the period, but from the late 960s northern magnates were more regularly represented. In 954 Eadred had appointed Osulf, the ruler of the north Northumbrian territory of Bamburgh, as the ealdorman of the whole of Northumbria following the expulsion of the Viking king of York, Erik Bloodaxe. Osulf did not owe his power to southern English suppport, and when he died in the 960s Edgar again divided Northumbria and appointed Oslac as ealdorman of York (southern Northumbria), increasing his control over the area, but he was not able to choose who held power in Bamburgh. Ealdormen were important in providing stability in a period when kings died young, but the families of Æthelwine of East Anglia and Ælfhere of Mercia gained unassailable positions and their rivalries were a threat to the stability of the kingdom. Edgar tried to keep them under control by keeping a balance between them, but this collapsed into open hostilities after his death. Ealdormen for areas south of the Thames do not attest after 970, and this may be because Edgar chose to govern these areas through royal officials of lower status. Reeves may have been entrusted with duties which were previously carried out by ealdormen. This made his rule less uniform, with different methods of government in different areas. The gap was filled after his death by the appointment of three new southern ealdormen. Kingship was peripatetic. There was no fixed capital city and the court moved from one royal estate to another, four or five times a year. According to John of Worcester, each winter and spring Edgar would travel round the kingdom to enquire whether the statutes he had promulgated were being observed and whether the poor were being unjustly treated by the powerful. The historian Richard Huscroft describes this account as "perhaps a little rose-tinted". Harrying was a standard punishment for crimes committed by communities, and in 974 Edgar ordered the people of Thanet to be deprived of their property and some of them executed, because they had robbed passing traders from York. Forfeiture of land for wrongdoing gave the king opportunities for patronage or receiving payments for remission of punishment. In one case, Edgar rescinded a forfeiture for 100 mancuses of gold, and in another he restored several confiscated estates for 120 mancuses. Charters Since the 930s, charters had been produced by a royal secretariat, but this probably did not survive