Reviews: Changing Queenships in Tenth-Century England:Rhetoric and (Self-) Representation in the Case of Eadgifu of Kent at Cooling

Jonathan Tickle, ‘Changing Queenships in Tenth-Century England: Rhetoric and (Self-) Representation in the Case of Eadgifu of Kent at Cooling’, Early Medieval Europe 31 (2023), 598–628

For over half of the tenth century two Kentish estates were the focus of a tenurial dispute. One of these estates lay at Cooling; the other, known as ‘Osterland’, was probably in the vicinity of Stoke, some four miles east of Cooling. At the heart of the dispute lay Eadgifu, the third and final wife of King Edward the Elder (r. 899–924), who had been bequeathed the two estates by her father Sigehelm, an ealdorman in Kent. Her claim to the land, however, was disputed by a thegn named Goda and his family. Across several decades, the land changed hands multiple times and as such, the dispute provides a mirror of sorts into the changing statuses and fortunes of Eadgifu throughout her lifetime, first as the daughter of a local nobleman, then as a queen, royal mother and grandmother.

The reason that we know about this dispute is thanks to a single document drawn up during the reign of Eadgifu’s grandson Edgar (r. 959–975); by this time, Eadgifu had been widowed for over thirty-five years. It is this document that is the central focus of Jonathan Tickle’s recent article, published in the leading academic journal Early Medieval Europe. Within this article, Tickle offers an eloquent reappraisal of the document’s significance, emphasizing its value in particular for understanding the development of female royal agency in tenth-century England. Tickle does this primarily by paying close attention to the literary strategies employed by [pg357]the anonymous author of the document, which was originally composed in Old English (a later, modified Latin version also exists). For instance, Tickle draws attention to ‘certain evaluative language’, such as bereypte (‘deprived, despoiled, stripped’), which makes clear the deeply partisan nature of the text. Elsewhere, Tickle demonstrates how the document’s varied depictions of the kings who had reigned throughout the decades of the dispute add to the sense that Eadgifu was the legitimate and at times unfairly treated claimant. Although the document is not particularly lengthy – Tickle notes that it contains only 577 words – it is evident nonetheless that its narrative was designed as a decisive conclusion to the dispute, drawn up from the perspective of Eadgifu and her beneficiaries.

Throughout the article, Tickle expertly brings his close textual analysis into dialogue with two bodies of recent scholarship. First, Tickle follows the lead of several recent studies of early medieval documentary cultures in considering the ‘performative’ qualities of the document – that is to say, the ways in which the presentation and the reading aloud of the document are likely to have been fundamental to its purpose and value. Second, Tickle demonstrates the ways in which Eadgifu’s actions can be understood within the context of developing legal roles for royal women in tenth-century England, a topic that has otherwise been explored richly in recent years by Andrew Rabin. It should be noted too that this document also needs to be understand within a specifically Kentish context. After all, the two estates lay in Kent, and Eadgifu herself was a member of Kentish nobility. The document itself is in a West Saxon rather than Kentish dialect, and it may therefore have been the work of a royal draftsman. Nonetheless, its main beneficiary beyond Eadgifu was Canterbury’s cathedral community, who were to receive the two estates as a gift from Eadgifu. Indeed, as Tickle stresses, ‘this regional dimension may be key’ – that Eadgifu’s relationship with the cathedral may have been defined first and foremost in terms of her place in Kentish society, rather than as a former English queen. It is very apt, therefore, that Tickle was assisted by Kent Archaeological Society’s Allen Grove Local History Fund in the making of his excellent article, which will be of interest to a diverse range of readers keen to know more about early medieval England’s queens, documentary practices and legal cultures.

ROB GALLAGHER