Sermo Lupi ad Anglos as the king's chief legal draftsman on into the reign of the Danish king Cnut the Great. It is both remarkable and puzzling that Wulfstan was able to play so central a role in politics under both Æthelred's and Cnut's reigns, especially as it was under Æthelred's reign that Wulfstan, in his "Sermo Lupi", so vehemently decried the depredations of the Danish and Norwegian Vikings. King Æthelred II — nicknamed Æthelred 'The Unready' - ruled England from 978-1016. For virtually his entire reign, England was the object of successive Viking raids. Between the period of 980-1016, few areas of southern
Æthelstan Half-King brother Ælfstan became Ealdorman of some parts of Mercia at about the same time and both of them may have participated in king Æthelstan's invasion of Scotland in 934. His other brothers, Eadric and Æthelwald, were witnessing charters as Ealdormen by 940. Æthelstan and his family were supporters of the monastic reforms of Saint Dunstan which introduced the Benedictine rule to Glastonbury. Both Glastonbury, and Abingdon Abbey, were endowed by Æthelstan. Æthelstan's wife was named Ælfwynn. Her family came from the east Midlands. She was foster-mother of King Edgar of England. Ælfwynn's lands would later endow Ramsey Abbey, refounded by