Event: MutilationCenwulf 3.mutilation of Eadberht 18

Scholarly Info
Description [Cenwulf 3] had the hands [of Eadberht 18] cut off.
Year 798
Primary Source Info
Original Text F(OE): ... let ... ceorfan of his hand.; F(Lat.): ... manus quoque eius fecit abscidere.
Date from Source 796 F(OE and Lat.)

Notes:

*@Baker 2000, p. xlix, §61 796*, comments: 'This rather striking detail of Cenwulf's (in F and all other Chronicle manuscripts--incorrectly--Cenwulf 3's) treatment of Eadberht 18 Præn is attested only in F and in the Historia Regum under the year 798: Captus est eodem tempore Eadberht 18 rex Cantuariorum, cuius oculos præcepit auelli rex Merciorum, et manus immisericorditer præcidi. The F-scribe started to insert this as a separate annal at 798: Her Ce[n]wulf [M]yrcena cing het [don] ut Eadberhtes 'c[in]ges' e[a]gan 7 his; traces of the corresponding Latin annal are still visible. Seeing, no doubt, that this incident belonged with the capture of Eadberht 18 as reported by the other Chronicle manuscripts at 796, the scribe abandoned and erased the insertion at 798 and inserted the same information at 796. The visible traces of the erasure at 798 suggest that the F-scribe wrote Cenwulf, not Cenwulf 3, at 798.' Baker continues (p. l): 'The mutilation of Eadberht 18 Præn is generally reported as fact, possibly because it is seen as attested by two independent sources. But the nearby coincidence at 790 and the evidence of the abortive insertion at 798 argue strongly that the report of the mutilation of Eadberht 18 in F came from the Historia Regum itself, or a source or derivative of that text. The report may indeed be true; but it rests upon the authority of Byrhtferth alone.'

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