Editing Edgar, King of England (section)

=== Administration ===
Edgar became king of the whole of England when Eadwig died on 1 October 959, and his former tutor Æthelwold became one of the most powerful figures at court. He was probably in Edgar's personal service as an adviser from 960 until 963, when the king appointed him Bishop of Winchester.{{sfn|Yorke|1988a|pp=3, 10}} Dunstan, who became Archbishop of Canterbury at the start of Edgar's reign, was diligent in attending court,{{sfn|Brooks|1984|p=247}} and in the historian Alan Thacker's view: "While Æthelwold's characteristic context is his monastic empire, Dunstan's is the royal court".{{sfn|Thacker|1992|p=244}} In the early 970s the leading secular magnates were [[Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia]] (Æthelwold's brother and successor), Ælfhere of Mercia, [[Oslac of York]] and Byrhtnoth of Essex.{{sfn|Keynes|1999|p=480}}

The charters of the 960s and early 970s are similar and do not suggest political change in the period, but from the late 960s northern magnates were more regularly represented.{{sfn|Keynes|1999|p=480}} In 954, Eadred had appointed [[Osulf I of Bamburgh|Osulf]], the ruler of the north Northumbrian territory of [[Bamburgh]], as the ealdorman of the whole of Northumbria following the expulsion of the Viking king of York, Erik Bloodaxe. Osulf did not owe his power to southern English support, and when he died in the 960s Edgar again divided Northumbria and appointed Oslac as ealdorman of York (southern Northumbria), increasing his control over the area, but he was not able to choose who held power in Bamburgh.{{sfn|Molyneaux|2015|pp=122–123, 177–179, 199}}

Ealdormen were important in providing stability in a period when kings died young, but the families of Æthelwine of East Anglia and Ælfhere of Mercia gained unassailable positions and their rivalries were a threat to the stability of the kingdom.{{sfn|Yorke|1995|p=131}} Edgar was able to keep them under control, but these tensions collapsed into open hostilities after his death.{{sfnm|1a1=Yorke|1y=2008|1pp=149–150|2a1=Hart|2y=2005}} Ealdormen for areas south of the Thames do not attest after 970, and this may be because Edgar chose to govern these areas through royal officials of lower status. [[Reeve (England)|Reeves]] may have been entrusted with duties which were previously carried out by ealdormen. This made his rule less uniform, with different methods of government in different areas.{{sfn|Molyneaux|2015|pp=181–182}} The gap was filled after his death by the appointment of three new southern ealdormen.{{sfn|Keynes|2008a|p=53}}

Kingship was peripatetic. There was no fixed capital city and the court moved from one royal estate to another, four or five times a year.{{sfnm|1a1=Stenton|1y=1971|1p=539|2a1=Keynes|2y=2008a|2p=10}} According to John of Worcester, each winter and spring Edgar would travel round the kingdom to enquire whether the statutes he had promulgated were being observed and whether the poor were being unjustly treated by the powerful.{{sfn|Darlington|McGurk|1995|p=427}} The historian Richard Huscroft describes this account as "perhaps a little rose-tinted".{{sfn|Huscroft|2019|pp=161–162}} Harrying was a standard punishment for crimes committed by communities, and in 974 Edgar ordered the people of [[Isle of Thanet|Thanet]] to be deprived of their property and some of them executed, because they had robbed passing traders from York.{{sfnm|1a1=Stenton|1y=1971|1pp=562–563|2a1=Giles|2y=1849|2p=263}} Forfeiture of land for wrongdoing gave the king opportunities for patronage or receiving payments for remission of punishment. In one case, Edgar rescinded a forfeiture for 100 [[mancus]]es{{efn|A mancus was an amount of gold in weight, coin or value worth 30 pence.{{sfn|Naismith|2014a|p=330}} }} of gold, and in another he restored several confiscated estates for 120 mancuses.{{sfn|Molyneaux|2015|pp=72–73}}