Eahlstan

Eahlstan (or Alfstan or Ealhstan) was a medieval Bishop of Sherborne.

Eahlstan was consecrated between 816 and 825. He died in 867.^[1] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he died in 867 after holding office for fifty years. However, a forged charter (S 283) of 824 appears to copy a genuine witness list of the mid-820s, and this describes Eahlstan as "electus in episcopatum Scireburnensis æcclesiæ", implying that he was not appointed until 824. This would be consistent with the absence of a bishop of Sherborne from records of the Council of Clofesho of 824.^[2]

In 825, after the battle of Ellendun (Wroughton), he was sent by King Ecgberht of Wessex with an army into Kent.^[3] In 855, when King Æthelwulf of Wessex was on the continent, the medieval chronicler Asser asserts that Eahlstan, along with Aethelbald of Wessex and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, conspired to keep the king from returning to England.^[4]

Notes

References

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. 
• Keynes, Simon (November 1994). "The West Saxon Charters of King Æthelwulf and his sons". English Historical Review 109. ISSN 0013-8266. 
• Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24211-8. 

External links

• Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England entry for Eahlstan