King Edwin’s ring?
In the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 7th century there existed a prominent set of interconnections between the Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian royal families. One node in this network was Ethelberga, daughter of Bertha (539 -612), the Merovingian Princess who married King Æthelberht of Kent and afterwards became patron of St. Augustine of Canterbury and his Gregorian mission. The story about Ethelberga was told by the venerable Bede, as she was responsible for the conversion to Christianity of her husband Edwin, king of Northumbria. Bede writes:
“EDWIN (586 – 633) had reigned most gloriously over the nations of the English and the Britons seventeen years, for six of which, as we have said, he also was a soldier in the kingdom of Christ.
Then Caedwalla, king of the Britons, rebelled against him. He was supported by the vigorous Penda, of the royal race of the Mercians, who from that time euled over that nation for twenty-two years with varying success. A fierce battle was fought in the plain that is called Haethfelth (Hatfield Chase) and Edwin was killed on the 12th of October, in the year of our Lord 633. He was then forty-eight years of age; and all his army was either slain or dispersed. … King Edwin’s head was brought to York, and afterwards placed in the church of the blessed Peter the Apostle, which he himself had begun to build, but which his successor Oswald finished, as has been said before. It was placed in the chapel of the holy Pope Gregory, from whose disciples he had received the word of life.
The affairs of the Northumbrians were being thrown into confusion at the moment of this disaster and there seemed to be no prospect of safety except in flight. Paulinus took with him Queen Ethelberga, whom he had before brought there, and returned to Kent by sea. The Archbishop Honorius and King Eadbald very honourably received her there. The king came under the conduct of Bassus, a most valiant thegn of King Edwin, having with him Eanfled, the daughter, and Wuscfrea, the son of Edwin, as well as Yffi, the son of Osfrid, Edwin’s son.
Afterwards Ethelberg, for fear of the kings Eadbald and Oswald, sent Wuscfrea and Yffi over into Gaul to be bred up by King Dagobert, who was her friend; and there they both died in infancy, and were buried in the church with the honour due to royal children and to Christ’s innocents.“ (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede, Book 2, chapter 20. Edited with Introduction and Notes by Judith McClure and Roger Collins. Oxford University Press, p. 105. Punctuation and translation slightly amended).
The interesting question here is of course whether the Esrick ring – probably made out of a small (female) brooch – may have belonged to Edwin or his son Osfried, before it got lost in the aftermath of the battle. Hatfield Chase, where the decisive battle took place, is located 58 km south of Esrick; both locations lie near or at the old Roman Road leading into York, where the head (body) of the king – according to Bede – was brought.
Such speculations are rife in view of the new date assigned to the ring. Whether further studies of the ring will yield corroboration to this hypothesis awaits to be seen…
The Photo shows some Merovingian brooches kept in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris