Alwara Athelstansdottir (Mercia) of Mercia (abt. 955 - abt. 1030)

Born about 0955 in Mercia, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1030 at about age 75 in Mercia, Wessex, England

Research Notes

Alwara is mentioned as the wife of Leofwine, Earl of Mercia, and daughter of Athelstan Mannesson, and his wife, a daughter of Athelstan, an Anglo-Saxon duke, and "Half king of all England" in John Burke's A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland: M to Z, published in 1846.^[1]

It's not clear whether this is the first mention of Alwara, or whether Burke is basing his genealogy on an earlier source, but presumably Dodds, in his article Observations of the origin of St Mary-Stow, in the County of Lincoln,^[2] is basing the genealogy he provides on Burke, although there are no sources cited in the genealogical section. He adds additional details, including, Alwena as the name of Alwara's mother, and Eadnoth, Bishop of Dorchester as Alwara's maternal uncle. Dodds confuses Athelstan, Saxon Duke and Half-King, with Athelstan, King of Wessex, the eldest son of King Edward 'the elder'.

Although some of these people are confirmed by medieval sources, Alwara herself is not mentioned and it would appear that her existence is legendary or based on purely later secondary sources as indicated above.

Some examples:

1. Alwara doesn't appear under that name or any similar names, in either the recent Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) database or in the earlier Onomasticon anglo-saxonicum: a list of Anglo-Saxon proper names from the time of Beda to that of King John, by William George Searle.
2. The wife of Leofwine, is not named in medieval sources. See PASE database or Charles Cawley's Medieval Lands database.
3. Although an Æthelstan Mannesunne, did exist and have two daughters, one unnamed, and the younger called Ælfwenna, neither is known to have married or had children. His wife's name is also unknown.
4. Eadnoth (I), Bishop of Dorchester, did have a sister Ælfwynn, but nothing more is known about her, and their parents aren't named.

Sources

1. ↑ Burke, John. & Burke, John Bernard. 1846. A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland: M to Z. London: Henry Colburn. p. 1285. Digital image Google Books. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=FlI4AQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-FlI4AQAAMAAJ&rdot=1 : viewed 29 July 2017.
2. ↑ Dodds, Geo. 'Observations of the origin of St Mary-Stow, in the County of Lincoln' part 2, p. 29. In The Reliquary quarterly: Archaelogical journal and reivew, ed Llewellynn Jewitt. Vol. XIII 1872-1873. Digital image, HathiTrust https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015065584743;view=1up;seq=5 : viewed 29 July 2017.