Muiredach (ealdorman)

Muiredach (fl. 958–963) was an ealdorman (Latin: dux) in northern England in the reign of Edgar the Peaceable. He is recorded in subscriptions to two royal charters.

The first, Sawyer 679, is a grant by King Edgar to Oscytel, Archbishop of York of 10 hides at Hutton in Nottinghamshire, where he is named Mirdach dux, ninth on the ealdorman list between Leod dux and Ascured dux.[1]

His other appearance is in a newly discovered charter (found again 1983) issued by King Edgar to one Æthelferth, granting 5 hides at Ballidon in Derbyshire, where he is named Myrdah dux and appears eighth (last) in the ealdorman list, above Gunner dux.[2] His name precedes Oslac dominus ("Lord Oslac"), who is probably Oslac, future ealdorman of Northumbria.[2]

The names Mirdach and Myrdah represented the Goidelic name Muiredach, and he is thus thought to be of Gaelic or Norse-Gaelic origin.[3] He may have been one of the Norse-Gaelic settlers resident in north-western Northumbria during the period.[4]

Notes
  1. Sawyer no. 679; Keynes, Atlas, Table LVI (1 of 3)
  2. Brooks, Gelling and Johnson, "New Charter", p. 141
  3. Bolton, Empire, p. 113; Brooks, Gelling and Johnson, "New Charter", p. 141
  4. Bolton, Empire, p. 113

References
  • Bolton, Timothy (1992), The Empire of Cnut the Great: Conquest and the Consolidation of Power in Northern Europe in the Early Eleventh Century, The Northern World. North Europe and the Baltic c. 400–1700 A.D.: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, volume 40, Leiden: Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-16670-7, ISSN 1569-1462
  • Brooks, Nicholas; Gelling, Margaret; Johnson, Douglas (1984), "A New Charter of King Edgar", Anglo-Saxon England, 13: 137–55, doi:10.1017/s0263675100003550, ISBN 9780521332033, ISSN 0263-6751
  • Keynes, Simon (2002), An Atlas of Attestations in Anglo-Saxon Charters, c. 670–1066, ASNC Guides, Texts, and Studies, 5, Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic Studies, University of Cambridge, ISBN 0-9532697-6-0, ISSN 1475-8520
  • Miller, Sean, New Regesta Regum Anglorum, Anglo-Saxons.net, retrieved 7 June 2009
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