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Authors: Robert Lacey
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to turn over a new leaf. Harking back to the conditions that Danish communities demanded when giving their allegiance to English rulers, Ethelred negotiated a sort of contract with the leading Anglo-Saxon nobles and clerics.
It was the first recorded pact between an English ruler and his subjects. Ethelred promised that ‘he would govern them more justly than he did before’, reported the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
. The king parleyed a comeback deal whereby ‘he would be a gracious lord to them, and would improve each of the things which they all hated’. In return the nobles and clergy agreed to obey him, ‘and full friendship was secured with word and pledge on either side’.
This contract, which appears to have been sealed in writing, was one of several last-ditch measures to which Ethelred had been driven in his weakness. As his authority eroded he had turned for help to the council of great lords and bishops who traditionally gave advice to Anglo-Saxon kings, the
witan
(plural of the Old English
wita
, meaning ‘wise man’). Ethelred had used the prestige of the
witan
to bolster his appeals for taxes, for a national day of prayer against the heathen Danes and even for a nationwide fast during which just water and herbs would be consumed.
None of these frantic steps saved him. Though Ethelred was allowed back to England, he died in April 1016, and following the death of his son Edmund later that year the throne of England passed to the Danes in the shape of Sweyn’s warrior son, Canute (Cnut). But some good came of the disaster. The ineffectualness that had compelled Ethelred to enlist the
witan
and that had inspired his last-gasp promise of good behaviour helped sow the seeds of a notion that would be crucial for the future - that English kings must rule with the consent of their people.
ELMER THE FLYING MONK
C.AD 1010
E LMER WAS AN ENQUIRING YOUNG MONK who lived at Malmesbury Abbey, and who loved to gaze up at the stars. During the troubled early decades of the eleventh century, he would look to the heavens for signs and portents of things to come, but while many of his contemporaries were content to draw simple lessons of doom and disaster, Elmer gazed with a scientific eye. He noted that, if you were to live long enough, you could see a comet come round again in the sky.
Elmer applied his experimental mind to classical history, making a particular study of Daedalus, the mythical Athenian architect and engineer who was hired by King Minos to build his sinister labyrinth in Crete. To preserve the secret of his maze, Minos then imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus, who only escaped by building themselves wings of feathers and wax. Their escape plan was working beautifully until Icarus, intoxicated by the joy of flying, flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax in his wings. The boy fell into the Aegean Sea below, where the island of Ikaria perpetuates his legend to this day.
Elmer decided to test the story of Daedalus by making wings for himself, then trying to fly from the tower of the abbey. In an age when Britain was still suffering Viking raids, many Saxon churches had high bell-towers, both to serve as a lookout and to sound the alarm. Whenever the Vikings captured a church, the bell was always the first thing they tore down. Its valuable metal could be beaten into high-quality swords and helmets - and anyway, to capture the Christians’ unique sound was a triumph in its own right.
Modern aeronautic experts have recreated Elmer’s flight, and they calculate that his launch platform must have been at least 18 metres high, which corresponds to the height of surviving Saxon church towers. They also presume that he built his paragliding equipment from willow or ash, the most lightweight and flexible of the woods available in the copses of the nearby Cotswolds. To complete his birdman outfit, the monk must have stretched parchment or thin cloth over the frame, which, we are told, he
It was the first recorded pact between an English ruler and his subjects. Ethelred promised that ‘he would govern them more justly than he did before’, reported the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
. The king parleyed a comeback deal whereby ‘he would be a gracious lord to them, and would improve each of the things which they all hated’. In return the nobles and clergy agreed to obey him, ‘and full friendship was secured with word and pledge on either side’.
This contract, which appears to have been sealed in writing, was one of several last-ditch measures to which Ethelred had been driven in his weakness. As his authority eroded he had turned for help to the council of great lords and bishops who traditionally gave advice to Anglo-Saxon kings, the
witan
(plural of the Old English
wita
, meaning ‘wise man’). Ethelred had used the prestige of the
witan
to bolster his appeals for taxes, for a national day of prayer against the heathen Danes and even for a nationwide fast during which just water and herbs would be consumed.
None of these frantic steps saved him. Though Ethelred was allowed back to England, he died in April 1016, and following the death of his son Edmund later that year the throne of England passed to the Danes in the shape of Sweyn’s warrior son, Canute (Cnut). But some good came of the disaster. The ineffectualness that had compelled Ethelred to enlist the
witan
and that had inspired his last-gasp promise of good behaviour helped sow the seeds of a notion that would be crucial for the future - that English kings must rule with the consent of their people.
ELMER THE FLYING MONK
C.AD 1010
E LMER WAS AN ENQUIRING YOUNG MONK who lived at Malmesbury Abbey, and who loved to gaze up at the stars. During the troubled early decades of the eleventh century, he would look to the heavens for signs and portents of things to come, but while many of his contemporaries were content to draw simple lessons of doom and disaster, Elmer gazed with a scientific eye. He noted that, if you were to live long enough, you could see a comet come round again in the sky.
Elmer applied his experimental mind to classical history, making a particular study of Daedalus, the mythical Athenian architect and engineer who was hired by King Minos to build his sinister labyrinth in Crete. To preserve the secret of his maze, Minos then imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus, who only escaped by building themselves wings of feathers and wax. Their escape plan was working beautifully until Icarus, intoxicated by the joy of flying, flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax in his wings. The boy fell into the Aegean Sea below, where the island of Ikaria perpetuates his legend to this day.
Elmer decided to test the story of Daedalus by making wings for himself, then trying to fly from the tower of the abbey. In an age when Britain was still suffering Viking raids, many Saxon churches had high bell-towers, both to serve as a lookout and to sound the alarm. Whenever the Vikings captured a church, the bell was always the first thing they tore down. Its valuable metal could be beaten into high-quality swords and helmets - and anyway, to capture the Christians’ unique sound was a triumph in its own right.
Modern aeronautic experts have recreated Elmer’s flight, and they calculate that his launch platform must have been at least 18 metres high, which corresponds to the height of surviving Saxon church towers. They also presume that he built his paragliding equipment from willow or ash, the most lightweight and flexible of the woods available in the copses of the nearby Cotswolds. To complete his birdman outfit, the monk must have stretched parchment or thin cloth over the frame, which, we are told, he
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