Coenred of Mercia

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Coenred
Eormenhild
ReligionChristian

Coenred (also spelled Cenred or Cœnred[3] fl. 675–709) was king of Mercia from 704 to 709. Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the English Midlands. He was a son of the Mercian king Wulfhere, whose brother Æthelred succeeded to the throne in 675 on Wulfhere's death. In 704, Æthelred abdicated in favour of Coenred to become a monk.

Coenred's reign is poorly documented, but a contemporary source records that he faced attacks from the Welsh. Coenred is not known to have married or had children, although later chronicles describe him as an ancestor of

Wigstan, a 9th-century Mercian king. In 709, Coenred abdicated and went on pilgrimage to Rome, where he remained as a monk until his death. In the view of his contemporary, Bede, Coenred "who had ruled the kingdom of Mercia for some time and very nobly, with still greater nobility renounced the throne of his kingdom".[4] Æthelred's son Ceolred
succeeded Coenred as king of Mercia.

Mercia in the 7th century

The kingdoms of Britain in the late 7th century

By the 7th century, England was divided into kingdoms ruled almost entirely by the

English Midlands.[5] Neighbouring kingdoms included Northumbria to the north, East Anglia to the east, and Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, to the south. Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons, included London and lay between East Anglia and the kingdom of Kent.[6] The earliest Mercian king for whom there is definite historical information is Penda of Mercia, Coenred's paternal grandfather.[7]

The main source for this period is

Saint Guthlac.[12]

Ancestry and reign

In 658, Coenred's father

Cædwalla and Ine would have limited Mercian opportunities in that direction.[14]

Coenred's family tree

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 702 Coenred succeeded to the kingdom of the

Life of St Wilfrid relates how he summoned Coenred and made him swear to support Wilfrid in his conflict with the church hierarchy.[15][23][24]

Coenred's sparsely documented reign is mentioned in the Life of Guthlac. The author, Felix, reports conflicts with the

Britons: "in the days of Coenred King of the Mercians, [...] the Britons the implacable enemies of the Saxon race, were troubling the English with their attacks, their pillaging, and their devastations of the people [...]"[25] To counter such attacks, Æthelbald, who came to the throne in 716, was once thought to have built Wat's Dyke, an earthwork barrier in northern Wales;[26] but this now seems unlikely, since an excavation of the Dyke in 1997 found charcoal from a hearth which was radiocarbon-dated to some time between 411 and 561.[27]

Some surviving charters from Coenred's reign reveal him to have been the overlord of the East Saxon rulers. Offa, an East Saxon king, made a grant in the territory of the Hwicce (to which he may have been connected by a marriage of his father, Sigeheard) which was later confirmed by Coenred. In the charter, Coenred refers to Offa as his underking. Coenred and his successor also confirmed grants to Waldhere, the Bishop of London, evidence that London was firmly under Mercian overlordship.[28] Later Mercian kings treated London as their direct possession, rather than as a province ruled by an underking, but Coenred did not go that far.[29][30] A grant of land in Herefordshire to a nun named Feleburg has survived, as have forged charters in Coenred's name granting privileges to St Paul's Cathedral, and to the Abbey of Evesham.[15][31]

Mercia's influence in Kent was limited both before and during Coenred's reign.[28] In a surviving letter (written in 704 or 705), Waldhere, Bishop of London, tells Berhtwald, Archbishop of Canterbury, that Coenred had invited him to a council to be held "about the reconciliation of Ælfthryth". Waldhere refused the invitation as he did not know Berhtwald's opinion on the matter, which was evidently important, although no other reference to it has survived.[15] The letter describes a council to be held at Brentford to mediate between the kings of the East and West Saxons. In the view of the historian Frank Stenton, the letter illuminates the "confused relations of the southern English at a moment when they had no common overlord".[32] The reduced prestige of both Coenred and his successor, Ceolred, may have stirred unrest among the Mercian nobility: Æthelbald was in exile during Ceolred's reign, and the survival of a hostile account of Ceolred may indicate a more general dissatisfaction with the ruling line.[33]

Abdication and succession

Coenred appears to have been a very religious king. Bede tells a story of a companion of Coenred's whose sins led him to damnation despite Coenred's pleas that he should repent and reform. In 709 Coenred abdicated in favour of his cousin

Ecgwine accompanied Coenred and Offa to Rome, but historians have treated this with scepticism.[36]

Historians have generally accepted Bede's report of Coenred's and Offa's abdications, but

Osred II of Northumbria, who was forced into a monastery.[34] On the other hand, if Coenred went willingly, as Bede relates, then the apparently friendly relationship between Offa and Coenred, his overlord, makes it clear that the relationship between an overlord and his underking was not hostile in every case.[37]

Coenred was tonsured in Rome, whence he was accompanied by Offa, son of Sighere, king of the East Saxons, and became a monk "at the threshold of the apostles" as Bede had it; he stayed in Rome until his death, the date of which is unknown.[38] He is not recorded as having a wife or children. The Evesham Chronicle kept at Evesham Abbey, however, claims that he was an ancestor of Wigstan. They do not say whether this was through Wigstan's father, Wigmund, son of Wiglaf of Mercia, or through his mother, Ælfflæd, daughter of Ceolwulf I of Mercia.[39]

Notes

  1. ^ Hodgkin, History of the Anglo-Saxons, "Geneological Tables: Table I"
  2. ^ Hunt, Warriors, Warlords and Saints: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia p. 30
  3. ^ Williams, "Cœnred", in Biographical Dictionary, p. 82
  4. ^ Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 267
  5. ^ Yorke, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, Mercia, pp. 15–16.
  6. ^ Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms.
  7. ^ Yorke, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, Mercia, pp. 18–19.
  8. ^ Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 100.
  9. ^ Hunter Blair, Roman Britain, pp. 14–15.
  10. ^ Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, pp. 95–98.
  11. ^ Simon Keynes, "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", in Blackwell Encyclopedia, p. 35.
  12. ^ Cenred 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. Retrieved 20 December 2008.
  13. ^ Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 96.
  14. ^ a b Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 105.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Kelly, "Coenred"
  16. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 123.
  17. ^ "Charters of St. Paul's: 2". Trinity College, Cambridge. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2008.
  18. ^ "Anglo-Saxons.net: S 65". Sean Miller. Retrieved 11 March 2008.
  19. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 126–127.
  20. ^ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 41.
  21. ^ Whitelock, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 25 n. 5.
  22. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 173.
  23. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 127.
  24. ^ Eddius Stephanus, Life of Wilfrid, in Age of Bede, pp. 169–170.
  25. ^ Contigit itaque in diebus Coenredi Merciorum regis, cum Brittones, infesti hostes Saxonici generis, bellis, praedis, publicisque vastationibus Anglorum gentem deturbarent [...]. Felix, Vita Sancti Guthlaci, chapter 34, ed. and tr. B. Colgrave, pp. 108–109.
  26. ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 203, n. 1; pp. 213–214; p. 214 n. 1.
  27. ^ Feryok, "Offa's Dyke", p. 165.
  28. ^ a b Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 123–124.
  29. ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 203–205.
  30. ^ Wormald, "The Age of Bede and Æthelbald", p. 95.
  31. ^ Charters S 1801, S 1786, S 78, S 79, and S 80; see the listings under "Confirmation of land / privileges" and "Grant" in the "Events" section of Cenred 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
  32. ^ Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 142–143.
  33. ^ Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 112.
  34. ^ a b Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 174.
  35. ^ Liber Pontificalis § 90, tr. Davis, p. 94. Huius temporibus duo reges Saxonum ad orationem apostolorum cum aliis pluribus venientes sub velocitate suam vitam, ut obtabant, finierunt (ed. Mommsen, p. 225).
  36. ^ Sims-Williams, "Cuthswith", p. 15, n. 6.
  37. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 128.
  38. ^ Bede, HE, V, 19, pp. 299–300.
  39. ^ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 191.

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

External links

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