Æthelred the Unready

Cover page
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
CONTENTS
PLATES, MAPS AND FIGURES
A NOTE ON NAME FORMS AND REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES
INTRODUCTION AN UNREADY AND ILL-COUNSELLEDKING?
CHAPTER 1 BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
	England between Alfred the Great and Edgar ‘the Peacemaker’ (871–957/9)
	The reign of King Edgar: administrative consolidation
	King Edgar and the church: monastic reform
	Family and faction: Æthelred at the court of King Edgar
CHAPTER 2 ‘WOE TO THEE, OH LAND, WHEN THY KING IS A CHILD’
	Crisis and consolidation, 975
	The ‘anti-monastic reaction’
	The life and death of a ‘holy innocent’: Edward II as king and martyr, 975–8
	Regency rule: Ælfthryth and Æthelwold, 978–84
CHAPTER 3 THE PRODIGAL SON 984–93
	Growing independence: ruling the roost and the realm
	From regency rule to ‘youthful indiscretion’
	The wages of sin
	Maldon: the poem and the battle
CHAPTER 4 REPENTANCE AND REFORM 993–1002
	The politics of penance
	Repentance and reform
	The cult of King Edward
	Defending the realm
CHAPTER 5 APOCALYPSE AND INVASION 1002–9
	The Massacre of St Brice’s Day
	The ‘Palace Revolution’, 1005–6
	Sin and society, 1006–9
	Crime and punishment
	Apocalypse and atonement
CHAPTER 6 A KINGDOM LOST AND WON 1009–16
	From crisis to collapse: Thorkell’s ‘immense raiding army’, 1009–12
	Calamity and response, 1009–12
	Faction, friction and conquest, 1013–16
CONCLUSION AN AGE OF ILL COUNSEL?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX