Descent from AElla of Northumbria

[taf]

I just came across an article that cites a 12th or 13th century continuation of John of Worcester's Chronicon ex Chronicis (CCCC 92 - this is sometimes referred to as the third continuation) that shows a descent from king AElla of Northumbria (d. 867), and on beyond Woden. The line given drops a century and a half, and the early part is flawed and made up, but the link to AElla is none the less curious. The line given is:

Hyring
Woden
Wythgils
Horse
Uppa
Eppa
Ermering
Bernac
Ida
Edelred
Edelferd
Oswy
Egferd
Alfrid
Elle
Edeldrida (daughter)
Eadulfus
Ossulf
Aldredus
Waldeophus
Uitred
Akdredys
Elfleda=Siwardus
Walteof

This descent breaks down into four parts. From Hyring to Bernac is all made-up origin fantasy. From Ida to Alfrid the pedigree is presenting (with a couple of errors) the descent of the kings of Bernicia and Northumbria. From Elle to Eadulfus is the portion of the pedigree critical to the linkage, and from Ossulf to Walteof is fully documented from other sources.

Part I
This is not the royal origin legend of the Anglian Collection, although hints of commonality can be found. Hyring is called the first post-Briton king of Northumbria and I have been unable to identify who the author had in mind. As father of Woden, this is novel, since the consensus is that Woden was son of Frealaf. It is unclear if this represents an independent origin tradition or an invention of the author. The next three names reflect the Kent royal descent from Bede, who shows Woden > Wecta > Witta > Wihtgils > Hengest & Horsa, while this line jumps straight from Woden to Wihtgils.

Uppa and Eppa both seem to reflect the Eoppa, who is father of Ida in the Bernician royal pedigree. (Alternatively, rather than being duplicated it is possible that Uppa represents Yffa of the Deira pedigree.) Interposed between Eppa and Ida in this pedigree is Bernac, clearly the same eponymous ancestor who as Beornic, Beornuc or Benoc, who appears farther up the Bernician pedigree.

Part II
The next five names represent the authentic royal pedigree of Bernicia and Northumbria, with Edelred (sic) representing Ida's son AEthelric; Oswy is Oswiu. Alfrid is Aldfrith, but he was illegitimate brother of Ecgfrith, his predecessor, rather than son. Aldfrith died in 704/5, while the next generation in the pedigree AElla, died 867, so there is a clear break here, and AElla is of unknown origin, although his name hearkens back to AElla of Deira.

Part III
Here is the crux. Eadwulf, claimed grandson of AElla, appears in the ASC and Irish annals along with his own sons Ealdred and 'Adulf' (? AEthelwulf, Ealdwulf). He appears as 'ri' or 'rex' although he is usually not names as king by modern scholars. These scant mentions provide no indication he was connected to prior kings. Eadwulf died in 913, 46 years after AElla, which is reasonable chronology were he two generations later.

Part IV
As far as I can tell, Oswulf is not documented as son of Eadwulf, and there are pedigrees floating around that instead make him grandson, son of Ealdred Eadwulfing, although it is unclear why this should be more likely than that he was son of Adulf. From Oswulf there seems to be general agreement of the descent the rest of the way down.

Is anyone aware of a study that has addressed this descent from a genealogical perspective?

[Neil McGuigan, "AElla and the Descendants of Ivar: Politics and Legend in the Viking Age", Northern History, 52:20-34.]

taf

[taf]

Sorry, got my fingers shifted on the keyboard:


> The line given is:

. . .

> Uitred
> Akdredys
> Elfleda=Siwardus
> Walteof


The second name is Aldredus.

taf

[Stewart Baldwin via]

On 6/3/2016 4:40 PM, taf via wrote:

> I just came across an article that cites a 12th or 13th century continuation of John of Worcester's Chronicon ex Chronicis (CCCC 92 - this is sometimes referred to as the third continuation) that shows a descent from king AElla of Northumbria (d. 867), and on beyond Woden. ...

> [Neil McGuigan, "AElla and the Descendants of Ivar: Politics and Legend in the Viking Age", Northern History, 52:20-34.]

Thanks for pointing this paper out. As you noted, the pre-AElla part is
clearly fiction, but the part after him is not obviously false. It is
surprising that this genealogy has not been discussed more. Years ago,
I noticed a similar genealogy (lacking the earliest part, and with
significant differences between AElla and Waltheof) in the Collected
Historical Works of Sir Francis Palgrave (Table XXIV), but I never
trusted Palgrave's work enough to investigate it further.

Stewart Baldwin

[taf]

On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 5:45:02 PM UTC-7, Stewart Baldwin via wrote:

> It is surprising that this genealogy has not been discussed more.

I see passing reference in various 19th century accounts - just search Google Books for "Hyring" Northumbria, which has to be in quotes or it will show you hiring=jobs.

I see it mentioned in a recent book of correspondence between John Mitchell Kemble and Jacob Grimm, but I only get to see one page so I can't tell the context.

I see in my original post I missed commenting on Ermering, and as I look, it opens up an interesting possibility. There is a Goth king Eormenric who appears in Beowulf and Widsith, but also Eormenric, King of Kent, and this last points to the probable origin of this man in the pedigree.

Kent Descent: Woden Wicta Witta Wihtgils Hengest Octa Ossa Eormenric
This pedigree: Woden ----------- Wihtgils Horsa Uppa Eppa Eormenric

I think the pedigree creator has taken the Kent pedigree and swapped Hengest for his brother Horsa, then spliced on the Bernicians by changing Ossa to Eoppa, Ida's father, and then attaching Ida at the end after Eormenric. However, someone needed to make sure that everyone understood the situation, so inserted the eponym Bernoc right before Isa. I don't know if this is relevant or not: the edition of Chronicon ex Chronicis published in the 1840s does not include Bernoc in the pedigree. Does these represent different manuscripts that preserve the 'before and after' for that last addition?

taf

[taf]

I have found (very) low resolution scans of the original manuscript here:

http://dms.stanford.edu/catalog/CCC092_keywords

f. 197R and 197V

Apparently high-res scans are available to subscribers.

taf

[Hovite]

Eoppa is not a real name, but a hypocoristic form of Eorpwine, just as Nunna is short for Nothhelm, Offa for Osfrith, and Eaba for Eadbeald, Eadberth, or even female Eadburh. Eorpwine as a father of Eormenric would fit the Kentish system of alliteration.

[taf]

On Sunday, June 5, 2016 at 1:09:55 PM UTC-7, Hovite wrote:
> Eoppa is not a real name, but a hypocoristic form of Eorpwine, just as Nunna is short for Nothhelm, Offa for Osfrith, and Eaba for Eadbeald, Eadberth, or even female Eadburh. Eorpwine as a father of Eormenric would fit the Kentish system of alliteration.

Let's be clear here. There is no evidence that Eoppa isn't just a made up string of letters put into a pedigree. It is unclear to me why Eoppa must represent Eorpwine vs Eorp(anything else). As to Offa being short for Osfrith, I am not buying that at all. Offa was continental legendary figure and there is no reason whatsoever he should have a typical Anglo-Saxon name - certainly other continental figures, such as Finn of Frisa, or is he just another disguised Englishman.

I am not looking for reasons why Eoppa (or more appropriately Eppa) would be an appropriate father for Eormenric, given that every other account of the pedigree that we have give Eormenric of Kent an entirely distinct father - Octa or Oisc (the names are swapped in order in different versions), and the one pedigree naming the father of an Eormenric as Eppa doesn't even intend this to be the Kentish king - the author just needed some names so he stole and modified Bede's Kent pedigree to create ancient 'Kings of Bernicia'.

taf

[taf]

On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 2:40:47 PM UTC-7, taf wrote:
> The line given is:

. . .

> Elle
> Edeldrida (daughter)
> Eadulfus
> Ossulf
> Aldredus
> Waldeophus

I can now suggest what I think is going on in the pedigree connecting Waltheof back to AElla. Eadulfus is Eadwulf, documented as 'king of the North Saxons' in Irish sources, and as holding Bamburgh, dying in 913. His name later appears in references to the sons of Eadwulf submitting to Athelstan in 924 (or 920 - the entry is placed in different years in different versions of ASC). In 926, Ealdred, son of Eadwulf is reported holding Bamburgh, and likewise Simeon's Vita St Cuthberti reports that Aldred filius Eadulfi was a friend of Eadward the Elder, as his father Eadulfus had been to king Alfred (for reasons unclear to me, the PASE database calls him Ealdwulf 16 rather than Eadwulf, even though neither of the cited sources include an 'l' in the first syllable). He is given a brother Uhtred. The next we find in the primary record is Oswulf, in the 960s and then Waltheof in the 990s. Searle suggested they represented a single lineage, with Waltheof son of Oswulf, son of Ealdred, son of Eadwulf. This is reasonable, considering that all of the names, Uhtred (son), Eadwulf (gs), Ealdred (gs) and Oswulf (ggs) are repeated among the immediate descendants of Waltheof.

Comparing this to the AElla pedigree, we note the exact same names, only with the middle two switched in order. Waltheof, Ealdred, Oswulf, Eadwulf.

While it is possible that this source is representing an authentic tradition by which Oswulf was a much younger son of Eadwulf (he outlived him by 50 years) and named a son after his elder brother, I think it more likely that this pedigree has reversed generations, and I would point to the possible inspiration. We already know that our genealogist was more interested in making connections than in establishing a viable chronology (how else do you explain making AElla son of a man ruling 150 years earlier). There is a documented Oswulf son of Eadwulf, who succeeded when Tostig was expelled. I suspect that knowledge of the existence of this Oswulf, son of Eadwulf led the author to shift Oswulf, grandson of Eadwulf a generation up the pedigree, exchanging his position with that of his actual father Ealdred.

The takehome is that, as written, the pedigree must be rejected above Waltheof, but there remains a possibility that it preserves, in a confused manner, an authentic descent from Eadwulf, that reconstructed by Searle, and hence perhaps from AElla, before which point is is of no value whatsoever with regard to the possible ancestry of Waltheof.

taf

[peter...@yahoo.ca]

Pardon my ignorance, but is the Walthefo being discussed here the Walthefo Of Northumbria, who lived c1050-1076 and was executed by William The Conqueror?

Peter D. A. Warwick

[taf]

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 10:01:54 AM UTC-7, peter...@yahoo.ca wrote:

> Pardon my ignorance, but is the Walthefo being discussed here the
> Walthefo Of Northumbria, who lived c1050-1076 and was executed by
> William The Conqueror?

No. In the original post in this thread I presented a line found in a continuation of the chronicle of John of Worcester, that ended as follows:

Ossulf
Aldredus
Waldeophus
Uitred
Aldredus
Elfleda=Siwardus
Walteof


The 'Walteof' at the bottom is the one you are talking about, executed by William I in 1076. He was son of pre-conquest Earl Siward ('Siwardus') by AElfflead ('Elfleda'), daughter of Ealdred ('Aldredus'), son of Ealdorman Uhtred ('Uitred') son of an earlier Waltheof ('Waldeophus') who held sway in Bamburgh in the 990s. This earlier Waltheof is the man I was talking about.

taf

[taf]

I realize that I said something likely to be interpreted differently than I meant it, so I will clarify in the hope that someone will see the clarification before putting this information into their database with my name on it.

On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 2:40:47 PM UTC-7, taf wrote:

> Hyring is called the first post-Briton king of Northumbria and I have been
> unable to identify who the author had in mind. As father of Woden, this
> is novel, since the consensus is that Woden was son of Frealaf.

The clarification: the consensus among surviving pedigrees from the Anglo-Saxon and Early Anglo-Norman period is that Woden was son of Frealaf. The consensus among modern historical scholars is that Woden never existed as a historical entity, and hence he had no father.

taf

[norenxaq via]

because a given person is considered mythical, does not necessarily mean he does not have an equally mythical parent within a culture's legends. historicity is often irrelevant when dealing with these stories