Emma of Normandy
Emma of Normandy | |
---|---|
Queen consort of Norway | |
Tenure | 1028 – 12 November 1035 |
Born | c. 984[2] Normandy, France |
Died | 6 March 1052 (aged c. 68) Winchester, Hampshire, England |
Burial | Old Minster, Winchester. Bones now in Winchester Cathedral |
Spouses | |
Issue |
|
Richard the Fearless | |
Mother | Gunnor |
Emma of Normandy (referred to as Ælfgifu in royal documents;
After Cnut's death, Emma continued to participate in politics during the reigns of her sons by each husband, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor. In 1035 when her second husband Cnut died and was succeeded by their son Harthacnut, who was in Denmark at the time, Emma was designated to act as his regent until his return,[4] which she did in rivalry with Harold Harefoot. Emma is the central figure within the Encomium Emmae Reginae, a critical source for the history of early-11th-century English politics. As Catherine Karkov notes, Emma is one of the most visually represented early medieval queens.[5]
Marriage to Æthelred II
In an attempt to pacify
Æthelred and Emma had two sons,
When King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded and conquered England in 1013, Emma and her children were sent to Normandy, where Æthelred joined them soon after. They returned to England after Sweyn died in 1014.
Emma and Æthelred's marriage ended with Æthelred's death in London in 1016. Æthelred's oldest son from his first marriage, Æthelstan Ætheling, had been heir apparent until his death in June 1014. Emma's sons had been ranked after all of the sons from Æthelred's first wife, the eldest surviving of whom was Edmund Ironside.[10] Emma attempted to get her older son, Edward, recognized as heir. Although this movement was supported by Æthelred's chief advisor, Eadric Streona, it was opposed by Edmund Ironside, Æthelred's third-oldest son, and his allies, who eventually revolted against his father.
In 1015
Marriage to Cnut
Cnut gained control of most of England after he defeated Edmund Ironside on 18 October 1016, at the Battle of Assandun, after which they agreed to divide the kingdom, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the rest of the country. Edmund died shortly afterwards on 30 November, and Cnut became the king of all England. At the time of their marriage in 1017,[12] Emma's sons from her marriage to Æthelred were sent to live in Normandy under the tutelage of her brother. At this time Emma became Queen of England, and later of Denmark and Norway.
The Encomium Emmae Reginae suggests in its second book that Emma and Cnut's marriage, though begun as a political strategy, became an affectionate marriage. During their marriage, Emma and Cnut had a son, Harthacnut, and a daughter, Gunhilda.
Issue
During her two marriages Emma had 5 children:
- Edward the Confessor c. 1003 – 5 January 1066, died without issue
- Goda of Englandc.1004 – c.1049
- Alfred the Noble c. 1005–1036
- Harthacnut
- Gunhilda of Denmark
Conspiracy regarding the death of Alfred
In 1036, Alfred Aetheling and Edward the Confessor, Emma's sons by Æthelred, returned to England from their exile in Normandy in order to visit their mother. During their time in England they were supposed to be protected by Harthacnut. However, Harthacnut was involved with his kingdom in Denmark. Alfred was captured and blinded by holding a hot iron poker to his eyes. He later died from his wounds.
Edward escaped the attack, and returned to Normandy. He returned after his place on the throne had been secured.
Encomium Emmae Reginae places the blame of Alfred's capture, torture and murder completely on Harold Harefoot, thinking he intended to rid himself of two more potential claimants to the English throne by killing Edward and Alfred. Some scholars make the argument that it could have been Godwin, Earl of Wessex, who was traveling with Alfred and Edward as their protector in passage.[13]
Harthacnut's reign
Harthacnut, Emma and Cnut's son, assembled a fleet to invade England in 1039, and when Harold died in March 1040 he was invited to became king. He crossed to England with his fleet and Emma. He was criticised by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for his heavy taxation to pay for the fleet and for having Harold's body disinterred and thrown into a ditch. In 1041 he invited his half-brother Edward the Confessor to England. The Encomium says that Edward was sworn in as king, which probably means that he was recognised as heir as Harthacnut knew that he did not have long to live. He may have been persuaded to make the invitation by Emma, who would have been keen to preserve her position by ensuring that England was still ruled by a son of hers.[14]
Edward's reign
After Harthacnut's death in June 1042, Edward the Confessor succeeded to the throne and was crowned in April 1043. During the same year, Edward rode to Winchester along with Earls Leofric, Godwin, and Siward, accused Emma of treason, and deprived her of her lands and titles. However, Edward soon relented, and Emma's lands and titles were restored. [15]
Death and burial
After her death in 1052, Emma was interred alongside Cnut and Harthacnut in the Old Minster, Winchester, before being transferred to the new cathedral built after the Norman Conquest.[16] During the English Civil War (1642–1651), their remains were disinterred and scattered about the Cathedral floor by parliamentary forces. The jumbled bones were later re-interred.
Queenship
As Pauline Stafford noted,[17] Emma is the "first of the early medieval queens" to be depicted through contemporary portraiture. To that end, Emma is the central figure within the Encomium Emmae Reginae (incorrectly titled Gesta Cnutonis Regis during the later Middle Ages[17]) a critical source for the study of English succession in the 11th century. During the reign of Æthelred, Emma most likely served as little more than a figurehead[18] a physical embodiment of the treaty between the English and her Norman father. However, her influence increased considerably under Cnut. Until 1043, writes Stafford, Emma "was the richest woman in England ... and held extensive lands in the East Midlands and Wessex."[18] Emma's authority was not simply tied to landholdings[18]—which fluctuated greatly from 1036 to 1043—she also wielded significant sway over the ecclesiastical offices of England.
The Encomium Emmæ Reginae or Gesta Cnutonis Regis
The Encomium is divided into three parts, the first of which deals with Sweyn Forkbeard and his conquest of England. The second focuses on Cnut and relates the defeat of "Princes" Æthelred (never named) and Edmund, Cnut's marriage to Emma (again, without mentioning she had been the wife of Æthelred), and Cnut's kingship. The third address the events after Cnut's death; Emma's involvement in the seizing of the royal treasury, and the treachery of Earl Godwin. It begins by addressing Emma, "May our Lord Jesus Christ preserve you, O Queen, who excel all those of your sex in the amiability of your way of life."[19] Emma is "the most distinguished woman of her time for delightful beauty and wisdom."[20]
Scholarly debate
This flattery, writes Elizabeth M. Tyler, is "part of a deliberate attempt to intervene, on Emma's behalf, in the politics of the Anglo-Danish court,"[21] a connotation which an 11th-century audience would have understood. This proves to be a direct contrast to earlier evaluations of the text, such as the introduction to the 1998 reprint of Alistair Campbell's 1949 edition in which Simon Keynes remarks:
... While the modern reader who expects the Encomium to provide a portrait of a great and distinguished queen at the height of her power will be disappointed, and might well despair of an author who could suppress, misrepresent, and garble what we know or think to have been the truth.
— Campbell & Keynes 1998, p. xvii
Felice Lifshitz, in her seminal study of the Encomium comments:
... To Alistair Campbell and to see C.N.L. Brooke the omission was explicable as a matter of 'artistic necessity' and of Emma's personal vanity ... both scholars subscribed to the older view, which afforded the Encomium only literary significance as a panegyric to individual or dynasty, but saw no political import.
— Lifshitz 1989, pp. 39–50
Manuscripts
Prior to May 2008 only one copy of the Encomium was believed to exist. However, a late-14th-century manuscript, the
It has been suggested that the poem Semiramis, possibly written in 1017 by Warner of Rouen at the court of Emma's brother, Richard, Duke of Normandy, and dedicated to her brother, Archbishop Robert, is a contemporary satire ridiculing Emma's relation with Cnut.[23]
Emma is also depicted in a number of later medieval texts, such as the 13th-century Life of Edward the Confessor (Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59) and a 14th-century roll Genealogy of the English Kings, Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings.
Emma and her sons Edward and Alfred are characters in the anonymous Elizabethan play Edmund Ironside, sometimes considered an early work by William Shakespeare.
The Ordeal of Queen Emma
Family tree
References
Citations
- ^ Cnut the Great, used the title "king of all England". See Norman Cantor, The Civilisation of the Middle Ages (1995), p. 166.
- ^ Strachan 2004, p. 15.
- ^ Encomium Emmae Reginae, p. 40 digitallibraryindia accessed 21 December 2020
- ^ Philip J. Potter:Gothic Kings of Britain: The Lives of 31 Medieval Rulers, 1016-1399
- ^ Karkov 2004, p. 119.
- ^ Keynes 2009.
- ^ Neveux & Ruelle 2008, pp. 94–95.
- ^ Howard 2008, p. 10.
- ^ a b Huneycutt 2003, p. 41.
- ^ Barlow 1984, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Howard 2008, pp. 12–15.
- ^ Strachan 2004, p. 172.
- ^ O'Brien 2006.
- ^ Lawson 2004.
- ^ Barlow 1984, pp. 76–77.
- ^ Lawson 2013.
- ^ a b Duggan 2002, p. 199.
- ^ a b c d Stafford 2001, p. 3.
- ^ Campbell & Keynes 1998, p. 5.
- ^ Campbell & Keynes 1998, p. 33.
- ^ Tyler 2005, pp. 149–179.
- ^ Bech-Danielsen 2008.
- ISSN 0778-9750.
- ^ Dugdale 1693, p. 6.
- ^ Reid 1885, pp. 20–30.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Kings of Wessex and England 802–1066" (PDF). The official website of The British Monarchy. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 August 2009. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
Sources
- Barlow, Frank (1984). Edward the Confessor. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05319-9.
- Bech-Danielsen, Anne (6 December 2008). "Knud Den Store Kom Ikke Med Det Kgl. Bibliotek Hjem". Politiken. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- Campbell, Alistair; Keynes, Simon (1998). Encomium Emmae Reginae. Cambridge: University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62655-2.
- Dugdale, William (1693). Monasticon Anglicanum, or, The history of the ancient abbies, and other monasteries, hospitals, cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales. Translated by Wright, James. London: Sam Keble; Hen. Rhodes.
- Duggan, Anne (2002). Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King's College London, April 1995. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-881-5.
- Huneycutt, Lois L. (2003). Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-994-2.
- Howard, Ian (2008). Harthacnut: The Last Danish King of England. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-4674-5.
- Karkov, Catherine E. (2004). The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-059-7.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8915. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Lawson, M. K. (10 January 2013). "Cnut [Canute] (d. 1035)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4579. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Lawson, M. K. (2004). "Harthacnut [Hardecanute] (c. 1018–1042)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- Lifshitz, Felice (1989). "The Encomium Emmae Reginae: a 'Political Pamphlet' of the Eleventh Century?". Haskins Society Journal. 1: 39–50.
- Neveux, François; Ruelle, Claire (2008). A Brief History of the Normans: The Conquests that Changed the Face of Europe. Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84529-523-3.
- O'Brien, Harriet (2006). Queen Emma and the Vikings: The Woman who Shaped the Events of 1066. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-7968-7.
- Reid, Herbert J. (1885). The History of Wargrave. London: W. Smith.
- ISBN 978-0-631-22738-0.
- Strachan, Isabella (2004). Emma, the Twice-crowned Queen: England in the Viking Age. London: Peter Owen. ISBN 978-0-7206-1221-9.
- Tyler, Elizabeth M. (2005). "Fictions of Family: The Encomium Emmae Reginae and Virgil's Aeneid". Viator. 36: 149–179. ISSN 0083-5897.
Further reading
- Gameson, Richard. L’Angleterre et La Flandre Aux Xe et XIe Siècles : Le Témoignage Des Manuscrits. Actes des congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes de l’enseignement supérieur public 32.1 (2001): 165–206.
- Howard, Ian, (2005) Harold II: a Throne-Worthy King. Essay included in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, pages 35–52. Boydell Press: ISBN 1-84383-124-4
- Monk of St Omer (1949) Encomium Emmae Reginae; ed. Alistair Campbell. (Camden 3rd series; no. 72.) London: Royal Historical Society (Reissued by Cambridge U. P. 1998 with suppl. introd. by Simon Keynes ISBN 0-521-62655-2)
- Patterson, Robert. The Haskins Society Journal Studies in Medieval History Continuum, 2003. Print.
- See also Encomium Emmae(for the Encomium Emmae Reginae or Gesta Cnutonis Regis in honour of Queen Emma)