Individual

Go to List of Family Names Go to List of People    < Previous Next >

Birth:          ABT  922 of Devonshire, England

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordgar,_Ealdorman_of_Devon
Ordgar (died 971) was Ealdorman of Devon in England. He was a great West Country 
landowner and apparently a close advisor[1] of his son-in-law Edgar the Peaceful, 
king of England. His daughter Ælfthryth was King Edgar's third wife and was mother of 
King Æthelred the Unready (c.968-1016). Ordgar was created an Ealdorman by King 
Edgar in 964. He founded Tavistock Abbey in 961.[2]

Biography[edit]

Historical sources[edit]

Little is known about Ordgar other than what survives in three historical sources:
His name appears as a witness on charters of King Edgar between 962 and 970.[1]
Digressions in William of Malmesbury's Gesta pontificum Anglorum[3]
More substantial references in Geoffrey Gaimar's L'Estoire des Engles regarding the 
love affairs and marriages of his daughter Ælfthryth.[4]

Gaimar's account[edit]

According to Gaimar, Ordgar was the son of an ealdorman, and owned land in every 
parish from Exeter in Devon to Frome in Somerset. He married an unknown lady of 
royal birth, by whom he had a daughter Ælfthryth. The Oxford Dictionary of National 
Biography draws a conclusion that Ordgar was "clearly a figure of some importance" 
to have secured such a match.[1] King Edgar determined on marrying Ælfthryth and to 
this end he sent Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia as his agent to woo her. On 
arrival Æthelwald found her in company with her father Ordgar, whom she completely 
controlled by her personality, playing at chess, which they had learned from the 
Danes.[5] Æthelwald instead took Ælfthryth for his own wife and married her in about 
956.[5]

Æthelwald died in 962, and Dunstan suspected that he was murdered by his wife 
Ælfthryth who thereafter, according to Dunstan, seduced King Edgar and murdered his 
son Prince Edward the Martyr in order to pave the way for the crowning of her son 
Æthelred as king. It is however certain that, under whatever actual circumstances, 
Ælfthryth became King Edgar's third wife in 964 and in the same year her father Ordgar 
was created Ealdorman. The ODNB supposes that Ordgar from the time of his 
daughter's royal marriage until 970 was one of Edgar's closest advisors, by virtue of 
his being named as witness on almost all charters issued by King Edgar during the 
period.[1]

Tavistock Abbey[edit]

Tavistock Abbey was founded in 961 by Ordgar and completed by his son Ordwulf[6] 
in 981, when the charter of confirmation was granted by King Ethelred the Unready. It 
was endowed with lands in Devon, Dorset and Cornwall, and became one of the 
richest abbeys in the west of England.

Death and burial[edit]

Ordgar died in 971. According to William of Malmesbury, he was buried with his son at 
Tavistock, but according to Florence of Worcester, he was buried at Exeter.[5]


Marriage To ____ Wulfrith (ABT  920 - )
    m.  

Notes


Children by ____ Wulfrith ABT  920 - 
____ Elfrida (Elfthryth) (ABT  947 - 1000)

Produced by Fzip 1.7 6/20/2017