Edith of Wessex

Edith of Wessex
Illustration of Edith by Matthew Paris
Queen consort of England
Tenure23 January 1045 – 5 January 1066
Coronation23 January 1045, Old Minster, Winchester
BornGytha
c. 1025
Died18 December 1075 (aged 49–50)
Burial
SpouseEdward the Confessor
HouseGodwin
FatherGodwin, Earl of Wessex
MotherGytha Thorkelsdóttir

Edith of Wessex (Old English: Ealdgyth; c. 1025 – 18 December 1075) was Queen of England through her marriage to Edward the Confessor from 1045 until Edward's death in 1066. Unlike most English queens in the 10th and 11th centuries, she was crowned.[1] The principal source on her life is a work she herself commissioned, the Vita Ædwardi Regis or the Life of King Edward who rests at Westminster, which is inevitably biased.[2]

  1. ^ Pauline Stafford, 'Edith, Edward's Wife and Queen', in Richard Mortimer ed., Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, The Boydell Press, 2009, pp. 119, 129–130. Stafford states (p. 124) that Edith was between 12 and 25 when she married, and probably nearer 25.
  2. ^ Historians disagree whether this was partly written in 1065–66, before Edward's death, or was a unitary work of the late 1060s. Stafford, 2009, pp. 119–120 and note, Ann Williams, ODNB, Edith