Why was the real first king of England erased from history? ||

The biographer of æthestan says that the first king of England deserves to be known as close birthdays.

A new biography of æthestan, recently published to mark the 1100th anniversary of his coronation in 925, reaffirms his claim as the first king of England and highlights why his achievements remain underestimated. The author of the book, Professor David Woodman, argues that the unification of England of æthestan in 927 AAD deserves much greater recognition.

While events such as the battle of Hastings in 1066 and the signature of Magna Carta in 1215 are household knowledge, the pivot years of 925 and 927 AAD are much less known. Woodman, a historian from the University of Cambridge and author of The first king of Englandis determined to change this. With other researchers, he pleads for a sustainable memorial to a sovereign whom he considers unjustly forgotten.

“While we are approaching the birthdays of the coronation of Ethelstan in 925 and the birth of England itself in 927, I would like its name to become much better known. He really deserves it, ”explains Woodman, professor at Robinson College and the faculty of history of Cambridge.

Woodman collaborates with his historian colleagues to plan a memorial, which could take the form of a statue, a plaque or a portrait in an important location such as Westminster, Eamont Bridge (where the authority of æthelstan was recognized by other leaders in 927), or Malmesbury (his place of judgment). He also put pressure for Ethelstan’s reign to be more important in school programs.

“The accent was so concentrated on 1066, the moment when England was won over. It is time that we think of his training and the person who brought him together in the first place,” said Professor Woodman.

Why his inheritance

Why is æthestan not more widely known? According to Woodman’s new book, released by Princeton University Press, the answer lies in the absence of effective advertising. “Ætlestan did not have a biographer writing his story,” explains Woodman. “His grandfather, Alfred Le Grand, has praised his actions. And in a few decades of the death of hemestan, propaganda campaigns have raised the reputation of King Edgar to reform learning and strengthen religious life. ”

Over the more recent centuries, many historians have also minimized Ethelstan’s claim to be the first king of England, stressing the fragmentation of the kingdom after his death in 939 AD. Instead, attention has often moved to Edgar. Woodman strongly disputes this view.

“It is not because things failed after the death of Inthelstan that he did not create England in the first place,” said Woodman. “He was so ahead of his time in his political thought, and his actions by bringing together the English kingdom were so harshly helped, that he would have been more surprising if the kingdom had remained together. We must recognize that its inheritance, its ways of governing and legislating, continued to shape royalty for generations afterwards. ”

Woodman cites a multitude of evidence to resuscitate the reputation of æthestan.

Military success

“Militarily, æthestan was extremely strong,” says Woodman. “He had to be very robust to extend the kingdom and then to defend it”.

Æthestan had to face the main colony of Viking in the north and east. In 927 AAD, he acquired authority on the bastion of Viking in York and, by bringing Northumbria to his Dominion, became the first to reign in an area recognizable as “England”.

While Orthelstan widens his kingdom, he attracted Welsh and Scottish kings in his royal assemblies. Original surviving diplomas on a large scale, hosted at the British Library, list the very many nobles to which he forced to attend. Ethelstan assemblies must have been incredibly large, involving hundreds of people in total.

“These Welsh and Scottish kings had to be bitterly suspended from being far from their territories,” explains Woodman. “An incredible Welsh poem from the tenth century, The great prophecy of Great Britaincalls on the English to be slaughtered. It is difficult to date, but this can be a direct response to this expansion of the power of æthestan. »»

Then, in 937ad, during the famous Battle of Brunanburh, æthetan brutally crushed a formidable Viking coalition, supported by Scottish and Strathclyde Welsh, determined to overthrow it.

“Brunanburh should be well known as the battle of Hastings,” explains Woodman. “Each major chronicle, in England, in Wales, Ireland and Scandinavia, took note of this battle, its result and the number of people massacred. It was an episode of extremely important importance in the history of the newly formed English kingdom ”.

Many places have been offered for the battle. Woodman is convinced that this has happened in what is now Bromborough on the Wirral. “This location is strategically logical and the etymology of the name adapts,” he says.

Government revolution

The most powerful heritage of Orthestan rests in his “government revolution”, suggests Woodman. The legal documents of the reign of Ethelstan survive in relative abundance and, supports Woodman, takes us to the right at the heart of the type of king he was.

“King Alfred was to be a model for his grandson,” explains Woodman. “Æthestan saw that a king should legislate and he really did. He took the crime very seriously.”

Once æthelstan had created the English kingdom, royal documents known as “diplomas” (in substance, a concession of land by the king to a beneficiary) were suddenly transformed. Formerly short and simple, they were transformed into grandiose declarations of royal power.

“They are written in a much more professional and surprisingly learned Latin script, full of literary devices such as rhyme, alliteration, chiasm,” says Woodman. “They were designed to show himself, he was cheating on his success.”

But Woodman also argues that the government has become more and more effective during the reign of Ethelstan. “We can see him send law codes in different parts of the kingdom, then reports that come back to what worked and the changes to be made.”

“There are also some of the clearest evidence that we have for centralized surveillance of the production of royal documents, with a royal scribe charged with their production. It doesn’t matter where the king and the royal assembly traveled, the royal scribe also went. ”

Woodman underlines that æthestan gathered England at the time when parts of continental Europe were framing. “The nobles across Europe rose and took a territory for themselves,” he says. “Ætlestan made sure that he was well placed to take advantage of the deployment of European policy by marrying a certain number of his half-sisters in continental leaders.”

Inheritance of learning and religion

Woodman maintains that æthelstan has reversed a drop in the learning brought by the Vikings and their destruction of the churches. “Ætlestan was intellectually curious and the scholars from all over Europe came to its court,” said Woodman. “He sponsored learning and was passionate support for the Church.”

Two of Woodman’s favorite evidence concern Saint Cuthbert. The first, the first surviving handwritten portrait of all English monarch, appears in a 10^th-The manuscript of the century now taken care of by the Parker library of the Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The head of æthelstan is tilted while he stands in front of the saint. “Everyone should know this portrait, it is one of the most important images in English history,” says Woodman.

The manuscript was initially designed as a gift for the community of Saint Cuthbert. “Ætlestan had just expressed in Northumbria and this manuscript intelligently includes a life of Saint Cuthbert,” explains Woodman. “He was trying to win them in his cause.”

Woodman felt even closer to æthestan while studying Durham life book. Beforehand in the ninth century, this manuscript chronologically listed people who had a special link with the community of Saint Cuthbert, alternating gold and silver lettering.

“If æthestan will appear, it should be many pages, but in the tenth century, someone visited the community of Saint Cuthbert and wrote” æthestan Rex “at the top. Seeing that it was breathtaking.

Reference: “The first king of England: æthelstan and the birth of a kingdom” by David Woodman, September 2, 2025.

Never miss a breakthrough: join the Scitechdaily newsletter.