Aelfgifa of Northampton, as she is called in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was part of a powerful and wealthy Mercian family in 1004 C.E. That was the fateful year King Aethelred gave a charter to Burton Abbey, founded by her uncle, Abbot Wulfric "Spot." In this charter, the king confirmed Wulfric's will, in which Wulfric endowed the abbey with rich estates throughout Mercia, and gave considerable property in Northumbria to his brother, Earl Aelfhelm -- Aelfgifa's father. Aelfhelm, his son Wulfgeat, his son-in-law Morcar, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Aelfric, are among the witnesses to this charter. The charter is well known. Seldom noticed, however, are the named guardians of the bequests in the charter. Nearing death, Abbot Wulfric puts the security of his family's earthly riches in the hands of just three men -- Aelfhelm, his brother; Archbishop Aelfric, his religious superior; and Aethelred II, his king. Two years later, only one of these men would still be alive. In 1005, Wulfrun, mother of Abbot Wulfric and Earl Aelfhelm, and matriarch of her family, dies after a long and full life. A descendant of King Aelfred the Great, her own personal wealth and status may have protected her as long as she lived. However, another death in the same year strips any remaining protection from Wulfrun's family. On November 16, Archbishop Aelfric of Canterbury dies. Now only Earl Aelfhelm and King Aethelred remain as guardians of the vast estates which Wulfric, and presumably Wulfrun, have left behind in Mercia and Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 1006 describes what happened next: This year . . . Wulfeah and Ufgeat were deprived of sight; Ealdorman [Earl] Aelfhelm was slain. John of Worcester's Chronicon ex Chronicis provides additional details: The crafty and treacherous Eadric Streona, plotting to deceive the noble Ealdorman Aelfhelm, prepared a great feast for him at Shrewsbury . . . But on the third or fourth day of the feast, when an ambush had been prepared, he [Eadric] took him into the wood to hunt. When all were busy with the hunt, one Godwine Porthund, a Shrewsbury butcher, whom Eadric had dazzled long before with great gifts and many promises . . . suddenly leapt out from the ambush, and execrably slew the ealdorman Aelfhelm. After a short space of time, his sons, Wulfheah and Ufegeat, were blinded, at King Aethelred's command, at Cookham, where he himself [the king] was staying. Much has been written about the violence and treachery of Eadric Streona. In simple terms, he was King Aethelred's enforcer. Yet even he refuses, this time, to do the dirty work himself, and hires a local butcher to kill Aelfhelm. Not satisfied with murdering the father, King Aethelred then orders both of Aelfhelm's sons, Wulfheah, who witnessed the charter, and his younger brother, Ufegeat, to be blinded in his presence. Since a blind man cannot inherit property in Anglo-Saxon England, this vicious act immediately removes the claims Wulfheah and Ufegeat have on their father's lands.
Now no man stands between King Aethelred and the rich estates given to Aelfhelm and to Burton Abbey. Again, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle sums up the outcome: "A.D. 1007. In this year also was Eadric appointed Ealdorman over all the kingdom of the Mercians." The king's man has his reward, for past and future services. Burton Abbey, on the other hand, declines from a richly endowed religious house to one of the poorest abbeys in England. And Northumbria? King Aethelred appoints a man named Uhtred to be its new earl. No one, it seems, remains of Wulfrun's once powerful Mercian family to trouble him. No one, that is, but twelve-year-old Aelfgifa, and her two blind brothers now dependents in her care. Comments are closed.
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