Encomium Emmae Reginae

 

Encomium Emmae Reginae
‘Praise of Queen Emma’
This manuscript contains an account praising Emma (d. 1052), the second consort of both Æthelred II (d. 1016), king of England, and Cnut (d. 1035), king of England, Denmark and Norway. The work was composed by a Flemish monk at Emma's behest. This manuscript also contains an image of the author presenting his work to Emma while her sons Harthacnut (d. 1042) and Edward the Confessor (d. 1066) look on.
This copy of the Encomium was probably produced soon after 1041, during a period of joint rule between Harthacnut (r. 1040–1042) – Emma’s son with Cnut – and Edward the Confessor, Emma’s son with Æthelred (r. 1041–1066). In this copy of the text, King Æthelred was written out of the story and other details were manipulated.
However, after the death of King Harthacnut, on 8 June 1042, the author of the Encomium produced a new version of his work, with a significantly different ending. He now represented Edward as the rightful king and celebrated Edward’s status as the son of King Æthelred. It was a blatant attempt to re-write a story which had itself already re-written history. The only medieval copy of this revised version only came to light in 2008. That 15th-century manuscript is now in Copenhagen.

The original manuscript at the British Library
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/encomium-emmae-reginae
https://manuscrits-france-angleterre.org/view3if/pl/ark:/81055/vdc_100055997590.0x000001

The  Alistair Campbell translation, Publication date 1949, at Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.185337/page/n1/mode/2up

More about the second manuscript
This manuscript was previously thought to be the only surviving copy of the Encomium Emmae Reginae (Praise of Queen Emma) until another copy, containing the unique Edwardian recension of the text, was identified in Copenhagen, Royal Library, Acc. 2011/5 in 2008. The two copies are largely the same, except for their endings (see Bolton, 'A Newly Emergent Mediaeval Manuscript' (2009))

Timothy Bolton, ‘A Newly Emergent Mediaeval Manuscript Containing Encomium Emmae Reginae with the Only Known Complete Text of the Recension Prepared for King Edward the Confessor’, Mediaeval Studies, 19 (2009), 205-21
https://www.academia.edu/29475908