambridge as a trading centre in the middle of the 10th century. It must be pointed out that while the royal law codes spoke mostly (and, prior to Æthel- red’s epoch, exclusively) of kings’ thegns (cf. Eadgar IV, 1,8), in the ‘Regulation…’ the figure of a king receives only one mentioning: members of the ‘guild’ must not avenge murdering of their brother in his, a bishop’s or an ealdorman’s presence. Norðleoda lagu further contain evidence that a ceorl could also acquire the status of a thegn under certain conditions: he must not only have a coat-of-arms and a gilded sword, but ob- tain five hides for royal utware4 (Norðleoda lagu, 9-10), too. However, the source is not very consistent in itself: further clauses articulate that keeping five hides in possession for three gen- erations makes a ceorl worthy of a thegnly 2000-trymsa wergild and a gesiðcundmon – a ‘man of gesith kin’ (the only occurrence of the word gesith in the late period), but if he doesn’t comply, he remains a ceorl (Norðleoda lagu, 11-12).

1 It may well be, that these confusing calculations led Sir F. Stenton to merely state, that ‘in Northumbria the differ- ence between the weregilds was even wider’ (Stenton F.M. Anglo-Saxon England. P. 488), and other authors to usually avoid mentioning this misbalance. 2 Thorpe B. Diplomatarium Anglicum Aevi Saxonici: A Collection of English Charters, from the Reign of King Athelberht of Kent to that of William the Conqueror. London, 1865. P. 610–613; English Historical Documents. Vol. I: c. 500-1042. London, 1996. P. 603. 3 Jesch J. Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse. Wood- bridge, 2001. P. 232-235. 4 Utware is usually translated as ‘defence against foreign enemies’, but it doesn’t occur elsewhere in extant sources, apart from Geþyncðo, composed by the same author. 5

Finally, two further sources remain to be reviewed: Geþyncðo (‘Dignities’) and Rectitu- dines Singularum Personarum (‘Rights and duties of Individuals’). As in case with Norðleoda lagu and Mircna laga, both are ascribed to the work of Wulfstan, and though Geþyncðo says to record the ‘ancient ways’, there hasn’t been presented any convincing evidence in favour of this claim so far. Rectitudines set that to become subject of a ‘thegn’s law’ one must be worthy of a bocland and execute three duties: military service, bridge repairing and manning fortress garri- sons (Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, 1). According to Geþyncðo, a ceorl was ‘worthy of thegnly rights’, if he possessed five hides of ‘fully own land’, [a kitchen], a bell tower, a gate tower1 and a certain duty (or office) at the royal court. A thegn, says Geþyncðo on, could have a thegn of his own, who was entitled to swear oaths in courts of law to prove his lord’s innocence, on condition of having five hides for royal utware, serving his master onto the king’s hall and having ridden thrice on his behalf to the king (Geþyncðo, 2-4). A merchant, after having sailed thrice over ‘the wide sea’ at his own expense, was also worthy of the thegnly rights (Geþyncðo, 6a). At this point, two general patterns seem to stand out it Wulfstan’s compilations: (1) an introduction of a new concept of ‘thegnly rights’ to the Anglo-Saxon society at the turn of the 10th and 11th century, and (2) a liberty for people outside the royal milieu to acquire them, if comply- ing with some requirements. To conceptualize the gathered data, a hypothesis that takes all available facts into account must be put forward. As much as our sources contribute to our knowledge, during the 10th century thegns were a subject of the process, known as ‘feudalisation’, triggered by numerous royal grants of boclands in favour of laity (see below). Thus, from a limited group of royal retinue, thegns turned into a vast class of landowners (sometimes even bound to the royal house by mar- riage or other matrimonial ties) and king’s agents of shire administration, but whose prominent social standing gradually became hereditary instead of being circumstanced by the bounds with the Crown, and the very word þegnas started to denote any local elite in general, which explains ‘anomalous’ features of thegns in Danelaw. This process receives further support from the An- glo-Saxon Chronicle: while prior to 917 thegns are described exclusively as loyal servants of a king, after 988 they act on their own behalf, often intervening into political affairs, such as elec- tion of a new king, and each time they receive a geographical localisation.2 Moreover, in 1065, the chronicler finds it necessary to distinguish between an earl’s3 retinue, the huscarls, and thegns of Yorkshire, who drove him out of the country. At the turn of the millennia, however, the thegnly stratum began to incorporate people of other classes in its body, too. A possible explanation to this can be found in the historic background of this process, namely the second wave of Viking raids and political chaos of the time. According to K. Mack’s research, the damage in- flicted to the elite was colossal, causing catastrophic losses among thegns: of the ninety names of thegns, attesting charters in 1006-1019, only eight are the same, ‘thus, only 12% of those who subscribed as ministri for Æthelraed could have done so for Cnut; and less than one-third of those thegns who witnessed for Cnut may have attested for Æthelraed’.4 This decimation seems

1 See Fig. 8.2. 2 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Vol 3: MS A / ed. by J.M. Bately. Cambridge, 1986. P. 79- 80; Vol 6: MS D / Ed. by G.P. Cubbin. Cambridge, 1996. P. 72, 81-82, 96; Vol 5: MS C / Ed. K. O'Brien O'Keeffe. Cambridge, 2001. P. 86, 118; Vol 7: MS E / ed. by Susan Irvine. Cambridge, 2004. P. 67, 70, 72, 76, 82. 3 A loan word from Old Scandinavic that replaced the older term ealdorman. 4 Mack K. Thegns: Cnut's Conquest and the English Aristocracy // Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies. 1984. Vol. 16. №. 4. P. 386. 6 to have eroded the structure of the thegnly class and broken the barriers for more people of any social standing above average to benefit and join its ranks. Such process must have been quite chaotic, which could inspire archbishop Wulfstan to draw up a form of new framework1 that would regulate the admission of ex-ceorls and other commoners to the privileges. It further seems that in the early 11th century, the word thegn split its definition: on its broader scope, it was used to designate any member of the elite, possessing a bocland, but in the narrow sense it retained its previous meaning, fixed at the end of the 10th century: ‘a man of noble birth’ (a gesith in older terms), which finds a good support in the terminology used to describe the An- glo-Saxons by the author of the late 10th century2 Welsh-English treaty Dunsæteland giltige – ðegnboren and ceorlboren, i.e. ‘thegn-born’ and ‘ceorl-born’ (cf. Alfred, 4,2 et al.). To prove or refute this bold hypothesis, we must turn to another available source – charters. Most historians agree that charters (or diplomas) were introduced in England in the late 7th century under archbishop Theodore of Tars. Originally, a charter stood for a fixation of a grant of land from a king to a monastery (bocland), usually composed in Latin, but, later on, this praxis also embraced grants to laity, and among them – thegns. As a source, Anglo-Saxon charters, though abundant number (c. 1875), are also open to criticism. As Dr Keynes elegantly put it, ‘for the diploma to have had any chance of survival in the long term, it first had to find its way into the archives of a religious community, and this normally meant that the estate to which it referred had to come into the community's possession’.3 But even after being acquired by an abbey or minster, ‘it is only through a succession of fortunate chances that the text of any Old English charter has survived’:4 the brethren had to be interested in copying and preserving the charter up until 1536, when after the Dissolution of the Monasteries these documents were transferred to the new lay owners. One can never tell how many of the ancient diplomas perished in this process and later during the Civil War of the 17th century. Therefore, we are offered to believe that the available selection of the Anglo-Saxon documentation is likely to be unrepresentative. Overall, royal diplomas of 900-1066, containing topical evidence, consist of two uneven groups: grants of land in favour of thegns and writs. Before putting forward the results of their analysis, some a technical note must be made. For this research, I used only charters, approved by P.H. Sawyers in his famous list as having minimum traces of authenticity.5 Nevertheless, I further broke down all relevant charters into three categories: A. documents, unanimously recognised as authentic (188 grants and 44 writs);6

1 This framework may appear inconsistent to an eye of a historian, but it might not have been viewed as such by Wulfstan’s contemporaries. It must be borne in mind, that prior to the Modern Age, a desire for total and harmoni- ous systematization wasn’t necessarily of inherent nature for the human societies. 2 Molyneaux G. The Ordinance concerning the Dunsaete and the Anglo-Welsh Frontier in the Late Tenth and Elev- enth Centuries // Anglo-Saxon England. 2011. Vol. 40. P. 249-72. 3 Keynes S. The diplomas of King Aethelred 'The Unready' 978-1016: A study in their use as historical evidence. Cambridge, 2005. P. 1. 4 Stenton F.M. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, 1971. P. 53. 5 Sawyer P.H. Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography. London, 1968 (hereinafter – ‘S000’, where ‘000’ stands for the document’s number). While working on this project, I have been extensively using the so-called ‘Electronic Sawyer’ (http://www.esawyer.org.uk), a digitized database, created at the Centre for Compu- ting in the Humanities at King's College London and first appeared in 2007 as a beta version. It is so far the fullest and most fundamental annotated catalogue of the extant body of Anglo-Saxon charters and an essential tool for any student of the Anglo-Saxon diplomatics. 6 Figures 3 and 6. 7

B. group A, plus those of doubted genuineness in the eyes of some researches (218 grants and 70 writs);1 C. groups A and B, plus diplomas, identified by all historians or at least the leading specialists (Stenton, Whitelock and Keynes) as spurious or contemporary forger- ies (227 and 97 writs).2 When operating with or quoting these sources, references are primarily made to category A, unless otherwise specified. The most important fact to mention straight away is the general similarity in terms of proportions of different breakdowns for the royal grants of all three groups. At this point charters seem to favour the expressed above hypothesis so far and, ut ita dicam, contribute to the drawn framework with some ‘flesh’. We have a comparatively very little number of non-ecclesiastical charters prior to 900 (and those extant raise disputes about their genuineness) and only two for the reign of Edward the Elder, but under his successors their amount increases largely and steadily over the course of the 10th century: 15 for Æthelstan, 23 for Edmund, 25 for Eadred, 35 for Edwig, 40 for Edgar, but, defying the tendency, only 32 for Æthelred. This fact can hardly be explained by the peculiarities of the selection, and thus it does support the idea of the feudalization of the thegnly class. A very interesting collection of 18 leases of land for a few lives (1-4) by Oswald, bishop of Worcester (961-972), address people, otherwise known as thegns3 (on one occasion the bishop even employs the very word þegn).4 The case for Oswald’s retainers is highly speculative: at first glance, nothing beyond the term used suggests their coherence with the beneficiaries of the royal diplomas. The former were given only a lease of a small size (1-4 hides), whereas the latter received boclands of averagely 10 hides, with the privilege of ‘free and perpetual holding and be- queathing to any person of their liking’. In order to clarify this mystery, we should read Os- wald’s contemporary letter to King Edgar,5 in which he cared to put forward the duties he ex- pected of his tenants.6 These do not correspond with any otherwise known actual duties of thegns, on the contrary, they resemble those of geneatas, listed in Rectitudines. The nature, as well as the origin of geneatas remains disputable, but one thing is clear: in the 10-11th centuries this was a presumably prominent group of manorial peasants. What really unites the ministri of Oswald and those of the Crown, is land tenure, which leads one to think, that by 960s it had become a hallmark of the thegnly status. When looking at the extant royal charters of the later period, one sees three major trends: 1) from the 960s onward, the amount of issued charters decreases slowly and then sud- denly drops abruptly to an unprecedented minimum of 6 and 8 charters of Cnut and Edward the Confessor, respectively;7 at the same time, a writ becomes widely used in the last decades before 1066; 2) with an average hidage of 8,5 per grant for the whole period (and 10,8 for 900-959 specifically), the amount of granted hides seem to correlate with the amount of issued

1 Figures 2 and 5. 2 Figures 1 and 3. Due the limitations of this work, comprehensive charts with abstracts comprising lots of mathe- matical data for each group were not attached, but are available at request. 3 In most cases, Latin equivalent for vernacular þegn was minister (though in rare occasions replaced by miles, vas- salus, optimas, proceres or pedisequus). 4 C.S. 1183. 5 C.S. 1136. 6 Truth be told, Oswald never employed any specific term for these tenants (presumably, ministri), but there’s little doubt he described two different groups. 7 See Fig. 1.4, 2.4 and 3.4. 8

charters up to c. 969, and then it steadily declines (as does the average hidage), so that Cnut and Edward often grant only 0,5-1,5 hides;1 3) toward the end of 10th century any records of thegns’ services, be they even very formal and of bureaucratic nature, disappear, and in some instances for Æthelred’s diplomas an explanation of former owners’ crimes that led to forfeiture of land comes in their stead.2 In the light of the analysis of the legal sources, these facts can receive a non-controversial explanation that accords well with the hypothesis, offered above. It seems plausible that, by the late 960s, generous distribution of land property was either no longer in demand, or not available for the benefactor. The former could be accounted for the evolution of the lay bocland into a hereditary possession, which required only a formal sanction of a king. The latter, on the other hand, appears to be more probable – the Crown could have run out of land masses, free of tenure. The two possibilities, however, do not compete, quite the contrary, they could well supplement each other. As for the change in diplomas’ wording, S. Keynes explained it with the mutations in the formulae, generally devised under King Æthelstan and altered and developed under historic circumstances,3 yet he agrees that Æthelred must have evidently experiences a necessity to justify his expropriations. Could it be that, again, that the King was defying the established understanding of a bocland’s nature as inalienable? Finally, historians have long been aware of the wane in production of solemn charters and their replacement with writs. Stenton tended to explain this process by their gradual obsoles- cence, whereas the form of a writ gave a monarch a more immediate and adequate tool for ex- pressing his royal will. While this can indeed be and, apparently, is true for the ecclesiastical grants, it does leave out the lack of any substantial portion of lay grants in the reigns of Cnut and Edward. To solve this anomaly, we should again review the fact that all extant charters were preserved in ecclesiastical archives. There’s little doubt that lands they referred to were donated to the Church only after some period of time, probably amounting to the lives of a few genera- tions.4 This assumption suggests the idea that records of the late grants in favour of thegns had a very scarce chance to survive, for they still remained in hands of their lay owners by the Norman Conquest: the new masters seem to have lacked any interest in the history of their newly acquired estates up until the great survey of the Doomsday Book, executed in the closing years of King William I two decades later. Nevertheless, even this doesn’t fully explain the striking con- trast between the number of charters in c. 1000-1016, when the amount of yearly issued diplomas remained more or less the same as before, and its dramatic decrease in 1017-1066. This ob- servation allows one to believe that though our selection of the documents from the 11th century is far from full, it does, however, reflect the reduction of land distributions among thegns in the 11th century. Last but not least, it appears, a comprehensive and full statistical survey of the grants’ ge- ography hasn’t been called to life so far. After the relevant data had been gathered and pro- cessed, a series of very intriguing breakdowns emerged, and, for now, it leaves more questions than answers. First and foremost, the overwhelming majority of all grants, as well as the amount

1 Ibid. 2 Keynes S. Op. cit. P. 97. 3 Ibid. P. 85, 97. 4 Op. cit. P. 40. 9 of hides in tenure,1 from 900-1066 (66%) were concentrated in the shires of historical Wessex, with 47% falling on Berkshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire; 20% were donated in dependencies of Wessex, and only 14% – in Danelaw.2 Bearing in mind the conservation of strong local features and the revealed fact of heterogeneity thegns as class, this provides a seemingly weighty support for the view that royal thengs weren’t any numerous in their numbers outside the Crown’s do- main. Yet, if we look at the breakdown of diplomas by archives they were preserved in,3 a flar- ing correlation will become obvious: again, the majority of all charters (65%) are derived from the religious houses of Wessex (though the distribution is more even).4 Being mindful of the circumstances of the preservation and the map of monasteries and minsters,5 active shortly before the Norman Conquest, once could advocate for the existence of royal thegns east of central Mer- cia, ill-documented due the lack of major abbeys in Danelaw. Late emergence or refoundation in the course of the so-called ‘monastic revival’ in the third quarter of the 10th century of most of those few is also a valid argument for this idea. But a further contrary piece of evidence against it can be put forward: there are at least 14 cases, when a diploma was preserved in a remote ar- chive6. Ergo, an allowance for the opportunity of granting a bocaland to a religious house outside its immediate neighbourhood must be made. The final argument slightly tilts the balance in favour of royal thegns in Danelaw: in his numerous writs, King Edward 14 times greets ‘his thegns’ in Suffolk, 8 times – in Norfolk, twice in Yorkshire and once – in Cambridgeshire.7 Of course, these records cannot bear the same evi- dential weight as grants, for they do not provide us with the numbers of the thegns addressed, yet they must be given some credence, too. With a certain degree of precaution, one can assume that some of the kings’ thegns did possess lands in most of Danelaw after all, albeit their numbers might have been modest. An ele- gant explanation of this fact can be as follows: there’s little doubt that the praxis of land tenure in Anglo-Saxon England was introduced and developed by the Church (the earliest extant lay boclands weren’t ever granted any time before the 850s), and due to the first Viking invasion in the 9th century, Christianity underwent a serious decline in the sphere of the Scandinavian activi- ty.8 When these two facts are put together, a logical chain of causes and effects emerge: under- mined positions of the Church led to a much smaller quantity of religious houses in Danelaw, which in turn hindered the widespread of the bocland system and preserved a larger amount of free ceorls, which subsequently put the brakes on the land distribution by West Saxon Kings among their thegns in this area, and those boclands to have been granted had little chance for their charters to survive due the proportion of monasteries in the region. Thus, this vice circle locks itself, and both patterns do not contradict each other, but get firmly intertwined. In light on this explanation, it can be further argued, that prominent ceorls, admitted to the thegnly class as

1 See Fig. 1.1, 2.1 and 3.1. 2 See Fig. 1.2, 2.2, 3.2 and 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5. 3 See Fig. 1.3, 2.3 and 3.3. 4 It is revealing that all three distinguished groups of royal grants, A, B and C demonstrate the same proportion for both breakdowns. 5 See Fig. 7.1. 6 S512, S527, S533, S552, S592, S643, S653, S675, S687, S771, S723, S802, S931, S1005. Significantly, 12 of them refer to grants outside Wessex: Isle of Wight, Huntingdonshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire and Sussex (see Fig. 7.2). 77 S1067-S1085 (with the omission of S1070), S1100, S1108, S1159. See Fig. 6.3. 8 Stenton F. Anglo-Saxon England. PP. 437-438, 445-456. 10 described in Norðleoda lagu and Geþyncðo, under these circumstances came also from Danelaw, but, at present, there’s not enough evidence to award this bold claim a 100% credence. To conclude, it has been outlined above, the evolution and development of the thegnly stratum in England bore a dynamic and complex character. The major mutation was set in mo- tion by generous grants of land to kings’ retinue, which commenced a series of changes that culminated in the transformation of this apparently tight group into a class of rich landowners and agents of the Crown is shires, who soon became viewed as hereditary aristocracy in their full right, and thus the word thegn was henceforth applied to any member of the lay elite only by the end of the 10th century. Later on, following the crisis of the Danish conquest in the 1000s, this class suffered severe losses and experienced strong erosion, allowing the most prominent and outstanding commoners to join its ranks and secure thegnly rights for themselves, too. During the first half of the 11th century the class of thegns included other subdivisions of Anglo-Saxon society and broke down into various strata, whose relationship between each other cannot be established precisely, and thus the term thegn received a broader range of meanings. However, a debatable question remains open, viz.: were royal thegns awarded any substantial quantity of land in Danelaw, or do all references to the thegns east of the Wessex-Viking border, such as those of the Anglo-Saxon Chronical Geþyncðo, and describe local elite? And if the former, why are records of such grants so few in number? To further address these issues and draw a line, a thorough examination of the evidence, available in the Doomsday Book, must be undertaken, which is going to be the next major stage in my PhD research.

Appendix

Fig. 1. Royal authentic, disputable and spurious grants in favour of thegns (900-1066)

Fig. 1.1. Breakdown of hides by shires

Amount of hides

Berkshire 27% 567

Wiltshire 20% 419,5

Hampshire 13% 265,5

Oxfordshire 5% 114

Somerset 5% 98

Dorset 3% 68

Gloucestershire 3% 62,5

Kent 3% 56

Derbyshire 3% 55

Surrey 2% 49

Devonshire 2% 44,75

Huntingdonshire 2% 44

Warwickshire 2% 41

Essex 2% 32

Northamptonshire 1% 24,5

Cornwall 1% 22,5

Staffordshire 1% 21

Worcestershire 1% 20

Bedfordshire 1% 20

Hertfordshire 1% 20

Herefordshire 1% 15

Middlesex 1% 14

Shropshire 0% 9

Sussex 0% 7

Isle of Wight 0% 5

Rutland 0% 3

Cambridgeshire 0% 2,5

Fig. 1.2. Breakdown of charters by shires

Amount of charters

Berkshire 21% 46

Wiltshire 15% 34

Hampshire 12% 26

Somerset 6% 13

Dorset 5% 12

Oxfordshire 5% 11

Devonshire 5% 11

Derbyshire 4% 9

Kent 3% 7

Huntingdonshire 3% 6

Staffordshire 3% 6

Worcestershire 2% 4

Warwickshire 2% 4

Northamptonshire 2% 4

Gloucestershire 2% 4

Cornwall 2% 4

Surrey 1% 3

Sussex 1% 3

Essex 1% 3

Middlesex 1% 2

Shropshire 1% 2

Herefordshire 1% 2

Bedfordshire 1% 2

Hertfordshire 1% 2

Rutland 0% 1

Cambridgeshire 0% 1

Isle of Wight 0% 1

Fig. 1.3. Breakdown of charters by archives

Amount of charters

Winchester, Old Minster 25% 57

Abingdon 23% 51

Burton 8% 19

Wilton 7% 15

Glastonbury 6% 13

Shaftesbury 3% 7

Canterbury, Christ Church 3% 6

Peterborough 2% 5

Thorney 2% 5

Worcester 2% 4

Exeter 1% 3

Exeter (ex Crediton) 1% 3

Westminster 1% 3

Evesham 1% 3

Wells 1% 3

Bath 1% 3

Abbotsbury 1% 2

Barking 1% 2

Sherborne (ex Horton) 1% 2

Coventry 1% 2

Canterbury, St Augustine's 1% 2

Winchester, New Minster 1% 2

St Albans 1% 2

Christchurch (Twynham) 0% 1

Sherborne 0% 1

Selsey 0% 1

Rochester 0% 1

Malmesbury 0% 1

Ely 0% 1

Buckfast 0% 1

Exeter/Christ Church, Canterbury (? ex Crediton) 0% 1

Athelney 0% 1 Canterbury, Christ Church (ex a West Country archive) 0% 1

Fig. 1.4. Dynamics of of authentic, disputable and spurious royal grants in favour of thegns (900-1066)

30 400

350 25

300

G 20 H r 250 i a d n 15 200 e t s s

150 10

100

5 50

0 0

888 901 903 921 926 931 934 936 938 940 940 943 946 946 948 951 953 956 958 959 958 960 962 964 967 969 973 974 976 982 984 986 988 995

1001 1005 1009 1012 1015 1023 1031 1042 1044 1046 1053 Date

Amount of grants Amount of hides

Fig. 1.5. Map 1: breakdown of authentic, disputable and spurious charters by shires and archives

Fig. 2. Royal authentic and disputable grants in favour of thegns (900-1066)

Fig. 2.1. Breakdown of hides by shires

Amount of hides

Berkshire 25,1% 503

Wiltshire 20,9% 419,5

Hampshire 13,2% 265,5

Oxfordshire 5,2% 104

Somerset 4,9% 98

Dorset 3,4% 68

Gloucestershire 3,1% 62,5

Kent 2,8% 56

Derbyshire 2,5% 50

Surrey 2,4% 49

Devonshire 2,2% 44,75

Huntingdonshire 2,2% 44

Warwickshire 2,0% 41

Essex 1,6% 32

Northamptonshire 1,2% 24,5

Cornwall 1,1% 22,5

Bedfordshire 1,0% 20

Hertfordshire 1,0% 20

Worcestershire 0,7% 15

Herefordshire 0,7% 15

Middlesex 0,7% 14

Staffordshire 0,5% 11

Shropshire 0,4% 9

Sussex 0,3% 7

Isle of Wight 0,2% 5

Rutland 0,1% 3

Cambridgeshire 0,1% 2,5

Fig. 2.2. Breakdown of charters by shires

Amount of charters

Berkshire 20% 42

Wiltshire 16% 34

Hampshire 12% 26

Somerset 6% 13

Dorset 6% 12

Devonshire 5% 11

Oxfordshire 5% 10

Derbyshire 4% 8

Kent 3% 7

Huntingdonshire 3% 6

Staffordshire 2% 5

Warwickshire 2% 4

Northamptonshire 2% 4

Gloucestershire 2% 4

Cornwall 2% 4

Worcestershire 1% 3

Surrey 1% 3

Sussex 1% 3

Essex 1% 3

Herefordshire 1% 2

Shropshire 1% 2

Middlesex 1% 2

Bedfordshire 1% 2

Hertfordshire 1% 2

Rutland 0% 1

Cambridgeshire 0% 1

Isle of Wight 0% 1

Fig. 2.3. Breakdown of charters by archives

Amount of charters

Winchester, Old Minster 25% 54 Abingdon 23% 49 Burton 7% 16 Wilton 7% 15 Glastonbury 6% 13 Shaftesbury 3% 7 Canterbury, Christ Church 3% 6 Peterborough 2% 5 Thorney 2% 5 Worcester 2% 4 Exeter 1% 3 Exeter (ex Crediton) 1% 3 Westminster 1% 3 Wells 1% 3

Bath 1% 3 Evesham 1% 2 Abbotsbury 1% 2 Barking 1% 2 Sherborne (ex Horton) 1% 2 Coventry 1% 2 Canterbury, St Augustine's 1% 2 Winchester, New Minster 1% 2 St Albans 1% 2 Christchurch (Twynham) 0% 1 Sherborne 0% 1 Selsey 0% 1 Rochester 0% 1 Malmesbury 0% 1 Ely 0% 1 Buckfast 0% 1 Exeter/Christ Church, Canterbury (? ex Crediton) 0% 1 Athelney 0% 1 Canterbury, Christ Church (ex a West Country archive) 0% 1

Fig. 2.4. Dynamics of of authentic and disputable royal grants in favour of thegns (900-1066) 30 400

350 25

300

20 G 250 H r i a 15 200 d n e t s s 150 10

100

5 50

0 0

888 901 903 921 926 931 934 936 938 940 941 944 946 948 951 953 956 958 958 959 961 963 966 968 972 974 975 977 983 985 987 990 996

1002 1007 1011 1013 1019 1024 1033 1043 1045 1049 Date

Amount of grants Amount of charters

Fig. 2.5. Map 2: breakdown of authentic and disputable charters by shires and archives

Fig. 3. Royal authentic grants in favour of thegns (900-1066)

Fig. 3.1. Breakdown of hides by shires

Amount of hides

Berkshire 26% 475

Wiltshire 20% 360,5

Hampshire 13% 240,5

Oxfordshire 6% 104

Somerset 5% 86

Dorset 4% 66

Gloucestershire 3% 62,5

Kent 3% 52

Surrey 3% 49

Huntingdonshire 2% 44

Warwickshire 2% 41

Devonshire 2% 40,75

Derbyshire 2% 38

Essex 2% 32

Cornwall 1% 22,5

Bedfordshire 1% 20

Northamptonshire 1% 16,5

Herefordshire 1% 15

Hertfordshire 1% 15

Middlesex 1% 14

Staffordshire 1% 11

Shropshire 0% 9

Sussex 0% 7

Isle of Wight 0% 5

Worcestershire 0% 3

Rutland 0% 3

Cambridgeshire 0% 2,5

Fig. 3.2. Breakdown of charters by shires

Amount of charters

Berkshire 20% 38

Wiltshire 15% 29

Hampshire 12% 23

Somerset 6% 12

Oxfordshire 5% 10

Dorset 5% 10

Devonshire 5% 9

Derbyshire 3% 6

Huntingdonshire 3% 6

Kent 3% 5

Staffordshire 2% 4

Warwickshire 2% 4

Gloucestershire 2% 4

Cornwall 2% 4

Northamptonshire 2% 3

Surrey 2% 3

Sussex 2% 3

Essex 2% 3

Herefordshire 1% 2

Shropshire 1% 2

Middlesex 1% 2

Bedfordshire 1% 2

Worcestershire 1% 1

Hertfordshire 1% 1

Rutland 1% 1

Cambridgeshire 1% 1

Isle of Wight 1% 1

Fig. 3.3. Breakdown of charters by archives Amount of charters

Winchester, Old Minster 26% 48 Abingdon 24% 45 Glastonbury 7% 13 Burton 6% 11 Wilton 6% 11 Shaftesbury 3% 6 Canterbury, Christ Church 3% 6 Peterborough 3% 5 Thorney 3% 5 Exeter (ex Crediton) 2% 3 Westminster 2% 3 Wells 2% 3 Bath 2% 3 Worcester 1% 2 Exeter 1% 2 Evesham 1% 2 Abbotsbury 1% 2 Barking 1% 2 Sherborne (ex Horton) 1% 2 Coventry 1% 2 Winchester, New Minster 1% 2 St Albans 1% 1 Sherborne 1% 1 Selsey 1% 1 Rochester 1% 1

Malmesbury 1% 1 Ely 1% 1 Exeter/Christ Church, Canterbury (? ex Crediton) 1% 1

Athelney 1% 1 Canterbury, Christ Church (ex a West Country… 1% 1

Fig. 3.4. Dynamics of authentic royal grants in favour of thegns (900-1066) 25 350

300 20

250

G 15 H r 200 i a d n e t 150 10 s s

100

5 50

0 0

Date

Amount of grants Amount of hides

Fig. 3.5. Map 3: breakdown of authentic charters by shires and arhives

Fig. 4. Records of thegns in authentic, disputable and spurious royal writs 1017-1066

Fig. 4.1. Breakdown of writs by shires

Amount of records

Suffolk 17% 17

Middlesex 11% 11

Kent 10% 10

Norfolk 9% 9

Worcestershire 7% 7

Somerset 6% 6

Gloucestershire 6% 6

Surrey 5% 5

Oxfordshire 5% 5

Hertfordshire 4% 4

Hampshire 4% 4

Warwickshire 3% 3

Essex 3% 3

Staffordshire 2% 2

Yorkshire 2% 2

Dorset 2% 2

Berkshire 2% 2

Huntingdonshire 2% 2

Shropshire 1% 1

Devonshire 1% 1

Cambridgeshire 1% 1

Fig. 4.2. Breakdown of by archives

Amount of records

Westminster 34% 35

Bury St Edmunds 21% 22

Wells 6% 6

Canterbury, St Augustine's 6% 6

Worcester 5% 5

Ramsey 5% 5

Chertsey 3% 3

Cantebury, Christ Church 3% 3

York 2% 2

Abbotsbury 2% 2

Abingdon 2% 2

Coventry 2% 2

Winchester, Old Minster 2% 2

London, St Pauls 2% 2

Wolverhampton 1% 1

Hereford 1% 1

Beverley 1% 1

Ely 1% 1

Cirencester 1% 1

Paris, St Denis 1% 1

Fig. 4.3. Map 4: breakdown of authentic, disputable and spurious writs by shires and archives

Fig. 5. Records of thegns in authentic and disputable royal writs 1017-1066

Fig. 5.1. Breakdown of writs by shires

Amount of records

Suffolk 17,7% 14

Middlesex 11,4% 9

Kent 11,4% 9

Norfolk 10,1% 8

Worcestershire 7,6% 6

Somerset 6,3% 5

Gloucestershire 6,3% 5

Oxfordshire 5,1% 4

Hampshire 5,1% 4

Warwickshire 2,5% 2

Essex 2,5% 2

Yorkshire 2,5% 2

Dorset 2,5% 2

Huntingdonshire 2,5% 2

Shropshire 1,3% 1

Devonshire 1,3% 1

Cambridgeshire 1,3% 1

Hertfordshire 1,3% 1

Staffordshire 1,3% 1

Fig. 5.2. Breakdown of writs by archives

Amount of records

Westminster 28% 22

Bury St Edmunds 27% 21

Canterbury, St Augustine's 8% 6

Worcester 6% 5

Wells 6% 5

Cantebury, Christ Church 4% 3

Ramsey 4% 3

York 3% 2

Abbotsbury 3% 2

Winchester, Old Minster 3% 2

London, St Pauls 3% 2

Hereford 1% 1

Beverley 1% 1

Ely 1% 1

Cirencester 1% 1

Paris, St Denis 1% 1

Coventry 1% 1

Fig. 5.3. Map 5: breakdown of authentic and disputable writs by shires and archives

Fig. 6. Records of thegns in authentic royal writs

Fig. 6.1. Breakdown of writs by shires

Amount of records

Suffolk 27% 14

Norfolk 16% 8

Kent 12% 6

Somerset 10% 5

Worcestershire 8% 4

Gloucestershire 6% 3

Warwickshire 4% 2

Yorkshire 4% 2

Oxfordshire 2% 1

Hampshire 2% 1

Dorset 2% 1

Shropshire 2% 1

Devonshire 2% 1

Cambridgeshire 2% 1

Middlesex 2% 1

Fig. 6.2. Breakdown of writs by archives

Amount of records

Bury St Edmunds 41% 21

Worcester 10% 5

Wells 10% 5

Canterbury, St 10% 5 Augustine's

Westminster 6% 3

York 4% 2

Hereford 2% 1

Beverley 2% 1

Ely 2% 1

Cirencester 2% 1

Paris, St Denis 2% 1

Coventry 2% 1

Abbotsbury 2% 1

Winchester, Old 2% 1 Minster

Cantebury, Christ 2% 1 Church

Ramsey 2% 1

Fig. 6.3. Map 6: breakdown of authentic royal writs by shires and archives

Fig. 7. Maps of England in the 10-11th centuries

Fig. 7.1. English monasteries and minsters c. 1035 (Stenton F. Anglo-Saxon England. Ox- ford, 1971. P. 454.

Fig. 7.2. English traditional shires

Fig. 8. Imagery of thegns

Fig. 8.1. A thegn defends a king, 10th century (BL MS Cotton Claudius B IV 3)

Fig. 8.2. A reconstruction of a thegn’s estate (based on Rectitudines and Geþyncðo, Lavelle R. Fortifications in Wessex c. 800-1066 // Osprey Publishing. Oxford, 1993. P. 23)

Fig. 8.3. King Æthelstan’s charter, 931 (S416)

th Fig. 9. West Saxon and Danish monarchs (9-11 centuries)