St Edward the Confessor, Optometrist

Edward the Confessor (St Peter's church, Edensor, Derbyshire)

Today is the feast of Edward the Confessor, about whom I've posted many times before, so here's a favourite miracle-story about Edward which - perhaps surprisingly - credits this most problematic of Anglo-Saxon kings with a playful sense of humour. It's recorded by the anonymous author of the eleventh-century Vita Edwardi Regis, the first Life of St Edward. Despite its title this text is only partly about Edward himself; it was written for his wife Eadgyth, daughter of Earl Godwine, and is as much about her father and brothers (much more dynamic and interesting characters than Edward!) as it is about her husband. It's worth reading if you ever get the chance: it's the closest thing we'll ever get to the perspective of Queen Eadgyth herself on her extraordinary family. There are character sketches of Harold and Tostig - Harold, patient and wise, 'a second Judas Maccabeus, a true friend of his race and country', but 'rather too generous with oaths (alas!)', Tostig liberal, pious, powerful in his self-restraint, and with 'bold and inflexible constancy of mind', both distinctly handsome and very brave. There's also an intriguing insight into Cnut's relationship with Godwine ('revered by all Englishmen as a father', apparently) and an interesting description of Eadgyth herself. Plus a bit about Edward the Confessor, if you like that sort of thing.

Anyway, here's the miracle. A blind man has just come to King Edward to be healed, and has been sent water from the saint's morning ablutions. He claims the touch of it has cured him, but Edward wants to check and make sure:

The king, therefore, with pious curiosity, came unto him in the chapel, and, calling him to him, inquired whether he could indeed see. This the man began to affirm and gave thanks to God. To test the truth of the words, however, the king, as pure as a dove, stretched forth the palm of his hand, and asked for an account of his action. "You are stretching out your hand, O my lord king," the man replied.

Once more the king, sticking his forefinger and middle finger like a pair of horns before the man’s face, asked what he did. And the man answered what he saw. Also, a third time, the king, grasping his beard in his hand, again asked what he did. And the man furnished correctly the information that was sought. Then the king considered that he had been sufficiently examined.

The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, ed. and trans. Frank Barlow (Oxford, 1992), p.95.

Our precise author rather obscures the humour of this story with his dry delivery, but it is, I think, meant to be at least a little amusing. The 'how many fingers am I holding up' method of testing miracles!

Anglo-Norman Life of Edward (BL Additional 70513, f.55v)

I still have a fondness for the Old Norse leek story, though....

Edward in a 14th-century genealogical roll (BL Royal 14 B VI)

Medieval People in Modern Art: Winchester Edition

I went to Winchester recently, which as the capital of Anglo-Saxon Wessex and one-time capital of England is, unsurprisingly, full to bursting with memorials to medieval people. This was fun for me. I took lots of pictures, and here is a wander through some of them.

We can't start without the most famous memorial:

Good old Alfred the Great. Winchester was his capital, and he is naturally very prominent here (this statue is in the marketplace, in the middle of a traffic island). I am totally onboard with this, because who doesn't love Alfred the Great?

Here he is in the cathedral, just above one of the doors on the west side. His palace was about twenty feet away, though in Alfred's time there was no cathedral: there was instead the great Old Minster, and a little way away Nunnaminster, which was founded by Alfred and his wife Ealhswith. Alfred's son Edward the Elder founded the New Minster, which was later to move outside the city and become Hyde Abbey (more on that in a little while). The religious houses of Winchester, not to mention the royal palace, were thus packed as tightly together within the city as Oxford colleges or the buildings of Westminster today; and this was the Anglo-Saxon equivalent, a hub of political and religious power.

The Old and New Minsters were supposedly so close together that the competing singing of the two groups of monks made a discordant racket; but then the Normans pulled down the Old Minster and built the Cathedral on top, so it's quiet enough today...


Just across from Alfred and his turquoise stockings is Ethelbert, equally colourful in yellow and blue, and carrying a formidable sword. There were some other Saxon kings between them, but the doorway covered up their names/ruined my pictures.

Right at the other end of the cathedral is this splendid chapel. The reredos is a memorial to Charlotte Yonge (hurrah!) and very nice it is too - an Annunciation scene, which I'll post about another time. Above it is a window which shows a number of kings, queens, bishops and assorted benefactors of Winchester.

This is Cynegils, one of the very earliest kings of Wessex, wearing perhaps the least likely regalia one could possibly dream up for a seventh-century king, but with a good resolute kind of face. One of the things Cynegils is famous for (at least in my part of the world) is being baptised by St Birinus in the River Thame, near Dorchester, in c.635. However, the bishop shown with him here is not Birinus (we'll come to him in a bit) but Thomas Langton, who was bishop of Winchester before he became Archbishop of Canterbury (for five days), and who lived nearly a thousand years after Cynegils.

Next to him is Alfred again, of course, carrying a book which I think is supposed to be some representation of the phrase 'England's darling' (it looks like 'Leofs Angliae', which is neither Latin nor Old English as far as I can see!). Alfred is first called 'England's darling' in the twelfth-century Proverbs of Alfred, whose misattribution to Alfred is itself testimony to his lasting reputation in England. He is here keeping company with Bishop William of Wykeham, founder of Winchester College and of New College, Oxford. I think he and Alfred the educator probably would have found some common ground.

These two, perhaps not so much! On the right is Edward the Confessor, whom we have encounted before in stained glass many times; but on the left is Cnut, looking less like a Viking than anyone I have ever seen. I wonder if this is the only stained glass Cnut in the country (we might compare it to this depiction of his Norwegian rival Olaf Haraldson over in Suffolk. I googled 'stained glass Cnut' but most of the results were from this blog, so I guess I've cornered the market on this one). Winchester was Cnut's capital too - the capital of a pan-Scandinavian empire - and he was lavishly generous to the churches of Winchester (as well as many other places in England); this famous and beautiful depiction of his generosity was produced at the New Minster, a stone's throw away from this spot. He was of course Edward the Confessor's stepfather, though they probably never met; here they have matching beards, which gives them, in posterity, more in common than they ever had in life.

On the other side of Cnut is Queen Victoria - a splendid depiction, but equally odd company for him!

Most English churches bear witness to some horrible acts of desecration, at various periods; and Winchester is no exception. Due to its political importance, it was almost a 'royal mausoleum' in the late Anglo-Saxon and early Norman period; besides Cynegils and other early kings of Wessex, Cnut, his wife Emma and their son Harthacnut were all buried here, as was William Rufus after the Conquest, as well as numerous saintly bishops (the most famous being St Swithun, and poor Stigand) and non-royal luminaries like Earl Godwin. But on 14th December, 1642, Parliamentarian soldiers marched into the cathedral, broke open these tombs, and scattered their contents across the floor of the quire. The bones, mixed up together, were gathered up and are now in mortuary chests like this one:

This is the one with Cnut's name on it, but who knows whose body it contains. I've spent this whole term and a good part of the past three years with Cnut, so I am very fond of him, and this makes me sad. I know they're only bones, but still... However, it is a little better than what happened to Alfred the Great, who was buried at the New Minster: after his body was transferred to Hyde Abbey when the house was refounded, the site of his grave was lost at the Reformation.

This is what remains of Hyde Abbey - the gatehouse.

Another casualty of the Reformation (we really should stop calling it that) was the great reredos of the cathedral, above the high altar. It was repopulated with statues in the nineteenth century, which are very nicely done. I couldn't get many decent photographs of them - too dark and far away - but that's never stopped me posting my photos before, so here are the least bad/my favourites.

Here's Cnut, with a bit of a swagger.


This is Queen Emma, wife to Ethelred and Cnut, mother of Edward the Confessor and Harthacnut, patron of the invaluable Encomium Emmae Reginae, etc. She lived in Winchester after Cnut's death, right up until the 1050s, and she was a generous benefactor of religious houses (she gave the head of St Valentine to the New Minster!); so she certainly deserves her place here.

This is her son Edward the Confessor. You'd think they wouldn't like him much at Winchester, since it was mostly because of him that the capital of England moved, eventually, to London, but perhaps they've got over it in the past 1000 years. I like this depiction of him - not too old, as he sometimes is, and somehow elegant.

This is St Birinus - I said we'd get to him. I missed his feast-day this year but he's an important saint to Oxfordshire and important to me personally; I must post about him properly some day.

And I had to include this, because it's Godwin, who choked to death (maybe) at Winchester in 1053 after (maybe) lying about his part in the murder of Edward the Confessor's brother. He was buried at Winchester but doesn't even seem to have made it into the mortuary chests - "perished as though he had never been", for all his greatness. No wonder he looks pensive.

This is St Edmund of East Anglia, deserving of a place of honour anywhere (compare these depictions). He is also to be found in stained glass elsewhere in the cathedral, not far from the grave of Jane Austen (hurrah!):

Those are some scary-looking arrows! Next to him is King Oswald of Northumbria, with a very odd beard but a beautiful cross:

Oswald, the English Constantine, played an important role in Cynegils agreeing to be baptised by Birinus, and the coming of Christianity to Wessex (he stood godfather to Cynegils), so he deserves some credit in Wessex's great cathedral.

And another Northumbrian features in the window commemorating Isaac Walton - St Wilfrid.

That's all for the cathedral. Having now exhausted the patience of even my most loyal readers, I shall proceed entirely for my own amusement ;)


Here's St Swithun, from the tiny, delightful church of St-Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, which is literally a room above a gate in the city wall.


And next to him in the same window is the great Bishop of Winchester, Æthelwold, one of the leaders of the tenth-century Benedictine Revival.

One more Alfred the Great:


This is from the church of St Bartholomew, near the site of Hyde Abbey, part of which was built using stone from the abbey. It's a pretty church:


And here's a larger view of this Alfred, so you can see his rather striking cross-gartered stockings, not to mention that Saxon child's plaits.

I have no idea whether Anglo-Saxon kings really did wear cross-garters, but modern artists always have them dressed that way (I note that Cnut isn't wearing them in the New Minster Liber Vitae picture linked above, but then, he was a Dane, and their fashion sense is often remarked upon disdainfully by medieval English writers...).

Either way, they certainly didn't have heraldic shields, and so the 19th-century refurbishers of Winchester's Great Hall invented some for them. This is Alfred's:


Tasteful, but a little dull, compared to what Harthacnut gets:

I guess that's almost a raven banner...


Cnut has some mythical beasts (four for his four kingdoms, perhaps?) and Edward the Confessor of course has these birds:


Godwin's is pretty cool, like a lot of Rubik's cubes:


And Harold Godwinson has some lionheads:


Probably could have done with those at Hastings, Harold.

Even Waltheof has a crest:


He was executed in Winchester in 1076, though this was the only reference to him I could find anywhere in the city. Poor Waltheof - at least he got a crest.

From Waltheof, historical but the stuff of legend, we pass to the, er, legendary:

Guy of Warwick is not real, but that didn't stop the Victorian medievalists. Neither is Bevis of Hamtoun, and yet:


I suppose he was a local man, from Southampton - and Guy did some great deeds in Winchester, though himself an Oxfordshire boy. But if I were going to design a crest for Bevis, I'd at least put his awesome super-horse on it, not lions and a nightcap. Sheesh. And Guy could have his dragon, and the Danish giant he supposedly slew out on Hyde Meadow, where the leisure centre now is.

The Great Hall really is medieval, but it sort of feels like medieval fantasy due to the Victorian stained glass and this:


By most standards this replica of the Round Table would be very old (it dates to c.1275!) but somehow in this context, and in the light of all Winchester's Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish history, it felt very modern indeed.

Some Stained Glass; St Edward

Just because.


These are all from the parish church of Islip in Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Edward the Confessor.

This time last year I was posting a series of nine facts about Edward the Confessor, in the lead-up to his feast day on October 13th.


But this post from nearly two years ago best explains why he interests me. Weak, rejected, bad-tempered and lonely, there was still enough of holiness about him to make him the last of England's monarchs to be called a saint. If I may repeat myself:

Anglo-Saxon life was not easy at the best of times, but Edward's sounds so unsettled and lonely. It's just sad. And yet he was a virtuous and holy man, who showed the power of God in his life, and he was admired and venerated, and miracles were worked through him. When I hear sermons about how saints are difficult for us to relate to because they are always happy and glorified, I think about Edward the Confessor and that hymn which says of the saints:

Once they were mourning here below,
And wet their couch with tears;
They wrestled hard, as we do now,
With sins and doubts and fears.

Well, I can relate to that.


Perhaps bizarrely, I'm writing a novel about his years in exile. It's a little hard to imagine why anyone would ever read such a book (let alone write one...), but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Testing Miracles in the Eleventh Century...

... the 'how many fingers am I holding up' method. A blind man has just come to Edward the Confessor to be healed, and has been sent water from the saint's morning ablutions; he claims the touch of it has cured him, but Edward wants to be sure:

The king, therefore, with pious curiosity, came unto him in the chapel, and, calling him to him, inquired whether he could indeed see. This the man began to affirm and gave thanks to God. To test the truth of the words, however, the king, as pure as a dove, stretched forth the palm of his hand, and asked for an account of his action. "You are stretching out your hand, O my lord king," the man replied.

Once more the king, sticking his forefinger and middle finger like a pair of horns before the man’s face, asked what he did. And the man answered what he saw. Also, a third time, the king, grasping his beard in his hand, again asked what he did. And the man furnished correctly the information that was sought. Then the king considered that he had been sufficiently examined.

The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, trans. Frank Barlow, (1992), p.95.

I must confess that the horns and the beard-pulling amuse me.

An Anglo-Saxon Queen

"Dignified and reserved, not inclined to talk freely with just anyone, likewise not easily approachable, she spoke quietly, and, with her cloak of seriousness and modesty, never with shouts or laughter or a raised voice. When offended, she curbed or hid her anger by holding her tongue, in order to give hope. She diligently read religious and secular books, and she herself excelled in the writing of prose and verse. In the arts of painting and needlework she was, as they say, another Minerva. She could speak the general language used in Gaul, as well as Danish and Irish, as though they were her mother-tongues; and in all these she attained not merely an average standard but perfection. When faced with some distressful or squalid scene, she could barely pause for a moment but immediately made a suitable comment on it to the company."

The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, trans. Frank Barlow, (1992), p.23.

The Queen in question is Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor. Thus spoke her official panegyrist, who is probably stretching the truth a little (she may well have spoken French and Danish, which was literally her mother-tongue in that her mother was Danish - but Irish seems unlikely). Considering she was possibly the great-granddaughter of a bear, her queenly dignity is especially admirable.

See also: her other biggest fan.

Suffolk Stained Glass Saints

More modern memorials to medieval saints. These are from two churches I already mentioned in connection with St Edmund of East Anglia. First, a fragment preserved in the porch of Southwold church - an elderly but particularly regal Edward the Confessor:

There's something odd about the face, quite apart from the many wrinkles (!) but I like his sceptre and the chain around his neck, presumably both a bit of artistic license. The colours are pleasingly rich, too.

And at lovely little Fritton, in the tiny Anglo-Saxon chancel, the fantastic medieval wall painting is complemented by four windows of medieval saints. The quality is a bit hit-and-miss but the choice of saints is distinctive and unusual. This was my least favourite:

There's something off about the expression on the face of Etheldreda (Æthelthryth, the seventh-century Abbess of Ely) - it's almost supercilious. I do like the representation of what is presumably Ely behind her, though. I have mixed feelings about Æthelthryth because although Bede's account of her is very edifying, the story of her death from a tumour in her neck (which she considered a punishment for wearing necklaces in her vain youth) creeps me out every time I put on a necklace. Yuck. Sorry, Æthelthryth.

Her sister in the next window is a bit more interesting, and a more unusual subject. St Wihtburh, like Æthelthryth, was the daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, and the founder of a nunnery - in her case at Dereham in Norfolk. The deer represent the story that when she was building the monastery and had nothing to feed her workmen with, she prayed to the Virgin Mary and was provided with two wild does who fed the men with their milk. Although you might like to compare the story of another Anglo-Saxon princess-nun (in this case Kentish), Domneva, who also had the aid of deer in the founding of her nunnery, and is also often depicted with them. Suspicious.

Speaking of Minster-in-Thanet (which is where Domneva's nunnery was founded), I assume that's St Ethelbert of Kent next to Wihtburh; these are my favourite depictions of him.

The other two windows depict even more unusual subjects. St Fursey, on the right here, is not so unusual in East Anglia:

But not even the guidebook could explain correctly who St Olaf was (they thought he lived in Suffolk. Sorry, no...). He is Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway, aka St Tooley - sometime Viking, then a convert to Christianity who helped Ethelred the Unready defend England against the Vikings (unsuccessfully, of course). Note the Viking ship behind his head, and the multitude of weapons (I count sword and axe - and is that a hammer in his hand?). After he was killed in battle by his own people in 1030, he was venerated as a saint in England as well as in Norway, and there are a number of churches dedicated to him in England. He's an appropriate subject for commemoration at Fritton, for this part of coastal East Anglia looks like it might have been a little hub of his cult - there's a thirteenth-century priory dedicated to him just down the road, and connections with nearby Herringfleet and Gorleston.

The last pair are St Walstan - a very local saint! - and William of Norwich, about whom the less said the better, really. I'd never heard of Walstan, but his legend is an interesting one - especially if he really did die in 1016. He was a farm labourer, and may therefore, I think, be the only saint of Anglo-Saxon England to be neither royal nor a bishop/monk/nun/hermit. His farming implements are nicely done:

St Wulfstan of Worcester

19 January is the feast of St Wulfstan of Worcester, vegetarian, anti-slavery campaigner, and eleventh-century bishop. Appointed Bishop of Worcester late in the reign of Edward the Confessor, Wulfstan was one of the few high-ranking English churchmen to keep his position after the Norman Conquest. When he died in 1095 he was the only English bishop left in England, and he was highly respected by Normans and English alike for his personal holiness and, in a way, as a relic of the Saxon church, which was so quickly taken over by Norman customs after the Conquest. For the English historian Eadmer, describing why St Anselm, as Archbishop of Canterbury, consulted Wulfstan about pre-Conquest English customs, Wulfstan was "the one sole survivor of the old Fathers of the English people".

Colman, Wulfstan's own chaplain and chancellor, wrote a life of the saint in English, which sadly does not survive; but luckily it was translated into Latin by William of Malmesbury in the 12th century, and so we have a detailed account of his life. The wikipedia article gives all the key facts of his career without giving any of the interesting ones. So here are some of Colman's more memorable stories about him (all quotations are from Michael Swanton's translation of the Latin life in Three Lives of the Last Englishmen):

1. First of all, the story of how he got his name gives a little insight into Anglo-Saxon naming practices. His father was called Æthelstan ('noble stone') and his mother was called Wulfgifu ('gift of the wolf'), so they named their son 'Wulfstan', combining elements from the two names. I suppose 'Æthelgifu' ('noble gift') would have been the other option, but that's a woman's name. Combining bits of other names to make new ones has become popular in recent years, and is often mocked as a ridiculous modern practice, but it was easy for the Anglo-Saxons, because many Germanic names are made of two free-standing elements which can be switched around. Most likely Wulfstan was really named after his very famous uncle, Wulfstan Archbishop of York, who was a prominent homilist, law-maker and advisor to both Kings Æthelred and Cnut - but the combining of names is a nice story.

2. As a child, being educated in the monastery of Peterborough, Wulfstan was taught by a monk named Earnwine, "an expert in writing and painting pictures... He had given the young Wulfstan some books to look after - a sacramentary and a psalter, in which he had illuminated the capital letters with gold. The boy was captivated by the rich decorations, and while his eager eyes explored its beauty, his mind was taking in the meaning of the words. But the teacher, looking to worldly advantage and hoping for larger profit, presented the sacramentary to Cnut, who was king at that time, and the psalter to Emma, the queen. The child was heartbroken at the loss."  This touching story has a happy ending, though.  Wulfstan had a dream in which an angel promised the books would be returned to him, and much later they were: Cnut had sent the books to Cologne as a diplomatic gift to the Holy Roman Emperor, and in the reign of Edward the Confessor they happened to be brought back to England, and were given to Wulfstan as a gift by someone who did not know of his dream. Fetching lost books is a pretty useful saintly attribute!

It would have been a book like this one, the Eadui Psalter

3. Another story tells how as a teenager, back home with his parents, a local girl fell in love with Wulfstan. One day a large group of young people had gathered in a field, competing in races and atheletic games, and Wulfstan won all the honours of the game. "The rural crowd shouted his praises, re-echoing on the ears again and again." (Incidentally, this is a nice insight into how Anglo-Saxon teenagers amused themselves in their free time). Wulfstan, of course, remained humble despite all this praise, so the Devil put it into the mind of the girl "to dance in front of him to the accompaniment of a harp, with lewd gestures and shameless movements such as might gratify the eyes of a lover. And he, whom neither words nor touches had weakened [she had previously been in the habit of squeezing his hand to try and seduce him], now panted with desire, completely reduced by her disarming gestures. He immediately came to his senses, however, and bursting into tears, fled away into some rough undergrowth... There sleep crept over him, and a cloud came down from above, a bright and attractive gleam playing on the eyes of those who saw it spreading out to cover a considerable area, amazing the onlookers." They came and asked Wulfstan to explain what it meant, and he said it was a sign of heavenly love, and that from henceforth he would always be free from sexual temptation. His biographer notes that as an old man he often told these stories about his own life to encourage others - he told the story about his childhood to boys, and this story to young men.

4. Later, as a monk at Worcester, he was praying in the church at night when an old peasant came in and scolded him for being there so late, and challenged him to a fight. Wulfstan - knowing, of course, that it was the Devil in disguise - wrestled with the peasant until he vanished in a puff of smoke. "However, lest he should seem to have achieved nothing, the Devil trampled on the foot of the righteous man with the full weight of inquity, simply piercing it through as if with a red-hot branding iron. Godric, a monk in the same convent, who says he has often seen it... testifies that the wound penetrated to the bone. And I [that is, Colman] knew the boor whose appearance the Enemy assumed. He was certainly an appropriate fellow - with savage strength, monstrous wickedness and hideously deformed face."

The rest of Wulfstan's life was not so beset with trials, although he did perform numerous miracles while he was Bishop of Worcester. The leading men of his day sought his counsel, especially Harold Godwineson, who had a particular esteem for him. After the Conquest, King William also developed a great respect for him, as did Malcolm of Scotland and St Margaret. One of his most notable achievements was to put a stop to the slave trade in Bristol, from where slaves used to be taken for sale in Ireland. Colman has many stories of his personal humility and piety, and I'll finish with this one:

Out of humility, Wulfstan dressed in lamb-skin, avoiding ostentatious clothes. "On one occasion he was benignly reproved by Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, showering the man with the most witty remarks, among which he asked why he wore lamb-skin, when he could and ought to have sable, beaver or wolf. He replied neatly that Geoffrey and such men practiced in worldly wisdom ought to make use of the pelts of crafty beasts, while he, who partook in no subterfuge, was content with lamb-skin. To which Geoffrey rejoined that Wulfstan might at least dress in catskin. "Believe me," replied Wulfstan, "We praise the Lamb of God more often than the Cat of God!" At these words Geoffrey burst out laughing, quite delighted".

And one final story about dress and appearance. Wulfstan strongly disapproved of men with long hair. Apparently "if any of these yielded [Wulfstan] his head, he would cut away the unrestrained locks with his own hand. For this purpose he had a little knife, with which he used to scrape muck from his nails or dirt off of books... If anyone thought to refuse, he would openly accuse him of softness, openly warn him of misfortune. It would come to pass that those who were ashamed to be what they were born and imitated the flowing tresses of women, would prove no better than women in the defence of their homeland against foreigners. As much became evident with the coming of the Normans that same year. Who can deny it?"

So that's why the English lost at Hastings! Elsewhere William of Malmesbury says exactly the opposite about the English defeat at Hastings - it was the short hair that did it. Interesting theories...


For more about Wulfstan, see this post, and for a visit to Worcester Cathedral, see this one.

Our Fathers That Begat Us

There haven't been enough pictures around here recently. And so, in no particular order, here's a collection of some stained-glass Anglo-Saxons, from various churches. The windows are mostly 20th-century, but revivalism is often just as dear to me as the real thing... It's important that this history is commemorated, and in the late 19th/early 20th centuries the English church understood that rather better than it does today.

This is the coronation of King Edgar, from Bath Abbey. Edgar was the first English king to be crowned and consecrated in the way we would understand a coronation ceremony today; but his coronation took place when he had been king (and a very good king, at that) for fourteen years. The ceremony took place at Bath on Whitsunday, 973, and legend has it that Edgar was rowed up the river by six British kings who had submitted to his overlordship:

Hence the ship at the bottom. Note that he's being crowned by St Dunstan.

Here are some more kings, this time from Wells Cathedral. I got rather excited when I saw this window - six Anglo-Saxon kings all in one go!

The text along the bottom reads "Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us". The first king at the far left is Ine, king of Wessex between 688-726, who is mostly known for issuing one of the first law codes in Anglo-Saxon history, but who is commemorated at Wells because he founded its first church on the site of the present-day cathedral. The second from left is Egbert, king of Wessex from 802-839, who contributed to the final dominance of Wessex over the kingdom of Mercia (Wells is right in the heart of Wessex; in Mercia, and in Northumbria, and Kent they celebrate different Anglo-Saxon kings...):

Next we have the wonderful Alfred the Great, about whom nothing need be said, and his son Edward the Elder. Note the book and sword which Alfred the warrior-philosopher king is holding. I can't quite work out what it is Edward the Elder has in his hands:

Then Athelstan, the victor of the battle of Brunanburh, a 'warrior king' indeed; and Edgar again.

Alfred appears in a second window at Wells, I think in honour of his being the founder of the British navy:

And of course then there's my own favourite, Edward the Confessor, sharing a window with St Dunstan:

(Not a great photo, unfortunately, but I hope you can see that Edward is holding his emblem, a ring.)

Before we leave Wessex, here's a non-royal Anglo-Saxon: Eilmer the flying monk, from Malmesbury Abbey. Do read the link on him; he's just wonderful. An eleventh-century attempt at human flight!

And also from Malmesbury, St Aldhelm, holding a plan of the monastery he founded (below). Although William of Malmesbury, next to him, isn't actually an Anglo-Saxon (since he lived in the twelfth century and all), it's nice that he should have a place here, since he was the first real scholar of Anglo-Saxon history. I use his work twenty times a day, and can only aspire to be half the historian he was.


Also from Wessex, this is a good St Dunstan (again) at Selworthy, Somerset:

And a rather less good King Alfred, from Aller in the same county:

This commemorates one of the most important events of Alfred's reign, the peace treaty he signed with the Danes in which the Viking leader, Guthrum, agreed to be baptised with Alfred as his godfather. There's an indistinguishable lump of stone in the church which they say might be the font used in that baptism; well, you never know.

That will have to be enough for today; tomorrow, Northumbria and Kent.