Abstract
Margaret firmly enters the historical record through her marriage to Malcolm, king of the Scots. In many ways, however, her character becomes more obscure because of the muddled accounts the chronicles give of her marriage and elevation to queen. William of Malmesbury and Ælred of Rievaulx, state simply that Margaret and Malcolm were married.1 Similarly, the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records blandly, “And that summer Edgar Cild went abroad, and Mærleswein, and many people with them, and went into Scotland. And King Malcolm received them all and married the ætheling’s sister, Margaret.”2 The Cotton manuscript declines to discuss the circumstances of the family’s arrival in the kingdom of the Scots, stating only that Margaret was married to Malcolm “by the desire of her friends rather than by her own, yea, rather by the appointment of God.”3 The Dunfermline Vita includes a more elaborate depiction of the meeting and marriage negotiations:
And so Edgar ætheling, perceiving that the affairs of the English were troubled everywhere, tried to return by ship to the country in which he had been born, with his mother and his sisters, and by this plan of his mother and with her children she was eager to avoid the treachery of their adversaries under the protection of (her) paternal uncle, namely the emperor.4
In this case, the family is not merely fl eeing without a destination, but purposefully choosing to seek shelter with their kinsman, the emperor, at the suggestion of Margaret’s mother.
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Notes
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, vol. 1, ed. and trans. R. A. B. Mynors, completed by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 2.228; AR, Genealogia, PL 195: 734–735.
DV, fo. 7rb-8ra, followed by John of Fordun, Johannis de Fordun Chronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. William F. Skene (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1871);
John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish Nation (1872), trans. Felix J. H. Skene, ed. William F. Skene (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872), 5.15;
Walter Bower, Scotichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al, 9 vols. (Aberdeen and Edinburgh: Aberdeen University Press, 1989–1998), 5.52–53 and notes 5.205.
For a recent reassessment see Valerie Wall, “Queen Margaret of Scotland (1070– 1093): Burying the Past, Enshrining the Future,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe: Proceedings of a Conference Held at King’s College London, April 1995, ed. Anne J. Duggan (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997), 30.
Karen A. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997). For the exception that proves the rule, see, for example, the Carolingian saint, Salaberga, who was married with five children.
Vita Sadalbergae abbatissae Laudunensis, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH SRM (Hanover: Hahn, 1910), 5.40–66.
Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, “Cynewulf’s Autonomous Women: A Reconsideration of Elene and Juliana,” in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, ed. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), 222–232.
Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Blackwells, 1985), 80;
A. L. Klinck, “Anglo-Saxon Women and the Law,” Journal of Medieval History 8 (1982): 119, n. 7. Also noted in Wall, “Queen Margaret of Scotland,” 30, n. 25. According to the compilation of canon law attributed to Archbishop Wulfstan I (d. 1023) women were not allowed to be consecrated as nuns before the age of 25.
Wulfstan’s Canon Law Collection, ed. J. E. Cross and Andrew Hamer, Anglo-Saxon Texts, 1 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1999), 72–73, 93.
For a thorough discussion of these and other more extreme measures of deflecting unwanted attention, see Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society ca. 500–1100. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 139–175.
The Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. and trans. Helen Clover and Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 166–167, ep. 53.
Eadmer of Canterbury, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule, Rolls Series 81 (London: Longman, 1866); PL 159: 427b.
See also Lois L. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), 28–29.
Stephanie Hollis, “Edith as Contemplative and Bride of Christ,” in Writing the Wilton Women: Goscelin’s Legend of Edith and Liber Confortatorius, Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts, vol. 9. ed. Stephanie Hollis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 297.
ASC, D, s.a. 1067. Pope Boniface quoted the same passage when urging Queen Æthelburga to convert her husband, the Northumbrian king, Edwin. Bede, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford Medieval Texts, 1969; repr. 1992), 2.11.
Symeon of Durham, Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea, vol. 1, ed. John Hodgson Hinde, Surtees Society 51 (Edinburgh: Blackwood and Sons, 1868), 88.
Ritchie states that this conclusion is implied in the correspondence of 1257 quoted in Hist. Northumberland, VIII, 51–2, concerning the discovery of a body assumed to be that of Malcolm III. R. L. Graeme Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1954), 12, n. 1.
The “I” version of the Latin lists of Scottish kings identifies Malcolm’s mother by name. Marjorie O. Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1973), 63. John of Fordun claims that she was the kinswoman, perhaps the sister, of Siward, earl of Northumbria. John of Fordun, Chronica, ed. Skene, 4.44.
There is no reference to this sobriquet until the thirteenth century. It was also applied to Malcolm IV. See G. W. S. Barrow, “Malcolm III (d. 1093),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), Internet Resource.
Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969–1980), 4.270–71. Orderic might have followed a genealogy which now survives at Alencon.
Frank Barlow, Edward the Confessor (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), 203 n. 3.
William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella: The Contemporary History, ed. Edmund King, trans. K. R. Potter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 6–9.
Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum, in Symeonis monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, 2 vols. (London: Longman, 1882–1885), 2.174.
Edward Augustus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, its Causes and its Results, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1867–1879), 2.243.
Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis/History of the English, ed. and trans. Ian Short (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 276–277.
The Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster/attributed to a monk of Saint-Bertin, ed. and trans. Frank Barlow, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 52–54; Freeman, Norman Conquest, 2.303;
Frank Barlow, The Godwins: The Rise and Fall of a Noble Dynasty (Harlow, Essex, and New York: Longman, 2002), 63–64.
John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, trans. J. Bray and P. McGurk, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), s.a. 1065.
Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 120.
On the legally-binding nature of a betrothal see James Brundage, “Concubinage and Marriage in Medieval Canon Law,” in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James Brundage (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1982), 118–128, esp. 124–126.
See, for example, Kázmér Nagy, St. Margaret of Scotland and Hungary (Glasgow: John S. Burns & Sons, 1973), 18;
Gabriel Ronay, The Lost King of England: The East European Adventures of Edward the Exile (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989), 163–164.
Martyn C. Rady, Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, in association with School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 2000), 44, 67, 103–105.
See Nicholas Hooper, “Edgar the Ætheling: Anglo-Saxon Prince, Rebel and Crusader,” Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985): 197–214.
Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, 5.28–29. See also the analysis of Roger of Howden’s account of maritime travel from the mouth of the Humber, down the English coast, along the Atlantic, through the Strait of Gibraltar, to the eastern Mediterranean. Patrick Gautier Dalche, Du Yorkshire a l’Inde: Une “geographie” urbaine et maritime de la fin du XIIe siècle, Hautes Études Medievales et Modernes, 89 (Geneva: Droz, 2005).
Eleanor Searle, “Women and the Legitimization of Succession at the Norman Conquest,” Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 3 (1980): 164.
David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact Upon England (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), 76–78.
St Olafs Saga, in Flateyjarbók, ed. Guðbrandur Vigfusson and C. R. Unger. 3 vols. (Christiania [Oslo]: P. T. Mallings, 1860–1868), 2.422–423; Orkneyinga Saga: the History of the Earls of Orkney, trans. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (London: Hogarth, 1971), ch. 39. See also Alexander Grant, “The Province of Ross and the Kingdom of Alba,” in Alba, Celtic Scotland in the Medieval Era, ed. E. J. Cowan and R. Andrew McDonald (Phantassie, East Linton, East Lothian, Scotland: Tuckwell Press; Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England: The Cromwell Press, 2000), 102–103, n. 6; Freeman, Norman Conquest, 4.346;
G. W. S. Barrow, Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1306 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 27.
Barbara E. Crawford, Scandinavian Scotland. Scotland in the Middle Ages, 2 (Leicester: Leicester University Press; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanties Press, 1987), 77.
Ritchie, Normans, 16–17; Alan J. Wilson, St Margaret Queen of Scotland (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1993; repr. 2001), 68.
Ritchie opts for the latest date, maintaining that Thorfinn died in 1064. Ritchie, Normans, 16–17. Anderson likewise concedes that the later date of 1065 is probable, but points out that the sagas are vague. Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. Alan O. Anderson, 2 vols. (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1922; repr. 1990), 2.2–4. This lack of specificity is reflected in Webster’s opinion that Thorfinn died sometime in the 1050s or early 1060s.
Bruce Webster, Medieval Scotland: The Making of an Identity (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 22. Grant vaguely dates his death to around 1060. Grant, “The Province of Ross and the Kingdom of Alba,” 102. Barrow places his death at 1065 “or before” Barrow, Kingship and Unity, 27.
I am very grateful to Alex Woolf for sharing this information from unpublished papers: “Lies, Damn Lies and Oral Tradition: the Historical Horizon in Orkneyinga Saga;” and “The Cult of Moluag, the See of Mortlach and Church Organisation in Northern Scotland in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.” See also Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba 789–1070, The New Edinburgh History of Scotland, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 265–271.
See, for example, Freeman, Norman Conquest, 4.346; Grant, “The Province of Ross and the Kingdom of Alba,” 103, n. 68; Archibald A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1975; repr. 2000), 118; Barrow, Kingship and Unity, 29; Wilson, St Margaret, 69–70.
See Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900 (Phildelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 76.
Marjorie Chibnall, The World of Orderic Vitalis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 130. Consanguinity was invoked in 1104 to dissolve the marriage of Constance, daughter of Philip of France, to Hugh, count of Troyes, in order that she might marry Prince Bohemond. The marriage between William Clito and Sibyl of Anjou was annulled by Pope Calixtus II in 1124 stating that it was within the seven degrees of consanguinity. Of course, William Adelin’s marriage to Matilda of Anjou was also suspect, but remained uncontested because it suited the parties concerned. See C. Warren Hollister, Henry I, edited and completed by Amanda Clark Frost (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 304.
On marriage practices see: Georges Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from the Twelfth-Century, trans. Elborg Foster (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991);
Adhémar Esmein, Le Mariage en droit canonique (New York: B. Franklin, 1891; repr. 1968). For more discussion of the distinction between Danish and Christian marriage, see Freeman, Norman Conquest, 1.414–415, and Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, 65–75.
ASC, C, D, E, s.a 1002; John of Worcester, Chronicle, s.a. 1002. Stafford and Abbot both surmise that Ælfgifu’s marriage ended as a result of her death rather than repudiation. Stafford, Queen Emma & Queen Edith, 72; Judith Elaine Abbott, “Queens and Queenship in Anglo-Saxon England, 954–1066: Holy and Unholy Alliances” (PhD Diss, University of Connecticut, 1989), 213–245.
David C. Douglas, Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 48, no. 3.
For Matilda’s life and times see: Paolo Golinelli, Matilde e i Canossa (Milano: Mursia, 2004);
David Hay, The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046–1115 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008).
Kimberly A. LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (1067–1137) (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007);
Kimberly A. LoPrete, “Adela of Blois as Mother and Countess,” in Medieval Mothering, ed. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 315, 317.
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© 2013 Catherine Keene
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Keene, C. (2013). A Wife of the King. In: Saint Margaret, Queen of the Scots. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137035646_5
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