'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
Richard Abels
Was King Æthelred Really Unready?
1 hour 13 minutes Posted Dec 20, 2022 at 8:00 pm.
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Few English kings have had a worse popular reputation than Æthelred the Unready (r.978-1016), the king who lost England (at least temporarily) to viking invaders. But does he deserve that reputation?  Was King Æthelred really "unready"?  My co-host for this episode is the person most qualified to answer that question, Dr. Levy Roach of the University of Exeter in the U.K, author of Æthelred the Unready (Yale University Press, 2016).  Please join Levy and me as we explore the troubled reign of a much maligned king.