Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

by Janina Ramírez

It is a sign of how highly women were valued in Mercia that all four of Cynethryth’s daughters were also listed at witnesses to charters – something almos...

‘Queen of the Mercians by the Grace of God’ – suggests divine rulership, an idea that was still embryonic in the West at this time. No other non-Byzantine woman from the rule of Emperor Constantine in the ...

The spread of monasteries across Mercia in the eighth century was not simply a pious and religious act, but a financially and politically expedient one too. During Cynethryrth’s life Mercia was expanding to become not just the most dominant kingdom in Britain, but a serious player on a world stage.

Factors like language, religion, natural features and shared history then, as now, were ways of developing a shared sense of nationhood. But in the early medieval period loyalty was to a ruler rather than to a country, and kingdoms would shift their borders regularly.

Over a century after Bertha’s arrival, the historian Bede paints a picture of ‘overlordship’ following the path of Christianity, with Æthelberht in Kent ceding to the newly converted kings of Northumbria.

Under this agenda the hugely powerful Penda of Mercia’s dominance was downplayed, since he was a pagan who killed Christians. But other sources of archaeological and art-historical evidence suggest that Mercia was in fact the most powerful kingdom in Britain from the time of Penda until the ninth century.

The Staffordshire Hoard gives a clear picture of the military prowess of the Mercian kingdom in the seventh century. The 4,600 pieces, which add up to over 5 kilograms of gold and 1.5 kilograms of silver, are all martial in character and include the fittings for weapons.

The military elite of Mercia were clearly rich and regularly involved in battles, no matter what Bede’s version of history insisted. Their high-status objects echo the power of Rome and signal the wealth of their kingdom. During the eighth century Offa and Cynethryth would continue the process, begun by Penda, of enriching and enlarging Mercia.

The capital of Mercia, Tamworth, had grown from a small settlement to a thriving town by the time Offa and Cynethryth built their palace there.

were constantly travelling their kingdom – defending territories, receiving taxes, seeing to the needs of communities and staying at royal properties – they spe...

At its heart was the earliest known watermill in Britain since Roman times. This would have served an important function for the inhabitants of Tamworth, who brought their grain to the mill to have it ground to flour. The huge mill stones also held symbolic significance; they were a gift from Emperor Charlemagne in return for a set of desirable English woollen cloaks.25 The wool of English sheep and the weavers who worked it were the envy of Europe.

Until Offa brought Kent under his control, he resented the fact that the archbishopric was based in Canterbury. With the consent of the pope, he elevated Lichfield to the highest church in England.

The English influence on the church stretched to the very heart of Western Europe. Lichfield only held the archbishopric for 16 years before it returned to Canterbury. But in that time Offa and Cynethryth enriched the church substantially, filling it with art and relics that would make it worthy of being the central ecclesiastical building in the country.26

church. Written in the mid-eighth century, so not actually from the lifetime of St Chad (c. 634–72), the manuscript has 236 pages. Eight of these are illuminated, and their style reveals a good deal about the emergence of the Christian church in the kingdom of Mercia.27 The church in Northumbria, which in the seventh century could already boast a number of monasteries and a bishopric at York, made attempts to send priests and bishops into pagan Mercia.

A plague had decimated the English church, leaving a dearth of priests, so Chad’s time in Mercia was spent travelling the vast kingdom to ordain new ministers.28 He died after just two years, but his burial at Lichfield and his reputation as an outstanding Christian meant the church could boast the relics of their own Mercian saint.

Bede said Chad had trained under Aidan at Lindisfarne, and it is clear that the scribes responsible for the St Chad Gospel were influenced by the Northumbrian monastery’s illumination style. The chi-rho pages from both the Lindisfarne and St Chad Gospels are remarkably similar, featuring whorls and spirals, animal heads and the same diminuendo of the script, as large initials gradually reduce in size to smaller text.

But it shows that in the eighth century, Christianity was still struggling to bed down in certain regions, and it was the missionary activity of a few from the north that brought it to the region of Mercia. The shared style mirrors how Chad himself left Northumbria to bring Christianity to Mercia.

With the relics of their very own Mercian saint in Chad, the royal couple endowed Lichfield richly and a new church was dedicated to St Peter. Here, Chad’s bones were displayed in what Bede describes as ‘a wooden monument, made like a little house, covered, having a little hole in the wall’.

but a 2003 discovery opened a window onto this lost cathedral. A new platform was due to be installed in the existing cathedral, so archaeologist Warwick Rodwell took the opportunity to explore underneath the present nave.31 He found evidence for the outline of the eighth-century church alongside cobbles from the foundations.

Now known as the Lichfield Angel, this bas-relief carving reveals how sophisticated the art of Cynethryth’s Mercia was, and how far the interaction with the Carolingian world extended. What remains of the Lichfield Angel is just half of what would originally have been a depiction of the angel Gabriel announcing news of Jesus’s incarnation to the Virgin Mary. Only Gabriel remains, but the sculpture is almost unparalleled in its preservation, since the slabs had spent the centuries ‘indoors’, in favourable conditions. It is now recognised as one of the most important pieces of early medieval English sculpture to survive.

First, evidence of paint remains across the sculpture, so we know the original slab would have been brightly coloured.

Second, the style is distinctly Carolingian. The angel is beautifully modelled, and the curls of the hair, drapery of the clothing and delicacy of the facial features are all recognisably classical.

Offa and Cynethryth were at pains to compete with Charlemagne, and survivals like the Lichfield Angel suggest that both courts prized classical models to reinforce their association with the Roman Empire of antiquity.35 Cynethryth was queen of a powerful kingdom, characterised by the finest art and a greatly enriched church.

how the Lindisfarne monks viewed the Viking attack. Here two monks bow down before a cross, accompanied by the sun and the moon. It’s Judgement Day and the implications are clear. New battle lines have been drawn between blood-thirsty pagans from over the seas and God-fearing Christians. The attack on Lindisfarne was just the beginning, and the kingdom of Mercia would become a casualty of decades of Viking incursions.

Forming a triangle with Tamworth to the west and Lichfield to the south, the Mercian town of Repton was of equal importance for its double monastery, local saint and royal burial crypt. While Tamworth was the secular centre, focused on the royal palace, and Lichfield was the bishopric, Repton combined religious and secular functions.

natural spring ran beneath the original abbey at Repton and a baptistry was constructed on top of it in the mid-eighth century. This was then transformed into a crypt and functioned as a royal mausoleum. The first Mercian king to be buried there was Æthelbald, who had ruled for over fifty years from 716–

is surprising, therefore, that Offa was not laid to rest alongside his influential predecessor at Repton. We can assume it was Cynethryth herself who chose Bedford as his burial place, since she held lands there.

Offa’s tomb in Bedford was lost, reputedly carried away by the river, and the burial place of his son Ecgfrith is unknown, yet we know plenty of other Mercian rulers chose to be buried at Repton. King Wiglaf (827–9) and his grandson, who became known as St Wigstan, were both placed in the crypt, turning the church into a pilgrimage site.40 Like Lindisfarne, the monastery at Repton was full of treasures, right next to water and poorly defended. It was easy pickings for Viking raiders.

key change took place in AD 865. A coalition of Scandinavian troops launched a concerted effort to occupy and conquer the major kingdoms of England. The fleet of ships, which may have carried many thousands of warriors, first landed in East Anglia where they negotiated the acquisition of horses in return for peace.41

Over the next few years, the Vikings did not leave the country but ‘overwintered’ at camps, consolidating their troops with new arrivals and taking advantage of local resources to support their soldiers.42 It was a traumatic invasion that would impact all the English kingdoms and everyone from royalty to the impoverished. The sites of these ‘overwinter’ camps are mentioned in written sources, but no physical evidence for them had been discovered until the Biddles started their excavations at Repton during the 1970s and 1980s.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which recorded events of national and local importance from the eighth century onwards, mentions that the army overwintered there from AD 873 to 874.

Rather than simply raid the monastery at Repton, the incoming troops took over the church building and adapted the space to their needs. Further excavations revealed evidence for a larger camp outside of the ringed enclosure.

double grave to the east end of the church was also interesting, as one of the two bodies showed signs of excessive violence. The male skeleton was blinded and castrated, as shown by lacerations on the skull and hip bone. He was then buried next to a close relative (most probably his son), a Thor’s hammer tied around his neck, a sword by his side and a boar’s tusk placed between his legs to stand in for his missing penis. The burial has ritualistic elements, suggesting the individual was being prepared to feast and fight for all eternity in Valhalla. This was not a Christian burial, so its presence by the church in Repton is convincing evidence that the Biddles had discovered the Viking winter camp.

dug down to discover an early medieval stone building. Inside the two stone rooms, now partly demolished, piles of bones were arranged around a single burial in a separate chamber – most likely that of a particularly important Viking war leader. It has been suggested that the remains might have belonged to Ivar the Boneless, son of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, who certainly played a role in the Great Heathen Army and died around AD 873. But the collection of bones around him would prove even more revealing.

The primary bones (skulls and femurs) of 264 individuals had been stacked as in an ossuary, suggesting they were brought from another location, most likely a Mercian battlefield. The majority of the skeletons were male and between the ages of 18 and 45, in keeping with what we might expect of a Viking army. The bones reveal that they also ate a foreign diet, suggesting they originated from Scandinavia. However, a surprising 20 per cent of the bones were female.

The finds from Repton paint a dramatic picture. The very heart of Mercia had been occupied by hostile forces and its church repurposed for use by an invading army. The grandeur of Mercia under Offa and Cynethryth was to become a distant echo; the years 865 to 879 were some of the most tumultuous in English history as kingdom after kingdom fell to Viking forces.

To understand the significance of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, she must be positioned alongside the men of her time, who are far better documented. Only then can her achievements come into focus. And one man overshadows all others: her father Alfred, the only English ruler to have been given the title ‘Great’. Alfred ruled as king of the West Saxons from 871–86 and king of the Anglo-Saxons until his death in 899.

England. With four older brothers, he was never even intended for the throne – but each died until only Alfred was left. The fortunes of his kingdom of Wessex were constantly unstable as, unlike in Mercia, the potential to secure influence through marriage had not been exploited to the same extent. Across the previous two centuries the crown had not passed from father to son (or indeed to daughter), but rather was fought over by three powerful rival families.

In Mercia, the army that overwintered in Repton drove the king, Burgred, into exile. He had ruled successfully from 852 to 874 and had brought relative stability to the kingdom, but he was replaced by Ceolwulf, who would become the last independent ruler of Cynethryth’s once powerful kingdom. Mercia now belonged to the Vikings.

attacking Alfred while he was preparing his brother’s funeral. Unable to fight, he made arrangements with the Viking army for them to cease their attacks, establishing payment of a ‘Danegeld’. Hoards of coins minted in Wessex have been discovered at Croydon, Gravesend and Waterloo Bridge, which hints at the huge sum the Danes demanded.

While fantastical, it supported this idea of a great man with his mind on important things. Alfred watched the way Viking forces behaved and changed his tactics accordingly. Rather than the traditional shield wall, where English soldiers would press together to form a defensive barrier, he experimented with small attacks from secure bases. This would eventually lead to the creation of burhs – fortified towns – across Wessex, which would protect populations against future attacks.49 The cities of Winchester, Worcester and Malmesbury all owe their footprint to Alfred’s burghal system.

A truce was agreed and Guthrum took the additional step of agreeing to be baptised, with Alfred as his sponsor. Their settlement effectively separated England into two kingdoms running along a line from the Thames to the Humber. The area to the north was the Danelaw, while the south was English and governed by Wessex. The divide was ideological too, with Wessex defining itself as a Christian powerhouse opposed to the pagans ruling north of the border. Relative peace allowed Alfred to build on his military successes and secure the future of his kingdom.50

While he spent half the kingdom’s income on governance and social renewal, the other half went to the church. This is not to say he was simply propping up the establishment. It was in monasteries, churches and cathedrals that most of the learning, knowledge gathering, and administration of Wessex took place.

Then when I remembered all this, then I also remembered how I saw, before it had all been ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and books, and there were also a great many of God’s servants. And they had very little benefit from those books, for they could not understand anything in them, because they were not written in their own language.51

He dedicated himself to translating those books he thought ‘most needful for all to know’ from Latin into Old English – a remarkable achievement given how many challenges he faced during his reign

Handles from six of these aestels survive, reflecting how widespread and ultimately successful he was in this endeavour. The most famous is known as the Alfred Jewel and around its edge is the inscription: ‘Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan’, or, ‘Alfred ordered me to be made’.

The Alfred Jewel, meant to accompany books that spread wisdom, may depict not sight, as in eyesight, but rather insight; the pursuit of knowledge.53

Alfred was given the title ‘Great’ not by his contemporaries but by writers from the sixteenth century onwards. Because he encouraged the translation of religious texts from Latin into English, he was (erroneously) held up by post-Reformation theologians as the originator of the break with Rome.

The portrayal of Alfred as one of history’s ‘great men’ is hard to avoid. The biography written by his friend, Asser, presented him as saint-like, divinely assuming the role of king only after all his older brothers died, as if he were destined for it.

must also be viewed alongside the strong women of Mercia who came before her. Æthelflæd’s mother, Ealhswith, was a Mercian noblewoman descended from the royal line through her mother. However, in Wessex she was not referred to as queen, despite the fact she was married to the king. The reason has its roots in the reign of another important Mercian woman – the daughter of Offa and Cynethryth, Eadburh.