Encomium Emmae Reginae or Gesta Cnutonis Regis is an 11th-century Latin encomium

Encomium

Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον meaning the praise of a person or thing. "Encomium" also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:* A general category of oratory* A method within rhetorical pedagogy...

 in honour of Queen Emma of Normandy

Emma of Normandy

Emma , was a daughter of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, by his second wife Gunnora. She was Queen consort of England twice, by successive marriages: first as second wife to Æthelred the Unready of England ; and then second wife to Cnut the Great of Denmark...

. It was written in 1041 or 1042 probably by a monk of St Omer.

Manuscripts

Until 2008 it was believed that there was just a single manuscript surviving from that time, lavishly illustrated and believed to be the copy sent to Queen Emma or a close reproduction of that copy. One leaf has been lost from the manuscript in modern times but its text survives in late paper copies. A new manuscript has been found in the library of the Earl of Devon

Hugh Courtenay, 18th Earl of Devon

Hugh Rupert Courtenay, 18th Earl of Devon DL is a British peer.Lord Devon is the son of the 17th Earl of Devon and was educated at Winchester College and graduated with a BA degree from Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1964. On 9 September 1967, he married Dianna Frances Watherston, and they have...

 however, believed to have been compiled in 1043, around two years after the other surviving text. It adds detail to the content, reflecting the rise and succession of 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....

 in a very positive light. The other manuscript offers him just a fleeting mention.

Date and provenance

It is usually thought that the text was written in 1041 or 1042, in response to a politically delicate situation that had recently arisen at the English court. Harthacnut (r. 1040-2), Emma's son by Cnut, was king of England and Edward, her son by Æthelred, had been invited back from exile in Normandy and sworn in as Harthacnut's successor. The presence of a king and another claimant to the throne was a recipe for social unrest, especially considering that Edward's brother, Ælfred

Ælfred Ætheling

Ælfred Æþeling was one of the eight sons of the English king Ethelred II, called 'The Unready'. He and his brother Edward the Confessor were sons of Ethelred's second wife Emma of Normandy....

 (d. 1036), had earlier been betrayed (as rumour had it, at the instigation of Earl Godwine). As the portrait (above) emphasizes, the work appears to have been specifically directed at Harthacnut and Edward, instilling a message about their past and future. As such, the Encomium is a heavily biased and selective work. Commissioned by Queen Emma herself, it strives to show her and Cnut in as favourable a light as possible: thus it silently glosses over Emma's first marriage to Æthelred the Unready, contests that Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot was King of England from 1037 to 1040. His cognomen "Harefoot" referred to his speed, and the skill of his huntsmanship. He was the son of Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway by Ælfgifu of Northampton...

, Cnut's son by his first wife Ælfgifu, was indeed a son of Cnut and puts the blame for Ælfred's murder squarely on Harold.

Despite its shortcomings the Encomium is an important primary source for early 11th-century English and Scandinavian history.

Authorship

The anonymous author, often simply referred to as "the Encomiast", was probably a Flemish monk, as he identifies himself in the text as a monk of St Bertin's or St Omer's. He mentions that he wrote the work at the special request of his patroness Emma, to whom he shows some gratitude, and that he had witnessed Cnut when the king visited the abbey on his journey homeward.

Contents

The Encomium is divided into three books. The first deals with Sweyn Forkbeard and his conquest of England. The second deals with his son, Cnut the Great, his reconquest of England, marriage to Emma and period of rule. The third deals with events after Cnut's death; Emma's troubles during the reign of Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot was King of England from 1037 to 1040. His cognomen "Harefoot" referred to his speed, and the skill of his huntsmanship. He was the son of Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway by Ælfgifu of Northampton...

 and the accession of her sons, Harthacnut and 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....

 to the throne.

Form

The form and style of the text are much indebted to classical authors. Vergil and his Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

are explicitly cited in the prefatory letter and in Bk I, Ch. 4, while influences from Sallust

Sallust

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...

, Lucan

Lucan

Lucan is the common English name of the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus.Lucan may also refer to:-People:*Arthur Lucan , English actor*Sir Lucan the Butler, Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend...

, Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

 and Lucretius

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...

have also been detected.

External links

• Encomium Emmae Reginae Overview by Stephen J. Murray
• Encomium Emmae reginae Georg Heinrich Pertz's 1865 edition