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Emma 2

Name

Summary

Emma 2 ‘of Normandy’ was the wife of the English kings Æthelræd 32 and then Cnut 3 and died in 1052. She is named in connection with an estate in the Hampshire folios.

Profile

Emma 2 ‘of Normandy’ was the wife of the English kings Æthelræd 32 and then Cnut 3 and died in 1052, long before the Norman Conquest of which she was a contributory cause (Keynes 2004).  She is mentioned in DB in connection with a large estate of 10 hides at Hayling Island (a predominantly flat expanse of light soils and marsh separated by a narrow channel from the Hampshire coast), of which she had granted half to the monks of Winchester Cathedral and half to Wulfweard White (Wulfweard 17), the latter on a life lease; the estate was probably in the area later known as South Hayling (Page 1908: 129-31; Coates 1989: 89).  A chirograph apparently made shortly after her death reiterates the agreement between the Old Minster and Wulfweard (S 1476; Robertson 1939: 212-13, 462-4).

Bibliography

Coates 1989: R. Coates, The Place-Names of Hampshire (London, 1989)

Keynes 2004: S. Keynes, ‘Emma (d. 1052)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)

Page 1908: A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3, ed. W. Page (London, 1908), pp. 129-31

Robertson 1939: Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J, Robertson (Cambridge, 1939)