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Cynethryth

Cynethryth
Queen consort of Mercia
Cynethryth penny obverse.png
Portrait penny of Cynethryth, minted by Eoba at Canterbury. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon queen known to have had coins issued in her name and these are unique in Western Europe of the period. Coin held by the British Museum.
Died After 798
Spouse Offa of Mercia
Issue Ecgfrith of Mercia
Eadburh, Queen of Wessex
Ælfflæd, Queen of Northumbria
Æthelburh
Æthelswith

Cynethryth (Cyneðryð; died after AD 798) was a Queen of Mercia and wife of King Offa of Mercia and mother of King Ecgfrith of Mercia. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon Queen consort in whose name coinage was definitely issued.

Nothing certain is known of Cynethryth's origins. Her name recalls the wife and daughters of King Penda—Cynewise, Cyneburh, and Cyneswith—which may indicate that she was a descendant of Penda.

A tradition related by the 13th century Vitae duorum Offarum tells that she was of Frankish origin, and that for her crimes she was condemned by Charlemagne's justice system to be set adrift at sea in an open boat. The boat eventually stranded on the Welsh coast where she was taken to Offa. She pleaded that she had been cruelly persecuted and was of the royal house of Charles the Great. Offa left Drida, as she was called, in the charge of Marcellina, his mother. Offa would fall in love with and marry her, at which point she adopted the name Quindrida, but she continued in her iniquitous ways before being murdered by robbers. This seems to relate to a brief mention of Offa's sinful but reformed wife, Thritha, that appears in Beowulf, but also has aspects similar to a story told of the wife of Offa of Angel, a Yorkshire girl set adrift by her father.

Unlike the relations of Æthelbald, Offa's predecessor, which had been condemned by the church, the marriage of Offa and Cynethryth was entirely conventional and met with the approval of the church hierarchy. In a letter to Cynethryth and Offa's son Ecgfrith, Alcuin advises him to follow the example of his parents, including his mother's piety. Elsewhere Alcuin refers to Cynethryth as "controller of the Royal household".

The date of Offa and Cynethryth's marriage is not known, but it was not until after the birth of Ecgfrith that Cynethryth began to witness charters. She first witnessed a charter dated 770, along with Ecgfrith and Ælfflæd. By 780 she is Cyneðryð Dei gratia regina Merciorum ("Cynethryth, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Mercians").


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