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Families of the King: Writing Identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are fundamental to the study of the language, literature, and culture of the Anglo-Saxon period. Ranging from the ninth to the twelfth century, its five primary manuscripts offer a virtually contemporary history of Anglo-Saxon England, contribute to the body of Old English prose and poetic texts, and enable scholars to document how the Old English language changed. In Families of the King , Alice Sheppard explicitly addresses the larger interpretive question of how the manuscripts function as history. She shows that what has been read as a series of disparate entries and peculiar juxtapositions is in fact a compelling articulation of collective identity and a coherent approach to writing the secular history of invasion, conquest, and settlement. Sheppard argues that, in writing about the king's performance of his lordship obligations, the annalists transform literary representations of a political ethos into an identifying culture for the Anglo-Saxon nobles and those who conquered them.
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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April 28, 2021
Families of the King – writing identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alice Sheppard, 2004, 155 pages, plus notes,
This is a useful book for people to consult who are studying the ASC's narratives for the reigns of Alfred, Aethelraed, Cnut and William the Conqueror (these are the four kings featured) and how they gained or lost their thrones. It examines how the scribes constructed impressions of lordship and collective identity (Angelcynn). However, although there is a lot of ingenuity used in Sheppard's deductions, I can't help but feel that a broader approach that takes in a wider range of sources is stronger than a single textual approach.
Sheppard makes a decent argument for interpreting the various entries in the ASC in such a way that support her arguments about the construction of identity and lordship. However, given the briefness of many of the ASC entries and a certain level of ambiguity in how some can be read, I wouldn't be surprised if many other alternative interpretations could be argued just as persuasively.
The passage examining the construction of the account of Ulfcytel fighting the Danes at Thetford could be read as shifting the identification of the Angelcynn to the East Angles and thus showing Ethelred's disconnect from his people. Or it could just be read that the East Angles were where the Danes were and they defended their land as they would have been expected to do with the use of the word Angelcynn being supplementary to this fact. However, when it comes to the use of this word in the section concerning Archbishop Aelfheah as showing him representing their identity and resistance to the raiders in contrast to Aethelraed, it does somewhat strengthen the argument that the chronicler was consciously devaluing Aethelraed and his (non) actions.
Another example is seeing the failure of Aethelraed as a case of Salvation History, but it's still just as possible to read it as a tale of personal incompetence and being a less than ideal ruler. I wasn't convinced that the St Brice's Day massacre was an attack on large elements of the Angelcynn and much prefer Keynes' view that it represented an attack on those Danes who had entered English society following the treaty with Olaf. This makes much more sense of the wider (non-ASC) evidence, such as later charters referring to Danes in England and especially Oxfordshire.
In some ways, this book reminded me of Nicholas Howe's Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England. There is the same delving into, if not quite the Anglo-Saxon mind, but the intellect behind sources. Unfortunately I found Howe's work pretty impenetrable and Sheppard's wasn't a totally joyful read, either. Quite often I'd begin a paragraph and then discover partway through that instead of focussing on what she was saying, my brain was trying to remember in which episode of Yes Minister there were rumours of a safe full of South African diamonds. Sadly the writing style didn't always hold my attention and that's a shame, as this book makes some interesting points, even if I wasn't totally persuaded by them.
This is a useful book for people to consult who are studying the ASC's narratives for the reigns of Alfred, Aethelraed, Cnut and William the Conqueror (these are the four kings featured) and how they gained or lost their thrones. It examines how the scribes constructed impressions of lordship and collective identity (Angelcynn). However, although there is a lot of ingenuity used in Sheppard's deductions, I can't help but feel that a broader approach that takes in a wider range of sources is stronger than a single textual approach.
Sheppard makes a decent argument for interpreting the various entries in the ASC in such a way that support her arguments about the construction of identity and lordship. However, given the briefness of many of the ASC entries and a certain level of ambiguity in how some can be read, I wouldn't be surprised if many other alternative interpretations could be argued just as persuasively.
The passage examining the construction of the account of Ulfcytel fighting the Danes at Thetford could be read as shifting the identification of the Angelcynn to the East Angles and thus showing Ethelred's disconnect from his people. Or it could just be read that the East Angles were where the Danes were and they defended their land as they would have been expected to do with the use of the word Angelcynn being supplementary to this fact. However, when it comes to the use of this word in the section concerning Archbishop Aelfheah as showing him representing their identity and resistance to the raiders in contrast to Aethelraed, it does somewhat strengthen the argument that the chronicler was consciously devaluing Aethelraed and his (non) actions.
Another example is seeing the failure of Aethelraed as a case of Salvation History, but it's still just as possible to read it as a tale of personal incompetence and being a less than ideal ruler. I wasn't convinced that the St Brice's Day massacre was an attack on large elements of the Angelcynn and much prefer Keynes' view that it represented an attack on those Danes who had entered English society following the treaty with Olaf. This makes much more sense of the wider (non-ASC) evidence, such as later charters referring to Danes in England and especially Oxfordshire.
In some ways, this book reminded me of Nicholas Howe's Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England. There is the same delving into, if not quite the Anglo-Saxon mind, but the intellect behind sources. Unfortunately I found Howe's work pretty impenetrable and Sheppard's wasn't a totally joyful read, either. Quite often I'd begin a paragraph and then discover partway through that instead of focussing on what she was saying, my brain was trying to remember in which episode of Yes Minister there were rumours of a safe full of South African diamonds. Sadly the writing style didn't always hold my attention and that's a shame, as this book makes some interesting points, even if I wasn't totally persuaded by them.
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