Ecgberht, King of Wessex - Greybeard's Ghosts

Commentary

Stewart Baldwin: "This genealogy back to Cerdic has often been accepted as reliable. However, there are problems with accepting the genealogy at face value. First and foremost is the fact that none of the links between Ecgbeorht and Cerdic is verified in contemporary sources. Thus, it seems impossible to confirm the genealogy in any realistic sense. Second, and related to this, there is the fact that for eight generations the supposed ancestors of Ecgbeorht fail to appear on the standard list of West Saxon kings, Ceawlin being the most recent king on the list who appears as an ancestor of Ecgbeorht, nine generations back. However, this problem is mitigated to a significant extent by the appearance of king Ine of Wessex as a brother of Ingild, the supposed great-great-grandfather of Ecgbeorht. Ine's father Coenred, who appears as king of Wessex confirming two South Saxon charters (but is not on the king list), and is called a subregulus by John of Worcester, seems to be a well enough documented individual, even if no contemporary source confirms that he had a son named Ingild. Third, the genealogical sources on the early dynasty of Wessex are extremely contradictory, and seem impossible to reconcile. In particular, no confidence at all can be placed in the generations prior to Ceawlin, the genealogies do not even agree on the number of generations between Ceawlin and Ine. The orthodox West Saxon genealogy, states that Ecgbeorht of Wessex was the son of an Ealhmund. It has commonly been concluded that the Ealhmund who was father of Ecgbeorht was the same person as king Ealhmund of Kent, who appears in the charter of 784, but the identification does not appear in any early source, and it has not been accepted by some. For example, Barbara Yorke stated that it was doubtful that Ealhmund of Kent should be identified with the same-named father of Ecgbeorht of Wessex. Nevertheless, even though the explicit attribution of Ealhmund of Kent as Ecgbeorht's father does not appear until some late additions to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ASC(F) s.a. 784 (late hand); ASC(F) s.a. 800 (in reference to Ecgbeorht)], there are good reasons for believing that Ecgbeorht had Kentish connections, which seem to confirm these late traditions that Ecgbeorht of Wessex was a son of Ealhmund of Kent. "

Family

Claim	Detail	Evidence
Father	Ealhmund, King of Kent (e734-) [S756:1] [S936]	research
Spouse	Raedburh (e775-)
Child +	Æthelwulf, King of Wessex (~799-858) [S756:1] [S936]	research

Attributes

Claim	Detail	Evidence
Gender	Male
Name	Ecgberht , King of Wessex [S936]	research
Name	Egbert [S756:1]	research
Name	Ecgbeorht , King of the West Saxons [S1293]	research
Father	Ealhmund, King of Kent (e734-) [S756:1] [S936]	research

Timeline

Claim	Date	Detail	Evidence
Birth	769 - 780	[S936]	research
Birth	775	England [S756:1]	research
Title	802	King of Wessex [S756:1] [S936]	research
Death	aft Nov 19, 838	[S756:1]	research
Death	839	[S936]	research

Sources

Index	Title
[S756]	Weis, Frederick Lewis, "Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists Who Came To New England before 1700, 7th Ed." (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, 1999).
[S936]	Cawley, Charles, "Foundation of Medieval Genealogy (Medieval Lands - England, Anglo Saxon Kings)" (2006-7 (v1.1 Updated 25 February 2007)).
[S1293]	Baldwin, Stewart, "The Henry Project - Ecgbeorht" (June 20, 2010) (https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/egber000.htm).

Note

from https://fasg.org/projects/henryproject/data/ealhm000.htm

Gen. Reg. List  ASC(A) s.a. 855  Asser      Æthelweard  John Worc.  Wm. Malmes.  Anglian Gen.  ASC(A) s.a. 688
Cerdic          Cerdic           Cerdic     Cerdic      Cerdic      Cherdicus    Cerdic        Cerdic
Creoda          Creoda           Creoda     Creoda
Cynric          Cynric           Cynric     Cynric      Cynric      Chinricus    Cynric        Cynric
Cel[in]         Ceawlin          Ceaulin    Ceaulin     Ceaulin     Cheaulinus   Celin         Ceaulin
Cuðwine         Cuþwine          Cuthwine   Cuthwine    Cuthwine    Cudwinus     Cuþwine       Cuþwine
Cuðwulf         Cuþa             Cudam      Cutha       Cuda        Cuþwulf
Ceolwald        Ceolwald         Ceoluuald  Ceoluuald   Ceolwald    Chelwaldus   Ceolwald      Ceolwald
Cenred          Cenred           Coenred    Cenred      Coenred     Chenredus    Cenred        Cenred
Ingild          Ingild           Ingild     Ingild      Ingels      Ingildus     [Ine]         [Ine]
Ioppa           Eoppa            Eoppa      Eoppa       Eoppa       Eoppa
Eaba            Eafa             Eafa       Eafa        Eafa        Eafa
Ealhmund        Ealhmund         Ealhmund   Ealhmund    Ealhmund    Elmundus
Ecbyrht         Ecgbryht         Ecgberht   Ecgbyrht    Ecgberht    Egbirhtus

The supposed ancestry of Ceawlin is: Cynric, son of Cerdic. This ancestry is most likely bogus. In response to these claims, Todd A. Farmerie in an email to the GEN-MEDIEVAL-L mailing list in 1995 said: "From here on [Ceawlin], there is no reason to accept it as anything but fantasy. The supposed pedigree of Cerdic's "ancestors" was conclusively proven to be a fabrication by K. Sisam in his study "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies", in Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. xxxix (1953), pp. 287-348. Sisam was even able to document some of the stages in the invention process. ... Cerdic and Cynric are shadowy figures whose very existence is doubted by some historians. Even if we accept the existence of Cerdic and Cynric (said in various accounts to be the son or grandson of Cerdic), the stories are too contradictory to place any confidence in their supposed genealogical affiliation."

Farmerie: "Eoppa is the first of the line for which contemporary evidence exists."

Farmerie: "From Egbert on, the pedigree is well documented at every stage by contemporary or near contemporary evidence."