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Edward the Martyr (Old English: ''Eadweard''; c. 962 – 18 March 978) was King of England from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar the Peaceful but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leadership of England was contested, with some supporting Edward's claim to be king and others supporting his much younger half-brother Æthelred the Unready, recognized as a legitimate son of Edgar. Edward was chosen as king and was crowned by his main clerical supporters, the archbishops Dunstan and Oswald of Worcester. The great nobles of the kingdom, ealdormen Ælfhere and Æthelwine, quarrelled, and civil war almost broke out. In the so-called anti-monastic reaction, the nobles took advantage of Edward's weakness to dispossess the Benedictine reformed monasteries of lands and other properties that King Edgar had granted to them. Edward's short reign was brought to an end by his murder at Corfe Castle in 978 in circumstances that are not altogether clear. His body was reburied with great ceremony at Shaftesbury Abbey early in 979. In 1001 Edward's remains were moved to a more prominent place in the abbey, probably with the blessing of his half-brother King Æthelred. Edward was already reckoned a saint by this time. A number of lives of Edward were written in the centuries following his death in which he was portrayed as a martyr, generally seen as a victim of the Queen Dowager Ælfthryth, mother of Æthelred. He is today recognized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion. ==Ætheling (princes of succession)== Edward's date of birth is unknown, but he was the eldest of Edgar's three children. He was likely in his teens when he succeeded his father, who died at age 32 in 975.〔Higham, ''Death of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 7.〕 Edward was known to be King Edgar's son, but he was not the son of Queen Ælfthryth, the third wife of Edgar. This much and no more is known from contemporary charters.〔Hart, "Edward", p. 783; Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', p. 2.〕 Later sources of questionable reliability address the identity of Edward's mother. The earliest such source is a life of Dunstan by Osbern of Canterbury, probably written in the 1080s. Osbern writes that Edward's mother was a nun at Wilton Abbey whom the king seduced.〔Hart, "Edward", p. 783; Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', p. 3.〕 When Eadmer wrote a life of Dunstan some decades later, he included an account of Edward's parentage obtained from Nicholas of Worcester. This denied that Edward was the son of a liaison between Edgar and a nun, presenting him as the son of Æthelflæd, daughter of Ordmær, "ealdorman of the East Anglians", whom Edgar had married in the years when he ruled Mercia (between 957 and Eadwig's death in 959).〔Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', pp. 3–4.〕 Additional accounts are offered by Goscelin in his life of Edgar's daughter Saint Edith of Wilton and in the histories of John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury.〔Hart, "Edward", p. 783; Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', pp. 4–5.〕 Together these various accounts suggest that Edward's mother was probably a noblewoman named Æthelflæd, surnamed ''Candida'' or ''Eneda''—"the White" or "White Duck".〔Higham, ''Death of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 6.〕 A charter of 966 describes Ælfthryth, whom Edgar had married in 964, as the king's "lawful wife", and their eldest son Edmund as the legitimate son of the king. Edward is noted as the king's son.〔Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', p. 2; John, ''Reassessing Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 120. p. 7.〕 Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester was a supporter of Ælfthryth and Æthelred, but Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have supported Edward, and a genealogy created at his Glastonbury Abbey circa 969 gives Edward precedence over Edmund and Æthelred.〔Yorke, "The Women in Edgar's Life", p. 149〕 Ælfthryth was the widow of Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia and perhaps Edgar's third wife. Cyril Hart argues that the contradictions regarding the identity of Edward's mother, and the fact that Edmund appears to have been regarded as the legitimate heir until his death in 971, suggest that Edward was probably illegitimate. However, Barbara Yorke thinks that Æthelflæd was Edgar's wife, but Ælfthryth was a consecrated queen when she gave birth to her sons, who were therefore considered more "legitimate" than Edward.〔Yorke, "The Women in Edgar's Life", pp. 147-48〕 Edmund's full brother Æthelred may have inherited his position as heir.〔Miller, "Edgar"; Higham, ''Death of Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 7. Williams, ''Æthelred the Unready'', p. 8, dissents from this view.〕 On a charter to the New Minster at Winchester, the names of Ælfthryth and her son Æthelred appear ahead of Edward's name.〔 When Edgar died on 8 July 975, Æthelred was probably nine and Edward only a few years older.〔Miller, "Edward the Martyr".〕 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「Edward the Martyr」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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