Æthelstan noble title king
British monarch
Historians frequently comment on Æthelstan's grand and extravagant titles. On his coins and charters he is described as Rex totius Britanniae, or "King of the whole of Britain". A gospel book he donated to Christ Church, Canterbury is inscribed "Æthelstan, king of the English and ruler of the whole of Britain with a devout mind gave this book to the primatial see of Canterbury, to the church dedicated to Christ". In charters from 931 he is "king of the English, elevated by the right hand of the almighty to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain", and in one manuscript dedication he is even styled "basileus et curagulus", the titles of Byzantine emperors. Some historians are not impressed. "Clearly", comments Alex Woolf, "King Æthelstan was a man who had pretensions," while in the view of Simon Keynes, "Æthelstan A" proclaimed his master king of Britain "by wishful extension". But according to George Molyneaux "this is to apply an anachronistic standard: tenth-century kings had a loose but real hegemony throughout the island, and their titles only appear inflated if one assumes that kingship ought to involve domination of an intensity like that seen within the English kingdom of the eleventh and later centuries."
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