King Cnut of England

After over a year of fighting for control of England, Cnut of Denmark and Edmund Ironside made an agreement: Edmund would have London and everything south of the Thames; Cnut would take everything north of the Thames. If Edmund pre-deceased Cnut (the two were of similar age), Cnut would inherit all.

Unfortunately, Edmund had been wounded in the most recent Battle of Assandun. The historian Henry of Huntingdon, writing a century later, says Edmund died in Oxford from multiple stab wounds while using the privy. It is more likely that he died in London, on 30 November 1016. More contemporary records like the Encomium Emmae Reginae ("Encomium of Queen Emma") do not mention murder. Death from battle wounds is a more likely outcome. His burial place at Glastonbury Abbey was destroyed during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, so an examination of his remains is impossible.

Cnut was now King of England. Archbishop of Canterbury Lyfing crowned him in 1017. As King of England with ties to Denmark, he made sure that both Danes and Anglo-Saxons flourished, with exceptions: he had to make sure that there would be no challenges to his throne. The children of Edmund Ironside, and his father Æthelred's other children, fled to Normandy. Edmund's brother Eadwig Ætheling fled, but was followed and killed by Cnut's men.

Cnut then wed Emma of Normandy, Æthelred's widow. He was, of course, already married to Ælfgifu of Northampton, but this caused no problem. Setting aside one wife for another was common, especially if the first marriage was not by a Christian ceremony. Ælfgifu remained part of the family and the royal court, and her sons by Cnut still had standing.

There was another piece of business he had to conclude: paying off the thousands of mercenaries he had hired to help him conquer England. They had joined for the promise of payment once the country was secure. Cnut collected a Danegeld of £72,000, and a further £10,500 from London alone. He paid his army and sent most of them away, keeping some ships and men. He then used an annual tax called heregeld ("army gold") to maintain a standing army.

Cnut ruled  England for about two decades, and we'll go into some of his accomplishments (and his orchestrated failure) next time.

Arthur's Grave

In 1184, Glastonbury Abbey was devastated by a fire in the monastic buildings. A new Lady Chapel was consecrated in 1186, after which progress slowed down. Pilgrimages—and the donations they bring—had fallen off.

In 1191, however, an excavation on the grounds was undertaken, inspired by (we are told) information passed onto King Henry II from "an aged British bard." The excavation turned up a large flat stone. On the underside of the stone a leaden cross was attached. When the cross was detached, on the side facing the stone they found letters proclaiming Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex Arturius in insula Avallonia ["Here lies buried famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon"]. Several feet below this was found a large coffin made from oak containing a very large set of bones, along with a smaller set. These were understood to be Arthur and Guinevere.

Well, pilgrimages soared, of course. The relics and lead cross were put in the church; a few eyewitnesses mention them, but they are long vanished now. So...what was it about? Does anyone today really believe that King Arthur's bones were found under Glastonbury? If the king were involved, what was his return on the investment?

Arthur was considered a national hero, and legend said he would return in time of the nation's need. Henry wasn't British: he was the current monarch resulting from the Norman Conquest of Britain. He didn't even speak English. Some have suggested that his involvement was to discourage Welsh nationalism by showing that their legendary king was truly dead and would never return. I believed this for awhile, until I noticed the dates involved.

That idea doesn't quite fit history. The story that Henry had the clue to finding the body comes from Gerald of Wales, a historian writing a few years after the discovery. Interestingly, Henry had died two years prior to the excavation, so Gerald's suggestion that Henry got his information from that anonymous British bard seems spurious to me. It is more likely that the Abbey itself arranged this to increase attention and income.

Henry was a fascinating character in his own right, however, and worth looking at next time.

Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset may be the best-known of English abbeys. Originally founded in 712 with the construction of a stone church, it has been rebuilt and expanded many times. One of the expansions was under Dunstan (mentioned here) when he reformed it, expelled all the monks he considered unfit, and instituted the Rule of St. Benedict. It became an important site: King Edmund I was buried there, and an important charter of King Cnut's was disseminated from there.

Legend claims that an abbey was founded there in the 1st centuryCE by Joseph of Arimathea, the New Testament figure who provided the tomb for Jesus. This legend was described by Robert de Boron, a French poet of the late 12th century. His claim was that Joseph brought to Glastonbury 12 disciples as well as the Holy Grail containing drops of Jesus' blood, collected as he suffered on the cross.

For these and other reasons, Glastonbury became prominent as a pilgrimage site and a political power. A fire in 1184 destroyed the monastic buildings. Not wanting for money, reconstruction began right away, but the building of a large church and many buildings takes time. Pilgrimages—and the donations they bring—declined. In 1191, however, a discovery took place during excavation that would bring attention to Glastonbury once again, and shed light on an age-old legend.

But that's a story for tomorrow.

St. Æthelwold's Miracles

Æthelwold, one of the Three English Holy Hierarchs, saintly figures who spurred the revival of monasticism in England, was a truly saintly man. We know a lot about him from a surviving biography written by Wulfstan the Cantor.

He rebuilt or built many monasteries, including in Milton Abbas in Dorset, Chertsey in Surrey, Peterborough, and Ely. He reformed existing monasteries, driving out undisciplined monks and introducing the Rule of St. Benedict. His severity gives us the first example of miraculous events surrounding him: it is said that some monks who disliked his heavy hand put poison in his food, but he showed no signs of illness whatsoever. Speaking of food, while in Glastonbury, one of the duties he gave himself was cooking. One time, he resolved a scarcity of meat by praying, leading to a miraculous increase in the provisions.

Wulstan reports that he recovered unnaturally quickly from broken ribs after a fall from some scaffolding. Near the end of his life he was gravely ill, but bore his suffering patiently. After his death, on 1 August 984, miracles started taking place near his final resting place, and in response to prayers made to him for aid. A blind man from Wallingford was healed through prayers to St. Æthelwold.

His relics were then taken to the Cathedral in Winchester to signify their (and his) importance. Later, Abingdon Abbey received a finger, some hair, and arm, and his shoulder bone.

There is a single church dedicated to Æthelwold; it is St. Adelwold in Lincolnshire, in what would be fair to call an Elf village. I'll explain that tomorrow.

St. Æthelwold

Æthelwold was born about 910CE to a wealthy Winchester family. He served at the court of King Æthelstan (reigned 924-939), learning as much as he can and yearning toward a religious life. He and his friend Dunstan were ordained about 939 by the Bishop of Winchester, St. Alphege. Æthelwold and Dunstan went to the monastery in Glastonbury in Somerset about 940, where Dunstan was made abbot

At this time, Danish incursions into England had sacked and destroyed many monasteries. Monastic life in England was at a low point. Dunstan, who like Æthelwold was later made a saint, adopted the Rule of St. Benedict (mentioned a few times) for the Glastonbury monastery, and led the revival of monasticism in England. Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald of Worcester and York would be called the "Three English Holy Hierarchs" for their work in reviving English Orthodox monasticism.

Æthelwold wanted to go to Cluny in France to experience their version of monasticism, but Dunstan and then-King Edred did not want to lose him, and they sent him to Abingdon-on-Thames to run the derelict monastery there. The patron saint of the place was St. Helena, because legend had it that she built a church there.

Abingdon became a strong monastic community. Æthelwold brought singers from Corbie in France to teach Gregorian chant, which was not common at the time in England.

When Æthelwold became Bishop of Winchester in 963, the priests were illiterate, lazy, guilty of drunkenness and gluttony; they were not good at the services, and most were married men. Æthelwold expelled the married men, tightened up discipline, and brought in monks from Abingdon as the nucleus of a new "monastery/cathedral" institution.

I'll say a little more about him tomorrow, including about the miracles attributed to him.

The Name Glastonbury

Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, that has been inhabited since Neolithic times. A recent post discussed the discovery of early medieval glass-making furnaces at the site of the now ruined Glastonbury Abbey. This prompted some to point out to me that Glastonbury "must have been known" for glass production—it is "right there in the name." Let us address that.

Remains of the nave of Glastonbury Abbey

In his book The Flowering Hawthorn, Hugh Ross Williamson tells the story of St. Collen. Collen was a 7th century hermit who took up residence at what is now Glastonbury. Williamson relates how the saint encountered Gwyn, King of the Fairies, in a magical glass castle on Glastonbury Tor. Rejecting the fairies' offer of food and drink, he cast holy water on them, causing all to vanish. Numerous versions of this story exist, but Williamson's 1962 book is the only version that introduces glass as the material involved. As a source for the site's name, this is not reliable.

William of Malmesbury refers to its earliest name as Ynys Witrin, which some translate as "Isle of Glass" based on the fact that English "vitreous" comes from Latin "vitrum" meaning "glass." "Isle of Glass" would more properly be Ynys Gwydr, however. "Witrin" is a puzzle, but no serious scholar thinks it is from Latin for "glass." (The "Isle" makes sense because, in earlier times, higher sea levels turned some hilly areas into islands.) Malmesbury does suggest that the place was named for someone named Glast. Since the first recording of the name is Glestingaburg, the place of Glestinga. No one knows exactly to what Glestinga refers.

But it's not about glass.

Glass and Recycling

In 1977-79, a shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey was investigated. It was determined to have sunk about 1025. The ship's hold contained three tons of broken glass and chunks of glass. (This amount of glass would make about 12,000 Coke bottles.)

Jesse Tree at York Minster (1150-70); some of the oldest
stained glass of the Middle Ages

Glass requires extreme heat applied to a mixture of silica, soda, and lime. Silica was derived from sand; soda happens to reduce the temperature at which glass can form; lime makes the glass "chemically stable." Impurities—by accident or design—added color to the glass.

We know little about how glass-making came about; records do not explain the technique, but anecdotal mentions tell us a little. Pliny's Natural History tells us that the best sand for glass comes from the mouth of the Belus River near Akko, Israel. The shells in that sand provide the lime needed to make the glass stable. William of Tyre (1130-1186) and Jacques de Vitry (1170-1240) around 1200 both mention the same source. It is thought that the ancients did not understand why that source was the best, chemically, that they did not understand that the shells contained necessary lime.

In England, the Glastonbury Abbey Project has discovered evidence of a stone structure on the site of Glastonbury Abbey dating to c.700. They have also found evidence of early Roman and Saxon activity from before the Abbey's founding. Remains of glass-making furnaces have been uncovered, showing archaeologists that Saxons were recycling Roman glass brought from Europe. The Glastonbury site was possibly the first Saxon glass-making factory in England.

The remarkable thing about glass is that it is recyclable, like metals. Although it took a lot of energy to process, every bit of broken material (unlike wood or stone or pottery) could be re-smelted and re-cast. It is possible that the glass in windows like the example above was even older than our estimates, having been re-used from earlier glass objects that broke or had outlived their usefulness.