Dunstan and Eadwig's Notorious Twosome

At the end of the 10th century, King Eadwig was locked in a bitter rivalry with Abbot Dunstan. Their feud would eventually lead to exile, a broken marriage, a split kingdom, and a rumor that has persisted to this day. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/noblebloodtales — Noble Blood merch https://store.dftba.com/collections/noble-blood — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250840578/anatomyalovestory' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250861016/immortalityalovestory' See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:34Dana Schwartz?

  Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Listener discretion advised. In the year 955, there was a new monarch on the throne of Wessex. Eadwig, the 14-year-old son of the previous king, was the new king. After young Eadwig went through his official anointing and installation as king of the Anglo-Saxons, the Wessex nobility celebrated their new ruler with a feast. But as the guests gathered around the table, they noticed an important person missing:

• 1:17Dana Schwartz?

  the teenage King Eadwig himself. With the guest of honor nowhere to be found, the Archbishop sent two high-up clergy members, Abbot Dunstan and Bishop Kinesier, to the king's royal apartments to see if he might be there. The two men barged in to find a shocking sight: the royal crown tossed to the side on the floor, and the young king himself in the middle of a threesome. As one account put it, quote, "He was disboarding himself between two women as though they were wallowing in some revolting pigsty," end quote.

• 2:02Dana Schwartz?

  Horrified, Abbot Dunstan “told off” the two women and tried to convince Eadwig to come to his feast, but the king refused. Dunstan had to “put out his hand” and physically “remove him from the couch where he had been laying, parted from his women only by force.” One of the women was the young king’s fiancé, Alfivu, but scandalously, the other woman was Alfivu’s mother. The discovery of the threesome would be humiliating for Eadwig.

• 2:42Dana Schwartz?

  He had been caught and exposed for abandoning his royal duties for an incestuous affair. But, did it actually happen? Given the outrageousness of the tale, many historians suggest that it might have been an attempt to slander Eadwig's reputation. After all, accounts of Eadwig's threesome only appear in narratives of the life of Abbot Dunstan, the man who heroically stepped in to stop the debauchery and returned the king to his officially sanctioned activities. These biographies have a notably pro-Dunstan slant and a tendency to exaggerate.

• 3:25Dana Schwartz?

  Alongside the story of Eadwig's alleged threesome is a tale of Dunstan slaying the devil twice and reorienting an entire church with only his shoulder. And Dunstan had a good motive to lie about the new king. Eadwig and Dunstan were bitter enemies, and the threesome incident was just one event in a decades-long rivalry, which spanned multiple kings, sent Dunstan into exile, and ultimately destroyed a marriage. Turns out, salacious gossip about the sex lives of people in power is not a modern invention.

• 4:09Dana Schwartz?

  I’m Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

• 4:15Dana Schwartz?

  Abbott Dunstan's beef with Eadwig started long before young Eadwig took the throne. Dunstan was born in 909, from humble origins. He would eventually rise through the religious ranks to become the advisor to seven kings, and eventually the abbot of Glastonbury. But it was a politically tumultuous time. Most kings spent three or four years on the throne. With the threat of assassination or replacement always lurking, politically savvy operators like Dunstan often had targets on their backs. Dunstan's drama with the royal family started two kings before Eadwig,

• 5:00Dana Schwartz?

  with Athelstan, Eadwig's dad's half-brother, who I suppose is Eadwig's half-uncle. According to one of Dunstan's biographies, Athelstan's courtiers were jealous that Dunstan was the king's favorite. So they spread a rumor about Dunstan that he was a heathen who took part in magic rites. Believing the gossip, Athelstan banished Dunstan, and his courtiers beat him up and left him for dead in a duck pond. Which is an adorable detail. Somehow Dunstan survived, and Athelstan eventually welcomed him back into his court and apologized for the misunderstanding.

• 5:44Dana Schwartz?

  When Athelstan died, he was replaced with his half-brother Edmund, Eadwig's dad, who sent Dunstan into exile yet again after his courtiers spread yet another vicious rumor. But Edmund allegedly readmitted Dunstan after he was hunting near Cheddar Gorge. While chasing a stag, Edmund came dangerously close to falling off the side of the cliff before Dunstan saved him. If you couldn't tell from Dunstan's heroic role in that story, it comes from one of Dunstan's hagiographic biographies. But anyway, after Edmund's death,

• 6:27Dana Schwartz?

  he was succeeded by his brother, Edred, and I genuinely apologize for these names.

• 6:34Dana Schwartz?

  Dunstan had a relatively drama-free stint in Edred's court with a plum political position as one of the king's most trusted advisers. Edred even put Dunstan in charge of a good amount of his royal treasure and authorized him to make royal charters, which was a rare honor for a clergyman. But Dunstan's secure spot in the royal court wouldn't last long. Edred died in 955 at just 30 years old. Now, Eadwig, Edmund's son and Edred's nephew, arrived on the scene and immediately began

• 7:15Dana Schwartz?

  to shake things up, much to Dunstan's chagrin. At Edred's deathbed, Dunstan was the only royal counselor that didn't render an account of the royal treasure he was put in charge of, which raised young Eadwig's suspicions. Eadwig was incensed that his uncle's will left him nothing, instead passing along most of the fortune to Eadwig's mother. Eadwig and his followers suspected that Dunstan was laundering Eadwig's rightful fortune through his mother to then give to Eadwig's brother Edgar so that Edgar could take over the throne instead.

• 7:58Dana Schwartz?

  It's a little bit complicated, but the point is, Eadwig was convinced that Dunstan was screwing him over. Eadwig rejected the stipulations of the will and took most of the money that was allocated to his mother for himself. Eadwig defied his late uncle's will yet again by burying him in the Old Minister in Winchester instead of a reformed Benedictine monastery such as Glastonbury like his uncle had wanted. Eadwig was not as strict of a Benedictine as his uncle Edred had been, and it's likely Eadwig didn't want his late uncle's tomb to galvanize his Benedictine supporters, a

• 8:43Dana Schwartz?

  number which included Dunstan. To add insult to injury, Eadwig promoted his friends to high-up positions in court and completely neglected the Old Guard, the Old Guard which included men like Dunstan.

• 8:59Dana Schwartz?

  But the most flagrantly controversial aspect of Eadwig's rule, according to Dunstan, was Eadwig's marriage.

• 9:10Dana Schwartz?

  In 956, Eadwig married a woman named Alfivu, who was a member of the highest Wessex nobility. Dunstan had a longstanding history himself with Alfivu. Her family's land was held in the same area of Wessex as Dunstan's estate, and it's possible and likely that Dunstan had an established rivalry with Alfivu's family. More pertinently, that marriage could have angered Dunstan because it put Eadwig at a political advantage. Teaming up with Alfivu's powerful family shored up Eadwig's rule against his mother, the Archbishop, and Dunstan,

• 9:53Dana Schwartz?

  who were all still jockeying to put Eadwig's brother Edgar in power. If Eadwig and Alfivu had a son, that son could prevent Edgar from ever ascending the throne, thwarting Dunstan and his cohort's plans. Eadwig had just one problem. He might have been related to Alfivu, which flouted the laws of consanguinity. In the 10th century, consanguinity happened if you married someone within the fourth degree of kinship, meaning you shared a common great-great-grandparent. It's unclear exactly how the two might have been related

• 10:36Dana Schwartz?

  since Alfivu's ancestry has not been perfectly recorded, or if it ever was, that record is long since gone, but historians have located two different great-great-grandfathers that they might have shared. Even though Eadwig and Alfivu knew they might be related, the political opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, it was fairly common for couples, particularly noble or royal couples at this time, to break consanguinity laws, and the Church had a precedent for happily looking the other way. And lo and behold, the Church allowed the couple to wed in 956,

• 11:19Dana Schwartz?

  around the time Eadwig rose to power. At the start of his rule, Eadwig had it all. He had the girl, and he had the throne, and he immediately set about exercising his new powers, issuing an unprecedented 90 charters in his first year as king. But with enemies like Dunstan nearby, Eadwig couldn't rest on his laurels. It was only a matter of time before Dunstan would want the power to shift. Before Dunstan could take any political revenge against him, Eadwig sent him into exile, keeping Dunstan from meddling in his activities.

• 12:04Dana Schwartz?

  But that wasn't just a preventative measure for Eadwig. It also allowed him to reallocate Dunstan's confiscated lands to his own allies. The move was so controversial and damaging to Dunstan's position in court that historian Nicholas Brooks calls Dunstan's exile "a coup." Dunstan left England at once for Ghent sometime around February 956. Dunstan spent his exile hanging out at the monastery of Saint Peter in Ghent, where he was offered the protection of the Count of Flanders. He spent most of his time there placidly studying Ghent's monastic customs

• 12:49Dana Schwartz?

  and admiring the recently remodeled monastery. Not altogether a bad vacation. While Dunstan was biding his time in Ghent, Eadwig was struggling to maintain his hard-won political power, even when his main arch-nemesis was far away from court. By autumn 957, just a year after he rose to the throne, Eadwig's political power began to crumble.

• 13:18Dana Schwartz?

  That summer, the kingdom was divided up between Eadwig in the south and his brother Edgar in the north, with the river Thames forming the boundary. It's unclear exactly why this happened. Some think it was in response to the vast number of charters Eadwig was issuing during the first year of his reign, most of which reallocated land between laypeople, but there's no clear reason why that would have upset the court or the church. Others think that the division was because Eadwig ruled incompetently, alienating his northern territory. Dunstan certainly thought so.

• 13:58Dana Schwartz?

  According to pro-Dunstan sources, "Eadwig's ruling territory was cut in half because, 'King Eadwig totally abandoned by the people north. They despised him for his imprudent discharge of the power entrusted to him. The wise and sensible he destroyed in a spirit of idle hatred, replacing them with ignoramuses like himself to whom he took a liking.'" In any case, the split of the kingdom represented a substantial decrease in Eadwig's power, and the election of his brother Edgar to rule over a substantial portion of his former

• 14:38Dana Schwartz?

  territory was a boon to Dunstan's plan to install Edgar on the entire throne. Even better for Dunstan, his allies got him readmitted to court, and he returned to England. The next step to destroying Eadwig's political power would be to break up his marriage, which was still a powerful political alliance. In 958, the Archbishop annulled their marriage on grounds of consanguinity. There was some spiritual motive for that decision. The Archbishop took care to explicitly condemn incest in his constitutions, an adaptation

• 15:23Dana Schwartz?

  and compilation of older papal texts. And as one historian put it, "The Archbishop's 'consideration of appropriate marriages,' written perhaps a decade before Ethelvoo and Eadwig's marriage, would bear a considerable amount of weight against the young king and his royal authority."

• 15:45Dana Schwartz?

  But the Archbishop’s separation of the married couple now also had a political motive. The Archbishop was a key ally of Dunstan’s, and with Edgar ruling all of England north of the Thames, Dunstan and his allies felt strong enough to move for Eadwig's divorce. We know almost nothing about what Eadwig was up to after the division of his kingdom and the breakup of his marriage, but given the comparative dearth of charters he issued during that time, he was likely languishing on his smaller throne.

• 16:24Dana Schwartz?

  On October 1, 959, Eadwig died, just 19 years old. He was buried at the New Minster Winchester, a church founded by his grandfather in 901. Edgar was made king, and England was consolidated once again under Edgar’s rule. As a close ally of Edgar’s, Dunstan was brought even further into the fold. The Archbishop consecrated him a bishop, and eventually Dunstan was appointed to the See. He even officiated the coronation of King Edgar in 973, a huge honor.

• 17:07Dana Schwartz?

  But even that resounding victory was not enough for Dunstan and his allies. Even though Eadwig was dead, Dunstan’s allies’ final act of retribution was to destroy what was left of the teenage king: his reputation. Over the rest of the 10th century, Eadwig's reign was seen as a four-year blip of chaos and misrule. In contrast to the longer, more harmonious reigns of his brother Edgar and his half-uncle who came before him, Eadwig's time as king was brief and tumultuous.

• 17:49Dana Schwartz?

  As a young king, unprepared for the demands of the throne, Eadwig jockeyed for power against Dunstan, resulting in Dunstan’s exile, the annulment of Eadwig's marriage, and the splitting up of the entire kingdom. While Eadwig's reputation had tarnished after his death, Dunstan’s star continued to rise. Dunstan acted as a kind of proto-prime minister of the kingdom, remaining a key member of the court and an archbishop until his death in 988. He was even more celebrated after his death. Immediately after he died, Dunstan’s name was entered into liturgical calendars and litnes of the saints.

• 18:34Dana Schwartz?

  A series of hymns, mass sets, and benedictions were composed in his name, so he was publicly commemorated in churches across the country. It wasn’t until this period in the late 10th century, after both Eadwig and Dunstan had died, that the story of Eadwig's notorious coronation threesome first appears in writing. The author of this first account of the threesome, under the pseudonym B., had been hanging out with Dunstan during his Gent exile from Eadwig's court. It’s possible that he had heard the story back then, as court gossip about this controversial

• 19:17Dana Schwartz?

  new king, and had kept it in his backpocket for the rest of the 10th century. After he wrote his version of the story, it spread, appearing in other narratives of Dunstan’s life throughout the 11th century. The story certainly helped these pro-Dunstan sources prove Dunstan’s moral worth. Unlike the licentious, scandalous young King Eadwig, Dunstan was a monk, and so he was assumed to be chaste, and his biographers highlighted his commitment to abstaining from sex throughout their texts. Medieval writers considered this to be one of Dunstan’s greatest sacrifices, which

• 20:01Dana Schwartz?

  only strengthened his spiritual worthiness. In the story of Eadwig's threesome, Dunstan’s comparative chastity makes him the moral authority of the situation, even above the king himself. After all, Dunstan had to physically break up the threesome, put the crown back on Eadwig's head, and admonish the women involved. The threesome also let these pro-Dunstan writers absolve him for his exile during Eadwig's reign. One writer explicitly makes that connection by having Eadwig's mother-in-law tell Dunstan in the middle of the discovered threesome, quote, "If you are so bold as to drag the

• 20:43Dana Schwartz?

  king willy-nilly from the room, I shall make sure you always remember this day and me." In this context, Dunstan's exile seems like petty revenge, rather than canny political maneuvering. Having his mother-in-law threaten Dunstan instead of Eadwig also has the added benefit of making Eadwig seem like a weak puppet under the thumb of the women in his life, even further discrediting his rule. But it's strange that such a salacious bombshell of a story only came out after Eadwig was long dead and his political threat to Dunstan had already well been neutralized.

• 21:28Dana Schwartz?

  Dunstan had already decisively won the feud. He died a venerated saint. There was no need to introduce a fictional story about Eadwig, lest we forget skipping his own coronation to have a threesome with his fiancee and her mom, even if it was just as a victory lap. Historian Catherine Weigert suggests that the story also served a moral and political purpose, not just the purpose of petty revenge. She argues that the story functioned as a cautionary tale. Eadwig had thought it would be a good political strategy to marry Alfavue, a distant relative

• 22:12Dana Schwartz?

  with key territory in the region. Certainly, if the marriage had flown under the radar, they could have had sons who would have ruled over England after Eadwig died. Even though this marriage was long over, it still represented the biggest threat to the current regime. Since, given that the church often ignored consanguinity, other rulers could easily follow suit. B, the anonymous chronicler who introduced the threesome story, did so during the reign of Aethelred II, the son of Edgar, who would never have been able to come to power if Eadwig's marriage had stood unchallenged and he had had sons of his own.

• 22:56Dana Schwartz?

  Aethelred II's rule was already under threat from constant Norse raiding, from competing political factions, and a political rival could easily follow Eadwig's playbook to challenge him. Because of those potential challenges to the status quo, Weikart says marriages like Eadwig's, quote, "had to be undermined on every possible level." Weikart emphasizes that the most effective strategy to scare potential rulers from that kind of marriage that would consolidate their power was to use sexual humiliation. This is most clearly true for Eadwig. This story made his union with Alfelvoo

• 23:40Dana Schwartz?

  seem like a perverse abandonment of his role as king, quite literally, since he was abandoning his coronation feast. Not only was Eadwig engaging in incest by sleeping with his distant relative and her mom simultaneously, he was also abandoning his own coronation, ignoring kingly duties. The story also slanders his wife, which discourages other women from seeking out similar marriages. Weikart points out that B refers to Alfelvoo not as Eadwig's wife, but just as a woman that the king is sleeping with, stripping her of her status. This move dishonors both Eadwig and Alfelvoo

• 24:25Dana Schwartz?

  because, quote, "without the shield of authority from their place in court culture," in these texts, Alfelvoo can become a Jezebel with whom the weak and effeminate Eadwig feels compelled to fornicate, end quote. The story suggests that Eadwig and Alflavus' marriage was a moral threat to the status quo, and the story destroyed both of their reputations in perpetuity. Other 10th-century writers would later make up additional details about Eadwig's love life to further discredit him. Burford of Ramsay accused him of, quote, "leading a wicked life, an immoderate youth

• 25:09Dana Schwartz?

  is accustomed to do by loving another woman as if she were his own wife and eloping with her, ignoring the sacred decrees of Christian law." According to him, it wasn't until the Archbishop at the time, quote, "seized the woman and took her out of the kingdom and warned the king with gentle words and actions that he should constrain himself from wicked deeds," that the sinful union was broken up. We don't know much or anything about this alleged second marriage, but it suggests that attacking Eadwig's sexuality was a winning and continuous strategy when it came to slandering him.

• 25:50Dana Schwartz?

  We'll never know whether those stories were true, and in all likelihood, they were not, but they represent a medieval PR triumph for Dunstan. While Dunstan's biographers presented him as a virtuous hero after his death, he was probably a very controversial figure during his life. Even these pro-Dunstan writers admit that he, quote, "inspired hatred and envy on a grand scale," as contemporary historian Michael Lappidge put it. After all, Dunstan was exiled three times, and even beaten and thrown into a duck pond during Ethelston's reign.

• 26:33Dana Schwartz?

  Similarly, returning to the story of Eadwig's threesome in a more nuanced light suggests a more complex view of Eadwig's rule, beyond his youthful indiscretion, short time on the throne, and bad reputation after his death. During the first year of his reign, he represented a credible threat to Dunstan's authority, even if young Eadwig didn't have the political know-how to know how to retain the upper hand. The story of Eadwig's threesome shows that medieval politicians and clergy were

• 27:13Dana Schwartz?

  willing to play dirty, creating a salacious story that has stuck around for centuries.

• 27:26Dana Schwartz?

  That's the end of our story about Eadwig's alleged threesome, but stick around to hear a little bit more about Dunstan's epic battles with the devil.

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• 28:42Dana Schwartz?

  According to Dunstan's biographers, Dunstan was not only breaking up threesomes and getting thrown in duck ponds, but also, literally, fighting with the devil. According to legend, during his exile at Glastonbury back during Ethelston's rule, he was sitting in a cell and doing some metalwork, when suddenly, an old man came to his window and asked Dunstan to make him a chalice. Dunstan accepted the man's request, but as he was working, the old man began to morph into a young boy, and then a sexy woman. Dunstan knew at that moment that this figure was the devil,

• 29:24Dana Schwartz?

  but he bided his time and continued to work on his chalice. He laid his tongs in the fire until they got scalding hot, then grabbed them, turned around, and used them to suddenly grab the devil by the nose. The devil squirmed and shrieked and ran out of the cell screaming, "Woe is me! What hath that bald devil done to me? Look at me, a poor wretch! Look how he has tortured me!" People on the street heard the devil's cries and approached Dunstan the following day, asking, "What happened?" He told them, "These are the tricks of the devils, who try to trap us with their snares whenever they can.

• 30:06Dana Schwartz?

  But if we remain firm in the service of Christ, we can easily defeat them with his help, and they will flee from us in confusion." To be honest, if that version of the story actually happened, it kind of sounds like Dunstan just grabbed an old man's nose with flaming hot tongs, but who knows? Dunstan also encountered the devil yet again, one time when he was praying alone. This time, the devil disguised himself as a wolf, snarling and baring his teeth, but Dunstan refused to acknowledge him, instead just concentrating on his prayers. The devil then transformed into a cute little fox,

• 30:50Dana Schwartz?

  dancing about to try to get Dunstan's attention. Dunstan said, in response, "You are revealing how you usually behave. By your tricks, you flatter the unwary, so that you can devour them. Now get out of here, wretch, since Christ, who crested the lion and the dragon with his heel, will overcome you by his grace through me, whether you're a wolf or a fox." Those stories, true or not, became popular legends, spreading throughout the medieval world. Yet another PR victory for our friend Dunstan.

• 31:35Dana Schwartz?

  Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Giulia Malani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Reema Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 32:17Speaker 01

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• 32:46Dana Schwartz?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.