AESTIVATION (from

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• LAT

Lat. aestivare, to spend the aestas, or summer; the word is sometimes spelled " estivation ")  , literally " summer residence," a term used in zoology for the condition of torpor into which certain animals pass during the hottest season in hot and dry countries, contrasted with the similar winter condition known as hibernation (q.v.) . In botany the word is used of the praefloration or folded arrangement of the petals in a flower before expansion in the summer, contrasted with " vernation " of leaves which unfold in the spring . 1ETHELBALD, king of Mercia, succeeded Ceolred A.D . 716 . According to Felix, Life of St Guthlac, he visited the saint at Crowland, when exiled by Ceolred and pursued by his emissaries before his accession, and was cheered by predictions of his future greatness . According to Bede, the whole of Britain as far north as the Humber was included within the sphere of his authority . His energy in preserving his influence is shown by several entries in the Chronicle . He made an expedition against Wessex in 733, in which year he took the royal vill of Somerton . In 740 he took advantage of the absence of Eadberht of Northumbria in a campaign against the Picts to invade his kingdom . In 743 he fought with Cuthred, king of Wessex, against the Welsh, but the alliance did not last long, as in 752 Cuthred took up arms against him . In 757 1Ethelbald was slain by his guards at Seckington (Warwickshire) and buried at Repton . He seems to have been the most powerful and energetic king of Mercia between Penda and Offa .

A

letter of St Boniface is preserved, in which he rebukes this king for his immoralities and encroachments on church property, while recognizing his merits as a monarch . By a charter of 749 he freed ecclesiastical lands from all obligations except the trinoda necessitas . See Bede, Hist . Ecc . (ed . Plummer), v . 23 and Continuatio s.a . 740, 75o, 757; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer), s.a . 716, 733, 737, 740, 741, 743, 755; Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum, ii. pp . 264, 275, 276, 279, 283-284; P . Jaffe, Monumenta Moguntiaca, iii. pp . 168-177; W. de G .

Birch, Cartul . Saxon . 178 (1885-1893) . (F . G . M .