284 – AEthelstan the Victorious

Last week, we ended with King AEthelstan’s aggression towards Kingdoms of Wales and Cornwall. We don’t know precisely what occurred, or why AEthelstan demanded crippling tributes from the Welsh and then violently expelled or executed the Cornish of Exeter.

But whatever the reason, AEthelstan’s actions echoed through history. In fact, the Welsh border that was established at the River Wye was still in place by the time of the Norman Conquest. The Welsh Kings become members of AEthelstan’s court. The government of Deheubarth, under King Hywel Dda, began to take on English (and thereby Carolingian) methods of rule… Hywel’s coinage took on an English appearance (and he even used Chester’s mint to produce his coins)… and actually Hywel even gave one of his sons an English name (Edwin).

In the aftermath of AEthelstan’s apparent conquest, southwest Wales cozied up to the First King of England, making sweeping and lasting changes that shaped its society for generations
Northern Wales proved to be the other side of the coin. While the Kings of Gwynedd, Gwent, Brycheiniog, and Morgannwg do appear in AEthelstan’s court on occasion, we don’t see nearly the close English connection that we see with King Hywel Dda who ruled over the Southwestern kingdom of Deheubarth. And even some of his own countrymen seem to have been rather bothered by his relationship with AEthelstan, hence the rather caustic appraisal of Hywel’s rule that appears in the contemporary Welsh poem, the Armes Prydien.

And this apparent split is reflected in an important written document of this period, the Dunsaetan Agreement.

This was a document dated from the 10th or 11th century (so right around where we are right now) and in it we’re told that hostages and tributes from Gwent and Glywysing should be specifically delivered to the West Saxon portion of England.

That’s strange, since Wessex wasn’t an independent Kingdom by the time of this agreement. It was just part of England. So why was it getting its own tributes? And scholars have pointed out that, if it needed to be specified that tributes from Gwent and Glywysing went to Wessex, did that mean that the rest of tributes went to Mercia (AEthelstan’s childhood kingdom)?

And this wasn’t a temporary arrangement. Over a century later, when the Norman conquerors wrote down the Doomsday Book, this same divide between Gwent and Glyswysing and the rest of Wales appears in their assessment. Whatever happened here resulted in a bureaucratic (and very likely a cultural) split that lasted for over 100 years. And considering how close Gwent and Glywysing are to Cornwall and Exeter… I’m wondering if these truly extraordinarily brutal tributes, the ethnic cleansing, the moving of the borders to the River Wye and River Tamar, and the subsequent political sequestration of southeastern Wales from the rest of the region are indicative that historian John Davies was right…that there was a British rebellion against AEthelstan, and it didn’t go well.

For the rest of his reign, the Cornish remain mostly on the margins. Following the purging of Exeter, AEthelstan forced Cornish borders far to the West, to the River Tamar. And while it remains unclear how much power he had on the other side of it, we do see him founding a Bishopric at Saint Germans, and critically the See that it governed extended across the border into Cornish territory even though it was located in English territory. And interestingly, the Bishop who oversaw that See had a British name… which makes me wonder if the blended society that we heard about continued following the attack on Exeter… and honestly, what the hell happened there in general, because we’re getting a bunch of mixed signals.

But whatever happened, and however power was apportioned, the fact remains that following Exeter,