- Ealhmund of Kent
Ealhmund, was King of Kent in 784. The only contemporary evidence of him is an abstract of a charter dated in that year, in which Ealhmund granted land to the
Abbot ofReculver . [http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=S+38] By the following year Offa ofMercia seems to have been ruling directly, as he issued a charter [http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=seek&query=S+123] without any mention of a local king.There is a general consensus that he is identical [Bierbrier, p. 382] to the Ealhmund found in two pedigrees in the Winchester (Parker) Chronicle, compiled during the reign of
Alfred the Great . The genealogical preface to this manuscript, as well as the annal entry (covering years 855-859) describing the death of Æthelwulf, both make kingEgbert of Wessex the son of an Ealhmund, who was son of Eafa, grandson of Eoppa, and great-grandson of Ingild, the brother of kingIne of Wessex , and descendant of founderCerdic , [Garmonsway, pp. xxxii, 2, 4] and therefore a member of theHouse of Wessex (seeHouse of Wessex family tree ). A further entry has been added in a later hand to the 784 annal, reporting Ealhmund's reign in Kent. Finally, in the Canterbury Bilingual Epitome, originally compiled after theNorman conquest of England , a later scribe has likewise added to the 784 annal not only Ealhmund's reign in Kent, but his explicit identification with the father Egbert. [Garmonsway, pp. xxxix-xxxx, 52] Based on this reconstruction, in which a Wessex scion became king of Kent, his own Kentish name and that of his son, Egbert, it has been suggested that his mother derived from the royal house of Kent, [Kelley] a connection dismissed by a recent critical review. [Bierbrier, p. 382] It has likewise been suggested that Ealhmund might actually have been a Kentish royal scion, and that his pedigree was forged to give son Egbert the descent from Cerdic requisite to reigning inWessex . [Bierbrier, p. 382, who does not concur with the hypothesis]Notes
References
*Bierbrier, M.L., "Genealogical Flights of Fancy. Old Assumptions, New Sources", "Foundations: Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy", 2:379-87.
*Garmonsway, G.N. ed., "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
*Kelley, David H., "The House of Aethelred", in Brooks, Lindsay L., ed., "Studies in Genealogy and Family History in Tribute to Charles Evans". Salt Lake City: The Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy, Occasional Publication, No. 2, pp. 63-93.External links
* [http://omacl.org/Anglo/part2.html Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Year 784] Mention of his reign.
ee also
*
List of monarchs of Kent
*Chronology of Kentish Kings
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