¹ Chronicle, C, s.a. 980.

² Ibid.

³ Op. cit., s.a. 994.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Op. cit., s.a. 988.

⁶ Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J. (Cambridge, 1939), p. 246Google Scholar.

⁷ Anglo-Saxon England, ii (1975), pp. 115–45Google Scholar.

⁸ Chadwick, H. M., Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), p. 196Google Scholar.

⁹ Two Saxon Chronicles, ed. Plummer, C., ii (Oxford, 1892), p. 174Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Select English Historical Documents, ed. Harmer, F. E. (Cambridge, 1914), no. xxiGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. Whitelock, D. (London, 1952), 1. 109Google Scholar.

¹² Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XXV (1975), pp. 39–54Google Scholar.

¹³ There has been some confusion over the presence or absence of Olaf at this battle. Plummer, , op. cit., p. 173Google Scholar, thought that the Parker Chronicle confused the events of 991 and 994. The late ProfessorCampbell, , The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, D., Douglas, D. C., and Tucker, S. I. (London, 1961), p. 82Google Scholar, showed that the annal, with its reference to Olaf, was meant to stand under the year 991. The treaty, usually cited as II Æthelred, names Olaf amongst the Viking leaders and Archbishop Sigeric amongst the English. Liebermann showed conclusively that the treaty must be referred to the year 991, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F., iii (Berlin, 1903–1916), pp. 149–50Google Scholar. The 994 fighting was still raging at its height in September and Sigeric died late in October. But the treaty says that Sigeric negotiated the terms of the tribute: this chimes in with the Abingdon Chronicle, s.a. 991. In 994 the same source says that the bishop of Winchester was the ecclesiastical negotiator. In 994 Olaf became a Christian and Æthelred became his godfather; there is no reference to this in the treaty. In 994 Swein was the most powerful of the Viking leaders: he is not mentioned in the treaty. There is, then, no doubt that Olaf Tryggvason was at Maldon.

¹⁴ Blair, P. Hunter, Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1956), p. 93Google Scholar. Napier, A. S. and Stevenson, W. H., The Crawford Charters (Oxford, 1895), pp. 139Google Scholaret seq., present an English summary of most of the historical evidence that can be extracted from the Jomsviking Saga.

¹⁵ English and Norse Documents relating to the reign of Æthelred the Unready, ed. Ashdown, M. (Cambridge, 1930), p. 186Google Scholar, 11. 35–36. It is a pity that the whole Saga is not more accessible to English scholars.

¹⁶ Loc. cit.

¹⁷ Ed. D. Whitelock, 1. 31.

¹⁸ English Historical Documents, ed. Whitelock, D. (London, 1955), p. 855Google Scholar, n. 3.

¹⁹ ‘… and poor men are sorely deceived and cruelly defrauded and sold far and wide out of this country into the power of foreigners…and the rights of slaves are restricted…’ ed. Whitelock, D., II 43Google Scholaret seq., to which the version in CCC.201, which if it is not actually by Wulfstan is a contemporary gloss, Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethuram, D. (Oxford, 1957), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and reflects the provisions of laws known to be his, Whitelock, Sermo, note to 1. 48: ‘…slaves are not allowed to keep what they have gained by toil in their own free time, or what good men have granted them in God's favour’, adds point. If the rights of slaves were protected the rights of masters suffered. Wulfstan's Institutes of Policy, ed. Thorpe, B., Ancient Laws, ii (London, 1840), p. 320Google Scholar, says it is reeves who are the instigators of the injustices castigated in the Sermo and by reeves he means principally ealdormen. In VII Æthelred, 2.3, Wulfstan says that slaves may be exempt from labour services on the three days special fast the code prescribes et operetur sibimet quod vult. VI Æthelred 22.I forbids worldlicra weorca on Sundays: these two laws taken together suggest Wulfstan thought that slaves should have holidays from labour services on fasts and festivals but could work on their own account. The reformers seem to have increased the number of festivals to be observed: ‘all St. Mary's high festivals shall be worthily observed’, VI Æthelred 22.2 and the Handbook of Dates lists nine of them. Edward the martyr's day was added to the calendar and the fasts of Ember days were revived. It is worth noting that the anti-reforming publicist, Bishop Adalbero of Lâon, accused the reforming monks—he appears to be referring to Abbo of Fleury's writings in particular and Abbo had influence and importance in English reforming circles—of undue sympathy with the labouring classes and tampering with the proper order of society. Unfortunately we have no means of knowing what difference, if any, these concerns and the laws they gave rise to, made.

²⁰ Anglo-Saxon Writs, ed. Harmer, F. E. (Manchester, 1952), p. 380Google Scholar, and John, E., Bulletin of John Rylands Library, xlvii (1965), pp. 404CrossRefGoogle Scholaret seq.

²¹ Writs, no. 108.

²² The authenticity of the charter is discussed in the Appendix to the present article, p. 192–93 below.

²³ Heminingi Chartularium Wignorniensis, ed. Hearne, T. (1723), pp. 292–96Google Scholar.

²⁴ Galbraith, V. H., E.H.R., lxii (1967), pp. 100–01Google Scholar.

²⁵ John, E., Land Tenure in Early England (Leicester, 1960), pp. 142–43Google Scholar.

²⁶ Dr Galbraith, loc. cit., points out that the Indiculum was drawn up in tripartite form and copies deposited in Winchester and Canterbury. He remarks rightly that procedure was sometimes followed for wills and then makes what seem to me unnecessary difficulties by pointing to the absence of the essentials of a will in the Indiculum. But the letter does not purport to be a will and this tripartite form was used for other documents than wills—the object was to attain greater security and the motivation was not in the ordinary sense legal. Orbis Brittaniae, p. 260, n. 3.

²⁷ I do not understand why Mr Sawyer ignores CS 1136 in his paper on the Worcester Archive, op. cit.

²⁸ Land Tenure, p. 129 et seq.

²⁹ Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, E. O., Royal Historical Society Camden Series, xcii (London, 1962), p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Leges Henrici Primi, ed. Downer, L. J. (Oxford, 1972), p. 96Google Scholar.

³¹ Writs, pp. 266–68.

³² English Place Name Society, iv, Mawer, A. and Stenton, F. M., The Place-Names of Worcestershire (Cambridge, 1927), p.183Google Scholar.

³³ Chadwick, H. M., Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), p. 178Google Scholar, n. i: John, E., Orbis Brittaniae, p. 221–22Google Scholar: Hart, , op. cit., p. 121Google Scholar.

³⁴ Historians of the Church of York, Rolls Series (London, 1879)Google Scholar, ed. J. Raine, i, p. 428.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 444.

³⁶ Hart, , op. cit. p. 116Google Scholar and The Early Charters of Northern England and the North Midlands (Leicester, 1975), p. 260Google Scholar and p. 299.

³⁷ Hart, C. R., ‘Eadnoth, First Abbot of Ramsey’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, lvi–lvii (1964), pp. 61–67Google Scholar.

³⁸ Hart, C. R., ‘Eadnoth, First Abbott of Ramsey’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Ivi–lvii (1964), p. 61Google Scholar.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 66.

⁴⁰ Orbis Brittaniae, pp. 210–33, and Pope, J., England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 85–113Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Orbis Brittaniae, pp. 271–76.

⁴² Life of Oswald, pp. 443 et seq., Stevenson, J., Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, Rolls Series (London, 1858), i, p. 357Google Scholar.

⁴³ Life of Oswald, , p. 455Google Scholar, and cf. Chronicle, C, s.a. 980 and D, s.a. 981.

⁴⁴ Chronicle, C, s.a. 994.

⁴⁵ Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, D. (Cambridge, 1930), no. xviGoogle Scholar, 2.

⁴⁶ Epitome of the Sagas of the Kings of Norway, Ashdown, , Documents, p. 146Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Crawford Charters, p. 139, Writs, p. 574.

⁴⁸ S.a. 991.

⁴⁹ Documents, p. 3.

⁵⁰ II Æthelred in Robertson, A. J., The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Hemy I (Cambridge, 1925), pp. 57–63Google Scholar. Not all this text is an authentic part of the treaty.

⁵¹ Op. cit., pp. 455 et seq.

⁵² Florentii Wignorniensis Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B. (London, i p. 148)Google Scholar.

⁵³ Ibid., P. 148.

⁵⁴ Liber Eliensis, pp. 133–36.

⁵⁵ Ibid., p. xlviii. The author of the account says specifically he is using historiae in the English tongue: I do not believe it can be shown that the well-Known poem, Maldon, is one of them.

⁵⁶ II Æthelred and Florence, i, p. 149, and Plummer, , Two Chronicles, ii, p. 173Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Chronicon Abbatiae Ramesiensis, Rolls Series (London, 1886), ed. Macray, W. D., pp. 116–17Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Wills, no. XV taken from B.L., Harley Charter 43, C.4 a Bury charter. The only point on which the Liber Eliensis can be shown to be wrong is the name of the reigning abbot, for which Dr Blake offers an explanation, ibid., p. 422.

⁵⁹ The Battle of Maldon, ed. Gordon, E. V. (London, 1937), p. 21Google Scholar and Liber Eliensis, p. 136, n. I.

⁶⁰ Gordon, , Maldon, p. 33Google Scholar.

⁶¹ The total absence of the defeatist tone of the later sources for Æthelred's reign; the fact that the poet did not know the name of the Viking leaders, even the famous Olaf Tryggvason (it is true that the poem is incomplete but the central section of the poem would work much more easily if he had been able to use names for the Vikings as he could for the English); as well as the fact that within a few years no one was likely greatly to care who fell or who fled from Maldon, suggest that the impression is pretty solidly based.

⁶² Orbis Brittaniae, p. 222 et seq.

⁶³ Maldon, II. 211 et seq. Hart, , Charters of Northern England, p. 328Google Scholar, for Ælfwine's kindred. He was a nephew of Ealdorman Ælfhere of Mercia, the enemy of the monks.

⁶⁴ Maldon, 11. 265 et seq.

⁶⁵ Earlship and ealdormanship in relation to Byrhtnoth and Thored is discussed in the Appendix to the present article, p. 193–95 below.

⁶⁶ Memorials of St Dunstan, Rolls Series (London, 1874), pp. 397–98Google Scholar. Stubbs noted the exceptional form of this bull, JL/3840, and contented himself with citing Jafféto the effect that it was authentic. It is very exceptional in form and a pedantic form-critic would reject it out of hand, but common-sense would ask what conceivable motive would anyone have had for forging it?

⁶⁷ Stenton, F. M., Early History of Abingdon (Oxford, 1913), p. 7Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ DrHart, , Anglo-Saxon England, 2, p. 116Google Scholar, writes: ‘Æthelstan “Half King” at the height of his power governed in virtual autonomy a province the size of Normandy, and owned in addition extensive estates outside his earldom…nevertheless his family was completely bereft of influence before the end of the century.’ And p. 135 notes, too, the importance of the death of Byrthnoth and Æthelwine as turning points in the history of the reign. When the prosopographical studies, so necessary for the increase of knowledge of this crucial period, get under way, they will need to be based on the prodigious labours of Dr Hart on the source materials of Eastern England, to be found in the books and articles cited in this paper.