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Edith of Wessex

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Edith of Wessex
Edith z Wessexu.png
Illustration by Matthew Paris
Queen consort of England
Tenure 23 January 1045 – 5 January 1066
Coronation 23 January 1045, Old Minster, Winchester
Born c. 1025
Died 18 December 1075
Burial Westminster Abbey, England
Spouse Edward the Confessor
House Godwin
Father Godwin, Earl of Wessex
Mother Gytha Thorkelsdóttir
Edith of Wessex (c. 1025 – 18 December 1075) was Queen of England from her marriage
to Edward the Confessor in 1045 until Edward died in 1066. Unlike most English
queens in the 10th and 11th centuries, she was crowned.[1] The principal source on
her life is a work she herself commissioned, the Vita Ædwardi Regis or the Life of
King Edward who rests at Westminster, which is inevitably biased.[2]

Early life
Edith was the daughter of Godwin, the most powerful earl in England. Her mother
Gytha was sister of Ulf, a Danish earl who was Cnut the Great's brother-in-law. She
was probably born in or before 1027.[3] Edith was originally named Gytha, but
renamed Ealdgyth (or Edith) when she married King Edward the Confessor.[4] Her
brothers were Sweyn (c. 1020 – 1052), Harold (later Harold II) (c. 1022 – 1066),
Tostig (c. 1026 – 1066), Gyrth (c. 1030 – 1066), Leofwine (c. 1035 – 1066), and
Wulfnoth (c. 1040 – 1094). Edith was the firstborn of Godwin's three daughters,
which included her sisters Gunhild (or Gunhilda) (c. 1035 – 1080) and Ælfgifu (c.
1035 – ?). The exact birthdates of the Godwin children are unknown, but Sweyn was
the firstborn and Harold was the second son.[5] Harold was aged about 25 in 1045,
which makes his birth date around 1020.[4][6]

Edith was brought up at Wilton Abbey. She was an educated woman who spoke several
languages, skills she probably acquired at Wilton. She remained attached to it, and
in later years rebuilt its church.[7] Her niece, Gunhild of Wessex, would also be
educated at Wilton.

The Vita Edwardi emphasised her piety. She helped Giso, the Bishop of Wells, secure
the endowments of his see, and gave lands to Abingdon Abbey, but the monks of
Evesham alleged that she had the relics of many monasteries brought to Gloucester
so that she could select the best for herself. When Gervin, abbot of Saint-Riquier,
who was visiting the English court, rejected her kiss of greeting, she took
offence. Edward reproved her, and she accepted the rebuff, even going on to urge
English churchmen not to kiss women, although they did not object to the custom.[3]

Edith lost four of her brothers in a very short span. Tostig died on 25 September
1066 during the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Three others – Harold, Gyrth, and
Leofwine – all died on 14 October 1066, during the Battle of Hastings.[8]

Marriage and life as queen

Edith married Edward on 23 January 1045.[3] Unlike most wives of the Saxon kings of
England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Edith was crowned queen. The marriage
produced no children. Later ecclesiastical writers claimed that this was either
because Edward took a vow of celibacy, or because he refused to consummate the
marriage because of his antipathy to Edith's family, the Godwins. However, this is
dismissed by modern historians. In the view of Edward's biographer, Frank Barlow,
"the theory that Edward's childlessness was due to deliberate abstention from
sexual relations lacks authority, plausibility and diagnostic value."[9]

In 1051 Godwin and his sons fell out with Edward and fled the country. Edith was
sent to a nunnery, possibly because she was childless and Edward hoped to divorce
her.[3][10] When the Godwins effected their return through force in 1052, Edith was
reinstated as queen. In later years, she became one of Edward's inner group of
advisers.[11] In the Vita Edwardi, according to Barlow, "although she is always
placed modestly behind the throne, the author does not minimize her power or
completely conceal her will. Whenever we catch sight of her elsewhere, we see a
determined woman, interfering, hard, probably bad-tempered."[12]

As the king's wife, she was responsible for his regal presentation. She
commissioned works for his personal ornament, and had at least one goldsmith among
her tenants. When he died, the Domesday Book shows that she was the richest woman
in England, and the fourth wealthiest individual, after the king, Stigand,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and her brother Harold. She held land valued at between
£1,570 and £2,000 per annum.[13]

She was close to her brother Tostig, and in 1055 she and Harold secured his
appointment as Earl of Northumbria. His rule was unpopular, and in 1064 Edith was
accused at court of engineering the murder of the Northumbrian noble Gospatrick in
Tostig's interest. In 1065 Tostig was probably hunting with King Edward when the
northerners rebelled and elected Morcar, Harold's brother-in-law, as earl. Tostig
charged Harold with conspiring with the rebels, a charge which Harold purged
himself of with a public oath. Edward demanded that the rebels be suppressed, but
to his and Edith's fury Harold and the English thegns refused to enforce the order.
Morcar was confirmed as earl and Tostig forced into exile.[3][14][15]

Later life and death

Upon Edward's death (5 January 1066), he was succeeded by Edith's brother, Harold
Godwinson. At the Battle of Stamford Bridge (25 September 1066) and the Battle of
Hastings (14 October 1066), Edith lost four of her remaining brothers (Tostig,
Harold, Gyrth and Leofwine). Her brother Wulfnoth, who had been given to Edward the
Confessor as a hostage in 1051 and soon afterwards became a prisoner of William the
Conqueror, remained in captivity in Normandy. Edith was therefore the only senior
member of the Godwin family to survive the Norman conquest on English soil, the
sons of Harold having fled to Ireland.

Carola Hicks, an art historian, has recently put her forward as a candidate for the
author of the Bayeux Tapestry.[16][17]

After Edward's death, Edith read the lives of English saints, and gave information
about St Kenelm to his hagiographer, Goscelin.[18] She died at Winchester on 18
December 1075.[3] Matthew Paris records a tradition that her death brought an end
to an illness from which she had been suffering at some length.[19] She was buried
together with her husband in Westminster Abbey and her funeral was arranged by
William.[19] The northern author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Manuscript D,
reports:

Edith the Lady died seven nights before Christmas in Winchester, she was King
Edward's wife, and the king had her brought to Westminster with great honour and
laid her near King Edward, her lord.[19]

See also
House of Wessex family tree
Godwin family tree
Cnut the Great's family tree
Citations
Pauline Stafford, 'Edith, Edward's Wife and Queen', in Richard Mortimer ed.,
Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, The Boydell Press, 2009, pp. 119,
129–130. Stafford states (p. 124) that Edith was between 12 and 25 when she
married, and probably nearer 25.
Historians disagree whether this was partly written in 1065–66, before Edward's
death, or was a unitary work of the late 1060s. Stafford, 2009, pp. 119–120 and
note, Ann Williams, ODNB, Edith
Williams, ODNB, Edith
Harold Godwinson
Mason House of Godwine p. 10
Rex Harold p. 31
Stafford, 2009, pp. 121–126
Gytha Thorkelsdóttir
Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor, Yale University Press: London, 1997, p. 82.
Stafford, 2009, pp. 133–138
Barlow, p. 167.
Barlow, pp. 189–190.
Stafford, 2009, pp. 126–128
William M. Aird, Tostig, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
Stafford, 2009, p. 135
BBC Radio 4, Woman's Hour, 22 May 2006
Carola Hicks, The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life of a Masterpiece ISBN 0-7011-7463-3)
Stafford, 2009, p. 125
Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, pp. 278–9.
Bibliography
Barlow, Frank (1997) Edward the Confessor, Yale University Press: London
Stafford, Pauline (1997). Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power
in Eleventh-Century England, Blackwell ISBN 0-631-16679-3
Stafford, Pauline (2009). 'Edith, Edward's Wife and Queen', pp. 129–138 in Richard
Mortimer ed., Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, The Boydell Press ISBN
978-1-84383-436-6
Williams, Ann (2004). "Edith (d. 1075)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8483. Retrieved 15 June
2008. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
External links
Eadgyth 3 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
English royalty
Vacant
Title last held by
Emma of Normandy Queen consort of the English
23 January 1045 – 4 January 1066 Succeeded by
Edith of Mercia
vte
English, Scottish and British royal consorts
Categories: 1020s births1075 deathsAnglo-Saxon womenAnglo-Saxon royal consortsHouse
of Godwin11th-century English people11th-century English womenBurials at
Westminster AbbeyHouse of WessexDaughters of British earls
This page was last edited on 24 June 2023, at 05:02 (UTC).
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