Ancestry of the Godwins
Encyclopedia
Very little is known for certain of the Ancestry of the Godwins. Even the Life of Edward the Confessor
, commissioned by his wife Edith
, who was Godwin
's daughter, is surprisingly silent on the subject. In a section designed to eulogise her family, Godwin is described as "blessed in his ancestral stock", but nothing further is said of this stock. In the view of Frank Barlow
: "There is massive evasion here." A later medieval tradition that he was the son of a churl
or a farmer is generally discounted by historians.
In the will of Æthelred the Unready's son Æthelstan Ætheling
in 1014 Godwin is described as "Godwin son of Wulfnoth". According to John of Worcester
, Godwin was the son of a Wulfnoth who was the son of Æthelmær, brother of Eadric Streona
, both sons of an otherwise unknown Æthelric. In the view of nineteenth century historian William Hunt
, this is almost impossible chronologically. Historians think that he was probably the son of South Saxon thegn
Wulfnoth Cild
.
In her Online Dictionary of National Biography
article on Godwin's son, King Harold Godwinson
, Robin Fleming says of Godwin: "The origins of this parvenu are extremely obscure." He was "the quintessential new man". Ann Williams
, in her Online DNB article on Godwin, was less dismissive, saying that "Wulfnoth's appellation cild ('child', 'young man', 'warrior') is normally only used of men of rank". Frank Barlow goes further, arguing that Godwin must have been of aristocratic origin, and that the family's massive land holdings in Sussex are indisputable evidence that the Wulfnoth who was Godwin's father was the South Saxon thegn.
scholar and genealogist David H. Kelley
in 1989.
The theory depends on tracing the ownership of certain estates, especially Compton
in West Sussex
, which was probably the Compton which was left to Æthelred's son Æthelhelm
in Alfred the Great
's will, and was left to Godwin in 1014 in Æthelstan Ætheling's will. Immediately before the bequests to Godwin are ones to Æthelstan's discthegn, Ælfmær, who Anscombe identifies as Ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout, in his view the father of Wulfnoth Cild. However, according to Ann Williams, the confusion of the names Ælfmær and Æthelmær did not occur until after the Norman Conquest. Ealdorman Æthelmær was the son of Æthelweard the Historian, whose own writings record the fact that he was grandson's-grandson of Æthelred I, although the exact nature of this descent has been debated. This solution requires accepting the pedigree of John of Worcester back to Æthelmær, but then rejecting the father given him there. However there were at least three prominent thegns called Æthelmær at Æthelred II's court so it is possible that confusion could have arisen.
In his 2002 book, The Godwins, Frank Barlow
sympathetically examined the arguments put forward by Anscombe and Lundie Barlow. He included a family tree based on their work showing Godwin's descent from Æthelred I, and at one point described Wulfnoth Cild as the son of Æthelmær the Stout. Elsewhere he was more cautious, describing Wulfnoth as the probable son of Æthelmær, questioning whether a family which had used names for seven generations almost all starting with Æthel/Ælf would suddenly have thrown up a Wulfnoth, particularly as Æthelmær the Stout's known sons continued the tradition. He states however that "This pedigree, even if mistaken, is of the right type."
Frank Barlow appears to be almost alone among academic historians in taking the theory seriously. Frank Stenton
in Anglo-Saxon England, and Ann Williams in her DNB article on Godwin, do not mention it when discussing Godwin's ancestry.
Even if Harold was descended from Æthelred I, it would not have given him a claim to the throne. In earlier Anglo-Saxon times, eligibility for the throne depended on descent from the fifth or sixth century founder of each kingdom, but in Wessex after 900 only the son or paternal grandson of a king could be an aetheling
, a throneworthy member of the royal dynasty. All known aethelings in the later Anglo-Saxon period were the sons of kings except for Harold's rival for the throne in 1066, Edgar the Aetheling, who was the grandson of King Edmund Ironside
. In the view of Pauline Stafford
, only the son of a present or former king could be an aetheling, and when Edward the Confessor
gave this designation to his great-nephew Edgar, it was a form of adoption without known recent precedent, because for the first time since the beginning of the ninth century there was no living aetheling in the strict sense.
, from Harald Bluetooth, the father of King Sweyn. However, Gytha's descent from Harald is itself disputed.
Vita Ædwardi Regis
The Vita Ædwardi Regis qui apud Westmonasterium Requiescit or simply Vita Ædwardi Regis is a historical work completed by an anonymous author c. 1067 and commissioned by Queen Edith, wife of King Edward the Confessor. It survives in one manuscript, dated c. 1100, now in the British Library...
, commissioned by his wife Edith
Edith of Wessex
Edith of Wessex married King Edward the Confessor of England on 23 January 1045. Unlike most wives of kings of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, she was crowned queen, but the marriage produced no children...
, who was Godwin
Godwin, Earl of Wessex
Godwin of Wessex , was one of the most powerful lords in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors. Cnut made him the first Earl of Wessex...
's daughter, is surprisingly silent on the subject. In a section designed to eulogise her family, Godwin is described as "blessed in his ancestral stock", but nothing further is said of this stock. In the view of Frank Barlow
Frank Barlow (historian)
Frank Barlow CBE FBA FRSL was a British historian, known particularly for biographies of medieval figures.Barlow studied at St John's College, Oxford. He was Professor of History at the University of Exeter from 1953 until he retired in 1976 and became Emeritus Professor...
: "There is massive evasion here." A later medieval tradition that he was the son of a churl
Churl
A churl , in its earliest Old English meaning, was simply "a man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelt ċeorl, and denoting the lowest rank of freemen...
or a farmer is generally discounted by historians.
In the will of Æthelred the Unready's son Æthelstan Ætheling
Æthelstan Ætheling
Æthelstan Ætheling , early or mid 980s to 25 June 1014, was the eldest son of King Æthelred the Unready by his first wife Ælfgifu and the heir apparent to the kingdom until his death. He made his first appearance as a witness to a charter of his father in 993...
in 1014 Godwin is described as "Godwin son of Wulfnoth". According to John of Worcester
John of Worcester
John of Worcester was an English monk and chronicler. He is usually held to be the author of the Chronicon ex chronicis.-Chronicon ex chronicis:...
, Godwin was the son of a Wulfnoth who was the son of Æthelmær, brother of Eadric Streona
Eadric Streona
Eadric Streona was an ealdorman of the English Mercians. His name a loose translation of the Anglo-Saxon "the Grasper." Streona is historically regarded as the greatest traitor of the Anglo-Saxon period in English history....
, both sons of an otherwise unknown Æthelric. In the view of nineteenth century historian William Hunt
William Hunt (clergyman)
William Hunt was an English clergyman and historian.-Life:He was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Oxford, He was vicar of Congresbury, Somerset from 1867 to 1882, and then went to London as a reviewer and contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography...
, this is almost impossible chronologically. Historians think that he was probably the son of South Saxon thegn
Thegn
The term thegn , from OE þegn, ðegn "servant, attendant, retainer", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves...
Wulfnoth Cild
Wulfnoth Cild
Wulfnoth Cild was a South Saxon thegn who is regarded by historians as the probable father of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and thus the grandfather of King Harold Godwinson...
.
In her Online Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
article on Godwin's son, King Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson
Harold Godwinson was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England.It could be argued that Edgar the Atheling, who was proclaimed as king by the witan but never crowned, was really the last Anglo-Saxon king...
, Robin Fleming says of Godwin: "The origins of this parvenu are extremely obscure." He was "the quintessential new man". Ann Williams
Ann Williams (historian)
Ann Williams is an English medievalist, historian and author. Before retiring she worked at the Polytechnic of North London, where she was Senior Lecturer in Medieval History. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia...
, in her Online DNB article on Godwin, was less dismissive, saying that "Wulfnoth's appellation cild ('child', 'young man', 'warrior') is normally only used of men of rank". Frank Barlow goes further, arguing that Godwin must have been of aristocratic origin, and that the family's massive land holdings in Sussex are indisputable evidence that the Wulfnoth who was Godwin's father was the South Saxon thegn.
Æthelred I theory
A few scholars have claimed that the Godwins were descended from King Æthelred I, and that King Harold therefore had a hereditary claim to the throne. The theory was first put forward by medieval historian Alfred Anscombe in 1913, and advocated by genealogist Lundie W. Barlow in 1957 and MayanistMayanist
A Mayanist is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Central American pre-Columbian Maya civilization. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya....
scholar and genealogist David H. Kelley
David H. Kelley
David Humiston Kelley was a Canadian American archaeologist and epigrapher, most noted for his work on the phonetic analysis and major contributions toward the decipherment of the writing system used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the Maya script.-Work and interests:From...
in 1989.
The theory depends on tracing the ownership of certain estates, especially Compton
Compton, West Sussex
Compton is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex. The village lies on the B2146 road, six miles southeast of Petersfield, Hampshire and eight miles northwest of Chichester...
in West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
, which was probably the Compton which was left to Æthelred's son Æthelhelm
Æthelhelm
Æthelhelm or Æþelhelm was one of three known sons of King Æthelred I.Æthelred's sons were too young to become king when he died in 871, and the throne passed to their uncle, King Alfred the Great...
in Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
's will, and was left to Godwin in 1014 in Æthelstan Ætheling's will. Immediately before the bequests to Godwin are ones to Æthelstan's discthegn, Ælfmær, who Anscombe identifies as Ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout, in his view the father of Wulfnoth Cild. However, according to Ann Williams, the confusion of the names Ælfmær and Æthelmær did not occur until after the Norman Conquest. Ealdorman Æthelmær was the son of Æthelweard the Historian, whose own writings record the fact that he was grandson's-grandson of Æthelred I, although the exact nature of this descent has been debated. This solution requires accepting the pedigree of John of Worcester back to Æthelmær, but then rejecting the father given him there. However there were at least three prominent thegns called Æthelmær at Æthelred II's court so it is possible that confusion could have arisen.
In his 2002 book, The Godwins, Frank Barlow
Frank Barlow (historian)
Frank Barlow CBE FBA FRSL was a British historian, known particularly for biographies of medieval figures.Barlow studied at St John's College, Oxford. He was Professor of History at the University of Exeter from 1953 until he retired in 1976 and became Emeritus Professor...
sympathetically examined the arguments put forward by Anscombe and Lundie Barlow. He included a family tree based on their work showing Godwin's descent from Æthelred I, and at one point described Wulfnoth Cild as the son of Æthelmær the Stout. Elsewhere he was more cautious, describing Wulfnoth as the probable son of Æthelmær, questioning whether a family which had used names for seven generations almost all starting with Æthel/Ælf would suddenly have thrown up a Wulfnoth, particularly as Æthelmær the Stout's known sons continued the tradition. He states however that "This pedigree, even if mistaken, is of the right type."
Frank Barlow appears to be almost alone among academic historians in taking the theory seriously. Frank Stenton
Frank Stenton
Sir Frank Merry Stenton was a 20th century historian of Anglo-Saxon England, and president of the Royal Historical Society . He was the author of Anglo-Saxon England, a volume of the Oxford History of England, first published in 1943 and widely considered a classic history of the period...
in Anglo-Saxon England, and Ann Williams in her DNB article on Godwin, do not mention it when discussing Godwin's ancestry.
Even if Harold was descended from Æthelred I, it would not have given him a claim to the throne. In earlier Anglo-Saxon times, eligibility for the throne depended on descent from the fifth or sixth century founder of each kingdom, but in Wessex after 900 only the son or paternal grandson of a king could be an aetheling
Aetheling
Ætheling, also spelt Aetheling, Atheling or Etheling, was an Old English term used in Anglo-Saxon England to designate princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible for the kingship....
, a throneworthy member of the royal dynasty. All known aethelings in the later Anglo-Saxon period were the sons of kings except for Harold's rival for the throne in 1066, Edgar the Aetheling, who was the grandson of King Edmund Ironside
Edmund Ironside
Edmund Ironside or Edmund II was king of England from 23 April to 30 November 1016. His cognomen "Ironside" is not recorded until 1057, but may have been contemporary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut...
. In the view of Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford
Pauline Stafford is Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History at Liverpool University in England. Her work focuses on the history of women and gender in England from the eighth to the early twelfth centuries, and on the same topics in Frankish history during the eighth and ninth centuries...
, only the son of a present or former king could be an aetheling, and when Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
gave this designation to his great-nephew Edgar, it was a form of adoption without known recent precedent, because for the first time since the beginning of the ninth century there was no living aetheling in the strict sense.
Danish theory
In his biography of Harthacnut, Ian Howard stated that the ancestry of Godwin is unknown, but that in 1066 Harold had the best dynastic claim to the throne of any candidate living in England, because he was descended through his mother, Gytha ThorkelsdóttirGytha Thorkelsdóttir
Gytha Thorkelsdottir , also called Githa, was the daughter of Thorgil Sprakling . She married the Anglo-Saxon nobleman Godwin of Wessex....
, from Harald Bluetooth, the father of King Sweyn. However, Gytha's descent from Harald is itself disputed.