A groundbreaking new biography of Æthelstan marks 1,100 years since his coronation in 925 AD, reasserts his proper to be referred to as the primary king of England, explains why he is not higher recognized and highlights his many neglected achievements. The ebook’s writer, Professor David Woodman, is campaigning for higher public recognition of Æthelstan’s creation of England in 927 AD.
The Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the signing of Magna Carta in 1215 are two of essentially the most well-known years in English historical past. However only a few folks know what occurred in 925 or 927AD. Professor David Woodman, the College of Cambridge-based writer of The First King of England, a groundbreaking new biography of Æthelstan, is decided to vary this and never simply along with his ebook. He – and different historians – are planning a becoming memorial for England’s first and unfairly neglected king.
“As we method the anniversaries of Æthelstan’s coronation in 925 and the delivery of England itself in 927, I would love his identify to develop into significantly better recognized. He actually deserves that,” says Woodman, a Professor at Robinson Faculty and Cambridge’s School of Historical past.
Woodman is working with different historians* in the direction of a memorial for the king, which could possibly be a statue, plaque or portrait in a location like Westminster, Eamont Bridge (the place Æthelstan’s authority in 927 was acknowledged by different British rulers) or Malmesbury (the place he was buried). Woodman can also be calling for the historical past of Æthelstan’s reign to look extra routinely on the varsity curriculum.
“There was a lot give attention to 1066, the second when England was conquered. It is about time we considered its formation, and the one who introduced it collectively within the first place,” Professor Woodman says.
Why is not Æthelstan higher recognized?
Woodman’s ebook, printed by Princeton College Press, blames an absence of public relations. “Æthelstan did not have a biographer writing up his story,” Woodman says. “His grandfather, Alfred the Nice, had the Welsh cleric Asser to sing his praises. And inside a long time of Æthelstan’s demise, a wave of propaganda ensured King Edgar grew to become well-known for reforming the church. This utterly overshadowed Æthelstan’s earlier revamping of studying and religiosity.”
In trendy occasions, historians have tended to dismiss Æthelstan’s standing as England’s first king, on the idea that the dominion fragmented quickly after his demise in 939AD. The main target has as an alternative shifted to Edgar. Woodman rejects this argument.
“Simply because issues broke down after Æthelstan’s demise does not imply that he did not create England within the first place,” Woodman says. “He was so forward of his time in his political considering, and his actions in bringing collectively the English kingdom had been so hard-won, that it could have been extra shocking if the dominion had stayed collectively. We have to recognise that his legacy, his methods of governing and legislating, continued to form kingship for generations afterwards.”
Woodman cites a wealth of proof to resurrect Æthelstan’s fame.
Navy success
“Militarily, Æthelstan was supremely robust,” Woodman says. “He needed to be very strong to increase the dominion after which to defend it.”
Æthelstan needed to take care of main Viking settlement within the north and the east. In 927AD, he acquired authority over the Viking stronghold at York, and, in bringing Northumbria inside his dominion, grew to become the primary to rule over an space recognizable as ‘England’.
As Æthelstan expanded his kingdom, he drew Welsh and Scottish kings into his royal assemblies. Giant-scale surviving unique diplomas, housed within the British Library, listing the very many nobles he compelled to attend. The conferences of Æthelstan’s assemblies should have been extremely grand affairs, involving lots of of individuals in whole.
“These Welsh and Scottish kings should have bitterly resented being introduced thus far out of their territories,” Woodman says. “An unimaginable tenth-century Welsh poem, The Nice Prophecy of Britain, requires the English to be slaughtered. It is troublesome thus far, however it might be a direct response to this growth of Æthelstan’s energy.”
Then, in 937AD, on the well-known Battle of Brunanburh, Æthelstan brutally crushed a formidable Viking coalition, supported by Scots and the Strathclyde Welsh, decided to overthrow him.
“Brunanburh must be as well-known because the Battle of Hastings,” Woodman says. “Each main chronicle, in England, Wales, Eire and Scandinavia took observe of this battle, its consequence and the way many individuals had been slaughtered. It was a critically essential episode within the historical past of the newly-formed English kingdom.”
Quite a few areas have been proposed for the battle. Woodman is assured that it occurred at what’s now Bromborough on the Wirral. “That location is sensible strategically and the etymology of the identify matches,” he says.
Revolution of presidency
Æthelstan’s strongest legacy rests in his “revolution of presidency,” Woodman suggests. Authorized paperwork from Æthelstan’s reign survive in relative abundance and, Woodman argues, take us proper to the center of the kind of king he was.
“King Alfred should have been a task mannequin for his grandson,” Woodman says. “Æthelstan noticed {that a} king ought to legislate and he actually did. He took crime very severely.”
As soon as Æthelstan had created the English kingdom, royal paperwork often known as ‘diplomas’ (in essence a grant of land by the king to a beneficiary) had been immediately remodeled. Previously brief and simple, they had been remodeled into grandiose statements of royal energy.
“They’re written in a way more skilled script and in amazingly discovered Latin, stuffed with literary gadgets like rhyme, alliteration, chiasmus,” Woodman says. “They had been designed to indicate off, he is trumpeting his success.”
However Woodman additionally argues that authorities grew to become more and more environment friendly throughout Æthelstan’s reign. “We will see him sending legislation codes out to completely different elements of the dominion, after which studies coming again to him about what was working and what modifications wanted to be made.”
“There may be additionally a number of the clearest proof we’ve got for centralized oversight of the manufacturing of royal paperwork, with one royal scribe put accountable for their manufacturing. Regardless of the place the king and the royal meeting traveled, the royal scribe went too.”
Woodman factors out that Æthelstan introduced England collectively simply as elements of continental Europe had been fragmenting. “Nobles throughout Europe had been rising up and taking territory for themselves,” he says. “Æthelstan made certain that he was effectively positioned to reap the benefits of the unfolding of European politics by marrying various his half-sisters into continental ruling homes.”
Studying and faith
Woodman argues that Æthelstan reversed a decline in studying introduced by the Vikings and their destruction of church buildings. “Æthelstan was intellectually curious and students from throughout Europe got here to his courtroom,” Woodman says. “He sponsored studying and was a eager supporter of the church.”
Two of Woodman’s favourite items of proof relate to Saint Cuthbert. The primary, the earliest surviving manuscript portrait of any English monarch, seems in a tenth-century manuscript now cared for by The Parker Library at Corpus Christi Faculty, Cambridge. Æthelstan’s head is bowed as he stands earlier than the saint. “Everybody ought to find out about this portrait, it is one of the essential photos in English historical past,” says Woodman.
The manuscript was initially designed as a present for the Group of Saint Cuthbert. “Æthelstan had simply expanded into Northumbria and this manuscript cleverly contains a lifetime of Saint Cuthbert,” Woodman says. “He was making an attempt to win them over to his trigger.”
Woodman felt even nearer to Æthelstan whereas finding out the Durham Liber Vitae. Begun within the ninth century, this manuscript chronologically lists the individuals who had a particular connection to the Group of Saint Cuthbert, in alternating gold and silver lettering.
“If Æthelstan goes to look, he must be many pages in, however within the tenth century somebody visited Saint Cuthbert’s Group and wrote ‘Æthelstan Rex’ proper on the high. Seeing that was breathtakingly thrilling. It is possible that somebody in his entourage was accountable. We all know they visited the Group in 934 and this manuscript might have been on outstanding show there, maybe on its excessive altar.”
Notes
*The group has been convened by Alex Burghart MP, and incudes the historian-broadcasters, Tom Holland and Michael Wooden.
Reference
David Woodman, The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Beginning of a Kingdom is printed by Princeton College Press on 2nd September 2025 (ISBN:9780691249490)
