Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Athelred the Unready The Ill-Counselled King by Ann Williams Ann Williams (historian) A fellow is a member of a group of learned people which works together in pursuing mutual knowledge or practice. There are many different kinds of fellowships which are awarded for different reasons in academia and industry. These often indicate an different level of scholarship. The Society of Antiquaries of London ( SAL ) is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, and is a registered charity. The University of East Anglia ( UEA ) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320 acres campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2016–17 was £273.7 million of which £35.6 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £262.6 million. A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain: England, Scotland, and Wales, c.500–c.1050 , Routledge (1991), with Alfred P. Smyth and D. P. Kirby. Williams wrote the English entries. The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995) Land, Power and Politics: the family estates and patronage of Odda of Deerhurst (Deerhurst, 1997) Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500 – 1066 (London, 1999) Æthelred the Unready: the ill-counselled king (London, 2003) The World Before Domesday: the English aristocracy, 900 – 1066 (London, 2008) Related Research Articles. Ælfheah was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey. His reputation for piety and sanctity led to his promotion to the episcopate, and eventually, to his becoming archbishop. Ælfheah furthered the cult of Dunstan and also encouraged learning. He was captured by Viking raiders in 1011 during the Siege of Canterbury and later killed by them the following year after refusing to allow himself to be ransomed. Ælfheah was canonised as a saint in 1078. Thomas Becket, a later Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to him just before his own murder in Canterbury Cathedral. The Norman Conquest of England was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French soldiers led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conqueror. Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Ealdorman was a term in Anglo-Saxon England which originally applied to a man of high status, including some of royal birth, whose authority was independent of the king. It evolved in meaning and in the eighth century was sometimes applied to the former kings of territories which had submitted to great powers such as Mercia. In Wessex in the second half of the ninth century it meant the leaders of individual shires appointed by the king. By the tenth century ealdormen had become the local representatives of the West Saxon king of England. Ealdormen would lead in battle, preside over courts and levy taxation. Ealdormanries were the most prestigious royal appointments, the possession of noble families and semi- independent rulers. The territories became large, often covering former kingdoms such as Mercia or East Anglia. Southern ealdormen often attended court, reflecting increasing centralisation of the kingdom, but the loyalty of northern ealdormen was more uncertain. In the eleventh century the term eorl replaced that of ealdorman, but this reflected a change in terminology under Danish influence rather than a change in function. Beorhtwulf was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 839 or 840 to 852. His ancestry is unknown, though he may have been connected to Beornwulf, who ruled Mercia in the 820s. Almost no coins were issued by Beorhtwulf's predecessor, Wiglaf, but a Mercian coinage was restarted by Beorhtwulf early in his reign, initially with strong similarities to the coins of Æthelwulf of Wessex, and later with independent designs. The Vikings attacked within a year or two of Beorhtwulf's accession: the province of Lindsey was raided in 841, and London, a key centre of Mercian commerce, was attacked the following year. Another Viking assault on London in 851 "put Beorhtwulf to flight", according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ; the Vikings were subsequently defeated by Æthelwulf. This raid may have had a significant economic impact on Mercia, as London coinage is much reduced after 851. Edith of Wessex was a Queen of England. Her husband was Edward the Confessor, whom she married on 23 January 1045. Unlike most English queens in the 10th and 11th centuries, she was crowned. The principal source on her life is a work she herself commissioned, the Vita Ædwardi Regis or the Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster , which is inevitably biased. Nothhelm was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury. A correspondent of both Bede and Boniface, it was Nothhelm who gathered materials from Canterbury for Bede's historical works. After his appointment to the archbishopric in 735, he attended to ecclesiastical matters, including holding church councils. Although later antiquaries felt that Nothhelm was the author of a number of works, later research has shown them to be authored by others. After his death he was considered a saint. Tatwine was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint. Cuthbert was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Prior to his elevation to Canterbury, he was abbot of a monastic house, and perhaps may have been Bishop of Hereford also, but evidence for his holding Hereford mainly dates from after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. While Archbishop, he held church councils and built a new church in Canterbury. It was during Cuthbert's archbishopric that the Diocese of York was raised to an archbishopric. Cuthbert died in 760 and was later regarded as a saint. Hygeberht was the Bishop of Lichfield from 779 and Archbishop of Lichfield after the elevation of Lichfield to an archdiocese some time after 787, during the reign of the powerful Mercian king Offa. Little is known of Hygeberht's background, although he was probably a native of Mercia. Æthelwald Moll was King of Northumbria, the historic petty kingdom of Angles in medieval England, from 759 to 765. He seized power after the murder of Oswulf son of Eadberht; his ancestry and connection to the royal family of Northumbria is unknown. Æthelwald faced at least one rebellion, led by Oswine, perhaps a brother of Oswulf. In 765 a Witenagemot of Northumbrian notables deposed Æthelwald and replaced him with Alhred, a kinsman of his predecessor. After his removal from the throne Æthelwald became a monk, perhaps involuntarily. Ælfric of Abingdon was a late 10th-century Archbishop of Canterbury. He previously held the offices of abbot of St Albans Abbey and Bishop of Ramsbury, as well as likely being the abbot of Abingdon Abbey. After his election to Canterbury, he continued to hold the bishopric of Ramsbury along with the archbishopric of Canterbury until his death in 1005. Ælfric may have altered the composition of Canterbury's cathedral chapter by changing the clergy serving in the cathedral from secular clergy to monks. In his will he left a ship to King Æthelred II of England as well as more ships to other legatees. Ralph the Staller was a landowner in both Anglo-Saxon and post-Conquest England. There were a number of Synods of Chelsea held in Anglo-Saxon England. They were held at Cealchythe, in Kent, generally identified with modern Chelsea, London. Robert the Lotharingian was a priest who became Bishop of Hereford following the Norman Conquest of England. Leofwin was a medieval Bishop of Lichfield. William the Norman was a medieval Bishop of London. Odda of Deerhurst was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman active in the period from 1013 onwards. He became a leading magnate in 1051, following the exile of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons and the confiscation of their property and earldoms, when King Edward the Confessor appointed Odda as earl over a portion of the vacated territory. Earl Godwin was later restored to royal favour, and his lands returned, while Odda received a new earldom in the west midlands in compensation. Odda became a monk late in life. He was buried at Pershore Abbey. Henry Royston Loyn , FBA, was a British historian specialising in the history of Anglo-Saxon England. His eminence in his field made him a natural candidate to run the Sylloge of the Coins of the British Isles, which he chaired from 1979 to 1993. He was Professor of Medieval History in the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and afterwards Professor of Medieval History at Westfield College in the University of London. Cyneweard of Laughern or simply Cyneweard was a mid-11th century Anglo-Saxon thegn and sheriff in Worcestershire, England. Probably the son of Æthelric Kiu and grand-nephew of Wulfstan Lupus, Archbishop of York (1003–1023), he was one of the leading nobles of the county at the Norman Conquest of England. On the death of Edward the Confessor he held lands in Gloucestershire and Warwickshire as well as Worcestershire. �lfgifu (?) The first wife of king �thelred II, mother among others of Eadmund Ironside, has no clear historical identity. Even her name is uncertain, and accounts of her parentage are contradictory. There is also a possibility that the elder children of �thelred were by more than one earlier wife [Freeman (1870-9), 1: 688; Stafford (1997), 72, 85; Williams (2003), 25 & n. 35 (p. 170)]. Among medieval authors who give her name are John of Worcester, who calls her �lfgifu [ " �lfgiva " John Worc., 1: 275, see further below], and Ranulph Higden, who calls her �thelgifu [" Ethelgiva " Higden, vi, 13 (vol. 7, p. 42), see further below]. See the more detailed discussion in the Commentary section. Date of birth: Unknown. Place of birth: Unknown. Date of death: Unknown. Place of death: Unknown. Father: Unknown . See the Commentary section. Mother: Unknown . Spouse: �thelred II "the Unready" , d. 23 April 1016, king of England, 978�9-1013, 1014-6. Children: (Perhaps by more than one wife of �thelred II. Most of these children have no mother explicitly attributed to them in the sources. See the Commentary section and the page of �thelred II for further details.) �thelstan , living 1012, d. 1012�6. Ecgbeorht , living 1005, prob. d. bef. 1007. Eadred , living 1012, prob. d. bef. 1014. Eadwig , d. 1017, bur. Tavistock. Eadgar , living 1008, prob. d. soon after. Eadgyth ; m. Eadric Streona , d. 25 December 1017, earl of Mercia. (conjectured to have m. (2) Thurkill , living 1023, earl of East Anglia, viceroy of Denmark) �lfgifu ; m. Uhtred , d. 1016, earl of Northumbria. Wulfhild (possible daughter) ; m. Ulfcytel Snilling , d. 1016, ealdorman of East Anglia. NN ; m. �thelstan , regis gener , d. 5 or 18 May 1010. Commentary. No single source gives �thelred II more than one wife prior to his marriage with Emma of Normandy. Thus, it remains uncertain whether the uncertain sources are giving �thelred two different wives prior to Emma, or just offering different statements regarding the parentage of a single wife. In any case, the sources provide two different fathers-in-law for �thelred (with a third candidate being most likely a textual corruption): Supposed father (uncertain) : Thored ( Torethus , Thoretus ) , fl. 979-992, earl of Deira. Ailred of Rievaulx states that the mother of Eadmund Ironside was a daughter (name not given) of the most noble comes Thored [" Tunc rex [Edelredus] missis in Normanniam nuntiis Emmam filiam Richardi ducis sibi in uxorem dari et petiit, et accepit, cum jam de filia Torethi nobilissimi comitis filium suscepisset Edmundum. " Ailred, Genealogia Regum Anglorum , PL 195: 730; " Cum igitur gloriosus rex Ethelredus ex filia pr�clarissimi comitis Thoreti filium suscepisset Eadmundum, cognomento Ferreum latus, . " Ailred, Vita S. Edwardi Regis , PL 195: 741]. Ailred's Thored can be identified with the dux Thored who appears in charters of �thelred II dated 979 [" �ore� dux " Codex Dipl. Sax. 3: 171 (#621)], 983 [" �ur�� dux " ibid., 3: 198 (#639); " �orod dux " ibid., 6: 113 (#1279); " �ure� dux " ibid., 6: 115 (#1280)], 984 [" �ure� dux " ibid., 6: 118 (#1282)], 985 [" �ured dux " ibid., 6: 121 (#1283)], and 988 [" �ure� dux " ibid., 3: 237 (#663)]. His last known appearance is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 992, where he is listed as one of those to whom the king entrusted the army in that year [" �orode eorl " ASC(E) s.a. 992]. Earl Thored has sometimes been identified with the Thored son of Gunner who ravaged Westmorland in 966 [" Her �ored Gunneres sunu forhergode West moringa land. " ASC(E) s.a. 966], but it has also been suggested by Whitelock [Whitelock (1959), 78-9] that he was the Thorth son of earl Oslac who appears in the Liber Eliensis [" Thor� nomine, Oslaci comitis filius " Liber Eliensis ii, 32 (p. 106)]. [For more on Thored, see Freeman (1870-9), 1: 661; Whitelock (1959), 78-80] Supposed father (uncertain) : �thelbeorht ( �gelbertus ) , comes , fl. 981? [" . in regnum successit frater suus �gelredus. Hic ex �lfgiva, comitis �gelberhti filia, III. filios habuit, Eadmundum, Eadwinum, et �thelstanum, ac Eadgitham filiam; . " John Worc., 1: 275] He may be the dux ��elbriht who witnesses a supposed charter of 981 [Codex Dipl. Sax. 3: 184 (#629), listed as doubtful by Kemble; listed as authentic by Finberg; see Sawyer (1968), 262-3 (#838)]. Supposed father (almost certainly an error) : Ecgbeorht ( Egbertus ) , comes . Ranulph Higden calls �thelred's first wife �thelgifu ( Ethelgiva ), and makes her father a count Ecgbeorht [" Hic quoque ex Ethelgiva filia Egberti comitis genuit Edmundum, cognomento Ferreum latus, Edwynum, Ethelstanum, et filiam Edgivam; . " Higden, vi, 13 (vol. 7, p. 42)]. As these are almost certainly corruptions of the names given by John of Worcester, there is no need to consider this possibility further. Since Eadmund Ironside is given different maternal grandfathers by Ailred of Rievaulx and John of Worcester, assuming that we are dealing with two different wives of �thelred does not reconcile the statements. One of the two authors must be at least partially incorrect. Authors have tended to give precedence to Ailred's claim that �thelred's wife was a daughter of Thored. This is no doubt partly due to the fact that Thored is a clearly identifiable character, especially compared to John of Worcester's totally obscure �thelbeorht. However, there have been suggestions that Ailred and John were referring to two different wives of �thelred. Based on the witness list of a doubtful charter [Codex. Dipl. Sax. 3: 204 (#643)], Freeman stated that the sons listed looked like the children of more than one wife [Freeman (1870-9), 1: 688]. Without fully endorsing two earlier marriages, Stafford states that �thelred had a first marriage in 984�5 and possibly a second ca. 990 [Stafford (1997), 72; see ibid., 91, n. 116]. She divides �thelred's six eldest sons into two groups, with �thelstan and Ecgbeorht in the first group and the other four in the second group, saying that these two groups "lend some credence to the idea that �thelred had married twice before 1002." [ibid., 85] According to Stafford, �thelstan and Ecgbeorht "belonged to a marriage designed to cement Northern alliances in the mid 980's" [ibid., 85]. Williams states that �thelred may have been married first to the daughter of Thored and then to �lfgifu, but also says that "there is no need to multiply royal wives without good reason." [Williams (2003), 25] Given the slenderness of the evidence, it seems best to reserve judgement about whether �thelred had one or two wives prior to 1002. The name(s) of her (or their) father(s) thus remain uncertain. Falsely attributed name: �lffl�d . Lappenberg gives this name for �thelred's first wife based on a reading from Adam of Bremen ["Schol. ad Adam. Brem. ii. 37, has probably under the corrupt reading 'Afficud' ( al. affiluit) concealed the name of �lfl�d" Lappenberg (1834-81), 2: 201 n. 1]. The reference does not appear under that chapter in the MGH edition of Adam, but in Book 2, chapter 51, scholia 39, we have the reading Afelrud with variants Affilrud , Affiluid , Affikud . [" Edgar, potentissimus rex Anglorum, a legitima filium habuit Edwardum, virum sanctissimum. Cuius noverca Afelrud fuit, quae regem privignum occidens, filium suum eundem in regem posuit. " Adam of Bemen, ii, 51, schol. 39, MGH SS 7: 324]. As this refers to �thelred's mother, and not his wife, we can set aside this reference. Falsely attributed identification: �lfgifu , will 966�975 (wrongly dated 1012). The will of a certain �lfgifu has been edited by Kemble [Codex Dipl. Sax. 3: 359 (#721)], by Thorpe [Thorpe (1865), 552-5], and by Whitelock [Whitelock (1930), 20-3 (#8)]. Both Kemble and Thorpe dated the will to 1012, apparently identifying the bishop A�elwold of the will with bishop �thelweald II of Winchester (1006-1012�4). Kemble calls the testator "Queen" without identifying her husband, and Freeman states that the will "reads to me like the will of a King's wife" [Freeman (1870-9), 1: 687]. The only individuals whose relationship is given are the testator's mother (not named), her sister �lfwaru, and her brother's wife �thelfl�d. Based on references to this �lfgifu in the Liber Eliensis , Whitelock dates the will 966�975, and states that "[t]here is no evidence for the assumption that she is a queen." [Whitelock (1930), 118] The bishop mentioned in the will is in fact �thelweald I of Winchester (963-984). Whitelock also suggests that the testator might have been a sister of the chronicler �thelweard [ibid., 118-9]. Falsely attributed identification: �thelfl�d ( �gelfled ) , will 1004�14. The will of �thelfl�d has been edited by Kemble [Codex Dipl. Sax. 4: 304 (#972)], by Thorpe [Thorpe (1865), 542-3], and by Whitelock [Whitelock (1930), 67 (#22)]. Kemble did not date the will, nor did he identify the testator as a queen. Thorpe dated the will in 1000, and identified "�thelfl�d" as the first wife of �thelred II, but this was evidently based on Lappenberg's mistaken identification of �thelred's queen as being named �lffl�d [see above]. Whitelock dates the will to probably 1004�14, and also points out Thorpe's error [Whitelock (1930), 175-6]. Bibliography. ASC = Charles Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles parallel , based on the earlier edition by John Earle, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-9). ASC(A) indicates the "A" manuscript of the chronicle, and similarly for the other manuscripts. Codex Dipl. Sax. = John M. Kemble, ed., Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici , 6 vols. (London, 1839-48). Freeman (1870-9) = Edward A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England (5 vols. + index vol., Oxford, 1870-9). Higden = Churchill Babington (vols. 1-2) and Joseph Rawson Lumby (vols. 3-9), eds., Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis , 9 vols. (Rolls Series 41, London, 1865-86). John Worc. = Benjamin Thorpe, ed., Florentii Wigorniensis monachi chronicon ex chronicis , 2 vols., (London, 1848-9). (The work formerly attributed to Florence of Worcester is now generally attributed to John of Worcester.) Lappenberg (1834-1881) = J. M. Lappenberg, A History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings (translated by Benjamin Thorpe, new edition by E. C. Ott�), 2 vols. (London, 1881, orig. pub. 1834). Liber Eliensis = E. O. Blake, Liber Eliensis (Camden 3rd. ser. 92, London, 1962). MGH SS = Monumenta Germaniae Historica , Scriptores series. PL = P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, series Latina , 221 vols. (Paris, 1844-1859). Sawyer (1968) = P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters. An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968). Stafford (1997) = Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith (Bodmin, Cornwall, 1997). Thorpe (1865) = Benjamin Thorpe, ed., Diplomatarium Anglicum �vi Saxonici (London, 1865). Whitelock (1930) = Dorothy Whitelock, ed. & trans., Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930). Whitelock (1959) = Dorothy Whitelock, "The Dealings of the Kings of England with Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries", in Peter Clemoes, ed., The Anglo-Saxons - Studies in some Aspects of their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins (London, 1959). Williams (2003) = Ann Williams, �thelred the Unready - The Ill-Counselled King (London & New York, 2003). Æthelred the Unready: The Ill-Counselled King by Ann Williams. Æthelred became king of England in 978, following the murder of his brother Edward the Martyr (possibly at the instigation of their mother) at Corfe. On his own death in April 1016, his son Edmund Ironside succeeded him and fought the invading Danes bravely, but died in November of the same year after being defeated at the battle of Assandun, leading to the House of Wessex being replaced by a Danish king, Cnut. Æthelred, in constrast to his predecessor and successor, reigned (except for a few months in 1013-14), largely unchallenged for thirty-eight years, despite presiding over a period which saw many Danish invasions and much internal strife. If not a great king, he was certainly a survivor whose posthumous reputation and nickname (meaning 'Noble Council the No Council') do him little justice. In Æthelred the Unready Ann Williams, a leading scholar on his reign, discounts the later rumours and misinterpretations that have dogged his reputation to construct a record of his reign from contemporary sources. Ethelred II of England. Ethelred II (Old English: ��elred) (c. 968 – April 23, 1016), known as the Unready , was a King of England (978 - 1013 and 1014 - 1016). According to William of Malmesbury, Ethelred defecated in the baptismal font as a child, which led St. Dunstan to prophesy that the English monarchy would be overthrown during Ethelred's reign. This story is, however, almost certainly a fabrication. Ethelred succeeded to the throne aged about 10 following the death of his father King Edgar and subsequent murder of his half-brother Edward the Martyr. His nickname "The Unready" does not mean that he was ill-prepared, but derives from the Anglo-Saxon unr�d meaning without counsel . This is also a pun on his name, ��elr�d, which means "Well advised". Ethelred had at least sixteen children from two marriages, the first to �lfgifu, the daughter of Thored, the ealdorman of Northumbria and the second, in 1002, to Emma of Normandy, whose grandnephew, William I of England, would later use this relationship as the basis of his claim on the throne. England had experienced a long period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the first half of the 10th Century. However in 991 Ethelred was faced with a Viking fleet larger than any since Guthrum's "Summer Army" a century earlier. This fleet was led by Olaf Trygvasson, a Norwegian with ambitions to reclaim his country from under Danish domination. After initial military setbacks including the defeat of his Ealdorman Birhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon, Ethelred was able to come to terms with Olaf, who returned to Norway to gain his kingdom with mixed success. While this arrangement won him some respite England faced further depredations from Viking raids. Ethelred fought these off, but in many cases followed the practice of earlier kings including Alfred the Great in buying them off by payment of what was to become known as Danegeld. Ethelred ordered the massacre of the Danes living in England on St Brice's Day (November 13) 1002, in response to which Sweyn Haraldsson started a series of determined campaigns to conquer England. In this he succeeded, but after his victory, he only lived for another five weeks. In 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy, seeking protection by his brother-in-law, Robert of Normandy, when England was over-run by Sweyn Haraldsson of Denmark and his forces. He returned in February, 1014, following the death of Sweyn Haraldsson. Ethelred died on April 23, 1016, in London, where he was buried. He was succeeded by his son, Edmund II of England. Despite the steady stream of viking attacks, Ethelred's reign was far from the disaster described by chroniclers writing well after the event. Ethelred introduced major reforms of the machinery of government in Anglo-Saxon England, and is responsible for the introduction of Shire Reeves or Sheriffs. The quality of the coinage, always a good indicator of the prevailing economic conditions, remained very high during his reign. Vikings or vikings? In Chapter Two of The Steel Beneath the Silk King Æthelred asks his son Athelstan why he has arrived several days late to an important meeting of the witan. Athelstan responds, “I was in Devon, my lord, responding to news of viking raids there, and to a report that they appeared to be making for the Severn.” One of my readers was puzzled by the fact that I did not capitalize the term ‘viking’ throughout the entire book. He was used to seeing the word printed this way: Viking. And it is true that when one types ‘viking’ in a WORD document, the auto-correct insists that it should be ‘Viking’. In my first two novels the word ‘viking’, whether singular and plural, was capitalized. So why did I go out of my way to do something different this time around? Actually, one of the first questions my editor posed as we were preparing this manuscript for publication was, “Should it be Viking or viking?” No one had ever asked me that before. With the first two novels we had simply acquiesced to WORD’s opinion, but this time around I gave it some thought. Historians are not in agreement on this subject. For example, in Frank Stenton’s definitive work Anglo-Saxon England (1943, 1971, 1989, 1998, 2001); in Timothy Bolton’s Cnut the Great (2007); and in Levi Roach’s Æthelred the Unready (2016) the word ‘viking’ is not capitalized. In Peter Sawyer’s Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (1997, 1999, 2001); in Ann Williams Æthelred the Unready: The Ill-Counselled King (2003); and in Ryan Lavelle’s Æthelred II: King of the English 978-1016 (2002, 2004) it appears as ‘Viking’. We seem to have something of a stalemate. What’s a historical novelist to do? I don’t know when the term ‘the Viking Age’ (always capitalized) was first coined, but surely it was long after these men were actually roaming the seas and plundering Europe. The Oxford English Dictionary has a quote from P.B.DuChaillu in 1889 that reads “We must come to the conclusion that the ‘Viking Age’ lasted from about the second century of our era to about the middle of the twelfth,” thus indicating the first use of that term at the end of the 19 th century. (Today’s scholars would disagree with DuChaillu’s opinion that the Viking Age began as far back as the second century!) And here we have another vote for Viking! At any rate, to resolve the issue I turned to the first mention that I could find of the word viking, which was the Latin text of Archbishop Wulfstan’s ‘Sermon of the Wolf’. Wulfstan delivered his sermon in 1014, and he used the word ‘wĪcinge’. There was no capital letter. Because my novel was in the same period in which Wulfstan lived, and because I wanted to get inside the heads of my characters, I decided that, this time around, I would follow Wulfstan’s lead. In my mind, the vikings—no capital letter—are, as Sawyer defines them, ‘roaming fleets of seaborne heathen’; while the Vikings—capitalized— are a Minnesota football team. If you’ve made it all the way through this explanation without your eyes glazing over, congratulations and thank you! Feel free to weigh in via the Comments.