ABSTRACT
The heirs of King Alfred had steadily extended their rule over the whole of what we call England. King Edgar (959-75) could claim the full allegiance of English and Danish subjects within the boundaries of England, and was acknowledged overlord by virtually all the princes in the island; nor were the princes of Man and of Ireland unaware of him. In some ways one may liken the distribution of power in the British Isles in this age to that on Germany’s eastern frontiers. Bohemia, Hungary and Poland owed to the German king an allegiance somewhat similar to that which was admitted by the seven Welsh and Scottish kings who submitted to Edgar at Chester in 973. A powerful king received this allegiance, though he might sometimes have to fight for it; a weak king was ignored by the more distant princes. The links, moreover, were made closer in the eleventh and especially in the twelfth century by settlement, of Germans in many parts of eastern Europe, by AngloNormans in Wales, Scotland, and eventually in Ireland. The suzerainty of a quasi-imperial power over small kingdoms, sometimes of different race and language, is indeed characteristic of the period.
