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Cross-channel marriage and royal succession in the age of Charles the Simple and Athelstan (c. 916-936)

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MacLean_2015_MW_Cross_channel_CC.pdf (106.7Kb)
Date
01/12/2015
Author
MacLean, Simon
Keywords
Carolingian Empire
Marriage
Anglo-Saxon
England
Edward the Elder
Athelstan
Charles the Simple
Ottonians
Succession
Political History
Flodoard of Rheims
D111 Medieval History
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Abstract
This article discusses the marriages of four Anglo-Saxon princesses to Continental kings and princes between the years 917 and 930. These are often interpreted as acts of diplomacy, sealing alliances across the Channel and indicating the dominant position of King Athelstan in early tenth-century Europe. I reinterpret the motivations of the princes by reading the marriages as acts of symbolic communication driven by the uncertainty over the West Frankish royal succession in the 920s and framed by a competition to access a version of Carolingian dynastic legitimacy. This in turn allows us to reflect on the decay of the Carolingian Empire after 888. Because Carolingian-ness was no longer a hegemonic political discourse, I argue that these events belong emphatically to a post-imperial political landscape.
Citation
MacLean , S 2015 , ' Cross-channel marriage and royal succession in the age of Charles the Simple and Athelstan (c. 916-936) ' , Medieval Worlds. Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies , vol. 1 , no. 2 , pp. 26-44 . https://doi.org/10.1553/medievalworlds_no2_2015s26
Publication
Medieval Worlds. Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1553/medievalworlds_no2_2015s26
ISSN
2412-3196
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author. This is an Open Access article. Medieval Worlds is licensed under the Creative‐Commons-Attribution NonCommercial‐NoDerivs 4.0 Unported (CC BY‐NC‐ND 4.0).
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.medievalworlds.net/0xc1aa500e_0x0032965a.pdf
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8250

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