Cynethryth
Cynethryth (died after 798) was the wife of Offa of Mercia and mother of Ecgfrith of Mercia. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon Queen consort in whose name coinage was definitely issued. It has been suggested that this was in emulation of the Byzantine Empress Irene, who ruled through her son Constantine VI at this time.
Cynethryth is associated with her husband in charters and is said to have been a a patron of Chertsey Abbey. Alcuin, writing to her son Ecgfrith, refers to her piety, and in another letter refers to her as the "controller of the Royal household". Pope Adrian I, when elevating Higbert's Bishopric of Lichfield to an Archbishopric, wrote to Offa and Cynethryth jointly.
Her children with Offa, besides Ecgfrith, included at least four daughters:
- Æthelburh, in later life an abbess
- Eadburh, wife of Beorhtric of Wessex
- Ælflæd, wife of Æthelred I of Northumbria
- Æthelswith
She is said by some later chroniclers such as Roger of Wendover to have incited Offa to the killing of Æthelberht, King of East Anglia, at the royal residence of Sutton, near Hereford, or to have had her servants kill him.
After Offa's death in 796 Cynethryth was the head of the monastery at Cookham and also in charge of the church at Bedford where her late husband was interred. She was certainly alive in 798 when a dispute over church lands with Æthelhard, Archbishop of Canterbury, was settled.
References
- Keynes, Simon, "Cynethryth" in M. Lapidge et al (eds), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell, London, 1999. ISBN 0-631-22492-0
- Zaluckyj, Sarah and Zaluckyj, John, "The Age of Mercian Supremacy" in Sarah Zaluckyj (ed.) Mercia: the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Central England. Logaston Press, Almeley, 2001. ISBN 1-873827-62-8