Offa of Angel - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Offa (late 400's) was the 4th-great-grandfather of Creoda of Mercia

Creoda of Mercia

Creoda was the first monarch of Mercia, reigning from 584 to 593.Creoda is recorded as having been the son of Cynewald, the grandson of Cnebba, and the great-grandson of Icel; consequently, members of the Mercian royal line were known as Iclingas...

, and was reputed to be a great-grandson of Woden

Woden

Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....

, English god of war and poetry and creator of Middle-Earth, the realm of man. Offa was the son of Wermund

Wermund

Wermund or Garmund is an ancestor of the Mercian royal family, a son of Wihtlaeg and father of Offa. Mythology claims him to be a grandson of Woden, but the Danish histories written by Saxo Grammaticus disagree with this concept....

, and the father of Angeltheow

Angeltheow

Angeltheow, also spelled Angletheow, Engengenthe, or Angenwit was the great-great-great-grandfather of Creoda of Mercia and the son of Offa of Angel.Angeltheow's son was Eomer...

. The author 'Swaffington' translates the name Angeltheow as "Angle-Servant", or in the modern context "Englisc-Warrior".

He is the most famous hero of the ethnic English people, those descended from the Anglo-Saxons, Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

(Anglii in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

). It was Offa's descendants who migrated to Britain in the early 5th century and helped forge the New Ængla lande, better know today as England. He is said by the Old English poem Widsith

Widsith

Widsith is an Old English poem of 144 lines that appears to date from the 9th century, drawing on earlier oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon tale singing. The only text of the fragment is copied in the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late 10th century containing...

to have ruled over Angel

Angeln

Modern Angeln, also known as Anglia , is a small peninsula in Southern Schleswig in the northern Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, protruding into the Bay of Kiel...

. The poem refers briefly to his victorious single combat, a story which is related at length by the Danish historians Saxo

Saxo Grammaticus

Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...

and Svend Aagesen

Svend Aagesen

Svend Aggesen is most famous, in Denmark at least, as the author of one of the first attempts to write a coherent history of Denmark covering the period 300AD-1185AD...

. A modern novel on Offa the First, entitled: "Offa: Rise of the Englisc Warrior" by S. A. Swaffington is also available.

Offa also successfully conquered the Myrgings, a clan of Saxon origin by slaying two Myrging princes in combat and installing himself as their king. The Myrgings were then absorbed by the Angles within a century though this new title as 'King' was soon abolished by Angeltheow

Angeltheow

Angeltheow, also spelled Angletheow, Engengenthe, or Angenwit was the great-great-great-grandfather of Creoda of Mercia and the son of Offa of Angel.Angeltheow's son was Eomer...

a son of Offa.

Single combat

Offa is said to have been dumb or silent during his early years. His aged and blind father, King Wermund

Wermund

believed him to be a simpleton and in order to preserve his son's position as king had him marry the daughter of Freawine

Freawine

Freawine, Frowin or Frowinus figures as a governor of Schleswig in Gesta Danorum and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an ancestor of the kings of Wessex, but the latter source only tells that he was the son of Frithugar and the father of Wig....

(a neighbouring warlord/king) so that Freawine would assist Offa when he became king. However, the plans did not come to pass, as Freawine was killed by a marauding Viking warlord (a Swede called Atisl

Eadgils of the Myrgings

Eadgils of the Myrgings is a king of the Myrgings a clan of Saxon origin who is mentioned on lines 93-96 in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith. He would have lived in the 5th century and is mentioned as the lord of the scop himself in the poem....

). Wermund subsequently raised Freawine's sons Ket and Wig

Ket and Wig

Ket and Wig appear in the Gesta Danorum as the sons of Frowin, the governor of Schleswig. Wig also appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the son of Freawine and father of Gewis, eponymous ancestor of the kingdom of Wessex and their kings, but this is thought to be a late manipulation, inserting...

as his own. The two would eventually cause great dishonour to the Angles when they ambushed Atisl in a forest as he walked alone and slew him. The surrounding peoples began to mock the Angles, accusing them of cowardice and dishonour. Eventually the neighbouring Saxons decided that Wermund was too weak to resist their requests for him to surrender his kingdom, and they sent their emissaries to Wermund's court. There they proceeded to mock the blind man, prompting Wermund to challenge their king to a duel — but the king stated that he would not fight a blind man. It was then that Offa regained his speech, and revealed that his silence had been caused by the great dishonour involved in Atisl's death. He promptly challenged the prince of the Saxons and one of his champions to a duel in order to regain the honour of the Angles.

Offa's combat took place at Rendsburg

Rendsburg

Rendsburg is a town on the River Eider and the Kiel Canal in the northeastern part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the Kreis of Rendsburg-Eckernförde. As of 2006, it had a population of 28,476.-History:...

on an island in the Eider River

Eider River

The Eider is the longest river of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The river starts near Bordesholm and reaches the southwestern outskirts of Kiel on the shores of the Baltic Sea, but flows to the west, ending in the North Sea...

at Fifeldore/Monster-Gate, and Offa succeeded in killing both his opponents. According to Widsith, Offa's opponents belonged to a tribe or dynasty called Myrgingas

Myrging

The Myrgings were a clan and peoples of Saxon origin who, together with their king Eadgils, are only mentioned in the Old English poem Widsith. They are mentioned as the people of the scop Widsith. They appear to have been the neighbours of the Angles and Offa of Angel, who was involved in a war...

, but both accounts state that he won a great kingdom as the result of his victory. A somewhat corrupt version of the same story is preserved in the Vitae duorum Offarum
Vitae duorum Offarum
The Vitae duorum Offarum "The lives of the two Offas" is a literary history written in the mid-thirteenth century, apparently by the St Albans monk Matthew Paris.-Account:...

, where, however, the scene is transferred to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

Other Offas

It is very probable that the Offa whose marriage with Modþryð, a lady of murderous disposition, is mentioned in Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

(lines 1949 and 1957), is the same person. This story also appears in the Vitae duorum Offarum
Vitae duorum Offarum
The Vitae duorum Offarum "The lives of the two Offas" is a literary history written in the mid-thirteenth century, apparently by the St Albans monk Matthew Paris.-Account:...

, though it is erroneously told of the later Offa of Mercia

Offa of Mercia

Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely...

, a descendant of Offa of Angel.

Secondary literature

For a novel on Offa the First, see "Offa: Rise of the Englisc Warrior" by S. A. Swaffington (2011) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Offa-Englisc-Warrior-Anglo-Saxon-ebook/dp/B005HIQT0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314622236&sr=8-1 See H. M. Chadwick, Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907), for references to the original authorities.
Grüner, Hans. Matthei Parisiensis Vitae duorum Offarum (saec. XIII med.) in ihrer Manuskript und Textgeschichte. Munich, 1907.
Grüner, Hans. Die Riganus-Schlacht in den Vitae duorum Offarum des Mathaeus Parisiensis (saec. XIII): ein Beitrag zur Bibel- und Legendenkunde des Mittelalters wie zur Geschichte der altenglichen Heldensage. Hamburg, 1914.
Hahn, C. "The Limits of Text and Image? Matthew Paris's final project, the Vitae duorum Offarum, as a historical romance." In Excavating the Medieval Image. Manuscripts, artists, audiences. Essays In Honor Of Sandra Hindman, ed. David S. Areford and Nina A. Rowe. Aldershot, 2004. 37-58. ISBN 9780754631439
Luard, Henry Richard (ed.). Matthei Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora. Rerum britannicarum medii aevi scriptores 57. 7 vols: vol 6. London, 1872-1883. pp. 1–8.
Rickert, Edith. "The Old English Offa Saga." Modern Philology
Modern Philology
Modern Philology is a literary journal that was established in 1903. It publishes scholarly articles on literature, literary scholarship, history, and criticism in all modern world languages and book reviews of recent books as well as review articles and research on archival documents. It is...

2 (1904-5): 29-77 (part 1), 321-76 (part 2). PDF available from Internet Archive
Rigg, A.G. A History of Anglo-Latin Literature. 1066-1422. Cambridge, 1992. p. 198.
Shippey, Tom. "Wicked Queens and Cousin Strategies in Beowulf and Elsewhere." The Heroic Age 5 (2001). Available online
Vaughan, R. Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Monastic Life in the Thirteenth Century. Gloucester et al., 1986.
Vaughan, R. Matthew Paris. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.

External links

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