Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/42

 Norway, and persuaded him to meet King Æthelred at Andover and make a lasting peace with him. He witnessed several charters as ealdorman from 975 to 998 inclusive (, Codex Dipl. 590–700), and as his subscriptions appear to cease in 998, it may be supposed that he died in or about that year. William of Malmesbury, who calls the chronicler ‘Elwardus,’ describes him as ‘illustrious and magnificent’ (Prolog. Gesta Regum). He wrote his chronicle for his kinswoman, Matilda, the great-great-granddaughter of Alfred, who was apparently the daughter of Liudulf of Suabia, the son of the German king, Otto (afterwards emperor), by Eadgyth, daughter of Eadward the Elder, and who married Obizzo, count of Milan, and died 1011. The chronicle of Æthelweard consists of four short books; the first begins with the creation and goes down to 449; the early part of the book seems to be taken from some abstracts of Isidore's ‘Origines,’ the rest comes from Bæda. The remainder of his work is a meagre compilation from the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’ It evidently represents some version of the ‘Chronicle’ which does not exist now, and gives some few facts that are not found elsewhere, as, for example, that the ealdorman, Hun, who fell at Ellandune, was buried at Winchester, which seems the only hint we have as to the locality of the battle. In this way Æthelweard's work has done good service, for it has helped historians to arrive at the way in which the book generally called the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ was really written. His work ends with a Latin translation of one of the poems on Eadgar, the last date being 973. His chronology is confused; he scarcely ever mentions a year, and simply dates his events by stating that they took place a year, or two years, after the events last recorded. His style is affected and obscure. He was utterly careless of grammar, and as with this carelessness he combined an attempt to write tersely, he is sometimes almost unintelligible. At the same time his chronicle has an important place in our literary history as the work of a layman at a time when ecclesiastics were the only people that wrote anything. Strangely enough, Bishop Nicolson, thinking that the Matilda for whom Æthelweard wrote was the wife of the Conqueror, declares that it is certain that he was alive in 1090 (English Hist. Library, p. 40), and still more strangely Wright unreservedly accepts the bishop's opinion. Some of Æthelweard's blunders are perhaps to be attributed to the carelessness of his original editor, Savile. The only manuscript of the chronicle known to have existed was in the Cottonian collection, and was burnt in 1731. This was transcribed by Savile and printed in his ‘Scriptores post Bædam,’ London, 1596, reprinted more carelessly, Frankfort, 1601. Æthelweard's chronicle is also included in the ‘Monumenta Historica Britannica,’ 1848, where Petrie has reprinted Savile's text, giving emendations in foot-notes. It has been translated by Giles in his ‘Six Old English Chronicles,’ and by Stevenson in vol. ii. of ‘Church Historians of England.’

[Little can be added to what Sir T. D. Hardy has said about Æthelweard in Mon. Hist. Brit. pref. p. 81, and Cat. of Materials, i. 571 sq. (Rolls Ser.); Fabii Ethelwerdi Chron., Mon. Hist. Brit. 499–521; A.-S. Chron. ann. 991, 994; Florence of Worcester, i. 152 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); William of Malmesbury, Prologue to Gesta Regum (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Robertson's Historical Essays, pp. 178, 188; Freeman's Norman Conquest, i. 305, 318; Stevenson's Church Historians, ii. pref. ix; Gent. Mag. 1857, p. 120 sq., an art. by Riley in the form of a review of Giles's and Stevenson's translations; Wright's Biog. Lit. (Anglo-Saxon), p. 522.] 

ETHELWINE, ÆTHELWINE, or AILWIN (d. 992), ealdorman of East Anglia, fourth and youngest son of the ealdorman Æthelstan, called the Half-king [q. v.], and his wife Ælfwen (Hist. Rames. p. 12; according to the contemporary author of the Vita Oswaldi, p. 429, ‘frater tertius,’ but the Ramsey historian is not likely to have been mistaken), succeeded to the ealdormanship of East Anglia on the death of his eldest brother, Æthelwold, in 962 [see under and ], though he had two elder brothers, Ælfwold and Æthelsige, then living. Ælfwold, however, is said to have been so powerful that he did not care to take the office; he may have preferred unofficial life (Vita Oswaldi). Æthelwine was a liberal supporter of the new Benedictine revival, and there can be no doubt that the influence he had over Eadgar, who married his sister-in-law Ælfthryth, had much to do with the eagerness with which the king acted in the same cause. Considerable rivalry seems to have existed between Æthelwine and Brihtnoth, the ealdorman of the East-Saxons, on the one side, and Ælfhere the Mercian ealdorman, who succeeded to the position of chief ealdorman formerly held by Æthelwine's father (Codex Dipl. pp. 502 sq.), on the other. Æthelwine's monastic admirers record that he was handsome, cheerful, and though illiterate endowed with every virtue (Hist. Rames. p. 31); but they owed him and his house too much to be stinting in their praises. He chanced to meet Oswald, bishop of Worcester, at the funeral of a certain thegn at