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'Aldfrith' (died 14 December 704 or 705), son of Oswiu of Northumbria and Fín, an Irish princess, was King of Northumbria. His name sometimes appears as Aldfrid and as the Latin Aldfridus, while in Classical Irish sources he is known as Flann Fína mac Ossu.
Educated for a career in the church as a young man, Aldfrith became king following the death of his childless half-brother King Ecgfrith at the Battle of Nechtansmere on 20 May 685. His reign was relatively peaceful, although marred by disputes with Bishop Wilfrid. Bede states that he led a partial restoration of Northumbrian fortunes after the losses which followed Ecgfrith's death.
Described as a man of great learning by sources such as Bede, Eddius, and Alcuin, letters written to Aldfrith and Irish Wisdom literature attributed to him have survived. The works of Bede and Eddius supply information on Aldfrith's reign, and in particular his troubles with Bishop Wilfrid. The Northumbrian Golden Age, which saw the creation of works of Hiberno-Saxon art such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Codex Amiatinus, began in Aldfrith's time.
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Contents

Background

Early life

Aldfrith's Northumbria

Reign

Notes

References

Background

After he defeated of Penda of Mercia at the Battle of the Winwaed in 654 or 655, Aldfrith's father ruled the largest and most powerful kingdom in the island of Britain. The twin kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, which formed Northumbria, stretched from the River Humber in the south to the River Forth in the north. The Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, the many obscure and nameless Brythonic kingdoms in what are now North West England and southern Scotland, and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the south, were subject to Oswiu and paid tribute to him.^[1]
Oswiu's dominance did not last. Penda's son Wulfhere undermined Northumbrian power in the south. Although Wulfhere's defeat in 674 meant that Mercia was once again within the Northumbrian orbit, Wulfhere's brother Æthelred defeated Ecgfrith by the River Trent in 679, killed Ælfwine, brother of Ecgfrith and Aldfrith, and drove the Northumbrians beyond the Humber for good.^[2]
Ecgfrith's ambitions stretched beyond Britain. His general Berht led an army to Ireland in 684 where he ravaged the plain of Brega, destroying churches and taking hostages.^[3]
Ecgfrith's two marriages—the first to the saintly virgin Æthelthryth (Saint Audrey), the second to Eormenburg—produced no children, and his brother Ælfwine was killed in 679, so that the succession in Northumbria was unclear for some years before Ecgfrith's death.^[4] Bede's ''Life of Cuthbert'' recounts a conversation between Cuthbert and Abbess Ælfflæd of Whitby, daughter of Oswiu, where Cuthbert foresaw Ecgfrith's death. Ælfflæd asked of his successor, and was told that she would love him as a brother:

"But," said she, "I beseech you to tell me where he may be found." He answered, "You behold this great and spacious sea, how it aboundeth in islands. It is easy for God out of some of these to provide a person to reign over England." She therefore understood him to speak of [Aldfrith], who was said to be the son of her father, and was then, on account of his love of literature, exiled to the Scottish islands.^[5]

Ecgfrith's death came in a campaign against his cousin, the King of the Picts Bridei map Beli at a battle known as Nechtansmere to the Northumbrians, generally thought to be near Forfar.^[6] Bede recounts that Queen Eormenburg and Cuthbert were visiting Carlisle that day, and that Cuthbert had a premonition of the defeat.^[7] Ecgfrith's death threatened to break the hold of the descendants of Æthelfrith on the newly united Northumbria, and the scholar Aldfrith became king.^[8]

Early life

The reports of Aldfrith's death in the Irish annals call him Aldfrith son of Oswiu, but some of these are glossed by later scribes with the name Flann Fína mac Ossu. A collection of wisdom literature attributed to Flann Fína, the ''Briathra Flainn Fhina Maic Ossu'', has survived in a Middle Irish version.[9]

Learning merits respect.

Intelligence overcomes fury.

Truth should be supported.

Falsehood should be rebuked.

Iniquity should be corrected.

A quarrel merits mediation.

Stinginess should be spurned.

Arrogance deserves oblivion.

Good should be exalted.

The date of Aldfrith's birth is not recorded.^[10] The relationship between Aldfrith's father and mother was not considered a lawful marriage by contemporary Northumbrian churchmen, and he is described as the son of a concubine in early sources.^[11]
Aldfrith's father, although born to Anglo-Saxon parents—Oswiu was the son of King Æthelfrith of Bernicia and Acha, sister of Edwin of Deira—was a child when he accompanied his brothers and supporters into exile in Dál Riata and Ireland. Oswiu grew up in an Irish milieu, was a fluent speaker of the Old Irish language, and married an Irish princess. He may have fought in Ireland and Britain for his hosts, Kings Eochaid Buide, Connad Cerr, and Domnall Brecc.^[12]
Irish law made Aldfrith's mother's kin, the Cenél nEógain of the northern Uí Néill, responsible for his upbringing.^[13] His mother is said to have been a daughter of Colmán Rímid although it possible that she was his granddaughter, and he was thus a cousin or nephew of the noted scholar Cenn Fáelad mac Aillila, and perhaps a nephew of Bishop Finan of Lindisfarne.^[14]
Aldfrith is known to have received confirmation at the hands of Aldhelm, later the Bishop of Sherborne in the south-western Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. Aldhelm too had received an Irish education, but in Britain, at Malmesbury. Correspondence between the two survives. Aldfrith also appears to have been a close friend of Adomnán, Abbot of Iona from 679, and may have studied with him.^[15]
Irish sources describe Aldfrith as a ''sapiens''. This term, from the Latin for wise, refers to a scholar not usually associated with a particular church, and implies a high degree of learning, making Aldfrith an early example of the Anglo-Saxon philosopher king.^[16] He was the recipient of Aldhelm's treatise on the numerology of the number seven, the ''Epistola ad Acircium''.^[17] Bede records that Aldfrith purchased a manuscript on cosmography from Abbot Ceolfrith of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in exchange for an estate valued at eight hides.^[18]

Aldfrith's Northumbria

Bede, quotes Virgil, writing that following Ecgfrith's death, "the hopes and strengths of the English realm began 'to wave and slip backward ever lower'". The Northumbrians never regained the dominance of central Britain lost in 679, or of northern Britain lost in 685. Nonetheless, Northumbria was one of the most powerful states of Britain and Ireland, and remained so well into the Viking Age.^[19]
Aldfrith ruled both parts of Northumbria, northern Bernicia and southern Deira, throughout his reign. The kingdoms had originally been ruled by rival families. After the descendants of Æthelfrith gained the upper hand with the death of Edwin of Deira in 633, the two kingdoms were intermittently ruled by a senior and a junior king, with Deira ruled by the junior partner.Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 78-79 However, the two parts remained distinct, and would again be divided in the Viking Age.^[20] The centre of Bernicia lay in the region around the later Anglo-Scottish border, with Lindisfarne, Hexham, Bamburgh, and Yeavering being important religious and royal centres. Even after Ecgfrith's death, Bernicia included much of modern south east Scotland, with a presumed royal centre at Dunbar, and religious centres at Coldingham and Melrose. The details of the early Middle Ages in north west England and south west Scotland are more obscure, but a Bishop of Whithorn is known from shortly after Aldfrith's reign. York, Catterick, Ripon, and Whitby appear to have been important sites in Deira.^[21]
Northumbria's southern frontier with Mercia ran across England, from the Humber in the east, following the River Ouse and the River Don, to the Mersey in the west. The archaeological evidence appears to show that it was a heavily defended border, with large earthworks set back from the frontier. Examples include the Nico Ditch, to the south of modern Manchester, and the Roman Ridge dyke, near modern Sheffield.^[22]
In the far north, the evidence is less clear, and it appears that authority lay with sub-kings, and perhaps native Brythonic clients. The family of Ecgfrith's general Berht is reconstructed as being one such dynasty of under-kings.^[23]
Along with the king, royal family, and chief noblemen, the church was a major force in Northumbria. Churchmen were not only figures of spiritual authority, but also major landowners, who also controlled trade, centred at major churches and monasteries in a land without cities and towns. Although an Archbishopric of York had been created for Paulinus in the time of Edwin, it was dormant in Aldfrith's lifetime. The Northumbrian church was therefore subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus until his death in 690, then Berhtwald. The oldest of the bishoprics in Northumbria was Lindisfarne, held by Cuthbert at Aldfrith's accession, then by the Irish-educated Eadberht, who would later be Abbot of Iona and bring the Easter controversy to an end, and finally by Eadfrith, creator of the Lindisfarne Gospels, also of Irish sympathies. The bishops of Lindisfarne sometimes held the see of Hexham, but during Aldfrith's reign it was held by John of Beverley, a pupil and protegé of Archbishop Theodore. The bishopric of York was held by Bosa in 685. Wilfrid was given the see in 687, but removed in 691 with Bosa returning to York. The short-lived see at Abercorn, created in 681 for Bishop Trumwine, had collapsed in the aftermath of Nechtansmere and the first Bishop of Whithorn appears to have been appointed in the reign of King Ceolwulf. Important monasteries existed at Whitby, where the known abbesses were generally a member of the Deiran royal family, at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, where Bede was a monk, and at Ripon.^[24]

Reign

Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus, an illuminated manuscript bible created at Wearmouth-Jarrow in the reign of Aldfrith.

There was no recorded resistance to Aldfrith becoming king although rivals claiming descent from kings must have existed.^[25] It has also been suggested that Aldfrith's peaceful ascent owed something to support from the Uí Néill, the Dál Riata, and the Picts, all of whom might have preferred the mature, known quantity of Aldfrith to an unknown candidate who might prove to be a mighty warrior such as Ecgfrith or Oswiu.^[26]
Bede states that Aldfrith "ably restored the shattered fortunes of the kingdom, though within smaller boundaries". As well as the members of the royal family, he appears to have had the support of leading ecclesiastics, most notably his half-sister Ælfflæd and the highly respected Bishop Cuthbert.^[27]
Aldfrith's reign is taken to be the beginning of Northumbria's golden age, which would last until the end of the 8th century. This saw the flowering of Insular art in Northumbria, a fusion which produced the Lindisfarne Gospels, begun in Aldfrith's time. This early phase of the golden age was also marked by Bede's scholarship, and the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon missions to Europe.^[28]

Coins of Aldfrith.

The earliest Northumbrian silver coinage appears in Aldfrith's reign, the sceat replacing the impractical gold thrymsa as a medium of exchange.^[29] Exceptionally for the period, Aldfrith's coins bear his name, rather than that of a moneyer, in an Irish uncial script. Most show a quadruped beast, which may be a lion, with upraised tail.^[30]
In the early years of Aldfrith's reign he was active in diplomacy. In 686 he allowed Wilfrid to return from his exile at Archbishop Theodore's urging.^[31][32] In the 680s he twice met with Abbot Adomnán, who came to seek the release of the Irish captives taken in Berht's expedition of 684. These were released and Adomnán presented Aldfrith with a copy of his treatise ''De Locis Sanctis'', a description of the places of pilgrimage in the Holy Land, and at Alexandria and Constantinople. Bede reports that Aldfrith circulated Adomnán's work for others to read.^[33]
Aldfrith's relations with Wilfrid were stormy and by 691 or 692 their differences were beyond repair. Wilfrid's hagiographer writes:

For a while all would be peace between the wise King Aldfrith and our holy bishop, and a happier state of affairs could hardly be imagined. Then spite would boil up again and the situation would be reversed. And so they continued for years, in and out of friendship with each other, till finally their quarrels came to a head and the king banished Wilfrid from Northumbria.^[34]

Aldfrith's reign was not entirely peaceful as a battle between the Northumbrians and the Picts, where Berht was killed, is recorded in the Irish annals and by Bede in 697 or 698.^[35]
Aldfrith's troubles with Wilfrid, who went into exile in Mercia, where King Æthelred proved to be his staunch supporter, were not ended. He convened a council at Austerfield in 702 or 703 where the question of Bishop Wilfrid's return to Northumbria was discussed, but things went badly, and he returned to his Mercian exile.^[36] This was followed by Wilfrid's excommunication, his journey to Rome, and an interview with Pope John VI. The Pope provided Wilfrid with letters to Aldfrith with orders that Wilfrid should be restored to his offices.^[37] Aldfrith refused to receive the letters, and Wilfrid remained in disfavour.^[38]
Aldfrith was married to Cuthburg, sister of King Ine of Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that they separated and Cuthburg established an abbey at Wimborne Minster where she was abbess. At least two sons were born to Aldfrith, but whether Cuthburg was their mother is unrecorded.^[39] Osred, born around 696 or 697, succeeded to the throne after a civil war following Aldfrith's death. Little is known of Offa, who is presumed to have been killed after being taken from Lindisfarne in 750 on the orders of King Eadberht of Northumbria.^[40] Osric, who was later king, may have been Aldfrith's son, or alternatively the son of Aldfrith's half-brother Alchfrith.^[41]
Aldfrith is said to have been ill for some time before his death, dying on 14 December 704 or 705.^[42] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle adds that he died at Driffield. The succession was disputed by Eadwulf, supported initially by Bishop Wilfrid, and supporters of Aldfrith's young son Osred, apparently led by Berht's kinsman Berhtfrith.^[43]

Notes

1. Holdsworth; Kirby, pp 95–98.
2. Fraser, pp. 119–120, and Kirby, pp. 84–85, suggest that the defeat at the Trent was a greater blow to Northumbrian pretensions to the overlordship of Britain than the defeat at Nechtansmere in 685.
3. Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p. 85, suggests that the raid may have been intended to undermine support for Aldfrith. Charles-Edwards, chapter 10, and especially pp. 429–438, suggests that ecclesiastical politics may have been of great importance. See also Fraser, pp. 43–47.
4. Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book IV, Chapter 26.
5. Bede, ''Life of Cuthbert'', chapter XXIV. D.P. Kirby suggests that "[r]ather than asking Cuthbert ingenuously who would succeed Ecgfrith, [Ælfflæd] was probably testing his loyalties"; Kirby, p. 106. The anonymous ''Life of Cuthbert'', written during Aldfrith's reign, is generally similar in its account, but differs in the last sentence, which reads "Then she quickly remembered that he spoke of Aldfrith who now reigns in peace, who was then on the island they call [Iona]"; Fraser, pp. 138–139.
6. Dunnichen Moss in Angus is the preferred site.
7. Bede, ''Life of Cuthbert'', chapter XXVII.
8. Kirby, p. 106, notes "Aelfflaed's question to Cuthbert reveals the ambition of this family, which had possessed royal power continuously since 633 or 634, to hold on to it". The succession at Aldfrith's death was disputed, and the Leodwaldings and other families contested successfully for power after the death of Aldfrith's son Osred.
9. Ireland, pp. 70–75.
10. Grimmer, §25; Kirby, p. 143.; Williams, p. 18.
11. The term used is ''nothus'', bastard. Some later sources doubt his paternity, but well-informed contemporary ones, including those derived from the Chronicle of Ireland are in no doubt that he was Oswiu's son, for example, the notice of his death in the ''Annals of Ulster'', s.a. 704, which calls him "Aldfrith m. Ossu". See also Yorke, ''Conversion'', pp. 226–227.
12. A Saxon ætheling called ''Osric mac Albruit'', presumed to be a Bernician exile, was killed at the battle of Fid Eóin fighting alongside Connad Cerr in 629. Oswiu may have been present here; Grimmer, §9.
13. Grimmer, §23.
14. Colmán Rímid mac Báetáin died circa 604, and is listed as a High King of Ireland, see Charles-Edwards, pp. 502 & 504; for Fín as granddaughter of Colmán Rímid see Kirby, p. 143 and Cramp; for the possible relationship with Bishop Fínan, see Campbell, p. 86.
15. Grimmer, §25, note 60.
16. The term ''sapiens'' is discussed by Charles-Edwards, pp. 264–271.
17. Lapidge, "Aldfrith"; Lapidge, "Aldhelm".
18. Blair, ''World of Bede'', pp. 184–185; Bede, ''Life of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow'', c. 15.
19. Campbell, pp. 88ff; Kirby, pp. 142–143.
20. Holdsworth, "Northumbria".
21. Blair, ''Introduction'', pp 37–49, p. 42, map 7, & p. 145, map 9; Higham, cc. 4–5, passim.
22. Higham, pp. 140–144.
23. Kirby, p. 100; Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 92 & 171.
24. Blair, ''Introduction'', pp. 132–141.
25. D.P. Kirby notes "[t]he prestige of Oswiu's family, or else its capacity for intimidation, must have been very considerable for Aldfrith to return and rule in what seems to have been domestic peace"; Kirby, p. 144.
26. Kirby, p. 144. Cramp suggests that Aldfrith may already have been present in Northumbria at Ecgfrith's death.
27. Yorke, ''Conversion'', pp 226–227.
28. Art and scholarship, see Higham, pp. 155–166; Blair, ''Introduction'', pp. 311–329; missions, see Blair, ''Introduction'', pp. 162–164.
29. Kirby, p. 146. Higham, pp. 166–168, gives an overview of Northumbrian coinage.
30. Gannon, pp. 125–126.
31. Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book V, Chapter 19.
32. ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapters 43–44.
33. Blair, ''World of Bede'', pp. 185–186; Yorke, ''Conversion'', pp. 17–18; Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book V, Chapters 15–17.
34. Eddius, ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapter 45.
35. Kirby, p. 142; ''Annals of Ulster'', s.a. 697; Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book V, Chapter 24.
36. Eddius, ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapters 46–48.
37. Eddius, ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapters 49–55.
38. ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapters 58–59; Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book V, Chapter 19.
39. Kirby, p. 145.
40. Kirby, pp. 143–150; Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 89–90 & 93.
41. Kirby, p. 147; Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 88 & 90.
42. For the year of Aldfrith's death see Kirby, p. 145: the Irish annals record his death under the year 703, which is 704 A.D., while Bede gives 705 and a reign of nineteen years.
43. ''Life of Wilfrid'', Chapters 59–60; Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book V, Chapter 19.

References

★ Aldfrith 1 (Male)

★ The Annals of Ulster, volume 1

★ Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People.'' Translated by Leo Sherley-Price, revised R.E. Latham, ed. D.H. Farmer. London: Penguin, 1990. ISBN 0-14-044565-X

★ Bede, "Life of Cuthbert" in D.H. Farmer (ed.) & J.H. Webb (trans.), ''The Age of Bede.'' London: Penguin, 1998. IBN 0-140-44727-X

★ Bede, "Life of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow" in D.H. Farmer (ed.) & J.H. Webb (trans.), ''The Age of Bede.'' London: Penguin, 1998. IBN 0-140-44727-X

★ Blair, Peter Hunter, ''An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1977, reprinted 2000. ISBN 0-521-29219-0

★ Blair, Peter Hunter, ''The World of Bede.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, reprinted 1990. ISBN 0-521-39138-5

★ Campbell, James, "Elements in the Background to the Life of Saint Cuthbert and his early cult" in ''The Anglo-Saxon State'', pp. 85–106. London: Hambledon, 2000. ISBN 1-85285-176-7

★ Charles-Edwards, T.M., ''Early Christian Ireland.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-39395-0

★ Aldfrith (d. 704/705)

★ Eddius, "Life of Wilfrid" in D.H. Farmer (ed.) & J.H. Webb (trans.), ''The Age of Bede.'' London: Penguin, 1998. IBN 0-140-44727-X

★ Fraser, James, ''The Pictish Conquest: The Battle of Dunnichen 685 & the birth of Scotland.'' Stroud: Tempus, 2006. ISBN 0-7524-3962-6

★ Gannon, Anna, ''The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage: Sixth to Eighth Centuries.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-925465-6

★ The Exogamous Marriages of Oswiu of Northumbria

★ Higham, N.J., ''The Kingdom of Northumbria AD 350-1100.'' Stroud: Sutton, 1993. ISBN 0-86299-730-5

★ Holdsworth, Philip, "Northumbria" in M. Lapidge, et al, (eds), ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0

★ Holdsworth, Philip, "Oswiu" in M. Lapidge, et al, (eds), ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0

★ Ireland, C.A., ''Old Irish wisdom attributed to Aldfrith of Northumbria: An edition of Briathra Flainn Fhina maic Ossu.'' Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999. ISBN 0-86698-247-7.

★ Kirby, D.P., ''The Earliest English Kings.'' London: Unwin Hyman, 1991. ISBN 0-04-445691-3

★ Lapidge, Michael, "Aldfrith" in M. Lapidge, et al, (eds), ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0

★ Lapidge, Michael, "Aldhelm" in M. Lapidge, et al, (eds), ''The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0

★ Stenton, Sir Frank, ''Anglo-Saxon England.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1971. ISBN 0-19-280139-2

★ Williams, Ann, ''Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500–1066.'' Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999. ISBN 0-333-56798-6

★ Yorke, Barbara, ''Kings and Kingdoms in Early Anglo-Saxon England.'' London: Seaby, 1990. ISBN 1-85264-027-8

★ Yorke, Barbara, ''The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800.'' London: Longman, 2006. ISBN 0-582-77292-3

★ Oswald and the Irish