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Coenwulf (also spelled Cenwulf, Kenulf, or Kenwulph) was King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821. He was a descendant of a brother of King Penda, who had ruled Mercia in the middle of the 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son of Offa; Ecgfrith only reigned for five months, and Coenwulf ascended to the throne in the same year that Offa died. In the early years of Coenwulf's reign he had to deal with a revolt in Kent, which had been under Offa's control. Eadberht Præn returned from exile in Francia to claim the Kentish throne, and Coenwulf was forced to wait for papal support before he could intervene. When Pope Leo agreed to anathematize Eadberht, Coenwulf invaded and retook the kingdom; Eadberht was taken prisoner, was blinded, and had his hands cut off. Coenwulf also appears to have lost control of the kingdom of East Anglia during the early part of his reign, as an independent coinage appears under King Eadwald. Coenwulf's coinage reappears in 805, indicating that the kingdom was again under Mercian control. Several campaigns of Coenwulf's against the Welsh are recorded, but only one conflict with Northumbria, in 801, though it is likely that Coenwulf continued to support the opponents of the Northumbrian king Eardwulf. Coenwulf came into conflict with Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury over the issue of whether laypeople could control religious houses such as monasteries. The breakdown in the relationship between the two eventually reached the point where the archbishop was unable to exercise his duties for at least four years. A partial resolution was reached in 822 with Coenwulf's successor, King Ceolwulf, but it was not until about 826 that a final settlement was reached between Wulfred and Coenwulf's daughter, Cwoenthryth, who had been the main beneficiary of Coenwulf's grants of religious property. He was succeeded by his brother, Ceolwulf; a post-Conquest legend claims that his son Cynehelm was murdered to gain the succession. Within two years Ceolwulf had been deposed, and the kingship passed permanently out of Coenwulf's family. Coenwulf was the last king of Mercia to exercise substantial dominance over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Within a decade of his death, the rise of Wessex had begun under King Egbert, and Mercia never recovered its former position of power. ==Background and sources== For most of the eighth century, Mercia was dominant among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms south of the river Humber. Æthelbald, who came to the throne in 716, had established himself as the overlord of the southern Anglo-Saxons by 731.〔Simon Keynes, "Mercia", in Lapidge et al., ''Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 306.〕 He was assassinated in 757, and was briefly succeeded by Beornred, but within a year Offa ousted Beornred and took the throne for himself. Offa's daughter Eadburh married Beorhtric of Wessex in 789, and Beorhtric became an ally thereafter.〔Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 210.〕 In Kent, Offa intervened decisively in the 780s,〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 167.〕 and at some point became the overlord of East Anglia, whose king, Æthelred, was beheaded at Offa's orders in 794.〔Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p. 64.〕 Offa appears to have moved to eliminate dynastic rivals to the succession of his son, Ecgfrith.〔 According to a contemporary letter from Alcuin of York, an English deacon and scholar who spent over a decade as a chief advisor at Charlemagne's court,〔Lapidge, "Alcuin of York", in Lapidge et al., "Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England", p. 24.〕 "the vengeance of the blood shed by the father has reached the son"; Alcuin added, "This was not a strengthening of the kingdom, but its ruin."〔Letter of Alcuin to Mercian ealdorman Osbert, tr. in Whitelock, ''English Historical Documents'', p. 787〕 Offa died in July 796. Ecgfrith succeeded him but reigned for less than five months before Coenwulf came to the throne.〔Simon Keynes, "Coenwulf", in Lapidge et al., ''Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 111.〕 The surviving sources do not record whether Ecgfrith died of natural causes or was assassinated, though Alcuin's letter seems to imply the latter. A significant corpus of letters dates from the period, especially from Alcuin, who corresponded with kings, nobles, and ecclesiastics throughout England.〔 Letters between Coenwulf and the papacy also survive.〔See the exchange of letters between Coenwulf and Pope Leo III in Whitelock, ''English Historical Documents'', 204 and 205, pp. 791–794.〕 Another key source for the period is the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The ''Chronicle'' was a West Saxon production, however, and is sometimes thought to be biased in favour of Wessex.〔Campbell, ''Anglo-Saxon State'', p. 144.〕 Charters dating from Coenwulf's reign have survived; these were documents granting land to followers or to churchmen and were witnessed by the kings who had the authority to grant the land.〔Hunter Blair, ''Roman Britain'', pp. 14–15.〕〔Campbell, ''The Anglo-Saxons'', pp. 95–98.〕 A charter might record the names of both a subject king and his overlord on the witness list appended to the grant. Such a witness list can be seen on the Ismere Diploma, for example, where Æthelric, son of king Oshere of the Hwicce, is described as a "''subregulus''", or subking, of Æthelbald.〔Whitelock, ''English Historical Documents'', 67, pp. 453–454.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Coenwulf of Mercia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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