In Our Time - Athelstan

Episode Date: July 1, 2010

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the reign of King Athelstan.Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, came to the throne of Wessex in 925. A few years later he unified the kingdoms of England, and a decade after that defeated the Scots and styled himself King of all Britain. As well as being a brilliant military commander, Athelstan was a legal reformer whose new laws forever changed the way crime was dealt with in England. Unlike his predecessors, he pursued a foreign policy, seeking alliances with powerful rulers abroad. And unusually for an Anglo-Saxon king, we know what he looked like: he's the earliest English monarch whose portrait survives.With:Sarah FootRegius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Christ Church, OxfordJohn HinesProfessor of Archaeology at Cardiff UniversityRichard GamesonProfessor of the History of the Book at Durham UniversityProducer: Thomas Morris.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, in his chronicle of the English king is written in the 12th century. The historian William of Monsbury says of one monarch, the firm opinion among the English remains that no one more just or more learned ever governed the kingdom.

This paragon of royal virtue is King Athelstan, who reigned for 14 years during the first half of the 10th century. Much less well known today than his grandfather, Alfred the Great, Athelstan was the first king to rule a united England. He was also a successful and ruthless military commander, an international diplomat and a legal reformer. He collected books and holy relics and strengthened the institutions of church and state. Athelstan made such an impact during his short reign, that one chronicler described him on his death as a pillory, of the dignity of the Western world.

With me to discuss the life and achievements of King Athelstan are Sarah Foote, Regis Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Christchurch, Oxford. John Hines, Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University, and Richard Gameson, Professor of the History of the Book at Durham University. John Hines, before we discuss Athelstan himself, let's talk a bit about the England he was born into during the late 9th century. What sort of a place was it, who ruled it,

what was going on? Well, according to William of Mavisbury, Mansbury. Athelstan was 30 years old when he came to the throne in 924, which means that he was born late in the reign of his grandfather, King Alfred, extremely important king, I think one could easily argue, one of the most important kings of the whole Anglo-Saxon period. Athelstein would probably just remember the death of that grandfather, and so he would have a knowledge of the ninth century as a period of tremendous change, but it would be a knowledge. that that sort of memory one gets from childhood

and one relies on other people to explain to you what it actually meant. England at the end of the 9th century was vastly different from England at the beginning of the 9th century and that was simply a result of the tremendous impact of the Viking invasions and attacks upon the whole area where at the start of the century there had been three major kingdoms,

Mercia Wessex and Northumbria, by the end of it, only the kingdom of Wessex remained. There had been tremendous disruption in the church within England, and it also appears a serious economic downturn. At the time we see the old towns that used to be in England up to the end of the 8th century simply disappear from the archaeological record by the end of the 9th century. What this really meant for Athelstan is that he, He grew up in a period in which reconstruction was taking place. He simply wouldn't in his life have been looking back on the ruins of a lost civilization, as it were, or of a ruined state.

On the contrary, he was being brought up in the period when his own father, Alfred's successor, King Edward the Elder, was very successfully re-conquering the Dane Law, extending the rule of the West Saxon. The Dane law being the line across what is now England, where the Norwegians stayed to the east of it, the Viking stayed to the east of it. That's right, yes.

And the English under Alfred stayed to the rest of it, by and line. Essentially, if you could take a diagonal line, more or less from London up to the Liverpool, Manchester area, that'll give you a pretty good idea of where that was. and on the northern and the eastern side of that, it was the area of the Dane Law. It was essentially under Scandinavian rule there.

And Edward Reek was reconquered that area very successfully. In doing so, he introduced some very important further developments such as the establishment of towns, military strongholds, many of which did turn into significant market towns in the near future. Briefly, there's been a bit of confusion about Athelstown's mother. Yes. Edward the Elder had three wives in succession and ten children. But what about his mother?

Can you just tell us what the problem was, if there was a problem? We don't really know. We're relying on what William of Malmesbury tells us in the 12th century, and he gives us a really rather romantic story about her. Certainly Edward, yes, he was a sort of serial monogamous rather than a polygamist as an early king's. He might have died along the way. You say that as if there's something. Well, we're...

We're told that they didn't and that they were put aside. They were effectively divorced. Athelstan's mother is named as Edgwin. She's the first wife or consort of Edward. And what appears, because Edward's succession to the kingship in Wessex had to be fought for, had to be, it was disputed and had to be achieved, it looks as if he put that wife aside in order to marry a woman, called Alfled, who was the daughter of one of the leading nobleman in Wessex,

in order to gain the recognition on the throne. Sarah, we were talking about a period where accounts are difficult to come by. Just kicking off that, just starting there, John was talking about William Wormesbury, so we're talking two centuries later, and people are very worried about that, although he may have had sources now lost to us, which may have been contemporaneous with Altholstam. Nevertheless, we're talking about what evidence can we rely on. Can you give us some sort of idea of the landscape of evidence for Alastan? In comparison with the reign of Alfred we've got much less evidence.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the year-by-year account of events in Wessex and Furtherer Field only contains six entries relating to this reign, not all of which even refer to the king. If you want a coherent narrative account of what happened during his reign, then you do indeed have to turn to the 12th century historian William of Malmesbury, who seems to have had an especial interest in Avaldine who was buried at the Abbey of Malmbray. William may have had access to sources which are now lost. He seems to give the impression that he was working on an old text, which he found partway through the writing of his account of Abelstern's life,

and what he found in that text caused him then to revisit it. He says it was written in a very bombastic language. It was quite difficult to understand. It's possible we should identify that text with a now lost manuscript, which used to be in the monastery of Glastonbury, which was called the Wars of King Athelstan. It's possible also that that work was in verse and in prose, as William seems to refer to verse and prose aspects.

As far as sources surviving from Athelstan's reign itself, we've got a lot of material that refers to his administrative and governmental work. He wrote several law codes or several law codes that issued in his reign. There are documents relating to grants of land and privilege. There's a large quantity of coins which tell us about the ways in which he wanted to project his own kingship. he was a substantial collector of manuscripts and some of those manuscripts contain images of the king himself

and also inscriptions recording his donation. So we're building up a picture from sources from within his reign from accounts elsewhere in continental Europe in the same period and then from narratives by post-conquest historians. Can I just take you up on the accounts from continental Europe in the same period? He was written about it in Latin and in Norse, wasn't he?

Yes, he was. There's an account of the deeds of Otto the Great of Saxony by a nun at Gandesheim called Hrotsvita, which refers at some length to Adelstan as a great king among the English when discussing the fact that one of his sisters married Otto the Great. And he's also mentioned at substantial length in Ailes saga where we have an account of a battle, which might be the key battle of Adelstan's reign. Can you give us some idea of how he became king? Atherstan must have spent part of his childhood, we believe, in Mercia, during the early years of the 10th century after his father had remarried and his second wife had sons of her own, didn't want the eldest son around. And it seems that when Edward the elder died in 924,

Atherstan was actually on the northwestern border of his father's kingdom in Cheshire, with his father, that's where his father died. But his next eldest brother, whose name was Alphuayard, was in Winchester, and it seems that the two groups of leading men in Winchester and Mercia both elected themselves a king. So the West Saxons chose Alfoyard and the Mercians chose Atherstan. And we might have seen Alfred's united realm then divided and have two separate kingdoms again, were it not that perhaps conveniently for our narrative Alphweyard died within a month of his father. And by the end of the following year, Atherstan had succeeded in taking direct

control over Wessex as well. Is foul play suspected about that convenient death? There's absolutely no evidence to suggest that there was. William of Momsbury does suggest that Adelstern had a part to play in the death of his next youngest brother, whose name was Edwin, whom he ordered to be exiled and caused to be shipwrecked at sea. But Alfwayad, no, I think he died. So Richard Gameson, we've got him as king there.

What were the principal challenges facing him? His father, Edward D'Elder, who's made these incursions into Dane Law, on the back of what his father, Alfred DeGrate, had held, has left him difficult heritage, indeed. Because the kingdom is extending way beyond Winchester, and the Vikings are keeping, they're not going to go away. They go away a little bit, then they come back again. And it's continuing Vikings, there is a disunited England,

there's certain Scottish persons are coming in on the side of the Scandinavians, whilst you're causing trouble. So what does he face, is King? There are three main types of problems that Athelston faces, and one of them we've already been introduced to, i.e., is he going to be recognised in all of English, Anglo-Saxon England? We've seen that there might have been problems in his recognition at Wessex,

and for the first year or so, this seems to have been an issue. We have a charter issued in 925, and that alludes... A charter being what exactly? A charter, a grant, a confirmation of land or land holding to other people in the kingdom. And this alludes to the fact that his kingdom is troubled, and it refers to him as only as King of Mercia. So that's the first aspect to the problem.

William of Malmesbury later alludes to the fact that there may even have been an attempt to blind, or a plan, a plot, to blind Athelston in Wessex, suggesting a lack of support for him. and it's striking... I mean, literally to Brian, physically the blind. That would be the assumption, and that would obviously strikingly weaken his case for any sort of kingship and disempower him.

And this is alluded to, by William of Malmesbury, suggesting dissatisfaction with his case in Wessex. And finally, if we look at the Bishop of Winchester, we discover that he's absent from Athelston's coronation when it happens, and doesn't attest the earliest charters, again suggesting resistance in Wessex. So that's the first problem.

on his, in his own kingdom, as it were. To sort of recapture his home base? To ensure his security at home. The second problem is the one that you alluded to, that England and Britain as a whole is a series of different kingdoms and nations, and Athelston has to make a strong kingdom within, while there are the Cornish, there are the Welsh, there are the Cumbrians, the Scots,

the Northumbrians based around Bambera, and then, of course, the Viking kingdom based around. York and these are all potentially hostile areas to him. And overarching this, there's the third issue of how do you make an Anglo-Saxon kingdom function in these difficult circumstances? What were the King's powers in those days, Richard, for listeners? What did he do? Did he lead from the front in battle? Did he call all the shots? Were the people who could question his decisions? By the time Athelston comes to the throne, as we've heard, he's 30, so he's quite well experienced in the means of government and power and control. And

with this very difficult situation, we can see him responding over the next two to three years. We can't instantly see what did he do the moment he picked, you know, he came to the throne, but we can see the mechanisms he can use to try to deal with these sort of situations. And although we itemise the problem separately, the ways of dealing with them are interrelated. Strong military leadership, successful defence of your borders, be it diplomatically or by military leadership, will tend to strengthen your case at home. Equally, strong government within your kingdom will empower you to war against your neighbours.

And we see Atherston operating in all these ways. So, for instance, in 926, there is a treaty between him and the King of York, Citric. When Citric dies the very next year, there is some sabre-rattling, and Athelston imposes himself in the north, and there's a treaty that, that establishes peace between him, the Northumbrians and the Scots,

and around the same time, a similar agreement on the borders with Wales. So within a few years, because of one that assumes shows of military strength, he's managed to create some sort of stable political regime. That's the external sort of power. Internally, we know that at a fairly early stage, he issues a law code, a major law code at greatly, some point between 926 and 930. And this shows us the King's Power in Operation.

The various provisions include things that relate specifically to military matters, the type of shield covering, how you will muster your army, ensuring that people attend assemblies, assuring that the burrs, the fortified towns, remain fortified. They were started by his grandfather, Alfred. That's right, and then built up. Little towns, which were, everybody was within a full day, Utah. A day's march. The idea is that everyone within the kingdom will be within a day's

march of a fortified town which can both function as a defensive centre but can also be a trading centre. And Athelston is clear that these are to be maintained on an annual basis. Equally, in order to strengthen the kingdom, the same law code shows us that he is trying to control coinage and so the economy and trying to ensure loyalty, going back to the original question of how does he create this kingdom, that treason is particularly to be outlawed and punished, and finally has a stroke of luck that in 926, as part of an attempt to get one of his sisters in marriage for the Duke of Neustria in northern France, presents are made to him, and these include some that is highly resonant and symbolic of power because he gets the sword of

Constantine and the lance of Charlemagne, which show that he's considered seriously and give him a symbolism of a European ruler. Thank you very much. John Hines, let's turn to the warrior side of him, see how many aspects we can cover in this programme. He's established, as has been pointed out by Richard, he's established his authority by going north of. What sort of forces were involved in the battle?

And I repeat a sort of, rather sort of boy's own question. Did he lead from the front, as his grandfather did, Alfred did? and Alfred at Eddington was about 4,000 people, weren't there? So what numbers are involved and what's going on when he's going to conquer Northumbria? What does he do? Well, certainly a West Saxon army at this time could put troops in the field numbering thousands. So Alfred was facing such a dreadful threat. There were times when he would turn out every single man that he could

from certain very large areas of his kingdom. And so the campaigns that Avalstan would be leading up into the... the north were probably different in structure. Have we any idea of numbers? Sorry to be... We haven't got ideas of number. What we can talk about is the structure insofar as we're told that

on, particularly he led a major campaign up into the north into the year 934. We actually don't know a great deal about what happened back in 926, which was when he first managed to assert his control.

over Northumbria. We're simply told that the king to whom, King Sittrick of Northumbria, the Viking king up there to whom he had married his sister conveniently died after a year. He saw an opportunity there that rather than recognising Olaf Sittrickson as the king there, he moved in, took it over and we're told of a meeting in which

Northern kings, the English king of Northumbria up at Bamberra, the Scots king, and so on came to a meeting. with him and accepted him as their overlord. So that could have been a bloodless coup. He might just have marched north with a show of force behind him. There isn't any evidence that any blood was shed. When we come to the 934...

I come to the 934 in a moment, really. But when he did that first thing in north, was that when he laid waste to York, sir? Laid waste to the city? No, I don't... Well, we're told that he pulled down... I don't want to be on a... fortress that had been

a stronghold that had been constructed by the Danes. In order to ensure that the Danes were permanently removed from power. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence of fighting. It's more the assertion of the West Saxon will saying this is and more of this is in the

934 campaign. Is it the 934? Or 937? Are you talking about Brunan, Borough? No, that's 937. There are three campaigns. Well, let's briskly 935. Let's get to the big one. First of what was 934? Was 934? for very significant conversation. He won there and we move on. It was in terms of the structure of the army

insofar as we know he was supported by Welsh kings on this. He didn't just take the West Saxon army. It was, if you like, a federation army of himself and his sub-kings that he could take up there. And in fact, it's extremely well recorded for us because we have a series of documents and charters that were being issued in that year. We can trace his progress up to the north.

We know which leading subordinates he had with him who were also witnessing the charters as we went up. They're remarkable detail for that. I'm going to come to sorry, because I want to move on to this big battle. Back to you in a moment, Richard. In 937-ish. We have to say ish for some of these days, don't we?

I'd be happy with 9-337. I'd be very happy with 9-37. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records this the most celebrated battle of his reign in a long poem. I'm very pleased to hear it. I will delete the question mark. beside autism at a place called Brunanborough. Now that was much

reported on and that was supposed to be the Great War. It was reported in the... Was remembered afterwards. Yes. So what happened then? Why was it great? The peace treaty that Athelstad had made with the people of Northumbria and also the kings of Scotland

and Strathkeye and the kings of the Welsh in 97 had wobbled in 934 as we saw on his Scottish expedition but that was so convincing a victory by land and by sea. He took a naval force with him also and ravaged as far north as Caithness. And he took the son of the King of the Scots, Constantine, as a hostage, back to Wessex with him.

So I think he thought that that was the end of the Northern Rebellion. But only three years later after that, they combined their forces again with the Norse King in Dublin, Olaf Guthrison. So this is the most serious military threat to have been faced by Wessex for some time. a combined army of Scots, Strathclyde, the King of Gwyneth, gathered probably in Cheshire on the Wirral Peninsula. The most likely identification of the battle site is Bromborough in Cheshire, from which we would get the old English name, which is where the old English name Brunumbara comes.

This combined force was ravaging already in southern Northumbria, the north of Wessex, the north of Mercer, and Athelstan took his army from the south and a Mercian army too, and met them at this place on the Whirl. And the battle is so significant that it's reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under that year, not in prose, but for the first time in the Chronicle, in verse. So what actually happened on the battlefield, it's very hard to tell because we have this fictionalised verse account. The forces match one another, they fought all day until the sun had gone out of the sky,

and at the end of the day, five kings lay dead on the battlefield. The son of the king of the Scots was killed and the Norse with their tails between their legs ran as fast as they could back to their little boats and rode back out to sea in order to get on their bigger ocean-going ships and sail back to Dublin. This was unquestionably, as the chronicler says, never since the Angleson-Saxons first came to these shores

has a greater victory been won by the sword's edge. So 500 years before, he related it to about 500 a day, did he? Yes. Richard, can you tell us a little bit more in detail about this? But I'm sorry to go on. I'd like to know what happened. It said, one of the phrases is that by the edge of sword, the biggest battle won by the edge of the sword.

So what actually happened? Well, if only we could answer that question. As Sarah said, the problem is our principal near contemporary account is a highly stylised poem. And everything is described in formulaic, heroic terms, that if one were to read certain passages, say from Beowulf and change a few of the names, that would do for the Battle of Brunnenborough.

So in terms of the cut and thrust of campaign, we simply don't have that sort of information. On the other hand, in terms of can we see Aethelston thinking tactically? Well, perhaps we can, because we know that he had, as we've already heard, he had planned the move towards it, he's got his troops with him, and even in the 980s it is still remembered as the Great War.

We have a translation of the chronicle into Latin by a chronicler known as Athelweird, sending it to Germany, so it had to be in Latin rather than in Old English. And he acknowledges it as the Great War that lives on in people's memory at that stage. John, do you want to add to this? I think a useful thing to add, too, is the fact that this battle is so well remembered in Scandinavian sources as well. It's not known by the same name. They give it, the battlefield is there called Vinheavy, and we can't really explain how that shift of name has taken place,

whether it's just having parallel English and Norse names for more or less the same area. But it clearly did have a very big impact on the Norse historical imagination. Just indeed at a time when a lot of Norse literary traditions were in a state of formation, they were coming together, and so it would go. in there very clearly. In the absence of a very clear account, a historical account that they can refer back to, we do find in this 13th century

Icelandic saga, Aylsaga, that we get a very detailed story of what is supposed to have happened at the battle. The significant point of which I would draw out of which is the fact that Athelstan had Scandinavians

fighting on his side too. It would be very easy to see this as a battle between Athelstan and the English and a rainbow coalition of all the other national groups who were present in Britain at that time. It wasn't. It was a battle for power between different kings and you brought in what forces you could. We've got a Norse poem as well celebrating Athelstan's victory. But this was a sort of breakpoint, wasn't it really, in Israel? He was now in command of what we could now call England. He was their over-king or he was the direct king.

and the Welsh and the Scots were on side enough. Can we talk about his other interests abroad now, Sarah Ford, because he was, let's call it Europe, he used his sisters as much as anything else to make alliances both inside these islands and across the sea in the continent. Yes, Adelston is one of the few Anglo-Saxon kings who might genuinely be thought to have pursued

a European foreign policy. He had, you've already mentioned, this large number of sisters, and he chose strategically to get them married across the main royal and ducal courts of Western Europe, many of which were in a state of flux of period of the collapse of Carolingian power, rise of the Otonians in Saxony. He did this strategically so that it didn't matter who won, whoever one, would have been his brother-in-law or their children would have been his nephews.

So one of his sisters is married to the Carolingian King Charles, the simple. in fact by Edward the elder and their son Louis is put back on the French throne by an unarmed force led by representatives of Atherstan in the mid-930s. One of his sisters, Edith, marries Otto, the Duke of Saxony.

That Otto might be allowed to choose which beautiful West Saxon princess he would marry two of Athelsohn's sisters were sent over. And Otto, we know from that life by Throats Vita. Otto, of course, fell in love immediately with Edith, who was more beautiful, than any princess in the West.

But her sister, who was probably also a fairly attractive, marriageable proposition, is married to the brother of the Duke of Burgundy. And one of them also, as Richard mentioned, married Hugh Duke of the Franks. So here he is with this network of sisters and increasingly nephews across Western Europe. And also he fosters the sons of other European powers at his own court. So he fostered Hawcon the son of the king of Norway and the future heir to the Carolingian throne, Louis, and also a prince from Brittany.

Yes, in fact, his relationships with the Norwegian king were clearly important to. Again, we can pick these up from both Scandinavian and from English sources. The William of Mansbury, for instance, tells us that he received a gift from Harold King of Norway. this must have been Harold Fairhair, as he's known to a tradition, sent him a splendid ship with shields on it. Now, interestingly, in the account that William gives, it sounds as if this is Harold doing a great honour to Avalstahn from the Norwegian point of view. If somebody accepted a gift from you, they became tied to you, they became obliged to you. and both Harold in Norway and Avalstahn in England,

this I think is the key point, had a real interest in controlling the much more anarchic Vikings that there were in the Northern Isles, the Western Isles, and in Dublin. This is an alliance to restrict the Viking threat. Can you say something briefly, Richard, because I want to ask you a question, but I don't want to say something. And another area which hasn't been drawn into this that clearly features also in Averston's thinking is Britain,

Brittany itself was suffering from the Vikings who were overrunning it in the 910s, conquering it in principle in 919, and we see exiles from Brittany being supported and fostered at Atherston's court as well, and equally monks' individual scholars fleeing to England and bringing resources with them, seeing him as a very favourable and supportive environment.

He must have been thought a good bet for everybody who want to marry into his family then, I mean, is that... Because he was doing this, but they must have thought, well, it's worth our wild. It is for all sorts of reasons. One, it does reflect probably his personal status, but secondly and perhaps more importantly, it reflects the fact that he is the oldest royal stock that is available at the time in question. Much of Europe has been having a similar situation to England,

the older power structures crumbling, new dukes coming to the fore, and within that context, a marriage into the House of Wessex gave you bluer blood than you could get elsewhere. Can we move to the law now, John? We could say with war for a long time, Let's go from War to Law Law. He issued at least six legal codes during his reign. Some of them are rather surprising. Can you just give us a brief view of the principal aims that he had with these legal codes? Yes, they're relatively easy to summarize.

He does make legislation for religious observance. It was important both because large areas of his kingdom were converting from the Norse traditional religion, we should call it, to Christianity. but also because all kings wanted to make sure that the church was acting in a regular way. He also issues provisions that the administration of his kingdom through regular meetings and the administration of a sort of criminal law would be done on a very regular basis that people would know exactly how things ought to operate so that if he issues laws, he's going to know that they actually get put into effect.

particularly interesting is the quantity of legislation that he issues dealing both with what we could call crime, especially thieving, and then in relation to trading, very detailed provisions for how coins are to be issued, a very clear rule that any large transaction one worth more than five shillings, in effect, must take place in a town and no trading on a Sunday. Sarah, can I ask you about this attitude to grab take on from one? what John has said, particularly to theft. How does that differ from what had gone before?

It's important to remember that Avalstan is ruling a larger realm than anybody else has done. And I think one of the underlying principles of his legislation is the attempt to try and unite that whole realm together under the same law and to deal with problems that might be thought to cause the united realm to start to separate. his anxiety is articulated always in terms of theft. There are more references to thieving in his law than in the whole of the rest of the Anglo-Saxon corpus. But I think for Atherstan, theft is simply acting as a metaphor for a wider problem, which is breach of the peace,

and especially breach of the peace by powerful local kindreds who are doing their own thing rather than obeying the royal fiat. And he sees breach of the peace and failure to obey him as a breach of the oath that they're doing. they've all taken to him as king, and therefore theft becomes in effect disloyalty to his person as king. Is it true that he introduced the imprisonment, Richard? Not that he introduced it as such.

We can't see it in a particular form, but he is more generous to certain younger criminals than some of his predecessors were, who he allows that if you're under 12 and you thief, you need not necessarily be executed. So there are a range of options that you can have to that. And equally, even crimes like treachery, yes, you can be executed, but there's going to be an ordeal first.

And in addition to that, we find outlawing as the preferable solution rather than imprisonment. What does outlawing mean at that time? It means that you're going to be removed from the kingdom. And he has structures supposedly in place in order to ensure this happens, and that there are regular monthly meetings supposed to be of the Reeves who are responsible for implementing the laws who are supposed to see this sort of thing is happening, but we know because of the regularity with which these things are underlined

that there are always difficulties, particularly with the more powerful elements. But if I could make one other point about his administration is that actually he is the first king under whom we can see a royal administration as such as opposed to borrowing monks from monasteries to do his paperwork for him. Actually, we know that he had his own secretariat, and his charters are issued by one scribe, and this itself is a small but significant move forward in central control. What strikes me about what three of you have been saying,

is that he came to the throne about the age of 30. He died at 45. He packed an immense amount in, didn't he? We had immense amounts. You don't know about wars inside these islands with very difficult people. You're talking about extending his rule, extending alliances all over the continent. You're talking about legal systems, administrative systems, minting things, minting his own coins, building up these boroughs as fortified and so on.

And yet, having done all that, what he's best remembered for is this being a man of great piety. He never married. May well, you don't know, according to your notes, you don't know, may well have taken about celebrity, or that might have been tactical. And he's a very pious man, collected relics, donated relics, especially to Mormon's brief. So can you tell us a little about that, please, John? I think what it comes to altogether is that he had an extremely clear idea of what a king should be, and he was attempting to create precisely that sort of figure of kingship within himself.

Of Christian kingship? Of Christian kingship, certainly, although it didn't prevent him from having strong diplomat. relations with non-Christian kings when it suited him. But that was purely pragmatic. He couldn't convert Norway, but he could bring up the King of Norway's son as a Christian, and Howcon was known as returning to Norway's a Christian. So that's really what I think the whole thing amounts to.

It's that desire to present himself as a new style of king. And one way he presented himself, Sarah Foote, was to actually have himself painted, draw. And there was this figure, there was this man with a crown on and went round. Yes, I think it is important to observe that Avelstan is the first Anglo-Saxon king to choose to wear a crown and not a helmet as a symbol of his royal power. And when he finally is crowned in September 924, so more than a year after his father died, he is crowned. A crown is put on his head and a sceptre in his hand, not a helmet and a sword.

And two portraits, at least, were painted in his lifetime, showing him wearing this crown. a very simple gold band with storks, sticking up vertical stalks with little circular spheres on the end of them. In both these manuscripts, one of which the image is now lost, but we have a surviving description of it. In both of them he was presenting a book to the Shrine of St Cuthbert, which had moved from Lindisfarne to Chesterler Street. In the one that survives, he is standing,

holding an open book in front of him as if he's reading it, following the precepts of his grandfather that a good king should also be a wise, and learned king and giving this king to the saint who's standing inside the doorway of his shrine. Giving this book to the saint. In the one, the picture that's lost, he kneels in front of the saint

and hands the book over, still wearing his crown and clutching his scepter in the other hand and in the lost picture, the saint who was sitting and has his hand raised to bless the king. Thank you very much, on him. I don't think he is blessing him there.

It's extremely different, difficult to put this without sounding ridiculous, but actually the sign of blessing is a two-fingered gesture in the middle ages. It's done with two fingers raised up and two turn back. In fact, we see Cuthbert's whole hand, and this is a sign of showing. Actually, Cuthbert is displaying the king in that image. He's not blessing him. The key thing here, in a way, goes back to the concepts of kingship,

that effective Christianity defends effective kingship, and Bede had pointed out the Christians at kings prosper, shalomine had had this view, Alfred saw pushing back the Vikings and supporting religion as part and parcel. The venerable bead was an influence on Atholstan. Ultimately, I think that's the case. By this time, the bead has been translated into Old English.

And the presentation of manuscripts and other gifts to the shrine of St. Cuthbert on his expedition in 934 is a key gesture before fighting great battle. And equally we see him sending manuscripts around his kingdom to other centres and relics. It's practical spirituality that he's did. distributing. Cuthbert was the nearest we had to a patron saint at that time.

Indeed. For Northumbria. Indeed. But he attracted people further away than Northumbria. He did. You say for Northumbria effectively as if nobody outside the boundaries of Northumbra knew who Cuthbert was. I thought he was well-known. Yes, certainly he was. Through the

works of Bede, he is extremely well-known. But nevertheless, as a patron saint, he particularly represented in Northumbria. The general patron saint would probably be seen as Gregory the Great, and that Cuthbert would probably be second to Gregory the though I think part of the visit to the shrine in Northumbria is to try and appropriate Cuthbert to make him a saint for all of the English and not just a local Northern Ireland.

And interestingly, whereas most of the manuscripts that Atholston presented, he had got himself, they'd been given to him by, from the continent, that one of the two that he presented the shrine of St Cuthbert at Chesterler Street, It was the one that we know was written for him in England somewhere in the south of England. So he created this enormous England, as it were, in a very short time, and then he died, and briefly, then what? Starting with you, John. Well, in some ways, if we thought that the measure of Athelstan's success would be what sort of stable state with expanded boundaries he left behind him, it would appear to be a complete failure, because within a year or two, his successor, Edmund, a half, brother has lost nearly all of it, even the Dane Law area, the Midlands that Edward had conquered,

had gone away. But the simple of the fact was that Edmund had to re-establish his power in exactly the same way as Athelstan had done, exactly the same way as Edward had done before him. And by the end of Edward's reign, he has got more or less the same amount of power. Certainly there's then a few rather weak kings, short reigns, and it's then King Edgar later on in the 10th century, who really consolidates that single kingdom of England. Sarah, what about the idea of a Christian king? The idea of that being an all-England king had been established,

the idea of an all-England Christian king, was that also established? Yes, I think that Atherstan has managed to do that in the ways in which he has himself described in his own documents, and he does see himself as king not just of the English, but also of all of Britain. His coins where he depicts himself also wearing a crown, he describes himself as King Totius Britannier,

and this too is an attempt to assert a Christian authority over all the surrounding peoples, regardless of their faith, but presenting the opportunity, of course, for further conversion work among them. But he's remembered a contemporary poem starts with the line Rex Pius Athelstan Pius, King Athelstan celebrated for military might,

but also for being the most Christian king. And Athelston's reputation remains strong for quite a long time. In the late 10th century, he's flagged by one of the great hominists of the day as one of the great kings of the 10th century. In the 12th century, as we've already heard, chroniclers write him up in golden terms. Even if we move into the Tudor period, a foreign writer, Polydor Virgil, writing in 1534, gives Athelston a very good write-up, sees him in much the same terms as we've presented him today, and almost simultaneously, in. Interestingly, Tyndale claims that he has seen an old chronicle that showed that Athlestone had actually sponsored the translation of works into Old English. Including the Bible.

Including the Bible. And even if it isn't true, it shows that Appleton was a plausible name. You can't doubt, Tyndall. On the other hand, by the time we get to the 19th century, even while academic historians like the Great Freeman still write him up, He's rather sort of fallen from popular view. And good evidence of this is that we know the historical subjects that were shown at the Royal Academy. And we don't get one depiction of Atholston at the Royal Academy

from the 18th or early 19th century. It's got to be three sentences. I'm awful sorry, John. Sir Frank Stenton, in the middle of the 20th century, said of Athelstan that he was one English king of whom we felt we knew some sort of personality. So he thought positive of him. I don't think so.

There's just a figure there, a politicised figure. Next week we'll be going even earlier to the first century ID with Pliny the Elder, the first great encyclopedia ever attempted. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com. com.com.com.com.