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Edward the Martyr (c. 962–978) was King of the English from 8 July 975 until he was killed on 18 March 978. He was the eldest son of King Edgar (r. 959–975). On Edgar's death, the succession to the throne was contested between Edward's supporters and those of his younger half-brother, the future King Æthelred the Unready. As they were both children, it is unlikely that they played an active role in the dispute, which was probably between rival family alliances. Edward's principal supporters were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, while Æthelred was backed by his mother, Queen Ælfthryth and her friend Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. The dispute was quickly settled. Edward was chosen as king and Æthelred received the lands traditionally allocated to the king's eldest son in compensation. Edgar had been a strong and overbearing king and a supporter of the monastic reform movement. He had forced the lay nobility and secular clergy to surrender land and sell it at low prices to the monasteries. Æthelwold had been the most active and ruthless in seizing land for his monasteries with Edgar's assistance. The nobles took advantage of Edgar's death to get their lands back, mainly by legal actions but sometimes by force. The leading magnates were split into two factions, the supporters of Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia and Æthelwine, who both seized some monastic lands which they believed belonged to them, but also estates claimed by their rivals. The disputes never led to warfare. Edward's short reign was brought to an end by his murder on 978 in unclear circumstances. He was killed on the Dowager Queen Ælfthryth's estate at the Gap of Corfe in Dorset, and hurriedly buried at Wareham. A year later, his body was translated with great ceremony to Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset. Contemporary writers do not name the murderer, but almost all narratives in the period after the Norman Conquest name Ælfthryth. Some modern historians agree, but others do not. Another theory is that the killers were thegns of Æthelred, probably acting without orders. Medieval kings were believed to be divine, and Edward's murder deeply troubled contemporaries who regarded it as a mortal sin. He soon came to be revered as a saint, and his feast of 18 March is still listed in the festal calendar of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Edward was known in his own time for his extreme violence, and historians consider his veneration thoroughly undeserved. The historian Tom Watson comments: "For an obnoxious teenager who showed no evidence of sanctity or kingly attributes and who should have been barely a footnote, his cult has endured mightily well." Sources The historian Levi Roach comments: "Little is known about Edward's reign save what can be gleaned from a few short notices in the Chronicle and the three authentic charters in his name." Other pre-Conquest (before the Norman Conquest) sources include Charter S 937 of around 999, which gives details of his election as king, Byrhtferth of Ramsey's Life of St Oswald, written around 1000, and parts of some manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC). The Passio et Miracula Sancti Eadwardi Regis et Martyris (Passion and Miracles of Saint Edward, King and Martyr), was written around 1100, probably by the hagiographer Goscelin. Post-Conquest chroniclers giving accounts of Edward's reign include William of Malmesbury and John of Worcester. Background In the ninth century, Anglo-Saxon England came under increasing attack from Viking raids, culminating in invasion by the Viking Great Heathen Army in 865. By 878, the Vikings had overrun the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia, and nearly conquered Wessex, but in that year the West Saxons achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington under King Alfred the Great (871–899). Over the next fifty years, the West Saxons and Mercians gradually conquered the Viking-ruled areas, and in 927 Alfred's grandson Æthelstan (924–939) became the first king of all England when he conquered Northumbria. He was succeeded by his half-brother and Edward's grandfather, Edmund, who almost immediately lost control of the north to the Vikings, but recovered full control of England by 944. He was killed in a brawl with an outlaw in 946, and as his sons Eadwig and Edgar were infants, their uncle Eadred (946–955) became king. Like Edmund, Eadred inherited the kingship of the whole of England and soon lost it when York (southern Northumbria) accepted a Viking king, but he recovered it when the York magnates expelled King Erik Bloodaxe in 954.Eadred's key advisers included Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury and future Archbishop of Canterbury. Eadred, who suffered from ill health, was in his early thirties when he died in 955, and Eadwig succeeded at the age of around fifteen. He was the first king since the early ninth century not to face the threat of imminent foreign invasion, and England remained free from Viking attacks until 980, after Edward's death. Eadwig showed himself from the start determined to establish his independence from his uncle's advisers. He clashed with Dunstan and sent him into exile. In 957, the kingdom was divided between Eadwig, who kept Wessex, and Edward's father Edgar, who became king of Mercia and other lands north of the Thames. It is unclear whether this had been planned since the beginning of his reign or was the result of a successful revolt brought about by Eadwig's incompetence.Eadwig died in 959, and Edgar succeeded to the rule of the whole kingdom. Eadwig had appointed Ælfhere to be ealdorman of Mercia, and he became the premier layman, a status he retained until his death in 983. His rise was at the expense of the family of Æthelstan Half-King, Ealdorman of East Anglia, leading to a rivalry between the families which disrupted the country in Edward's reign. The Benedictine reform movement reached its peak in Edgar's reign under the leadership of Dunstan, Oswald, Archbishop of York, and Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. It became dominant as a result of the strong support of Edgar, earning him high praise by contemporary and later monastic chroniclers. He was a strong, indeed overbearing ruler, and he enriched Benedictine monasteries by forcing the aristocracy and secular (non-monastic) religious institutions to surrender land to them. Æthelwold was the most active and ruthless of the Benedictine leaders in securing land to support his monasteries, in some cases driving secular clergy out of their establishments in favour of monks. Edgar died at the age of only thirty-one or thirty-two in 975. Family Edward, who was born in around 962, was the eldest of the four known children of King Edgar. No contemporary source gives the name of Edward's mother, and post-Conquest sources give varying accounts. The earliest is a life of Dunstan by Osbern of Canterbury, written around 1090. He wrote that Edward's mother was a nun at Wilton Abbey who.... Discover the Levi Roach popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Levi Roach books.

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  • Normandos synopsis, comments

    Normandos

    Levi Roach

    De la mano del joven medievalista Levi Roach, esta obra nos acerca a una de las civilizaciones que más alteraron el rumbo de la historia medieval europea. Desde sus inicios como sa...