The History of Saint Edward the King

La Estoire Seint Aedward le Rei

Matthew Paris

 

English translation by Thelma Fenster and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne

 

 

 

The following selection presents in English prose translation the first 367 verses of La Estoire Seint Aedward le Rei, excerpted from a translation in progress of the full 5212 lines of the poem. When completed, it will appear with Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (MRTS), Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, as volume one in the French of England Series, or FRETS. The text has been translated from Kathryn Young Wallace’s edition (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1983) and is intended to supersede the older translation by R. H. Luard (Lives of Edward the Confessor, [London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858], pp. 1-358). The work survives in only one manuscript, held by Cambridge University Library. Readers are encouraged to view this manuscript at:

 

http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/MSS/Ee.3.59.

 

Readers with queries or comments may contact the translators at: fenster@fordham.edu or jwb502@york.ac.uk.

 

 

 

La Estoire seint Aedward le rei, persuasively attributed to the historian of St. Alban’s Abbey, Matthew Paris, marked both a pinnacle and a new departure in the tradition of writing the life of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). Its uniqueness is announced with its very first word, Estoire, “history,” or “story,” appearing where readers would have expected the more usual word vie, “life.”[1] The word estoire suggested vernacular history, as in medieval chronicles, and it was also a fashionable term of vernacular poetics, as in the roman or chanson de geste. And indeed, compared with its predecessors, the Estoire is a work of greater narrative variety: a saint’s life with prominent romance elements, as well as a chronicle history enlivened by features of the chanson de geste. In its manuscript environment, the Estoire is embellished with an elaborate cycle of sixty-four color illustrations depicting the events of Edward’s life, and below these are red captions (rubrics) summarizing the picture contents in the same octosyllabic rhyme as the text, thereby establishing yet one more vehicle for the story. The three-dimensional narrative that results acquires a conceptual plasticity unknown to earlier Edward lives. Dedicated to Queen Eleanor of Provence, the wife of King Henry III (1216-72), and presented probably within less than a decade of their marriage in 1236, this multimedia product was among numerous art objects with Edward as subject owned by the royal couple. By all accounts, Henry’s interest in Edward predated the writing of the Estoire, as shown in the author’s use of the present tense to say that “King Henry loves” Edward (see below). Henry was to become one of the greatest art patrons of the thirteenth century, and Edward’s image, painted on the walls of his several residences, was never far away.

The king’s most ambitious and visible project was the enlarging and embellishing of Westminster Abbey, whose church Edward had built and designated as his burial place. Edward’s public success in his own time, as seen and reproduced in much subsequent history-writing, also gave Henry a useful point of reference and a model. In Edward’s image Henry saw a means of translating what he wished those around him to understand about his own kingship and idea of government. As royal historiography, the Estoire served the interests of the late medieval monarchical state, in Paul Binski’s words, “by treating the person of the monarch.” Henry became Edward’s greatest consumer, and the Estoire became the first of Edward’s lives to play a deliberate role in arguing for a particular royal program of rulership.

 

The Estoire recounts episodes in Edward’s life, including his visions and miracles, marriage to Edith, daughter of Earl Godwin, their decision to maintain a chaste marriage, Edward’s construction of Westminster Abbey church, his problems with Earl Godwin, Edward’s death, the brief rule of Harold Godwineson, and the Battle of Hastings. Central to the account is Edward and Edith’s lack of progeny, which proved so disastrous for the Ango-Saxon line and led to the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

Paris’s alterations of his principal source, Aelred of Rievaulx’s Vita Sancti Edwardi, written in 1163 to celebrate Edward’s canonization in 1161, were considerable, and included an emphasis upon the writing of chronicle and history, as well as a taste for describing the clash of weapons and the clear delineation of good and bad characters associated with Old French epic. The selection here shows both inclinations. The author eagerly expatiates upon Edward’s Anglo-Saxon genealogy, perhaps in part to instruct Eleanor about her husband’s family. Edward is categorized among the peaceful kings—the saints, martyrs, and confessors—rather than the military ones, although the narrator later remarks that the man who conquers “the world, the devil, and the flesh” is a “bold” (hardiz) warrior of another kind. Following that is Paris’s account of the Danish invasions of England, which leads to the story of Edmund Ironside’s battle with Cnut and Cnut’s subsequent treachery. In the masterly use of direct discourse which is also a hallmark of Paris’s writing, Cnut wheedles Edmund into accepting the bargain that ends their single combat. Paris is at his best in portraying Cnut’s paternal attitude toward his opponent (even though Cnut was at this point younger than Edmund), as against Edmund’s fear—reasonable enough—that Cnut will betray him.[2]

 

The author

Matthew Paris was a monk of the Benedictine abbey of St. Alban’s, where he became the monastery’s historian upon the death of Roger of Wendover, chronicler until his death in 1236. Among his Latin works are the Chronica Majora, a history of England in the context of medieval Europe, and his Historia Anglorum, Gesta Abbatum, and a collection of archival documents, the Liber Additamentorum, as well as two biographies of archbishops of Canterbury, Stephen of Langton and Edmund of Canterbury; Richard Vaughan has argued that Paris also wrote the Vitae Offarum.[3] In French, in addition to the Estoire Seint Edward le Rei, he wrote the lives of St. Alban, St. Edmund, and St. Thomas Becket. Although information about Paris’s authorship of the Estoire is less precise, most scholars currently agree that he is its most likely author.

The manuscript format of the Estoire has many similarities to that of Paris’s life of St. Alban in Trinity College, Dublin, E.1.40, composed in French as part of a hagiographic dossier of his monastery’s patron saint. La Vie de Seint Auban will also be published in English translation in FRETS. 

Like Paris’s other lives of saints in French, the Estoire and the Vie de Seint Auban have tended to be undervalued as historical sources and as texts in their own right. Their composition in the vernacular has important implications for  relations between St. Alban’s Abbey, the court of Henry III, and lay patrons (including women patrons). Both the Estoire and the Vie have a great deal to tell us about thirteenth-century values and aspirations, a point that is well-recognized in the art-historical studies of Paul Binski related to the Estoire and its courtly ethos and ideals.[4] Paris’s original vision of history and of England’s past—so revealing of thirteenth-century culture—his style and his narrative choices in constructing his saints’ lives amply repay detailed modern attention, to which, paradoxically, translation is so often a spur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abbreviations

Aelred, “Genealogy”    

“The Genealogy of the Kings of the English,” in Aelred of Rievaulx, The Historical Works, tr. Jane Patricia Freeland, ed. and intro., Marsha L. Dutton. Cistercian Fathers Series, 56. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 2005; 71-122.

Aelred, “Life”  “The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor,” in Aelred of Rievaulx, The Historical Works, 125-243.

 AND               Anglo-Norman Dictionary, ed. Louise W. Stone, William Rothwell, et al. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1977-1992; AND2: 2nd ed, ed. Stewart Gregory, William Rothwell, and David Trotter. Vols. A-C, D-E currently available; London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2005; online at: http://www.anglo-norman.net.

ANTS              Anglo-Norman Text Society

Auban             Matthew Paris, La Vie de seint Auban, ed. A. H. Harden, ANTS, 19 London: ANTS, 1968.

Barlow, Edward         

Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970.

CM*                Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols. London: Longman, 1872-1891.

Dean                Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, ed. Ruth J. Dean, with the collaboration of Maureen B. M. Boulton. Occasional Publications Series, 3. London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999.

Estoire             La Estoire de seint Aedward le rei, ed. Kathryn Young Wallace, ANTS, 41. London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1983.

Giles               Matthew Paris’s English History from the Year 1235 to 1273, trans. J. A. Giles. 3 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852-54.

GRA               Aelred of Rievaulx, Genealogia regum Anglorum. PL

HBC                Handbook of British Chronology, ed. E.B. Fryde et al. 3rd ed., Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

PL                    Patrologiae cursus completus...series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne. Paris:

                        various years

VSE                 Aelred of Rievaulx, Vita Sancti Edwardi PL 195.757.90

·        It is the practice in this volume to cite editions and their English translations, where the latter exist. In the case of CM up to the year 1235, however, that proves infeasible, given its notoriously complex textual tradition. When Paris became St. Alban’s Abbey chronicler in 1236, he recopied the Flores Historiarum, the universal chronicle of his predecessor, Roger of Wendover, making many of his own additions, and then he continued it until his own death in 1259. The best available edition of CM is H. R. Luard’s Rolls Series text of 1872-1883, which is also the chief modern representative of Wendover’s text. Wherever possible, Luard prints what he believes to be Wendover’s,  as opposed to Paris’s, text in smaller type in the lower half of the page, but these distinctions cannot really be considered established. Giles’s translation of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum (the universal chronicle whose copying and overwriting was the basis for Paris’s CM) is translated as Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History [London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849]), and like Luard, Giles attempts to distinguish between Wendover’s and Paris’s work; but once more, these cannot be considered authoritative. Pending new editions of the chronicles and, conceivably, a sorting out of their manuscript traditions, we have followed the practice of citing Luard’s edition of CM only.

 

The History of Saint Edward the King

 

Here begins the History[5] of Saint Edward the King, translated from Latin.

 

There is no country, realm, or empire in the world, I dare say, where there have been so many good and saintly kings as in the isle of the English, kings who, after their earthly reign, now reign in heaven. Some were saints, martyrs, and confessors,[6] many of whom died for God. Others were strong and bold, like Arthur, Edmund, and Cnut,[7] who by force and courage enlarged their baronial following. (1-12)

The former[8] were very wise, peaceable and moderate, who by dint of good advice and their own intelligence were influential in their time, as were Oswald, Oswin, and Edmund,[9][10] who went from this world up to heaven. In particular, Edward the king, about whom I am to write, was such a one.[11] Those who vanquished the flesh, the devil, and the world now have the victory, for those three, who harry us day and night, are our enemies.[12] Bold and enterprising is the man who brings those three to heel. Thus did the wise King Edward, whom God watched over. He conquered the flesh through his chastity,[13] the world through his humility, and the devil by his virtues, for he treated everyone with justice through his true and steadfast belief, which was evident in his deeds. I am writing about that for you and translating the history from Latin into French, without falseness or trickery, in order to refresh the memory of Edward, concerning which I call upon the book as authority.[14] Whatever I may wish to write in French, I would never agree to write two verses if I had not had a Latin example of the story in which no falseness is spoken or truth silenced, as acknowledged by Holy Church, and as the book, which is sung and read publicly, tells us.[15] (13-48).

Noble, well-born lady, Alienor, rich queen of England, flower among ladies by your virtues and honors, because I have prepared this book for you, I put it in your care. There is no man who does not love and esteem your goodness, wisdom, and nobility. Were I not to be called a flatterer, I would willingly talk about your good qualities; instead, I will praise you briefly, as is fitting and as I dare say: like a carbuncle among gems, you are a flower among women.[16] (49-62)

To you, a fountain of comeliness, I give this little gift.[17]  I know that whatever your lord King Henry loves, you cherish and desire.  A will toward shared goals renders love praiseworthy: whatever the lover wants, so should his sweetheart want, which makes the match a good one. And whatever the lady wants, so should her beloved; of that, Cicero brings us testimony.[18] (63-72)

I tell you this for the sake of Saint Edward, whom King Henry loves, and I write in particular that it befits you to love and cherish Edward, for he was a king and proven saint who has embraced you in his love. He was the beloved friend of Saint Peter, who by his deeds and his prayers governs and comforts you, and he will make heaven’s door open to you. You are the protectors of Peter’s house, you, the king’s wife, and the king, and no one else, as you must know.[19] Since Peter sees no falseness in you, he has no reason to fail you. (73-88)

Now I beg of each person who reads and hears this work that if in any word I make a mistake, let him correct it, for there is no man who does not sometimes nod.[20] Language varies from land to land; if I speak the language of France, let me not be reproached for it by the people of a neighboring country. (89-96)

When the root is from good stock, the fruit should rightly taste of it. When a good graft grows from a good trunk, it stands to reason that good fruit comes from it; and bad fruit comes from the bad.[21] But that’s not all I have to say on the subject, I who intend to write about King Edward, who was noble by birth[22] on both sides of his family, through his sainted father and his sainted mother.  If you take account of the birth line directly from father to son, King Edward was sixth in descent from the saintly and wise King Alfred.[23]  But if you take account of reigning kings from King Alfred up to Edward, then Edward was the tenth, a total that includes both the rightfully born and the conquering kings, and on the other hand those who were sons or brothers, one of whom was named Edgar. He possessed all good, because, in a sign, angels singing at his birth promised peace during his reign, for which he was afterward known as the peaceable king, like Solomon.[24] (97-124)

On the advice of his barons King Edgar allied himself by marriage to Duke Richard of Normandy,[25] the flower of chivalry, who had a beautiful daughter, a well-mannered young woman. Edgar had a strong and smart son, who was named Ethelred. He governed well, for he was peaceable in times of peace but ferocious in war. Through bravery he maintained the kingdom, in the way of someone who was both peaceable and wise, loved and feared.[26] Ethelred married the woman named Emma, and they made a handsome pair, like sapphire and shining gold or like a lily and a fullblown rose. The couple and the union were such because one was of royal blood and the other of a noble and legitimate line.[27] Those of the queen’s entire ancestral line were good and saintly, and the queen’s brother and nephew also proved that she was good. They were Richard and Duke Robert,[28] about whom recorded history assures us: as the history of the Normans says both in Latin and in French,[29] their lives were glorious and their deaths of great cost. (125-54)

Now let us return to the story I intend to tell you. First, with the daughter of count Thored,[30] Ethelred had a son named Edmund Ironside, who was as strong and bold as a lion. With his second wife Emma, [31] daughter of Richard, Ethelred had Alfred, who died too soon, but his son Edmund grew up and surpassed in bravery all the best of his lineage, for no one defeated him. Then the queen became pregnant with a child to come: by the grace of God and his own virtue, he would be the bravest and most upright of his lineage once he was old enough and assumed power. That was Edward, of whom I am about to tell you, who became king of England. (155-74)

At that time a brutal and criminal Danish tyrant named Swein came to England to pursue a war of acquisition. He coveted red gold and pale silver[32] the way a leech craves blood, and the cruel man well knew how to make war! He attacked the land violently, like someone who intended to conquer it, or at the very least to extract its wealth. He laid waste the woods and orchards and burned churches and houses; he carried off money and booty, took prisoners, and sought ransoms and penalties. Ethelred, greatly damaged, paid a tribute for England so that Swein would spare lives and allow the people, who had never done ill to Swein, to live. But Swein broke the covenant, burned the countryside and destroyed everything. The people fled before him and he scooped up and kept all their possessions. His warring was worse than was his custom, for the people of the region were not numerous enough to offer resistance. (175-200)

Ethelred fled to Normandy[33] to save his life, and Swein became stronger and more ferocious, since the people had lost their support. He declared himself king and did outrageous and damaging things, stealing goods beyond measure, mercilessly and wrongfully. Then he came to the lands of Saint Edmund,[34] where he disturbed and destroyed everything. His ransom demands were unreasonable, beyond anyone’s power to pay. Poor and in distress, the people fled in complaint to their lord, Edmund the Martyr, and he avenged them with great boldness: the vengeance came that night, delivered by a lance.[35]  (201-18)

Then a large army of Danes, in many ships, came to England from Denmark seeking conquest through war, for they were greedy and terrible, and loved war more than peace. They closed off the land and destroyed it, killing even children and women. They set churches afire more readily than houses, and reduced them to embers. They killed, exacted ransoms, and burned, doing evil everywhere. (219-30)

No wonder that it grieved King Ethelred to learn of this. For safekeeping, he sent his wife Emma and his children[36] to Richard of Normandy so that he might protect them, as his daughter[37] and nephews. Richard was noble and well bred and would not rightly fail them: he received them with honor and joy. Both children were very fine and likable boys. Alfred was the name of the older one, and Edward was the younger.[38] But Edmund Ironside, third son of King Ethelred—he was the son of count Thored’s daughter[39] and the oldest of them all—said: “By my faith, dear father, I’m not leaving you! Our enemies are killing our friends and our men everywhere. Those foreigners who have no rights here[40] are burning and destroying the land. Their powerful and cruel sovereign, Cnut by name, spares no one, taking the lives of all. I grieve, and I have a heavy heart, both because of his arrogance and because of the damage he does. With your guidance and help, I am going to crush his arrogance.” And so he did, for by warring against Cnut, Edmund drove him to the borders of the land, and then, with the agreement of all concerned, Edmund did combat with Cnut alone, as the English and the Danes decided.[41] (231-66)

Cnut was as fierce as a dragon, Edmund strong as a lion. One could not have found a man in all the world to equal Cnut or Edmund. (267-70)

When each of them had given their assent, the kings[42] equipped themselves very nobly with hauberks and gleaming helmets, and they mounted their swift warhorses. They quickly made stumps of their lances, whose splinters flew far. Then they seized their great two-handed swords and the massacre began! The blows each gave were harsh, and each man, when striking, stunned the other: neither the Englishman nor the Dane could boast of being better. The count performed more worthily, but Edmund was more vigorous, for he was young[43] and strong. The Dane, older and wiser but less strong, could sense that Edmund was breathing hard; and the more the battle went on and the more his blood ran quick and hot, the more he excelled in battle and struck with great impetuosity. Cnut could not have stood it for long, but he pretended to be fresh and bold, assaulting Edmund and striking again and again, so that he turned Edmund’s new shield into splinters.[44] He broke the chains of Edmund’s hauberk with his steel sword, which cut very well, and then said to him:

“Edmund my friend, hear what I have to say to you. It would be a grievous loss if a young man of your age were to perish. Edmund, fine son, everyone would be worse for it. I am lord and king of the Danes, and you are king of the English.[45] Your father is dead and that’s a loss, because he was wise and peaceable. Your brothers are in Normandy. You remain alone and without help. You have been chosen king of England, but not everyone grants you rights over it. You cannot throw me off the land by force. I take pity on your beauty, your prowess, your intelligence, your bravery, your nobility, and your youth—you aren’t more than thirty.[46] I don’t want to fight you; I don’t dare, for God’s sake, commit such a sin. Take my advice, Edmund, because never, in the world, have you heard truer. Let us be kings together of one and the other people. Have a share in my land and I’ll have a share in yours, without war. I have coveted[47] your friendship more than a kingdom, land, or city. As we were enemies before, let us be friends from now on. In this life, let neither one of us fail the other in peace or in war, and everyone will fear our troops, led by such princes. Our alliance will be feared from the pagan lands up to France. Reign with me over Danish land, and I’ll rule with you in the English kingdom. You be Cnut, I shall be Edmund; let us be one. Between us there will be no strife or discord for as long as I live, if it please God.” (271-343)

Edmund, who was well bred, did not choose to remain silent at those words.

“Friend Cnut, so very wise, bold and courageous, if that were not the sowing of treason, you would soon persuade me to consent; but I fear treason a great deal.”

“Don’t worry,” Cnut answered. (344-51)

And so each threw down his sword and removed his shining helmet. They embraced gently, and when both armies saw that, they were joyful, no doubt about that! Englishmen and Danes made one company. (352-357)

 


[1] Like other writers, Paris also uses the word estoire to denote both the written source of the Estoire (vv. 37, 42, 528, 595, 2267, 3006, etc., including a written source for one of the miracles he recounts (v. 2607), and the biography that he is composing here (vv. 2607, 2515, 3131); it also denotes historiated windows (v. 2303). Peter Damian-Grint, arguing that estoire as used in twelfth-century historiography is not simply synonymous with terms like livre and geste, defines it as follows: “a narrative of past events, presented as true, and whose authenticity is attested by an authority. In its overall lines, it is a definition which is close enough to the definition of historia among the Latin writers” (The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Inventing Vernacular Authority [Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999], 221). For Paul Binski the word estoire shows the way in which Paris changed Aelred’s “liturgically apt vision of the king” by expanding it “with straight historical material” (Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995], 57). Françoise Laurent states that the use of estoire moves the poem onto the field of historiography (“’A ma matere pas n’apent de vus dire...’: La Estoire de seint Aedward le rei de Matthieu Paris ou la ‘conjointure’ de deux écritures,” Revue des Sciences Humaines, 251 (July-September 1998): 127-53; at 126). Paris also uses the word estoire in the text of his life of St. Edmund, saying: “Bien dei de lui escrivre estoire,” v. 23 (“La Vie de Saint Edmond, Archevêque de Cantorbéry,” ed. A. T. Baker, Romania, 55 (1929): 332-81). It is an accepted fact, however, that attempts to affix modern generic literary boundaries to medieval works often confront obstacles.

 

[2] For Paris’s recasting of this episode, cf. his source in Aelred, Genealogia Regum Anglorum PL, and Aelred, “Genealogy,” 111-2.

[3] Matthew Paris, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, n.s. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 42-8.

[4] See in particular Westminster Abbey (n. 1 above); “Abbot Berkyng’s Tapestries and Matthew Paris’s Life of St Edward the Confessor,” Archaeologia, 109 [1991]: 85-100; “Reflections on La estoire de Seint Aedward le rei: Hagiography and Kingship in Thirteenth-Century England.” Journal of Medieval History, 16 [1990]: 333-350; The Painted Chamber at Westminster. Occasional Paper [New Series] IX [London: Society of Antiquaries, 1986]).

 

[5] History estoire: see Introduction, 00-00.

[6] 7 saints, martyrs, and confessors Seinz, martirs e cunfessurs: in the early church the definition of sanctity applied only to martyrs, that is, to those who “confessed Christ without faltering even to the point of death.” By the fifth century, the notion of fama sanctitatis was extended to include confessors, who were not required to have died for the faith; they were among those “who deserved to be venerated by the faithful as a result of the pain they had suffered, or inflicted on themselves, for the love of Christ.” (André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, tr. Jean Birrell [Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 15. Originally published as Saintété en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age [Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1988]; see also P. de Labriolle, “Martyr et confesseur,” Bulletin d’ancienne littérature et d’archéologie chrétienne, 1 (1911): 50-54, and H. Delehaye, Sanctus: essai sur le culte des saints dans l’Antiquité (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes. Subsidia hagiographica, 17, 1927).  Edward’s decision to remain chaste for his faith would have made him worthy of veneration; see v. 29 and note and vv. 1255-6 and note. The Hereford Breviary notes that the Feast of St Edward King and Confessor (13th October) differs from others in that Edward was neither simply a martyr nor simply a prelate, but counted among the martyrs because of his dignified rank (dignitatem) and among the confessors because of his holy life, so that his office is arranged partly from the office for a martyr and partly from the office for a confessor (The Hereford Breviary, II, ed. W. H. Frere and L.E.G. Brown, HBS 40 [London: HBS, 1913], 370.

[7] 10 Arthur, Edmund and Cnut Arthurs, Aedmunz e Knudz: Arthur is King Arthur of legend, influentially included among England’s rulers in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, composed ca. 1135. In the St. Alban’s copy, the chapter rubrics of the Historia and those of the following Historia Brittonum by Nennius are completed in Paris’s hand (BL MS Royal 13 D.v., no, 35 in Rodney M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St. Alban’s Abbey 1066-1235 [Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer for the University of Tasmania, 1982), I, 98-99. After initial scepticism and controversy about the Historia, Geoffrey of Monmouth was by ca. 1200 read as reliable history (R. William Leckie, The Passage of Dominion: Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Periodization of Insular History in the Twelfth Century [Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1981].  Paris assigns Arthur to the martial and active side of his division of English kings here, but Arthur’s court was also seen as a model of courtesy  (see Wace’s Roman de Brut: A History of the Britons, ed. and tr. Judith Weiss [Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999, rev. 2002], 244-6, vv. 9731-84) and the two are not seen as incompatible: Paris cites him as ferocious against enemies but courteous toward his own people equalled in that only by Edward (vv. 908-9). In the Estoire, where courtesy is associated with wisdom and justice, and represented in the person of Edward himself (see note to v. 890 below), it signifies a more contemplative virtue than in Wace and in other Arthurian portrayals. Edmund is Edmund “Ironside” (d. 1016), the son of Ethelred II, who reigned for six months following his father’s death in 1016, his dominion contested by Cnut for most of this period (see vv. 245-364 below).  Another Edmund, the “conscientious” king who succeeded his brother Athelstan to the throne of Wessex in 939, is not a likely candidate for such praise (see Christopher Brooke, The Saxon and Norman Kings, 3rd ed. [Oxford and Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001] 116).   Cnut [Canute] a Dane and son of Svein Forkbeard, took control of England in the year 1016 and reigned until 1035 (vv. 368– 98 below). 

[8] 13 the former li autre: the definition in AND closest to the meaning here is “previous.” Wallace punctuates vv. 1-18 as one continuous sentence, but introduces a new paragraph at v. 13, where the manuscript has a large capital L (Li in Li autre). This translation follows Wallace (and the manuscript) in starting a new paragraph at v. 13, but it also begins a new sentence there.

[9] 17 Oswald, Oswin and Edmund Oswald, Oswin, Aedmund:  St Oswald, King  of Northumbria (632-42); St Oswin, King of Deira (644-51); Edmund, East Anglian king and martyr (841-69), patron saint of the wealthy Benedictine monastery of Bury St Edmunds.  As Wallace points out, the two Edmunds of vv. 10 and 17 each embody one category of kingship: sainted kings and those who were merely strong and brave (Estoire 150, n. 10).  Oswald was already a celebrated figure, thanks to Bede’s representation of him in his History of the English Church and People:  St Oswin was less widely known, but of special import to Matthew Paris’s monastery of St Albans.  In CM (1236-1259), Paris describes the 1065 rediscovery and translation of Oswin’s bones in the church of the Virgin at Tynemouth (where, from c.1085-1090 onwards, St Albans had a cell), together with a miracle indicating the support of Judith, wife of Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumberland (d. 1066) for the cult (CM I, 531-33); Oswin’s death in 651 is presented as a martyrdom (CM I, 285-7). Henry III himself, on a visit to St. Alban’s in 1257, famously recited the names of the holy kings of England to Matthew Paris (CM V, 617-8), mentioning, among others, Edmund of East Anglia, Edward the Confessor, Oswald, Edward King and Martyr, and Oswin.

 

[11] 19-20 Edward…was such a one Numeement Aedward li rei / Teus fu…: Edward’s assimilation into the group of peaceable kings, and the division of past kings into those who were militarily active and those who were “sedentary,” as Paul Binski puts it, is “the attribute of a specific type of kingship”; Binski also observes that, by contrast, the nun of Barking’s Edward character is “still valiant and puissant”  (Westminster Abbey, 62). It should be noted, however, that, through his lexical choices, Paris is at pains to cast Edward as a warrior of another kind, who has defeated the temptations of the flesh, worldly vanity, and the devil’s evils: vanquished, venquirent v. 22; victory, victoire, v. 22; Edward is bold, hardiz, v. 25, and he brings to heel (or subdues), justise, v. 26, the three “enemies,” enemi, v. 23.

[12] 21-24 Those who…are our enemies Ki lur char…esnui nus funt: Paris mentions this threefold victory again later in the poem, making clear that this is why Edward merited sainthood; see vv. 1255-6, 1259-60 and notes.  Paris also treats this theme in his Vie de Saint Edmond (A. T. Baker, “La Vie de Saint Edmond, Archevêque de Cantorbéry,” Romania, 55 [1929]: 332-81, vv. 1-22).  

[13] 29 through his chastity par chasteté: on the growth of Edward’s reputation for virginity from earlier to later lives, see Joanna Huntington, “Edward the Celibate, Edward the Saint: Virginity in the Construction of Edward the Confessor,” in Medieval Virginities, ed. Anke Bernau, Ruth Evans and Sarah Salih (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), 119-39.

[14] 39 the book … Latin example le livere…essamplaire / Ki est en latin escrite: the book probably does not refer to a single title but simply to something written rather than oral. The “Latin example” may refer to the Latin life of Edward by St. Aelred of Rievaulx (VSE), but Paris used chronicle sources as well as the vita: see Introduction and notes passim.

[15] 48 sung and read publicly K’apertement chante home e lit: narratives about the martyrs and other saints supplied short, self-contained extracts—lectiones or  lessons—read aloud during the Divine Office; see T. J. Heffernan, “The Liturgy and Literature of Saints’ Lives,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Ann Matter and Thomas J. Heffernan (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), 73-105; for a set of nine readings (lecciones) for Edward the Confessor (plus one from William of Malmesbury), see Ordinale Exoniensis, ed. J. N. Dalton, 3 vols., HBS 37, 38, 63 (London: HBS, 1909, 1926), vol. 3: Legenda Exoniensis, 375-79; for the various prayers and other liturgical elements used for Edward’s feast day and translation feast at Westminster, as recorded in the 1388 missal of Abbot Nicholas Lytlington, see Missale ad usum ecclesie Westmonasteriensis, ed. .J. Wickham Legg HBS 1, 5, 12, (London: HBS, 1891, 1893, 1897), reprinted in one volume (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Rochester, N. Y.: HBS and Boydell, 1999); indexed at 1633.

 

[16] 61 carbuncle charbucle: a gem said to shine on its own, even in the dark; see for example Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, ed. Paul Studer and Joan Evans (Paris: Champion, 1924; reprt. Geneva: Slatkine, 1976) 49, vv. 519-24; 110, L1; 175, vv. 585-98.

[17] 64 gift present: an illustrated life of Edward is among the books noted as repaired in the household accounts of her daughter-in-law, Edward I’s queen, Eleanor of Castile, suggesting that Eleanor’s Edward was passed on from the first to the second Eleanor as a matter of dynastic responsibility (see Paul Binski, “Reflections on the Estoire de Seint Aedward le rei: Hagiography and Kingship in Thirteenth-Century England,” Journal of Medieval History 16 [1990]: 333-50; at 339).

[18] 72 Cicero Toile: [Marcus Tullius] In the De Amicitia Cicero says that “friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things...” (Cicero, De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione, ed. Jeffrey Henderson, tr. William Armistead Falconer, Cicero vol. 20 [Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1923, reprnt 2001], 131).  Paris could also have known this through Aelred’s recasting in Spiritual Friendship: “...those who have the same opinion, the same will, in matters human and divine, along with mutual benevolence and charity, have...reached the perfection of friendship” (1.11-13) Binski notes that this idea is also found in Cicero’s De Officiis (ed. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse; tr. Walter Miller. Vol. 63 [1947], Book I, xvii, par. 56), 59. The concept would have had political import as well:  according to Margaret Howell, the “perception that a queen should be at peace with her husband” separated Eleanor of Provence from such queens as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France (Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England [Oxford, UK, and Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998], 66).  Henry commissioned  a number of representations of a king and queen in his palaces that are thought to have represented their partnership (Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 24); see also Introduction 00.  For Paris’s manuscript representations of Henry III (and including Eleanor), see Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley: University of California Press, in collaboration with Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1987), 201-39. Identity of desire between lovers was also a commonplace of neo-Ovidian medieval poetry.

[19] 83-84 You are the protectors of Peter’s house Avüez de sa meison / Estes…: even today Westminster Abbey enjoys a special relationship with the British crown. Unique in its status of “royal peculiar” under the direct control of the monarch and of its own dean and chapter, Westminster is self-governing and independent of all episcopal authority, including that of the bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Although not the burial place for all English kings (none chose to be buried there after Edward the Confessor until Henry III, for example), Westminster has always retained its unique status as the coronation church for English rulers.  Westminster’s special position is emphasized in the Estoire’s account of Edward the Confessor’s refounding of it, and further underlined by the story of its consecration by St. Peter himself, as well as by the full quotation in the text of translated royal and papal letters concerning its foundation and liberties (see vv. 2041-2265, 2530-2473 below).

[20] 92 nod Sumoile 3rd pr subj. of sommer, to take a nap: Horace writes in his Ars poetica that even a poet as good as Homer may sometimes “nod,” for a “drowsy mood” may overtake a long work (Ars poetica, in Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars poetica, tr. H. Rushton Fairclough [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam, 1926; reprt. 1978] ll. 359-360, 480-81); see also Paris’s Life of St. Alban, 17: 578.  Inviting listeners to correct possible errors is a commonplace of prologues.

[21] 97-101 when the root… bad quant racine … mauveise: cf Matthew 8:18.

[22] 105 by birth natureus: Edward’s father Ethelred was English and his mother, Emma, was Norman by birth; her name was changed to Aelfgifu on marriage to Ethelred and her sons by Ethelred given English dynastic names. By the thirteenth century the word natureu(s) could denote those born on English soil of English parents and also those who were English by education or pursuit, as David Carpenter notes (The Struggle for Mastery: The Penguin History of Britain 1066-1284 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003: repr London: Penguin, 2004] 5). Paris’s use of this word, and its counterpart alien, would have had particular resonances in the reign of Henry III, whose queen, Eleanor of Provence, was perceived as favoring her Poitevin and Savoyard relatives (Huw Ridgway, ‘King Henry III and the ‘Aliens’, 1236-1272’, Thirteenth-Century England II, ed. P.R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd  (Woodbridge and Wolfeboro: Boydell, 1988), 81-92: Carpenter, Struggle, 304-5. For the linguistic politics of “native” and “alien” in Henry III’s reign, see T. W. Machan, “The Barons’ War and Henry’s Letters,” in his English in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 39-54. Other examples of natureus occur at vv. 144, 253, 428, 451, 590, 914-19, 1588 2438, 2499, 3248 below. See further Introduction, 00.

[23] 107-17 King Alfred…Edgar Du roi Auvré…Aedgar numez: Paris explains Edward’s royalty in two ways, as does Aelred of Rievaulx (VER, Bk I, ch I, PL195.140-41, Aelred, “Life,” 131). First, he counts the number of kings of England in the Anglo-Saxon line by generations: 1. Alfred (871-99); 2. Edward the Elder (899-924); 3. Edmund (939-46); 4. Edgar (959-975); 5. Ethelred the Unready II (978-1013, 1014-1016); 6. Edward the Confessor.  Paris’s second list includes the lateral kin in each generation who were kings, thereby accounting for all the years and all the kings between Alfred and Edward: 1. Alfred; 2. Edward the Elder; 3. Athelstan (924-39), brother to Edmund; 4. Edmund; 5. Eadred (946-55), another of Edmund’s brothers;  5. Eadwig (955-959), a brother of Edgar; 6. Edgar; 7. Edward the Martyr (975-78 or 79); 8. Ethelred the Unready II (978-1013, 1014-1016); 9. Edward the Confessor. 

[24] 117-24 Edgar…Solomon Aedgar…Salamun: the long-standing tradition of King Edgar (959-75) as a libertine dates back to at least the eleventh century, when, for example, Goscelin of St. Bertin portrayed Edgar’s assaults on the virtue of Wulfhilda, later abbess of Barking (Vita Wulfhildae, ed. M. Colker, “Texts of Jocelyn of Canterbury Which Relate to the History of Barking Abbey,” Studia Monastica, 7 (1965): 383-460 [420-23, lecciones ii-iii], compares Edgar’s predations to the tortures faced by the virgin martyrs. Bur Edgar found favor with many churchmen and chroniclers for his role in the tenth-century Benedictine reform of the Anglo-Saxon church; Goscelin himself, in his vita of Edgar’s illegitimate daughter, St. Edith of Wilton, refers to Edgar as a Solomonic figure (ed. A. Wilmart, “La Légende de Ste Edith en prose et vers par le moine Goscelin,” AB 56 (1938): vv.? 5-101, vv. ?265-307, 39).  For the Benedictine Paris’s praise of Edgar as a just ruler and religious reformer, see CM I, 461-62. For Solomon as peaceful ruler, see Introduction 00.

[25] 126-7 allied himself…Duke Richard of Normandy S’alie par marïage / Au duc Richard de Normendie: it was not Edgar himself but his son Ethelred who married Emma, daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy, as his second wife (as becomes clear in succeeding lines).  Paris is mistaken about the marriage strengthening a political relationship between Ethelred and Richard: Richard ruled from 942-996, whereas the marriage took place in 1002.   One source of confusion here is that Ethelred’s Danish successor Cnut also married Emma after Ethelred’s death, also as a second wife; see Genealogical Table.

[26] 136 loved and feared amez, cremuz:  although Æthelred is now notorious as Æthelred the Unready, there is much evidence that his poor reputation is the retrospective creation of a small number of later chroniclers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries: see Simon Keynes, “The Declining Reputation of King Æthelread the Unready,” in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference,  ed. David Hill, BAR, 59 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1978), 227-53.

[27] 144 a legitimate line lin natural: although Emma was not of English (Wessex) blood, being the daughter Duke Richard I of Normandy certainly gave her legitimacy. For a similar use of “natural,” see n. to v.  105. 

[28] 149 Richard and Duke Robert Richardz e duc Robertz: Emma’s brother was Richard II (996-1026). Richard’s son, Robert I, was Duke of Normandy from 1027-35.

[29] 153-4 history of the Normans … says both in Latin and in French  la estoire dé Normantz / …En latin dit e en romantz: the vernacular book is probably Wace’s Roman de Rou, a history of the Normans up to 1109 (completed later by Benoît de Ste. Maure in the Chronique des ducs de Normandie). Wace himself worked from numerous Latin sources, principal among them William of Jumièges’s Gesta Normannorum Ducum (especially as later revised by Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigny); Dudo of St. Quentin’s De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum (996-1020); William of Poitier’s Gesta Guillelmi (1071-77); and Orderic Vitalis’s Historia ecclesiastica; see The Roman de Rou, ed. Anthony Holden, trans. G. Burgess; notes by G. Burgess and Elisabeth van Houts (St. Hélier, Jersey: Société Jersiaise, 2002), introduction, xxx-xxxiv and xli-xlii.

[30] 158 daughter of count Thored la fille cunte Theodriz: although Paris gives Theodriz as the name of the count, this translation follows Barlow, who has identified Aelfgifu’s father as Thored, earl of Northumbria (Edward the Confessor, 27 and n. 5; 28 and n. 5). Paris names the count Torin at v. 246. Aelfgifu, whose union with Ethelred “may not have been blessed by the church,” bore at least six sons and four or five daughters. There is no proof that the relationship between Ethelred and Aelfgifu was ever severed, but Barlow suggests that Aelfgifu was deceased by 1002, the year when Ethelred married Emma (Edward the Confessor, 29).

[31] 161-2 second wife Emma la secunde femme…/…k’out nun Emme: the daughter of Richard I of Normandy and sister of Richard II, see vv. 125-6 and note.

[32] 179-80 red gold and pale silver or vermeil e l’argent blanc: that is, pure or unalloyed gold and silver. In the twelfth century the “martyrs” Rufinus and Albinus (representing the ‘red’ and ‘white’ of gold and silver) were literary characters whose “relics” were translated to Rome in a powerful burlesque that represented Urban II (1088-1099) as their devotee (R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1953], 153). See also vv. 1525-6. For an account of Svein’s conquest as revenge for Aethelred II’s St. Brice’s Day massacre of Danish men in England (1012), see Ian Howard, Swein Forkbeard’s Invasions and the Danish Conquest of England 991-1017 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Boydell Press; Rochester, N. Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2003), 61-3; the massacre is treated by William of Jumièges as particularly repellent (see the Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. and trans. E. M. C. Van Houts [Oxford: Clarendon, 1995], II]  16-17).

[33] 201-2 fled to Normandy en Normandie / S’enfuit: by presenting this summary statement here (at the beginning of a new section), Paris risks misleading his readers into thinking that Ethelred went to Normandy before he sent Emma and their two boys there (which he does not mention until vv. 233-7). 

[34]  209 lands of St Edmund païs seint Aedmund:  Edmund, East Anglian king and martyr (d. 869), was defeated in battle by the Danes, who, according to his vitae, beheaded him when he refused to give up his Christian faith (Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, s.v. Edmund). Edmund’s remains were first translated to  Bury (“Beodricswurthe”) in the early tenth century: Cnut was a benefactor of the abbey (Paris says that he refounded the initial community of seculars with a stone monastic church in 1020 [CM I, s.a. 503)]), as was Edward the Confessor, who saw St. Edmund as his ancestor and made substantial donations (see Antonia Gransden, “The Legends and Traditions Concerning the Origins of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds,” English Historical Review, 100 (1985): 1-24; at 11-12).   Edmund was also an important saint for Henry III: Henry and Eleanor’s second son was named after him and Bury was one of the shrines to which they made frequent visits and offerings (Diana Webb, Pilgrimage in Medieval England [London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2000], 116-22). 

[35] 218 delivered by a lance acurez fu d’une launce: legend had it that for oppressing the people of Bury St Edmunds Swein was killed by an invisible lance wielded by the ghost of St Edmund (see C. E. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England [Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1939]). In the De Miraculis Sancti Eadmundi (end 11th), probably produced at Bury St Edmunds, Swein’s death is compared with that of Julian the Apostate at the hands of Mercurius.  See further Philip Shaw, “A Dead Killer? Saint Mercurius, Killer of Julian the Apostate, in the Works of William of Malmesbury,” Leeds Studies in English, n. s. 35 (2005), 1-22. 

[36] 235 his children ses enfanz: Alfred and Edward, Ethelred’s sons with Emma. Edmund Ironside, who stayed behind, was Aethelred’s son with Aelfgifu.

[37] 237 his daughter sa fille: Paris confuses two Richards here. This Richard was Emma’s brother, Richard II (996-1026), and not her father, Richard I (942-96); Richard II had succeeded his father in 996, before Emma’s marriage to Ethelred in 1002; see vv. 125-6 and note, and v. 1411 and note. Aelred of Rievaulx also refers to the Emma who married Aethelred as the daughter of the Richard who sheltered her and her sons VSE, PL 195.742; Aelred, “Life,” 131). His further statement that  Edward “vivebat in avita domo inter pueros puer” (VSE, PL 195.742) can be unproblematically translated as “ancestral home,” and therefore does not present a conflicting reading (see Aelred, “Life,”135). 

[38] 243-4 Alfred...the younger Aelfredz...pusnez: Paris is mistaken, as Alfred was the younger of the two. Aelred makes the same mistake (VSE, PL195.741, Aelred, “Life,”, 132).

[39] 246 Thored Thorin: see note to v. 158.

[40] 253 foreigners who have no rights here estraunges e desnatureus: condemnation of aliens and foreigners is frequent in the Estoire (see Introduction  00); in an extended meaning, natureus, natural, and desnatureus, unnatural, came to refer to the possession (or not) of legitimacy or rights.  See note to v. 105 above.

[41] 264-66 Edmund...Danes decided Aedmunz..unt devisé e li Daneis: in reality there were several battles between the two disputants to the throne; see note to vv. 272-4. This description does not figure in Aelred’s VSE but rather in his GRA (PL195.732; Genealogy, 109-10). St Alban’s copy of the Genealogia is extant in London, British Library MS Royal 13 D.v,  together with the text of Geoffrey of Monmouth completed in Matthew Paris’s hand (Thomson, Manuscripts of St Albans, no 35): see note to v. 10 above.

[42] 272  the kings Li rois: some time after the death of Swein Forkbeard in 1014, his son Cnut went back to Denmark and Ethelred was restored to the English throne. After Ethelred’s death in 1016, Cnut and Ethelred’s son Edmund Ironside disputed the throne in various battles, and in October 1016 Cnut defeated Edmund at the battle of Ashdon (or Ashingdon:  see Cyril Hart, “The Site of Assandun,” in his The Danelaw [London: Hambledon, 1992], 553-65). Edmund died in November 1016 (Brooke, Saxon and Norman Kings, 124).  For the legendary accounts of Edmund Ironside’s death, see Howard, Svein Forkbeard’s Invasions, 3-6. Paris’s CM account of Cnut and Edmund  details their various battles as well as the VSE-derived narrative of their single combat  which is the chief representation of their relation in Estoire (see CM I, s.a. 1016, 495-99).

[43] 285 was young jovne fu: throughout this account of the battle between Cnut and Edmund Ironside, Paris develops the idea that Edmund was much younger than Cnut, who shows a fatherly concern for the “youth”; Cnut declares that Edmund isn’t much more than thirty years old (v. 319). In reality, the adversaries were both a little past twenty years old, and Edmund was actually a bit older than Cnut. As Suzanne Lewis notes, Paris, in illustrating this scene for  CM, follows his own Estoire version of Cnut’s strategy rather than that of his Latin source, Aelred’s  GRA (Art of Matthew Paris, 172-4). For fuller discussion of this episode, see Introduction 00.

[44] 297 turned into...splinters fait un chantel: Wallace suggests “to break to pieces” or “to cut off a chunk”  (Estoire, 151, n. to 297).

[45] 307 king of the English see note to v. 272.

[46] 319 you aren’t more than thirty Ki n’as d’age anz plus de trente: see v. 303 and note.

[47] 328 coveted cuveit: 3rd pers. but context clearly calls for 1st pers.