CHAPTER THREE

THE GOVERNMENT IN THE LOCALITIES OF SOUTHUMBRIAN ENGLAND IN THE REIGN OF CNUT

Government in the Localities Immediately Before the Reign of Cnut

Before we can begin to examine Cnut’s impact on local government in the various regions of England, we must attempt to perceive the form of the administration in Æthelred’s fi nal years, and assess how well it was functioning in 1017. To date only the general outlines of the system of government in the localities of late Anglo-Saxon England are clearly defi ned, but what emerges is a relatively simple structure. In the provinces of southern England the main organs of social-control were the court of the shire, and beneath that, the court of the administrative unit known as the hundred.1 The two main offi cials functioning in and around this judicial network were the ealdorman (or earl) and the shire-reeve, and these offi cials also appear to have performed a range of administrative func- tions.2 The ealdorman held the highest level of secular offi ce beneath the monarch, as a form of provincial governor, and presided with the local bishop over the twice-yearly shire courts. He was aided in his role by a large group of wealthy landholders of the region, the thegns. In the local administration they seem to have functioned almost always in the sway of the ealdorman; in 1013 the administration of western Wessex submitted to Sveinn Tjúguskegg through Ealdorman Æthelmær “and the western thegns” offering allegiance at Bath.3 Presumably their main functions were to extend the infl uence of the ealdorman and monarch throughout the shire and ensure the continuance of local

1 Owing to the differences between the power structures of Northumbria and those found elsewhere in late Anglo-Saxon England, comments about government in that region during Cnut’s reign will be found in chapter fi ve below. 2 A brief note must be appended here on the different titles of ealdorman and earl. In the eleventh century both titles were used, apparently interchangeably, of the same offi ce, marking only the ethnic origin of the holder of the title. Here they appear accordingly throughout, with ealdormen for Englishmen and earl for Scandinavians. 3 ASC 1013 E (Irvine, 70); “ond þa weasternan þægnas”. 44 chapter three authority during the temporary absence of an ealdorman. Socially beneath the ealdorman, though probably not entirely functioning as his direct subordinates, were the shire-reeves.4 These were offi cials who, at least in theory, were directly responsible to the king, and appear to have functioned as a form of check on the activities of the ealdorman or earl. Primarily, they brought cases to the shire- and hundred-courts and dealt with the enforcement of their sentences. The somewhat erratic politics of Æthelred the Unready’s later years did much damage to this system, and there were great losses of high ranking personnel in the confl icts with Thorkell’s, Sveinn’s and then Cnut’s invading forces.5 However, the extant evidence indicates that the administration, on the whole, continued with only localised break- downs; gaps in the administrative line appear to have been fi lled at the earliest opportunity, royal charters continued to bear the attestations of representatives from all the regions of southern England, and the production of a regulated coinage was only marginally affected. Some opportunistic individuals, such as Eadric streona, did use this period of political strife to manipulate the traditional boundaries of the system for their own territorial gains. However, such activity, as we can perceive it in the evidence, appears to have functioned within the system, through the accumulation of pre-existing offi ces and estates by individuals and groups. Cnut would appear to have inherited a functioning system of local government in southern England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports only the broadest details of his initial interaction with this system: after succeeding to the kingdom, he divided it in four, keeping Wessex for himself, and placing East Anglia under the governance of his follower Thorkell, Northumbria under that of another follower Eiríkr, and acknowledging the authority of Eadric Streona in Mercia.6 Comparison of this record with other sources reveals that it obscures a great deal of detail, and describes a division of authority that remained in place only for a few months, and was completely removed by the end of 1021.

4 For some discussion of these offi cials see Keynes, Diplomas, 198, n. 165, and for discussion of their complex jurisdictional interaction with the earls see W. A. Morris, The Medieval English Sheriff to 1300, (Manchester: University of Manchester, 1927), 17–39. 5 See Mack, “Changing Thegns”, for some discussion of this loss of personnel. 6 ASC 1017 C (O’Brien O’Keeffe, 103).