Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 June 22

= June 22 =

Anglo-Saxon and French relations
Was there any diplomatic relationship between France and Anglo Saxon England before 1066? KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:18, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Are you joking? William the Conqueror's claim on the throne was based on his kinship to Edward the Confessor, one of the sons of Emma of Normandy. Emma being the consort of both Æthelred the Unready and Cnut the Great.

The earlier Anglo-Saxon monarchs had close affiliations to the Merovingian monarchs even before the Gregorian mission (596):
 * "In 595, when Pope Gregory I decided to send a mission to the Anglo-Saxons, the Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht. He had married a Christian princess named Bertha before 588, and perhaps earlier than 560. Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks. As one of the conditions of her marriage she had brought a bishop named Liudhard with her to Kent as her chaplain. They restored a church in Canterbury that dated to Roman times, possibly the present-day St Martin's Church. Æthelberht was at that time a pagan but he allowed his wife freedom of worship. Liudhard does not appear to have made many converts among the Anglo-Saxons, and if not for the discovery of a gold coin, the Liudhard medalet, bearing the inscription Leudardus Eps (Eps is an abbreviation of Episcopus, the Latin word for bishop) his existence may have been doubted. One of Bertha's biographers states that, influenced by his wife, Æthelberht requested Pope Gregory to send missionaries. The historian Ian Wood feels that the initiative came from the Kentish court as well as the queen. "
 * "The choice of Kent and Æthelberht was almost certainly dictated by a number of factors, including that Æthelberht had allowed his Christian wife to worship freely. Trade between the Franks and Æthelberht's kingdom was well established,and the language barrier between the two regions was apparently only a minor obstacle as the interpreters for the mission came from the Franks. Another reason for the mission was the growing power of the Kentish kingdom. Since the eclipse of King Ceawlin of Wessex in 592, Æthelberht was the leading Anglo-Saxon ruler; Bede refers to Æthelberht as having imperium, or overlordship, south of the River Humber. Lastly, the proximity of Kent to the Franks allowed for support from a Christian area. There is some evidence, including Gregory's letters to Frankish kings in support of the mission, that some of the Franks felt they had a claim to overlordship over some of the southern British kingdoms at this time. The presence of a Frankish bishop could also have lent credence to claims of overlordship, if Liudhard was felt to be acting as a representative of the Frankish Church and not merely as a spiritual adviser to the queen. Archaeological remains support the notion that there were cultural influences from Francia in England at that time. " Dimadick (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Louis IV of France was raised in England - the French even called him "d'Outremer", "from across the sea". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2019 (UTC)