Provisional Drogereit pdf

(p. 411) princes on the continent, amongst them his two West Franconian rivals and
the later Emperor Otto the Great, became related by marriage to Aethelstan, the most
powerful king in the west, the “basileus”. Shortly before Aethelstan became ruler of
the island, the Quedlinburg Marriage took place 175 .
Presumably the envoys, who accompanied Aethelstan’s sisters to the continent and
stayed at different Courts, learnt about the set up of a Chancery. They are likely to
have made Aethelstan aware of the importance of a central authority permitting
tighter administration. Decisive for the setting up of a Chancery was surely
Aethelstan’s wish to keep a tight rein on the government. His extensive legislation
constantly emphasises this: “ . . . he will punish those who disobey the king! 176 . “It
goes on to say: “ May peace prevail, where it pleases the king!” and “ If any of my
reeves will not obey me, and if it does not concern him, he will be punished for not
obeying me. And I will find another to carry out my will.” The coins teach us
something similar. From Aethelstan’s time, the last independent mint, other than the
royal ones, disappeared. The Archbishop of Canterbury was not allowed to mint any
more coins. The law, however, said: “ . . . thirdly, that a coin shall be valid across the
whole kingdom! “ The coins soon carried the proud inscription “Aethelstanus rex
totius Britanniae” 177 .
If the king was emphasising the central power in this way, how did it come to be that
he was so dependent on recipient signatures when issuing charters? He was not yet
able to act completely independently. For this reason he first employed a scribe who
regularly wrote the charters at the Witanagemots. As we saw, this scribe, Ae. A,
undertook his work without any reference models. He did not need them, as he was an
important intellectual figure. His learned, flowing, literary style raised him far above
the customary chancery scribe, his charters also being better than the actual, rather
sober, legal versions.
There exists, however, a Malmesbury forgery of his diplomatic (see C. S. 54). The
recipient is Aldhelm. And R. Ehwald, publisher of his works, fully trusted this learned
scribe with the production of the charter. Even if the scribe was not Aldhelm, then it
must have been a later student strongly influenced by him. The rare expressions from
Ae. A’s vocabulary, the word order 178 , in fact the whole idiom
175 Böhmer-Ottenthal, Regesta Imperii. Innsbruck 1893. T. II, I p. 19.
176 F. Liebermann, Gesetze (Laws) I, 146-183 for all quoted passages from the laws.
177 Ch. Oman, The Coinage of England, Oxford 1931. p. 56.
178 M. G. H., Auctores Antiquissimi XV, Berlin 1919, ed. R. Ehwald. p. 509 (2).
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