The Borders of Early English Queenship: Cuthburh and Eormengyth

In this talk, I will focus on two late seventh-century queens, Cuthburh, queen of Aldfrith of Northumbria, and Eormengyth, queen of Centwine of Wessex. There little information on either queen, and so we must balance the information we do have against the biases and implicit expectations of the office of queen. In the case of Cuthburh, it will be a question of balancing rather conflicting accounts; for Eormengyth, it is a matter of sifting through confused and obscured historical narratives to situate her at the centre of a rather influential family network.