Æthelstan A is the name given by historians to an unknown scribe who drafted charters, by which the king made grants of land, for King Æthelstan of England between 928 and 935. They are an important source for historians as they provide far more information than other charters of the period, showing the date and place of the grant, and having an unusually long list of witnesses, including Welsh kings and occasionally kings of Scotland and Strathclyde.
King Æthelstan at left presenting a book to St Cuthbert. Illustration in a gospel book presented by Æthelstan to the saint's shrine in Chester-le-Street; the earliest surviving portrait of an English king.
Æthelstan or Athelstan was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern historians regard him as the first King of England and one of the "greatest Anglo-Saxon kings". He never married and had no children; he was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.
Æthelstan presenting a book to St Cuthbert, an illustration in a manuscript of Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert, probably presented to the saint's shrine in Chester-le-Street by Æthelstan when he visited the shrine on his journey to Scotland in 934. He wore a crown of a similar design on his crowned bust coins. It is the oldest surviving portrait of an English king and the manuscript is the oldest surviving made for an English king.
Statue in Tamworth, Staffordshire of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, with her young nephew Æthelstan
Silver penny of King Æthelstan
A sixteenth-century painting in Beverley Minster in the East Riding of Yorkshire of Æthelstan with Saint John of Beverley
