Sub-kings & things

#OTD in 927 Constantine II of Scotland supposedly accepted the overlordship of Aethelstan of Wessex, as did Hywel Dda of Deheubarth, Ealdred of Bamburgh and King Owain of the Cumbrians.

HOWEVER - there is apparently no direct evidence of this submission. The only contemporary notice is a charter Athelstan granted at Buckingham on 13 September 934. In this document, Constantine appears as a witness as ‘subregulus’ or sub-king. This appears to show a vassal relationship of sorts.

I know very little about this era, beyond the basics. Later kings of England leaned heavily upon Constantine’s alleged submission, to prop up their claims to overlordship over Scotland. The actual evidence is patchy, to say the least.

The text of the charter is available online, and below is a translation from the Latin. The language of these charters is usually quite dry, but the scribe went off on one here:

+ Fortune, wanton in this deceitful age, is lovable not for the milk-white radiance of unfading lilies, but hateful for the galling bitterness of lamentable corruption. Raging with poisonous jaws, she savagely tears at the children of stinking flesh in this valley of tears. Although, by smiling upon the unfortunate, she may appear alluring, she rushes shamelessly down to the depths of Acherontic Cocytus, nor does she come to the aid of one crying aloud from the deep. And therefore, because she herself, ruinous and failing, slips utterly away, we must hasten with all speed to the pleasant fields of ineffable joy, where the instruments of angelic, hymn-singing jubilation and the honey-sweet fragrances of blooming roses are received by the nostrils of the good and blessed as sweetness beyond measure, and where delightful sounds are heard by the ears without end.

Enticed by love of this blessedness, men now disdain the things below and delight in the things above. For the sake of attaining them and enjoying them for ever in unfailing beauty, I, Æthelstan, king of the English, raised by the right hand of the Almighty to the throne of the kingdom of all Britain, gladly grant to my faithful minister Æthelm a certain portion of land, namely fifteen hides, in the place which the inhabitants call Kingston. He is to possess it for as long as he lives, free from the yoke of hateful servitude, together with its meadows, pastures, woods, streams, and all the appurtenances rightly belonging to it; and after the passage of his death he may freely and perpetually convey it to whatever heir he wishes and leave it to him for ever.

But if anyone—which God forbid—swollen with some form of arrogance, should attempt to annul or infringe this brief record of my gift, in matters small or great, let him know that on the last day of judgement, when the trumpet of the archangel sounds its martial blast, he shall perish in eternal confusion amid the devouring flames of blazing torments, together with Judas the traitor, who is called “the son of perdition,” and with the impious and unbelieving Jews who, with sacrilegious mouths, blasphemed Christ as he washed away the sins of the world upon the altar of the Cross.

This charter of a purpose inspired and devised by God and the Lord Jesus Christ was written in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 934, in the seventh indiction, with epact 14 and concurrent 2, on the Ides of September, the moon being twenty-nine days old, at the royal vill called Buckingham, while the whole assembly of the magnates rejoiced beneath the embrace of royal munificence. The authority of its unshaken validity is confirmed and strengthened by these witnesses, whose names are assigned and written below.

+ I, Æthelstan, king endowed with the hierarchical dignity of a singular privilege, have confirmed and subscribed the tenor of this document with the sign of the holy and ever-adorable Cross.

+ I, Constantine, sub-king, have consented and subscribed, together with many others.