Am Montag, den 13. Mai 2019, findet ab 17.15 Uhr im Elise-Richter-Saal im Hauptgebäude der Universität Wien das 235. Institutsseminar des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung statt. Es spricht Catherine Cubitt (University of East Anglia, UK ) zum Thema:

‘Understand well also that now for many years the devil has led astray this people too greatly’: Reassessing the Reign of Æthelred ‘the Unready’

The reign of Æthelred ‘the Unready’ (978-1016) was a tumultuous one for Anglo-Saxon England. Æthelred came to the throne after the murder of his elder brother, Edward the Martyr (975-978), and from the 980s the Anglo-Saxon kingdom suffered from devastating Viking attacks which culminated in the conquest of England by the Danish king, Cnut. It is a reign rich not only in events but also in sources, unusually so for the Anglo-Saxon period. Æthelred has been the subject of four scholarly studies of his reign: the seminal work of Keynes on his charters published in 1980, followed later by important biographies by Ryan Lavelle (2002), Ann Williams (2003) and Levi Roach (2016). Is there more to say? This pa-per will look at the murkier aspects of Æthelred’s reign, analysing both the contemporary discourses around his rulership and the modern historiographical debates which have shaped contemporary understanding of his reign. It will highlight significant but neglected aspects of his rule and shed new light on the troubled nature of his reign.

Die Veranstaltung ist wie alle Institutsseminare öffentlich, Gäste sind herzlich willkommen. Die Einladung im PDF-Format finden Sie hier.