Cross-Channel Marriage and Royal Succession in the Age of Charles the Simple and Athelstan (c. 916-936)
Simon MacLean
This article discusses the marriages of four Anglo-Saxon princesses to Continental kings and princes between years 917 930. These are often interpreted as acts diplomacy, sealing alliances across Channel indicating dominant position King Athelstan in early tenth-century Europe. I reinterpret motivations by reading symbolic communication driven uncertainty over West Frankish royal succession 920s framed a competition access version Carolingian dynastic legitimacy. turn allows us reflect on decay Empire after 888. Because Carolingian-ness was no longer hegemonic political discourse, argue that these events belong emphatically post-imperial landscape.
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