3 - Edgar and the Royal Women of the Monastic Reform

Summary

No king is as closely identified with books in Anglo-Saxon art as Edgar (959–75); yet one also has to question, in a way that one did not with either Alfred or Æthelstan, how much the image of the king that has come down to us was his own creation and how much was the creation of Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester 963–84. It is possible that both of the manuscript portraits that survive were designed by Æthelwold; certainly both accompany texts that the bishop is generally believed to have authored. In the manuscript portraits, as well as in his writings about Edgar, the image that Æthelwold presents to us time and again is one of a deeply pious king with a zeal for monastic reform who, because of his virtue, is also a wise and powerful ruler. Edgar's monetary policy, laws and charters do support this picture to a certain extent, but they also provide something of a balance in that they reveal a more iron-fisted and less peaceable ruler than we see in the saintly image created by Æthelwold. They also reveal an interest in the past, and in establishing connections between Edgar's policies and those of Alfred, Edward the Elder and Æthelstan. Similar connections are evident in the iconography of both the manuscript portraits as well as the imagery of much of Edgar's coinage. As regards the image of the king we should remember therefore that it was under Alfred that the christological dimensions of Anglo-Saxon kingship were first established, that they were further emphasised by Æthelstan, and that Æthelwold's portrayal of Edgar as a Christ-like ruler was in many ways a simple development of an association already firmly in place. As regards his nature, we should bear in mind that the anti-monastic backlash that followed Edgar's death provides evidence of just how dependent Æthelwold and the reformers were on the unopposed power of the king.

Visually it is the frontispiece to the New Minster Charter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, fols. 2r–33r) that establishes the image of King Edgar that was to remain so influential throughout his reign and beyond (fig. 7).