إثل‌ستان

Æthelstan
Æthelstan presenting a book to Saint Cuthbert
Æthelstan presenting a book to St Cuthbert, the earliest surviving portrait of an English king. Illustration in a manuscript of Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert[1] presented by Æthelstan to the saint's shrine in Chester-le-Street. He wore a crown of the same design on his "crowned bust" coins.[2]
King of the Anglo-Saxons
العهد924–927
التتويج4 September 925
سبقهEdward the Elder or Ælfweard
King of the English
العهد927 – 27 October 939
تبعهEdmund I
وُلِد894ح. 894
Wessex
توفي27 October 939 (about 45)
Gloucester, إنگلترة
الدفن
البيتWessex
الأبEdward the Elder
الأمEcgwynn

Æthelstan or Athelstan ( /ˈæθəlstæn/; الإنگليزية القديمة: Æþelstan[أ] or Æðelstān;[ب] نورسية القديمة: Aðalsteinn meaning "noble stone"; ح. 894 – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to 939 when he died.[ت] He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern historians regard him as the first King of England and one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon kings. He never married and had no children. He was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund.

When Edward died in July 924, Æthelstan was accepted by the Mercians as king. His half-brother Ælfweard may have been recognised as king in Wessex, but died within three weeks of their father's death. Æthelstan encountered resistance in Wessex for several months, and was not crowned until September 925. In 927 he conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England. In 934 he invaded Scotland and forced Constantine II to submit to him, but Æthelstan's rule was resented by the Scots and Vikings, and in 937 they invaded England. Æthelstan defeated them at the Battle of Brunanburh, a victory which gave him great prestige both in the British Isles and on the Continent. After his death in 939 the Vikings seized back control of York, and it was not finally reconquered until 954.

Æthelstan centralised government; he increased control over the production of charters and summoned leading figures from distant areas to his councils. These meetings were also attended by rulers from outside his territory, especially Welsh kings, who thus acknowledged his overlordship. More legal texts survive from his reign than from any other 10th-century English king. They show his concern about widespread robberies, and the threat they posed to social order. His legal reforms built on those of his grandfather, Alfred the Great. Æthelstan was one of the most pious West Saxon kings, and was known for collecting relics and founding churches. His household was the centre of English learning during his reign, and it laid the foundation for the Benedictine monastic reform later in the century. No other West Saxon king played as important a role in European politics as Æthelstan, and he arranged the marriages of several of his sisters to continental rulers.

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خلفية

By the ninth century the many kingdoms of the early Anglo-Saxon period had been consolidated into four: Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia.[4] In the eighth century, Mercia had been the most powerful kingdom in southern England, but in the early ninth, Wessex became dominant under Æthelstan's great-great-grandfather, Egbert. In the middle of the century, England came under increasing attack from Viking raids, culminating in invasion by the Great Heathen Army in 865. By 878, the Vikings had overrun East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia, and nearly conquered Wessex. The West Saxons fought back under Alfred the Great, and achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington.[5] Alfred and the Viking leader Guthrum agreed on a division that gave Alfred western Mercia, while eastern Mercia was incorporated into Viking East Anglia. In the 890s, renewed Viking attacks were successfully fought off by Alfred, assisted by his son (and Æthelstan's father) Edward and Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians. Æthelred ruled English Mercia under Alfred and was married to his daughter Æthelflæd. Alfred died in 899 and was succeeded by Edward. Æthelwold, the son of Æthelred, King Alfred's older brother and predecessor as king, made a bid for power, but was killed at the Battle of the Holme in 902.[6]


Early life

Statue of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians with Æthelstan
Statue in Tamworth of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, with her nephew Æthelstan


الحكم

النزاع على السلطة

ملك الإنگليز

Map of the British Isles in the tenth century
The British Isles in the early tenth century


Silver penny of King Æthelstan

Æthelstan became the first king of all the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and in effect overlord of Britain.[7][ث]

غزو اسكتلندة في 934

In 934 Æthelstan invaded Scotland. His reasons are unclear, and historians give alternative explanations. The death of his half-brother Edwin in 933 might have finally removed factions in Wessex opposed to his rule. Guthfrith, the Norse king of Dublin who had briefly ruled Northumbria, died in 934; any resulting insecurity among the Danes would have given Æthelstan an opportunity to stamp his authority on the north. An entry in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, recording the death in 934 of a ruler who was possibly Ealdred of Bamburgh, suggests another possible explanation. This points to a dispute between Æthelstan and Constantine over control of his territory. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle briefly recorded the expedition without explanation, but the twelfth-century chronicler John of Worcester stated that Constantine had broken his treaty with Æthelstan.[9]


The Battle of Brunanburh

مقال رئيسي: Battle of Brunanburh

In 934 Olaf Guthfrithson succeeded his father Guthfrith as the Norse King of Dublin. The alliance between the Norse and the Scots was cemented by the marriage of Olaf to Constantine's daughter. By August 937 Olaf had defeated his rivals for control of the Viking part of Ireland, and he promptly launched a bid for the former Norse kingdom of York.


ملكاً

الادارة

Painting of Æthelstan with Saint John of Beverley
A sixteenth-century painting in Beverley Minster of Æthelstan with Saint John of Beverley


العملة

Coin of Æthelstan
Coin of Æthelstan Rex, small cross pattée type, London mint, moneyer Biorneard


الكنيسة

Miniature of St Matthew in gospels presented by Æthelstan to Christ Church, Canterbury
Miniature of St Matthew in the Carolingian gospels presented by Æthelstan to Christ Church Priory, Canterbury


التعليم

Gospel Dice
Gospel Dice, a board game played at Æthelstan's court
Charter S416 of Æthelstan for Wulfgar in 931, written by "Æthelstan A"


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العاهل البريطاني

Æthelstan in a fifteenth-century stained glass window
Æthelstan in a fifteenth-century stained glass window in All Souls College Chapel, Oxford

وفاته

Empty fifteenth-century tomb of King Æthelstan at Malmesbury Abbey

Æthelstan died at Gloucester on 27 October 939. His grandfather Alfred, his father Edward, and his half-brother Ælfweard had been buried at Winchester, but Æthelstan chose not to honour the city associated with opposition to his rule. By his own wish he was buried at Malmesbury Abbey, where he had buried his cousins who died at Brunanburh. No other member of the West Saxon royal family was buried there, and according to William of Malmesbury, Æthelstan's choice reflected his devotion to the abbey and to the memory of its seventh-century abbot, Saint Aldhelm. William described Æthelstan as fair-haired "as I have seen for myself in his remains, beautifully intertwined with gold threads". His bones were lost during the Reformation, but he is commemorated by an empty fifteenth-century tomb.[10]


المصادر الرئيسية

Chronicle sources for the life of Æthelstan are limited, and the first biography, by Sarah Foot, was only published in 2011.[11] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Æthelstan's reign is principally devoted to military events, and it is largely silent apart from recording his most important victories.[12] An important source is the twelfth-century chronicle of William of Malmesbury, but historians are cautious about accepting his testimony, much of which cannot be verified from other sources. David Dumville goes so far as to dismiss William's account entirely, regarding him as a "treacherous witness" whose account is unfortunately influential.[13] However, Sarah Foot is inclined to accept Michael Wood's argument that William's chronicle draws on a lost life of Æthelstan. She cautions, however, that we have no means of discovering how far William "improved" on the original.[14]


ملاحظات

  1. ^ Pronounced [ˈæðeɫstɑn]
  2. ^ Pronounced [ˈæðeɫstɑːn]
  3. ^ 9th-century West Saxon kings before Alfred the Great are generally described by historians as kings of Wessex or of the West Saxons. In the 880s Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, accepted West Saxon lordship, and Alfred then adopted a new title, king of the Anglo-Saxons, representing his conception of a new polity of all the English people who were not under Viking rule. This endured until 927, when Æthelstan conquered Viking York, and adopted the title rex anglorum (king of the English), in recognition of his rule over the whole of England. The term "Englalonde" (England) came into use in the late 10th or early 11th century.[3]
  4. ^ The situation in northern Northumbria, however, is unclear. In the view of Ann Williams, the submission of Ealdred of Bamburgh was probably nominal, and it is likely that he acknowledged Constantine as his lord, but Alex Woolf sees Ealdred as a semi-independent ruler acknowledging West Saxon authority, like Æthelred of Mercia a generation earlier.[8]

المراجع

  1. ^ "History by the Month: September and the Coronation of Æthelstan'". Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 8 September 2015. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  2. ^ Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp. 155–156
  3. ^ Entries on ninth century West Saxons kings describe them as kings of Wessex in Lapidge, et al., ed., Blackwell Encyclopaedia; Keynes, "Rulers of the English", pp. 513–515; Higham and Ryan, Anglo-Saxon World, p. 8
  4. ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 95, 236
  5. ^ Keynes & Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 11–13, 16–23
  6. ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 259–269, 321–322
  7. ^ خطأ استشهاد: وسم <ref> غير صحيح؛ لا نص تم توفيره للمراجع المسماة Foot 2011 20
  8. ^ Williams, "Ealdred"; Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, p. 158
  9. ^ Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp. 164–165; Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, pp. 158–165
  10. ^ Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp. 25, 186–87, 243; Thacker, "Dynastic Monasteries and Family Cults", pp. 254–255
  11. ^ Cooper, review of Foot, Æthelstan
  12. ^ Dumville, Wessex and England, p. 167
  13. ^ Dumville, Wessex and England, pp. 146, 168
  14. ^ Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp. 251–258, discussing an unpublished essay by Michael Wood.

المصادر


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Further reading

وصلات خارجية

Wikisource
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إثل‌ستان
وُلِد: c. 893/895 توفي: 27 October 939
ألقاب ملكية
سبقه
Edward the Elder or
Ælfweard
King of the Anglo-Saxons
924–927
Conquest of York
لقب حديث King of the English
927 – 27 October 939
تبعه
Edmund I

قالب:Monarchs of Wessex قالب:Mercian monarchs قالب:Northumbrian monarchs قالب:Viking Invasion of England