Murder and matronly mischief

New translation of Ethelred the Unready's royal diploma made freely available 

'De Stantune et Hiltune' ('Concerning Fenstanton and Hilton'). The opening page to Ethelred's grant of land to bishop Godwine of Rochester. Textus Roffensis, folio 159v. By permission of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.

Blessed readers,

Well, he's really starting to churn them out now. Dr Monk has just released his latest translation from Textus Roffensis​: the 1012 royal diploma of Ethelred the Unready. 

And this isn't just any old land grant. No! For this one contains the king's own account of how he was betrayed by one of his ealdormen, Leofsige, and his sister, the 'matron' Aethelflaed. 

So if you want to find out more about murder and mayhem in the eleventh-century, and why good Godwine the bishop of Rochester was, ultimately, the main beneficiary of such wickedness, then follow the link below to the new translation of this charter. 

Update 16 Sept 2022. My older translations of texts from Textus Roffensis for Rochester Cathedral have now been reformatted, so they are no longer available as PDFs but are in webpage format. This means they now have new web addresses. Please bear with me as I correct the links. Please check out the Rochester Cathedral Textus Roffensis page for both my older and newer translations.

Ethelred grants Godwine 15 hides