Talk:Coenwulf of Mercia

Contradiction in article

There is a discrepancy on this page which I cannot resolve:

'Coenwulf died in 821, and was succeeded by his brother Ceolwulf I.' However, in the table below, he is succeeded by Cenelm.

Well, that's the result of conflict in the historical sources. Cenelm was the son of Cenwulf and supposedly murdered after reigning a few months. My understanding is that the general opinion is that Cenelm didn't ever really reign and actually died years before his father, and I changed the table accordingly. Everyking 19:45, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for that, and apologies for not signing the earlier note Ian Cairns 20:21, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hello, here is an article about the coin in the BBC today with a photo:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4692162.stm

The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England gives the following relationships for C[o]enwulf.

• Father: Cuthbert
• Brother: Cuthred, that is Cuthred of Kent
• Sisters: Cyneswith (only in fake charter), Burghild (same charter and John of Worcester's chronicle)
• Queen: Ælfthryth
• Wife: Cynegyth (per rather dubious charter)
• Daughter: Cwenthryth
• Son: Cynehelm (Kenelm; the Kenelm legend makes Burghild Coenwulf's daughter FWIW)
• Vague: Eanberht (propinquus)

Should presumably be included in this article. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Article name

Coenwulf is spelled Cenwulf in some of the secondary sources; here are the ones I checked:

• Cenwulf: Yorke's Kings and Kingdoms, Campbell's The Anglo-Saxons, Stenton's Anglo-Saxon England, Whitelock's English Historical Documents, Walker's Mercia.
• Coenwulf: Swanton's Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Kirby's Earliest English Kings, Lapidge's Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England, Brown/Farr's Mercia.

So five for Cenwulf, four for Coenwulf. I also looked at hits on books.google.com, and got almost the same number for each. If I could see a trend in modern works to "Cenwulf" it might be worth making the change, but with Kirby and Lapidge both using "Coenwulf" I think it's an arbitrary choice. I'm noting the numbers here to save someone else looking this up; but if more recent work starts to use "Cenwulf" we can think about renaming the page then. Mike Christie (talk) 16:13, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Kin

Williams, Kingship and Government, p. 29, says that Coenwulf and his brother "traced their descent from Coenwalh, allegedly a brother of Penda and Eowa. No such person appears in the earlier sources (which is not necessarily significant) but Penda and Eowa did have a brother-in-law of this name, Cenwealh of Wessex, who married and repudiated their sister. It would be ironic..." The other option, according to various people, is that they were linked to the Hwiccan kings. I have at least one other reference to the Coenwalh = Cenwalh theory somewhere, which will likely appear as soon as I stop looking for it. I presume you spotted the little aside where Keynes (in the BEASE article) hints at a link with Eahlswith and Æthelred. I hate it when historians do that! Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:56, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll put a version back in based on the Williams quote. Thanks for digging that up. I did see the Hwicce theory, in Kirby I think it was. Haven't looked at BEASE yet, but I will.

I think I'm going to take this one to FAC after Wulfhere. I'll do this in piecemeal edits, though; Wulfhere was pretty close to being GA already, or beyond that, so it actually made it kind of hard to work with -- what I did was go write a totally separate Wulfhere article of my own offline, without looking at the existing one; then I read the existing one and treated it like a new source, and integrated everything it had (plus I stole its wording where it was better than mine). Darned inefficient way to do things, but it seemed less trouble. Coenwulf is still plastic enough that I don't need to do that. Mike Christie (talk) 00:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

TRANSLATION of "Coenwulf of Mercia"

Hark , hark !! Le it be known from the Dee to the Wye that this masterpiece is now humbly being traslated into french by me , user Arapaima , & please San Benedetto de Norcia help me !--Arapaima (talk) 08:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Hark, hark etc... , TRANSLATION COMPLETED !!( a week-end , 7 Word pages...). What am I supposed to do with that text ? Seems logical to me to present the baby to his father , since I am only the uncle , and very new & --Arapaima (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)ignorant of Wikipedia's rites , at that ...--Arapaima (talk) 12:03, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Login with your account on the French-language Wikipedia, click here and add the article you've written. Add [[en:Coenwulf of Mercia]] to the bottom of the page, save, done! On the talk page of your new article add {{Article traduit|en|Coenwulf of Mercia}}, save, done! The people at fr:Projet:Traduction can probably help with any problems, or leave a note here when it's up.Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:26, 3

March 2008 (UTC)

Angus , thanks a lot for caring , & thanks also to those who helped me on fr.wiki .This is my first contrib. , and I am as proud as an old french rooster discovering his first egg ! Wow , "ça jette du jus !" as we modestly say here ( = "it casts around a lot of juice!"). Well, it lacks the maps & genelogical board etc..., but I dont dare to go & wander into Unknown Commonsland ...Maybe someone could do it , why not the author himself ?...By the way, I want to thank the author ( "Mike Christie"?)for his original work , whose precision & conciseness ( and understatement) I enjoyed , & I hope I rendered acurately the entwined intricacies between Coenwulf and the Church ( and the right orthograph of all the surnames)..."Dans la foulée" ( "while I was set in my stride") I wanted to go and give a try at "Offa of Mercia" , but a Mr "Meneldur" ( a compatriot) let me understand that I had to step aside ...Thanks,& so long --Arapaima (talk) 11:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment -- I appreciate it. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with this or any other translation, or to clarify any unclear points. Mike Christie (talk) 03:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Additional Info?

Hi

I do not want to edit this page directly as I have no background or authority, but I found something that may be of interest to those more familiar with Coenwulf. I am online researching a village in Oxfordshire called Culham. In research I found this link: http://www.culhamvillage.org.uk/villagehistory.html

It makes reference to Coenwulf and his two sister Kerieswyth and Burgevilde. From there I jumped over to read more and found them not mentions and I find neither listed in a Wikipedia search and so to me appear that the author of the provided link has found some local history that might be of interest... they sight "ancient documents" but then it would appear their presence in the village led to much happening subsequently. The author is listed as Rev F Denham, Vicar 1976-81, so forgive me if I have been naive in bringing this to your attention, it seemed that it might be of interest.

Regards Daniel Hendy (talk) 21:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)Daniel Hendy

It looks to me as if the Rev. Denham used this charter, which is described there as a tenth (or thirteenth) century forgery. I would assume that's why this material isn't mentioned in the usual sources. If there are any academic sources that take this charter at face value we could certainly add the information but until something like that turns up we should wait. Mike Christie (talk) 00:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

King of Sussex?

Coenwulf has been added to the infobox as King of Sussex, East Anglia and Kent; I don't think this is supportable by the sources and would like to hear other opinions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

He certainly did not have these titles. However, it might be possible to deal with the problem by making the heading "ruler over ..." (with a dablink to the list article), which would enable the predecessor to be named. However, the successor field should be blank - except where the kingdom regained complete sovereignty. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This conversation seems to be happening mostly at Talk:Offa, so I suggest we come to agreement there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

Very interesting article. I wonder whether anyone would like to look into the etymology of Coenwulf. Some sources seem to identify it as coming from OHG kuoni and OE cene (meaning keen or brave) but I'm not too sure how reliable they are.--Ipigott (talk) 09:19, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, my impression as well. Also, that interpretation sounds like a traditional compound Germanic name. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:55, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Saint

At the List of Anglo-Saxon saints we have Coenwulf listed as a saint with his chief mediaeval resting place at Winchcombe. Additionally, the Saints of Anglo-Saxon England template is at the bottom of this article. None of this is backed by a citation. Is this right? i.e. was Coenwulf recognized as a saint? Greenshed (talk) 16:36, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

I can't immediately find support for this, so pinging Deacon of Pndapetzim, who added Coenwulf to the saints template and who is more knowledgeable about this period than I am. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:19, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

John Blair, 'A Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Saints', lists him on p. 521. Apparently he is honoured like that at his burial place of Winchcombe, and there is a relic of St Kenulf in a 12th cent. Peterborough list of relics. All in all, it was enough to get him on Blair's handlist. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:27, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks. Seems like it's worth a mention in this article. Greenshed (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's worth a sentence. Deacon of Pndapetzim, would you mind doing the honours, since you have the source to hand? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

It seems linked to Coenwulf's orders, given in AD 798, for the building of Winchcombe Abbey; Winchcombe being his favoured town and possibly the settlement which he wanted to see as the capital of Mercia. Greenshed (talk) 19:35, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, will try to do later today tomorrow evening. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 13:22, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Greenshed (talk) 01:28, 8 February 2019 (UTC)