From: ADRIANCHANNING@aol.com
To: GEN-MEDIEVAL-L@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Emma, England's first queen
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 08:22:08 EDT
Thank you for your observations, and correcting my mangled subject line.
Regarding England's 1st queen, I suppose there are a number of factors to
be
consider
First there must be someone who ruled all, or at least substantially all of
England, I have read that the first to be so recognised was Aethelstan
(reigned
925 to 939), but I'm not sure if he had any known wife/consort.
In fact Egberht, the first "King of England" of the Wessex line, is regarded
by some scholars as a *bretwalda*, although the term had evidently fallen
out of use by his time.
Secondly, for the king's consort to be queen, presumably there must have
been
a christian marriage. If my notes are correct, I have a marriage for Edmund
I
(murdered 946) to Elgifu, but don't know if this was a _recognised
christian
marraige_?
The point is not Christian marriage but coronation. Alfred and his consort
were certainly joined in Christian marriage, but she was not queen.
Pauline Stafford discusses a well-known passage in Bishop Asser's "Life of
Alfred" in which Asser states that the kings of the house of Wessex did not
allow their wives the title of queen, only that of *hlaefdige* ("Lady") and
that these women were not allowed to sit with their husbands on a throne.
Asser explains this was done because an earlier queen of Wessex, wife of
Egberht's predecessor, was thought to have murdered her husband and in
consequence, later kings' wives were denied the rank of queen. This queen
(Eadburh?) was, as it happened, a daughter of Offa of Mercia, the primary
opponent of the house of Wessex in the late 8th century, and Stafford
suggests that the claim she killed her husband was probably no more than
anti-Mercian propaganda at the Wessex court.
Aethelwulf ill-advisedly permitted his second wife, Judith, to be crowned
when he married her on the Continent while visiting her father's imperial
court. The Anglo-Saxons objected violently to this departure from custom
and it was one of the factors that led to Aethelwulf's deposition.
Stafford explains that denying the king's wife the title of queen in the 9th
and most of the 10th centuries was a way to limit the woman's ability to
enter politics. Only in Edgar's reign was the custom of relegating the
king's wife to a position of obscurity abandoned. Aelfthryth was crowned at
the same time Edgar received his "imperial" coronation, in 973.
Thirdly, it would be best to have the king's consort anointed and crowned
(which I expect happened in the case of Eadgar partly because of his
support of
archbishop Dunstan).
Correct. In particular Aelfthryth profited from her own energetic support of
the see of Winchester. Oddly, however, her marriage to Edgar was originally
condemned by the Church as her first husband was related to Edgar within the
prohibited degrees of consanguinity.
The problem here is that there have been English monarchs
who were never crowned (Edward V and Edward VIII, then does Lady Jane Grey
count, she is often quoted as the person with the shortest reign, but them
always omitted from lists of monarchs — can't remember if she was
crowned, but I
doubt it).
First, neither Edward V nor Edward VIII was married while on the throne (the
latter of course wed Mrs Simpson after abdicating), so there was no question
of crowning a queen in their reigns.
Also, both these reigns fell long after the idea had dissipated that a king
had to be crowned before he could rule in the fullness of his powers. In
earlier medieval centuries it was held that coronation had to take place as
soon as possible after a king acceded to the throne, but this idea began to
lose its force in the late 13th century when Philip III of France and Edward
I of England succeeded their fathers while absent from their respective
kingdoms--both were on crusade, Philip with his father Louis IX in N. Africa
and Edward in Palestine. Philip could not be crowned at Reims for several
months while Edward, who became king in November 1272, was not crowned until
he returned to England in August 1274. After Edward died in July 1307, his
son Edward II was not crowned until the following February. (To stabilize
the regime as soon as possible after Edward II was deposed in January 1327,
however, his son Edward III was crowned at once.)
Jane Grey was never crowned.
The idea also disappeared that it was necessary to crown a king's wife.
Edward I's second wife, Margaret of France, was never crowned but used the
title of queen and wore crowns in public. Of Henry VIII's six wives, only
Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were crowned. (He meant to have Jane
Seymour crowned but the rite was delayed by an outbreak of sweating sickness
in London, and not rescheduled before her premature death). Charles I's
wife Henrietta Maria was not crowned as she refused to go through a
Protestant rite, but this did not affect her status. To save money, Charles
II declined to have Catherine of Braganza crowned. George IV refused to
allow his wife Caroline of Brunswick to be crowned and tried to divorce her
before his coronation, but the attempt failed and she was legally and
legitimately queen of Great Britain, crowned or not.
After the 13th century, French queens were not crowned as a matter of
course; the rite was performed only occasionally, usually in response to
political circumstances--e.g., Anne of Brittany was crowned twice, once as
Charles VIII's wife (acknowledging her importance as duchess of Brittany in
her own right) and again as Louis XII's wife (to stress that her queenship
came from marriage, not inheritance). The last queen of France to be crowned
was Marie de Medicis in 1610, and that was done only because Henri IV was
many years older than she and there was a real likelihood that she would
become regent for her son Louis XIII (as in fact happened since Henri IV was
assassinated the day after her coronation).
It seems to me that your argument gives Aelfthryth the strongest claim to
be
call the 1st English Queen, but because of the nature of the title it is
also
perhaps not correct to say that all other candidates do not qualify.
Whether
Aelfgifu-Emma does so qualify, I don't know, but this was part of the title
for a mass-media radio programme, so exaggeration cannot be ruled out.
See above for the status of the wives of Anglo-Saxon kings before Edgar's
reign. Aelfgifu-Emma was probably crowned as Aethelred's wife, and appears
as "regina" with her second husband, Cnut.
John P.