Genealogy and royal women in Asser’s Life of King Alfred: politics, prestige, and maternal kinship in early medieval England

Abstract

Asser’s Life of King Alfred is notable for its rare inclusion of the genealogies of two royal women: Alfred’s mother Osburh and his wife Ealhswith. This article explores the presence of these genealogies in Asser’s work, arguing that they performed an important and pressing political function for Alfred’s dynasty, which differed from the intended function of male royal genealogies. The ways Asser uses the genealogies of women may indicate that female royal genealogies were more important than the extant sources initially suggest. This also has broader implications for how we understand the place of maternal kin in early medieval England more widely.

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