Eadwig has a Threesome: Gender and the Breaking of Authority in the Tenth Century

This chapter will examine sex, gender and authority in the episode of Eadwig's coronation feast in 955, where the king departs the company of the hall to have a sexual escapade with two women, one his wife. This scandalous episode was written as early as c. 1000, some fifty years after the events, in the anonymous B’s Vita Sancti Dunstani, and was noted in various texts through the twelfth century, with Malmesbury, for example, writing about the scene not once but twice in his Vita Dunstani and Gesta Regum Anglorum. The basic events of the story are that on the day of his coronation, Eadwig left the company of the noblemen during the feasting following his coronation in order to frolic with a woman, and possibly her daughter in some texts. One of these two women was Ælfgifu, Eadwig’s consort, though her role is consistently unmentioned. At the request of the indignant nobles at the feast, Abbot Dunstan (and sometimes Bishop Cynesige) went to retrieve the king, and brought him back to the gathered noblemen. This gained Dunstan the hatred and enmity of both the woman and Eadwig, resulting in his exile. Both Eadwig and Ælfgifu were cast as the villains in the story, though Ælfgifu was particularly vilified in most versions, notably in Malmesbury’s Vita Dunstani where she is a ‘second Jezebel.’

Although fondly noted by Simon Keynes as ‘the kind of story which enlivens a period always in need of enlivenment,’ in actuality this scene is far more than a titillating and scandalous tale. In this, throughout several versions of the events, all three main figures – Eadwig, Ælfgifu and Dunstan – display varying means and methods of gendered authority and lack thereof, envisioned through sexuality and chastity. The steely Dunstan’s sanctity is justified by his condemnation of depraved acts – not only against morality but against the tradition of the coronation feast; Eadwig’s weaknesses as a king are highlighted by his sexual weaknesses; and Ælfgifu’s snaring sexuality is part of the cause of the bad kingship. Rather than simply being a scandalous and entertaining story, the coronation feast highlights the roles that sexuality played in creating and destroying gendered roles of authority.

Using the five main texts which describe the coronation scene, alongside contemporary charters and later writings of the events of Eadwig’s reign, this chapter will demonstrate the crucial roles that appropriate and inappropriate masculinities and femininities played in the record to denigrate Eadwig’s reign and Ælfgifu’s role as consort, frequently to the benefit of Dunstan and the court factions surrounding Edgar. Eadwig’s threesome is more than an amusing side note, whether or not it actually happened. This chapter will show that the very record of it, and how it was recorded, is crucial to understand how gender and sexuality was a part of making and breaking authority in the tenth century.