Aetheling

Aetheling, also spelt ætheling, atheling or etheling, was an Old English term used in Anglo-Saxon England to designate princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible for the kingship. It derives from the Old English æþele, noble. It was usually rendered in Latin as clito.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the annal for 728, refers to a certain Oswald as aetheling due to his great-great-grandfather being king of the West Saxons. From the ninth century, however, the designation was used in a much narrower context and came to refer exclusively to members of the house of Cerdic, the ruling dynasty of Wessex, most particularly sons or brothers of reigning kings. Unusually, Edgar Ætheling receives this appellation due to being the grandson of King Edmund Ironside

Aetheling was also used in a poetic sense to mean "a good and noble man". Old English verse often uses it to describe Christ, prophets and saints, for example.

After the Norman Conquest the term was used only occasionally. Perhaps the most notable example was William Adelin, the only legitimate son and heir of Henry I, who died in the White Ship disaster of 1120.

It has been proposed, although the question remains an open one, that the idea of the tanáise ríg in Early Medieval Ireland was adopted from the Anglo-Saxon, specifically Northumbrian, concept of the aetheling. The earliest use of tanaíste ríg was of an Anglo-Saxon prince c. 628, and many subsequent ones relate to non-Irish rulers before the term attaches to Irish kings-in-waiting.

 

References

• Miller, S., "Ætheling" in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge, J. Blair, S. Keynes & D. Scragg. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. ISBN 0-631-22492-0
• Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, Early Medieval Ireland: 400–1200. London: Longman, 1995. ISBN 0-582-01565-0