For the post-Conquest historians Eadric Streona was ‘the destroyer of many monasteries and the savage oppressor of all.’ He was inherited as a narrative figure from Anglo-Saxon sources as the great English traitor during Cnut’s conquest, a synecdoche for the English nation during the Danish conquest, and a figure emblematic not just of a failure by the nobility to fulfill their social responsibilities, but also of a predatory aristocracy and the consequences of their actions for the nation. As such, he proves a useful model for the critique of bad practices in the Anglo-Norman period without necessarily having to call out contemporaries by name. Eadric was made ealdorman of Mercia in 1007, was one of Æthelred’s closest counselors, and was married to Æthelred’s sister Eadgyth. As ealdorman, he was a powerful figure able to muster an army, and although his responsibility was to raise his army in support of the English king, he is recorded as repeatedly switching sides during the Danish invasions between 1009 and 1016. In fact, in 1015, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that he raised an army to challenge the rebellious Edmund Ironside, not in defense of the king, but in his own interests. Although it is tempting here to see him contemplating a bid for the throne, he did not, in the end, battle Edmund, but he did take his army and forty of the king’s ships and submitted to Cnut. Then in the entry for 1017, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that with Cnut’s accession to the throne the new king made Eadric ealdorman of Mercia, and within a year ordered that he be killed (ofslægen).

The post-Conquest authors who address Eadric do not simply repeat the story as it appears in their sources; they elaborate it, especially his betrayal of king and country, his execution, and the disposal of his body. In fact, the Anglo-Norman sources that mention Eadric divide neatly on how they depict his execution. Most make graphic Eadric’s crimes and display him both figuratively as a political actor, and literally as an executed body. However, there are exceptions in two sources produced at Worcester as a part of St Wulfstan’s historiographical project. Hemming’s Cartulary and the Worcester Chronicle erase Eadric’s identity.