In Praise of Queen Emma

Open Access
- Author:
- Pendleton, Sarah
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in History and Medieval Studies
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Benjamin Thomas Hudson, Thesis Supervisor
Jacob F. Lee, Thesis Honors Advisor
Kathryn Elizabeth Salzer, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Emma of Normandy
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Danish
Normandy
Denmark
England
Queenship
Encomium Emmae Reginae
Cnut the Great
Edward the Confessor
Harthacnut
Æthelred the Unready - Abstract:
- Emma of Normandy was Queen of England from her arrival in 1002 until her death in 1052. She rose to power in the early eleventh century through marriage to two kings of England: Æthelred II of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty and Cnut, a Danish conqueror. Through careful politicking and the steady acquisition of wealth and allies, Emma maintained a position of high status as queen mother when of her four children, two of her sons, Harthacnut by Cnut and Edward by Æthelred, were crowned kings of England as well. Emma’s life can roughly be divided into four stages: time in Normandy, marriage to Æthelred, marriage to Cnut, and Queen-Mother to her sons. Early into Harthacnut’s reign, Emma commissioned a biography of herself titled Encomium Emmae Reginae. The Encomium, simultaneously biography and political propaganda, stands out amongst the vitas of the medieval elites for its subject: a woman. Those with the power and money for whom such works were typically written—Asser’s Life of King Alfred or Einhard’s The Life of Charlemagne—were invariably men, specifically kings. This thesis offers a biographical study of Emma's life, with a specific focus on her gradual accumulation of wealth, cultivation of social ties, and consolidation of political influence, culminating in her Encomium.