Editing Æthelstan (section)

===Administration===
[[File:Painting, Beverley Minster - geograph.org.uk - 1317269.jpg|thumb|upright=1.7|A sixteenth-century painting in [[Beverley Minster]] in the [[East Riding of Yorkshire]] of Æthelstan with Saint [[John of Beverley]]|alt=refer to caption]]

Anglo-Saxon kings ruled through [[ealdorman|ealdormen]], who had the highest lay status under the king. In ninth-century Wessex they each ruled a single shire, but by the middle of the tenth they had authority over a much wider area, a change probably introduced by Æthelstan to deal with the problems of governing his extended realm.{{Sfnm|1a1=John|1y=1982|1p=172|2a1=Stafford|2y=2014|2pp=156–157}} One of the ealdormen, who was also called [[Æthelstan Half-King|Æthelstan]], governed the eastern Danelaw territory of East Anglia, the largest and wealthiest province of England. He became so powerful that he was later known as Æthelstan Half King.{{Sfn|Hart|1992|p=575}} Several of the ealdormen who witnessed charters had Scandinavian names, and while the localities they came from cannot be identified, they were almost certainly the successors of the earls who led Danish armies in the time of Edward the Elder, and who were retained by Æthelstan as his representatives in local government.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|p=129}}

Beneath the ealdormen, reeves—royal officials who were noble local landowners—were in charge of a town or royal estate. The authority of church and state was not separated in early medieval societies, and the lay officials worked closely with their diocesan bishop and local abbots, who also attended the king's royal councils.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|p=130}}

As the first king of all the Anglo-Saxon peoples, Æthelstan needed effective means to govern his extended realm. Building on the foundations of his predecessors, he created the most centralised government that England had yet seen.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|p=10}} Previously, some charters had been produced by royal priests and others by members of religious houses, but between 928 and 935 they were produced exclusively by a scribe known to historians as "[[Æthelstan A]]", showing an unprecedented degree of royal control over an important activity. Unlike earlier and later charters, "Æthelstan A" provides full details of the date and place of adoption and an unusually long witness list, providing crucial information for historians. After "Æthelstan A" retired or died, charters reverted to a simpler form, suggesting that they had been the work of an individual, rather than the development of a formal writing office.{{Sfn|Foot|2011|pp=71–72}}

A key mechanism of government was the king's council (''[[witan]]'' in Old English).{{Sfn|Yorke|2014|pp=126–127}} Anglo-Saxon kings did not have a fixed capital city. Their courts were peripatetic, and their councils were held at varying locations around their realms. Æthelstan stayed mainly in Wessex, however, and controlled outlying areas by summoning leading figures to his councils. The small and intimate meetings that had been adequate until the enlargement of the kingdom under Edward the Elder gave way to large bodies attended by bishops, ealdormen, [[thegn]]s, magnates from distant areas, and independent rulers who had submitted to his authority. [[Frank Stenton]] sees Æthelstan's councils as "national assemblies", which did much to break down the provincialism that was a barrier to the unification of England. John Maddicott goes further, seeing them as the start of centralised assemblies that had a defined role in English government, and Æthelstan as "the true if unwitting founder of the English parliament".{{Sfnm|1a1=Foot|1y=2011|1pp=63, 77–79|2a1=Stenton|2y=1971|2p=352|3a1=Maddicott|3y=2010|3p=4}}