t h e a n g l o -�s a x o n w o r l d

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 THE
ANGLO-�SAXON
WORLD
nicholas j. higham and martin j. ryan

YALE UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

NEW HAV E N A N D LON D ON
Copyright © 2013 Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan

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Higham, N. J.
The Anglo-Saxon world/Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–300–12534–4 (cl : alk. paper)
1. Great Britain—History—Anglo-Saxon period, 449–1066. 2. Anglo-Saxons. I. Ryan, Martin J. II.
Title.
DA152.H528 2013
942.01—dc23
2013005724

Library of Congress Cataloging-�in-�Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Cheryl and Rosa
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 Contents

List of Illustrations╇ viii

Acknowledgements╇ xiii

Introduction╇ 1
Chapter 1 Britain in and out of the Roman Empire╇ 20

Chapter 2 The Origins of England╇ 70

Chapter 3 From Tribal Chieftains to Christian Kings╇126

Chapter 4 The Mercian Supremacies╇179

Chapter 5 The Anglo-Â�Saxons and the Vikings, c. 825–900╇232

Chapter 6 Conquest, Reform and the Making of England╇284

Chapter 7 The Age of Æthelred╇335

Chapter 8 The Transformation of Anglo-�Saxon England╇387

Bibliography╇ 443
Index╇ 459
 Illustrations
Introduction 1.23 Irregular silver siliqua from the Hoxne Hoard. ©
╇ I.1 Richard Keene in the churchyard of St Lawrence, Trustees of the British Museum. 49
Eyam, Derbyshire. Courtesy of Derby Local Studies 1.24 Gold tremissis found on the Isle of Wight. ©
and www.picturethepast.org. xvi Trustees of the British Museum. 50
╇ I.2 The Anglo-Â�Saxon Church. 1 1.25 Tor Dyke, North Yorkshire. © Erik Grigg. 52
╇ I.3 The internal structure of England. 2 1.26 Dark Age dykes. Courtesy of Erik Grigg. 53
╇ I.4 The queue for the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition. 1.27 The RIACUS inscription at Vindolanda. © Andrew
© N. J. Higham. 5 Birley. 55
╇ I.5 Migration into and out of Britain, 400–600. 6
╇ I.6 Northumbria to 685. 10 Sources and Issues 1a Gildas
╇ I.7 Mercia to the 820s. 11 1a.1 Page from Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae. © British
╇ I.8 The statue of King Alfred the Great, Winchester. Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A vi, folio 24v. 58
© M. J. Ryan. 15 1a.2 Church of Gildas de Rhus, Morbihan, southern
╇ I.9 Peat column at Glastonbury. © V. Straker. 17 Brittany. © N. J. Higham. 60
I.10 Pollarded yew at Church Preen. © N. J. Higham. 18 1a.3 The geography of On the Ruin of Britain. 61

Chapter 1 Britain in and out of the Roman Empire Sources and Issues 1b King Arthur
╇ 1.1 Places named in chapter 1. 21 1b.1 Arthur-�names in the British countryside. After
╇ 1.2 The later Roman Empire. 22 Higham 2002. 64
╇ 1.3 Relief and rainfall. 23 1b.2 Arthur’s Stone, Dorstone, Herefordshire. Creative
╇ 1.4 Hadrian’s Wall, milecastle 39. iStockphoto. 24 Commons. 65
╇ 1.5 The auxiliary fort and vicus at Old Carlisle. © 1b.3 Craig Arthur, near Llangollen. 66
N. J. Higham. 24 1b.4 Tintagel. © N. J. Higham. 67
╇ 1.6 Roman roads in Britain. 26 1b.5 The Winchester Round Table. © English Heritage. 68
╇ 1.7 Curse tablet from Uley. © Trustees of the British
Museum. 29 Chapter 2 The Origins of England
╇ 1.8 Roman villas in Britain. 31 ╇ 2.1 Places named in chapter 2. 71
╇ 1.9 Reconstruction of Lullingstone Roman villa. By ╇ 2.2 Pastoral scene from Illustrated History of the World,
Peter Urmston. © English Heritage. 32 c. 1884. 72
1.10╇ Mosaic in Lullingstone Roman villa. © English ╇ 2.3 Bede’s description of the foundation of Anglo-Â�
Heritage. 32 Saxon England. 74
1.11 The defences of late Roman Britain. 34 ╇ 2.4 Ornamented copper-�alloy belt buckle plate from
1.12 Pevensey Saxon Shore fort. Simon Carey/Geograph. 35 Mucking, Essex. © Trustees of the British Museum. 78
1.13 Vindolanda Roman fort. © Andrew Birley. 37 ╇ 2.5 Silver quoit brooch from Howletts, Kent. ©
1.14 Coin loss in later Roman Britain. © Philippa Walton. 38 Trustees of the British Museum. 79
1.15 The second-�century baths at Wroxeter, Viroconium. ╇ 2.6 Distribution of the quoit style of fifth-�century
© Alamy. 39 metalwork in Britain. After Suzuki 2000. 79
1.16 Lead font from Icklingham, Suffolk. © Trustees of ╇ 2.7 Furnished Anglo-Â�Saxon cemeteries. After Lucy 2000. 80
the British Museum. 40 ╇ 2.8 Intercut cremation urns at Cleatham. ©
1.17 Inhumation at Baldock. Courtesy of Keith Kevin Leahy. 82
Fitzpatrick-Â�Matthews. © N. Hertfordshire ╇ 2.9 Inhumation cemetery at Buckland, near Dover.
District Council. 44 After Parfitt and Anderson 2012. 83
1.18 Late Romano-Â�British vessel from Pirton, 2.10 Skull from Heronbridge, Cheshire. © Manchester
Hertfordshire. Courtesy of Keith Fitzpatrick-� Museum. 84
Matthews, © N. Hertfordshire District Council. 45 2.11 Warrior burial from Cleatham. © Kevin Leahy. 85
1.19 Watermill at Ickham, Kent. © Canterbury 2.12 Brooch types in Early Anglo-Â�Saxon England. After
Archaeological Trust. 45 West 1985; Timby 1996; Leahy 2007 and Evison
1.20 Inhumation at Trinity Street, Southwark. Courtesy and Hill 1996. 86
of Gary Brown. © Pre-Â�Construct Archaeology Ltd. 47 2.13 Finds in Kent indicative of Jutish and Continental
1.21 Sarcophagus from St Martin-Â�in-Â�the-Â�Fields. North Sea coastal areas. © Canterbury
Courtesy of Alison Telfer. © Museum of London Archaeological Trust. 88
Archaeology. 48 2.14 Button brooch from Harham Hill, Wiltshire. ©
1.22 Engraved onyx on a gold ring from the Thetford Trustees of the British Museum. 88
Hoard. © Trustees of the British Museum. 49
 i l lu s t r at i o n s ix

2.15 The second dimension of Y-Â�chromosome diversity ╇ 3.6 Ship under mound 1, Sutton Hoo. © Trustees of the
in Western Europe. After McEvoy, Richards, Forster British Museum. 133
and Bradley 2004. 90 ╇ 3.7 The Sutton Hoo helmet. © Trustees British of the
2.16 Sunken-Â�Featured Building at Lyminge, Kent. © Museum. 134
Gabor Thomas. 92 ╇ 3.8 Purse-Â�lid from Sutton Hoo. © Trustees of the British
2.17 Loom weights at the base of an SFB at West Museum. 135
Heslerton. © Dominic Powlesland. 93 ╇ 3.9 Yeavering. After Hope-Â�Taylor 1977. 136
2.18 Plan of Mucking, Essex. After Hamerow 1993. 94 3.10 The Wrekin. Chris Bailey. 138
2.19 Reconstruction of buildings, West Stow, Suffolk. © 3.11 The Tribal Hidage. Based on Hill 1981. 140
N. J. Higham. 95 3.12 Crondall Hoard coins. © Ashmolean Museum,
2.20 Plan of West Heslerton. © Dominic Powlesland. 95 University of Oxford. 145
2.21 SFB at West Heslerton. © Dominic Powlesland. 96 3.13 Wics, or emporia, and ‘productive sites’. 146
2.22 Post-Â�hole defined halls at West Heslerton. © 3.14 Ipswich ware from Canterbury. © Canterbury
Dominic Powlesand. 96 Archaeological Trust. 147
2.23 Detail from geophysical survey of the Derwent 3.15 Brooches from the Buckland cemetery, Dover. ©
Valley. © Dominic Powlesland. 97 Canterbury Archaeological Trust. 148
2.24 Celtic and Latin place names in England. After 3.16 Gold bracteates from Buckland, Dover. ©
Coates and Breeze 2000. 98 Canterbury Archaeological Trust. 149
2.25 Pre-�English place names. After Gelling 1988; 3.17 Place names relating to pre-Christian temples. After
Jackson 1953; Cameron 1968. 101 Wilson 1992, with additions. 150
2.26 Dumbarton Rock. © N. J. Higham. 103 3.18 The Franks Casket. © Trustees of the British
2.27 Geography of the Anglo-�Saxon Settlement. After Museum. 151
Green 2012; Williamson 2010. 107 3.19 Devil’s Dyke, Newmarket. Hugh Venables, Geograph 152
2.28 Inscribed stone in Lady St Mary Church, Wareham. 3.20 St Martin’s Church, Canterbury. © Canterbury
© M. J. Ryan. 109 Archaeological Trust. 154
3.21 Sceptre or ceremonial whetstone from Sutton Hoo.
Sources and Issues 2a The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at © Trustees of the British Museum. 158
Spong Hill 3.22 Front cover of the Lindisfarne Gospels. © The
2a.1 Location map for Spong Hill. After Hills 1977. 113 British Library Board, MS Cotton Nero D. iv. 161
2a.2 Plan of the cemetery. Courtesy of Sam Lucy. 114 3.23 Bewcastle Cross. © Stan Pritchard /Alamy. 162
2a.3 Cremation urns. © Norwich Castle Museum and 3.24 Chapel of St Lawrence, Bradford-Â�on-Â�Avon.
Art Gallery. 115 © N. J. Higham. 165
2a.4 Cremation urn 1564. © Norwich Castle Museum
and Art Gallery. 116 Sources and Issues 3a The Venerable Bede
2a.5 ‘Spong Man’. © Norwich Castle Museum and Art 3a.1 St Paul’s Church, Jarrow. © N. J. Higham. 167
Gallery. 117 3a.2 The Codex Amiatinus. ©Biblioteca Medicea-Â�
2a.6 Inhumation 40. © Norfolk County Council, photo Laurenziana, Florence, Italy, Ms 1 f.796v / The
by R. J. Rickett. 118 Bridgeman Art Library. 169
3a.3 The Tiberius Bede. © The British Library Board,
Sources and Issues 2b The Prittlewell Chambered Grave Cotton Tiberius C. II, f.60v. 170
2b.1 Location map for Prittlewell. 121 3a.4 Stained glass from Jarrow. Redrawn by M. J. Ryan. 171
2b.2 The Prittlewell Burial Chamber. © Andy Chopping/ 3a.5 Bede’s Commentary on Luke. The British Library
Museum of London Archaeology. 122 Board, Egerton 2204, f. 2. 172
2b.3 Byzantine flagon. © Andy Chopping/ Museum of
London Archaeology. 123
Sources and Issues 3b The Staffordshire Hoard
2b.4 Gold-Â�foil crosses. © Andy Chopping/ Museum of 3b.1 Find spot of the Staffordshire Hoard. After Dean,
London Archaeology. 124
Hook and Jones 2010. 173
2b.5 Glass jars. © Andy Chopping/Museum of London 3b.2 Sword pommel. C.C. Portable Antiquities
Archaeology. 124
Scheme. 174
2b.6 Drinking horn mount. © Andy Chopping/ 3b.3 Gold plaque featuring two stylised birds of prey.
Museum of London Archaeology. 125
C.C. Portable Antiquities Scheme. 174
3b.4 Garnet-�decorated gold cross. C.C. Portable
Chapter 3 From Tribal Chieftains to Christian Kings Antiquities Scheme. 175
╇ 3.1 Places named in chapter 3. 127 3b.5 Cross fragment bearing a biblical inscription. C.C.
╇ 3.2 Hanging bowl from Sutton Hoo. © Trustees of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. 176
British Museum. 129 3b.6 Gold wire serpent. C.C. Portable Antiquities Scheme. 176
╇ 3.3 St Peter’s Tip, Broadstairs, Kent. After Hogarth
1973. 130
Chapter 4 The Mercian Supremacies
╇ 3.4 The Kingston Down Brooch. © National Museums
131 ╇ 4.1 Places named in chapter 4. 180
Liverpool.
╇4.2 The Ismere Diploma. © British Library Board,
╇ 3.5 Claw-Â�beakers from Taplow, Buckinghamshire. ©
132 Cotton Augustus II. 3. 184
Trustees of the British Museum.
x i l lu s t r at i o n s

╇ 4.3 Silver-Â�gilt finger ring. © Trustees of the Victoria 4b.3 The excavations. Courtesy of North Lincolnshire
and Albert Museum, London. 186 Museum Service. 228
╇ 4.4 Offa’s Dyke. © M. J. Ryan. 188 4b.4 Lead vessel. Courtesy of North Lincolnshire
╇ 4.5 Gilded-Â�silver sword-Â�grip and pommel. © Trustees Museum Service. 229
of the British Museum. 189 4b.5 Inscribed lead plaque. Courtesy of North
╇ 4.6 A silver penny of King Offa of Mercia. © Trustees Lincolnshire Museum Service. 230
of the British Museum. 190
╇ 4.7 A silver penny of Queen Cynethryth of Mercia. ©
Chapter 5 The Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings c. 825–900
Trustees of the British Museum. 191
╇ 5.1 Places named in chapter 5. 233
╇ 4.8 A gold coin of King Cenwulf of Mercia. © Trustees
╇ 5.2 The Lindisfarne Stone. ©Ancient Art and
of the British Museum. 192
Architecture Collection Ltd / The Bridgeman Art
╇ 4.9 The location of the Middle Saxon trading
Library. 234
settlement at Lundenwic. Based on Blackmore 2002. 194
╇ 5.3 Scandinavian activity in the Viking Age. Based on
4.10 The layout of the site at the Royal Opera House,
A. Mackay and D. Ditchburn, Atlas of Medieval
Covent Garden. Based on Blackmore 2002. 195
Europe (London, 1996). 237
4.11 Gilt bronze tweezers. © Trustees of the British
╇ 5.4 The Stockholm Codex Aureus. © Royal Library,
Museum. 196
Stockholm, Sweden, MS A. 135 f. 11r / The
4.12 The Brandon Plaque. © Trustees of the British
Bridgeman Art Library. 238
Museum. 197
╇ 5.5 A penny of King Eanred. © Trustees of the British
4.13 A Middle Saxon fish-Â�weir on the Nass, Essex. ©
Museum. 241
Essex County Council. 199
╇ 5.6 A penny of King Ecgberht of Wessex. © Trustees of
4.14 A silver ‘sceat’ of King Eadberht of Northumbria. ©
the British Museum. 242
Trustees of the British Museum. 201
╇ 5.7 The Æthelwulf ring. © Trustees of the British
4.15 The Durham Liber Vitae. © The British Library
Museum. 243
Board, Cotton Domitian A. VII, f. 18v. 202
╇ 5.8 The Æthelswith ring. © Trustees of the British
4.16 The Vespasian Psalter. © The British Library Board,
Museum. 244
Cotton Vespasian A. I, f. 30v. 205
╇ 5.9 The Trewhiddle Hoard. © Trustees of the British
4.17 The Royal Prayerbook. © The British Library Board,
Museum. 245
Royal 2 A. XX, f. 17. 207
5.10 The Hexham Bucket. © Trustees of the British
4.18 Detail from a frieze at St Mary and St Hardulph,
Museum. 246
Breedon-Â�on-Â�the-Â�Hill. © M. J. Ryan. 208
5.11 The final phase of activity on the site at the Royal
4.19 Figure from St Mary and St Hardulph, Breedon-�on-�
Opera House, Covent Garden. Based on Malcolm,
the-Â�Hill. © M. J. Ryan. 211
Bowsher and Cowie, 2003. 247
4.20 All Saints, Brixworth. © M. J. Ryan. 214
5.12 A lunette-Â�type penny of King Burgred of Mercia. ©
4.21 The Wirksworth Slab. © M. J. Ryan. 215
Trustees of the British Museum. 250
4.22 A grave marker from the monastery at Hartlepool.
5.13 A reconstruction of the church at Deerhurst,
© Trustees of the British Museum. 216
Gloucestershire. © M. Kneen. 253
4.23 Bede’s Letter to Bishop Ecgberht. The British Library
5.14 The crypt at St Wystan’s Church, Repton. © M. J.
Board, Harley 4688, f. 89v. 217
Ryan. 254
5.15 Cross shaft, St Peter’s Church, Codford, Wiltshire.
Sources and Issues 4a The ‘Continental Missionaries’ © M. J. Ryan. 255
4a.1 Religious foundations in Northern Europe. Based 5.16 The seal die of Bishop Æthelwald. © Trustees of the
on McKitterick 1995. 219 British Museum. 257
4a.2 The Calendar of St Willibrord. © Bibliothèque 5.17 The movements of the Viking armies in England in
nationale de France, Latin 10837, f. 39v. 220 the later ninth
� century. Based on Hill 1981. 259
4a.3 The martyrdom of St Boniface. © De Agostini/The 5.18 A St Edmund memorial penny. © Trustees of the
British Library Board, Udine, Biblioteca Del British Museum. 260
Seminario Arcivescovile, Latin MS 1, f. 42v. 221 5.19 The base of the Great Army at Repton. Based on
4a.4 St Matthew the Evangelist from the Echternach Biddle and Kjølbye-Â�Biddle 1992. 261
Gospels. © Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat 5.20 The Alfred Jewel. ©Ashmolean Museum,
9389 f.18v/The Bridgeman Art Library. 222 University of Oxford, UK / The Bridgeman Art
4a.5 Alcuin of York, alongside Hrabanus Maurus and Library. 263
Bishop Otgar of Mainz. © Österreichische 5.21 A ‘cross-Â�and-Â�lozenge’ penny of King Alfred. ©
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Austria/De Agostini Trustees of the British Museum. 263
Picture Library/The Bridgeman Art Library. 223 5.22 King Alfred’s will. © The British Library Board,
Stowe 944, f. 30v. 264
Sources and Issues 4b Mid-Late Saxon Settlement at 5.23 The Abingdon Sword. © Ashmolean Museum,
Flixborough University of Oxford, UK/The Bridgeman Art
4b.1 Location map for Flixborough. Courtesy of North Library. 267
Lincolnshire Museum Service. 5.24 The Fuller Brooch. © Trustees of the British
226
4b.2 Plan of the excavated area. Based on Loveluck and Museum. 269
Atkinson 2007. 5.25 The Tollemache Orosius. © The British Library
227
Board, Add. 47967, f. 8. 270
 i l lu s t r at i o n s xi

Sources and Issues 5a The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 6.20 A walrus ivory carving of the baptism of Christ. ©
5a.1 The manuscripts of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle. Trustees of the British Museum. 318
Based on Keynes 2011. 272 6.21 Cast of a late tenth-�
� century Winchester Style
5a.2 Version ‘C’, the so-Â�called ‘Abingdon Chronicle’. © sculpture of an angel from St Lawrence’s Church,
The British Library Board, Cotton Tiberius B. I, f. Bradford-Â�on-Â�Avon. © Trustees of the Victoria and
128v. 273 Albert Museum, London. 319
5a.3 Version ‘D’, the ‘Worcester Chronicle’. © The British 6.22 The Canterbury censer cover. © Trustees of the
Library Board, Cotton Tiberius B.IV, f. 3. 274 British Museum. 320
6.23 A tenth-Â�century reliquary cross from Winchester. ©
Sources and Issues 5b The Rebirth of Towns Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum,
5b.1 Anglo-�Saxon Hereford. After Thomas and London. 321
Boucher 2002. 278 6.24 St James’ Church, Selham, West Sussex. © M. J.
5b.2 The Burghal Hidage. After Hill 1981. 279 Ryan. 322
5b.3 Winchester. After Ottaway 1992. 280
5b.4 Bone comb from Ipswich. Courtesy of Ian Riddler. 282 Sources and Issues 6a Village and Open Field
© Suffolk County Council Archaeological Services. 6a.1 England’s landscape provinces. After Roberts and
5b.5 The western defences of Wareham. © N. J. Higham. 283 Wrathmell 2000. 324
6a.2 Open field at Laxton, Nottinghamshire. ©
Chapter 6 Conquest, Reform and the Making of England N. J. Higham. 325
╇ 6.1 Places named in chapter 6. 285 6a.3 Coulter blade from Lyminge, Kent. © Gabor
╇ 6.2 Coinage from the Danelaw. © Trustees of the Thomas. 326
British Museum. 286 6a.4 The heavy plough. Redrawn by David Hill from an
╇ 6.3 The distribution of Scandinavian place-�names in eleventh-�century calendar. The British Library,
Britain. Based on Keynes 1997. 288 Cotton Julius A. vi. 326
╇ 6.4 The distribution of hogbacks. Based on Lang 1984 6a.5 Milburn, Cumbria. © N. J. Higham. 327
with addition. 290
╇ 6.5 The hogback from St Bridget’s Church, West Kirby. Sources and Issues 6b Viking Age Hoards
© M. J. Ryan. 291 6b.1 Location of hoards mentioned in the text. 330
╇ 6.6 The Fenrir scene from the Gosforth Cross. From 6b.2 Items from the Cuerdale Hoard. © Trustees of the
W. S. Calverley, Notes on the Early Sculptured British Museum. 331
Crosses, Shrines and Monuments in the Present 6b.3 Items from the Vale of York Hoard. © Trustees of
Diocese of Carlisle (Kendal, 1899). 292 the British Museum. 332
╇ 6.7 The cross-Â�shaft from St Mary’s and St Helen’s 6b.4 Thistle brooches from Flusco Pike, Penrith. ©
Church, Neston. © M. J. Ryan. 293 Trustees of the British Museum. 333
╇ 6.8 An ivory-Â�handled knife from Canterbury. © 6b.5 The Silverdale Hoard. C.C. Ian Richardson/
Canterbury Archaeological Trust. 293 Portable Antiquities Scheme. 334
╇ 6.9 Pre-Â�Viking Anglo-Â�Saxon sculpture from All Saints’
Church, Bakewell. © M. J. Ryan. 295
Chapter 7 The Age of Æthelred
6.10 A Building-Â�type penny of King Edward the Elder. © 336
╇ 7.1 Places named in chapter 7.
Trustees of the British Museum. 296
╇ 7.2 The shrine of St Edward the Martyr, Woking. © M.
6.11 Castlefield, Manchester. © M. J. Ryan. 300
J. Ryan. 338
6.12 St John the Evangelist from the Coronation Gospels.
╇ 7.3 The hanging of Pharoah’s baker from the Old
© British Library Board, Cotton Tiberius A.II, f.
English Hexateuch. © The British Library Board,
164v. 302
Cotton Claudius B. IV, f. 59. 340
6.13 The opening of the Gospel of Matthew from an
╇ 7.4 The seal matrix of Ælfric. © Trustees of the British
eighth-Â�century Northumbrian Gospel Book. © 341
Museum.
British Library Board, Royal 1 B.VII, f. 15v. 304
╇ 7.5 The site of the Battle of Maldon. Based on Hill 1981. 344
6.14 Secklow Mound, Milton Keynes. © M. J. Ryan. 307
╇ 7.6 Cissbury Ring, near Worthing, from the west. © M.
6.15 A Reform-Â�type penny of King Edgar. © Trustees of 347
J. Ryan.
the British Museum. 309
╇ 7.7 A penny of King Æthelred produced at the
6.16 The opening of the Gospel of Matthew from the 347
Cissbury mint. © Trustees of the British Museum.
Mac Durnan Gospels. © Lambeth Palace Library,
╇ 7.8 The mass burials at St John’s College, Oxford. ©
London, UK, Ms 1370 ff.4–5/ The Bridgeman 348
Thames Valley Archaeological Services.
Art Library. 312
╇ 7.9 Late �tenth-�or eleventh-�century Viking weaponry.
6.17 The frontispiece to New Minster refoundation 350
© Museum of London.
charter. © The British Library Board, Cotton 353
7.10 The Romsey Crucifixion. © M. J. Ryan.
Vespasian A. VIII, f. 2v. 315
7.11 Ivory carving of Christ in Majesty. © Trustees of the
6.18 King Edgar in the Regularis concordia. © The 354
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
British Library Board, Cotton Tiberius A. III, f. 2v. 316
7.12 An ‘Agnus Dei’-Â�type penny of King Æthelred.
6.19 St John the Evangelist from the Benedictional of 357
©Trustees of the British Museum.
Æthelwold. © The British Library Board, Add.
7.13 The Sermon of the Wolf to English. © The British
49598 f. 19v. 317
Library Board, Cotton Nero A. I, f. 110. 358
xii i l lu s t r at i o n s

7.14 The Encomium Emmae Reginae. © The British 8.10 Silver coin of Harold II. © Trustees of the British
Library Board, Add. 33241, ff. 1v–2. 359 Museum. 400
7.15 King Cnut in the New Minster Liber Vitae. © The 8.11 The castle motte at Hastings. © N. J. Higham. 402
British Library Board, Stowe 944, f. 6. 360 8.12 Senlac Hill. © N. J. Higham. 402
7.16 Grave slab from St Paul’s London. © Museum of 8.13 Battle Abbey. © N. J. Higham. 403
London. 362 8.14 Rougemont Castle, Exeter. © N. J. Higham. 405
7.17 St Mary’s Church, Breamore. © M. J. Ryan. 364 8.15 ‘Waste’ in Domesday Book, 1086. After Darby 1986. 407
7.18 Luxuria in Prudentius’ Pyschomachia. © The British 8.16 Jumièges Abbey, Normandy. © N. J. Higham. 412
Library Board, Add. 24199, f. 18. 365 8.17 Late Anglo-�Saxon cathedral, Canterbury.
7.19 The Hurbuck Hoard. © Trustees of the British Reconstruction drawing by Ivan Lapper. ©
Museum. 366 Canterbury Archaeological Trust. 413
7.20 The development of the estate of Shapwick in the 8.18 Norman cathedral, Canterbury. Reconstruction
later Anglo-Â�Saxon period. Based on Costen 1992 drawing by Ivan Lapper. © Canterbury
and Pryor 2010. 367 Archaeological Trust. 414
7.21 The layout of plots at Furnells. Based on Auduoy 8.19 Goltho, Lincolnshire. After Beresford 1987;
and Chapman 2009. 368 Reynolds 1999. 414
7.22 The sundial at St Andrew’s Church, Bishopstone, 8.20 Rhuddlan motte. © N. J. Higham. 415
Sussex. © M. J. Ryan. 369 8.21 The Dane John, Canterbury. © Canterbury
7.23 The west tower of the Church of St Michael Archaeological Trust. 416
Northgate, Oxford. © M. J. Ryan. 370 8.22 Pilsbury Castle, Derbyshire. © N. J. Higham. 417
7.24 The month of October from the Tiberius Calendar. 8.23 Hen Domen, Montgomeryshire. Courtesy of Bob
© The British Library Board, Cotton Tiberius B. V, Higham. 417
Part 1, f. 7v. 372 8.24 St Mary’s, Sompting, West Sussex. © M. J. Ryan. 418
8.25 All Saints Church, Earls Barton. © N. J. Higham. 419
Sources and Issues 7a Eoforwic/Jorvik/York 8.26 Towns named in Domesday Book. After Darby
7a.1 Viking Age York. © York Archaeological Trust. 1977. 421
375
7a.2 Viking Age Coppergate. © York Archaeological 8.27 Walrus-Â�ivory seal die. © Trustees of the British
Trust. Museum. 425
376
7a.3 Bone combs from Coppergate. © York
Archaeological Trust. 376 Sources and Issues 8a Bayeux Tapestry
7a.4 Shoes from Coppergate. © York Archaeological 8a.1 Bishop Odo on horseback. Reproduced by kind
Trust. 377 permission of the City of Bayeux. 427
7a.5 Beads from Coppergate. © York Archaeological 8a.2 Harold comes into the presence of Duke William.
Trust. 378 Reproduced by kind permission of the City of
7a.6 Excavations at Hungate. © N. J. Higham. 380 Bayeux. 428
8a.3 Harold sits in majesty. Reproduced by kind
permission of the City of Bayeux. 429
Sources and Issues 7b Beowulf
8a.4 Harold hears news of the comet. Reproduced by
7b.1 Likely locations of places and peoples mentioned in
kind permission of the City of Bayeux. 430
Beowulf. Based on Donoghue, ed. 2002. 382 8a.5 The ‘arrow in the eye’. Reproduced by kind
7b.2 The opening of Beowulf. © The British Library
permission of the City of Bayeux. 432
Board, Cotton Vitellius A.XV, f. 132. 383
7b.3 The Wonders of the East. © The British Library
Board, Cotton Vitellius A.XV, f. 102v. 385 Sources and Issues 8b Domesday Book
8b.1 The five Domesday texts. © National Archives, Kew. 433
8b.2 Great Domesday Book for Northamptonshire. Folio
Chapter 8 The Transformation of Anglo-Saxon 219a. © National Archives, Kew. 434
England 8b.3 Domesday Inquest circuits. 435
╇ 8.1 Places named in chapter 8. 388 8b.4 Little Domesday Book entry for Cice, Essex. ©
╇ 8.2 English and Danish royal families and Norman National Archives, Kew. 438
dukes. 389 8b.5 Laxton, Nottinghamshire. © N. J. Higham. 438
╇ 8.3 Atlantic Europe in the mid-Â�eleventh century. 390 8b.6 Great Domesday Book for Bosham, Sussex. ©
╇ 8.4 The earldoms under Edward. Based on Baxter National Archives, Kew. 439
2009. 392
╇ 8.5 Silver coin of Edward the Confessor. © Trustees of
the British Museum. 394 Ultimate image
╇ 8.6 The lands held by Earl Harold in 1066. After Hill Anglo-Saxon cross at Eyam. © N. J. Higham. 441
1981. 396
╇ 8.7 Bosham, West Sussex, iStockphoto. 398
╇ 8.8 Harold’s oath on relics. By permission of the City of
Bayeux. 398
╇ 8.9 King Edward as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.
By permission of the City of Bayeux. 399
 Acknowledgements

Over the course of researching and writing this book we have accumulated countless
debts to friends and colleagues – happily, not mutually exclusive categories. They
cannot all be named in the space we have, but we offer to everyone our most sincere
thanks.
Some particular debts need to be specifically acknowledged, however. We are most
grateful to the University of Manchester for granting Nick a sabbatical in 2009–2010
and to the Leverhulme Trust for awarding him a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in
2010. We have benefited enormously over the years from the unstinting aid and advice
of colleagues past and present at the University of Manchester including the late Jeff
Denton, the late David Hill, Kate Cooper, Paul Fouracre, Conrad Leyser, Stephen
Mossman, Gale Owen-Crocker, Stephen Rigby, Alex Rumble and Donald Scragg. We
would also like to thank the numerous members of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-
Saxon Studies and the Centre for Late Antiquity at the University of Manchester.
Generations of students at Manchester have been unwitting guinea pigs for many of
the ideas in this book and we thank them for this and for the stimulus they have
provided through their questions, suggestions and comments.
Paul Fouracre generously read and commented on chapters 1, 2, 3 and 8, Steve
Rigby chapters 3 and 8, and Rosa Vidal chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7. Paola Fumagalli of the
Bridgeman Art Library provided invaluable assistance with securing images. David
Matthews shared his expertise on national identity in Britain in the later Middle Ages
to the benefit of the introduction. Martin Richards helped with the archaeogenetic
content of chapter 2, correcting draft text, Kevin Leahy assisted with cremation, the
archaeology of the East Midlands and Sources and Issues 3b (the Staffordshire Hoard),
which he corrected, and provided illustrations 2.8 and 2.11. The late Richard Hall,
Mike Andrews, Lesley Collet and Christine Kyriacou provided valuable assistance
with Sources and Issues 7a, on Viking Age York, and sourced 7a. 1–5 illustrations, and
Richard in particular very kindly corrected draft text. Paul Bennett, Andrew Richardson
and Andrew Savage were most helpful regarding Canterbury and Kent’s archaeology,
supplying numerous illustrations and advice quickly and expertly. Dominic Powlesland
very kindly discussed many issues regarding early settlement and landscape with us,
and provided illustrations 2.17,2.20, 2.21, 2.22 and 2.23. Ian Riddler generously
xiv acknowled gements

provided illustration 5b.4 and advised regarding Hamwic; Gabor Thomas provided
pictures from his excavations at Lyminge (2.16, 6a.3); Tom Green kindly discussed the
early history of Lindsey and provided illustration 2.27a and we thank Murray Cook for
providing information about the Viking-Age burials at Cumwhitton and for supplying
us with notes from a symposium on the burials. Jonathan Jarrett, and Allan McKinley
have generously shared their expertise in early medieval diplomatic, and much else, on
numerous occasions, as well as allowing us to read material not yet published that has
assisted greatly with numerous chapters. Discussions with Morn Capper on the
kingdom of Mercia have likewise improved many of the chapters. Luca Larpi provided
invaluable assistance with Latin and palaeography, as well as sharing his extensive
knowledge of Gildas and the De excidio.
Chapters 2 and 3 benefited enormously from meetings with Helen Geake, Helena
Hamerow, Catherine Hills and Sam Lucy, Howard Williams, and Catherine and Sam
also most kindly corrected Sources and Issues 2a, on Spong Hill, and helped source the
illustrations, which were ultimately provided by Tim Pestell and Alison Yardy.
Christopher Loveluck most helpfully corrected Sources and Issues 4b, on Flixborough,
the illustrations for which were sourced by Rose Nicholson. Nick’s doctoral student
Erik Grigg very kindly provided text from which were précised passages on dykes on
pp. 52-4, and supplied illustrations 1.25, 1.26. Sources and Issues 2b, on Prittlewell, has
benefited enormously from input by Elizabeth Barham, Lyn Blackmore, Ian Blair,
Andy Chopping and Nicky Powell, while Daniel Pett assisted with illustration for
Sources and Issues 3b, the Staffordshire Hoard. Bob Higham and Michael Rouillard
were generous with illustrations relating to the excavation of Hen Domen (8.23), and
Andrew Birley kindly provided illustrations 1.13 and 1.27. Pauline Stafford kindly
shared with us her considerable expertise on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, particularly
the Annals of Æthelflæd.
James Gerrard very helpfully discussed several issues regarding the fifth century
and in particular late Roman Bath and Southwark, and Gary Brown generously
supplied illustration 1.20. Gundula Müldner very helpfully corresponded with us
regarding isotopic research, Rosemary Cramp regarding Jarrow, Ailsa Mainman
regarding Riccall, Sam Moorhead regarding coin loss in late Roman Britain, Tania
Dickinson regarding the ‘cunning Woman’ from Bidford-on-Avon and Eastry, and
Alan Lane regarding fifth-century Wroxeter. Alison Telfer very kindly discussed her
research around St Martins-in-the-Fields, providing illustration 1.21, and Keith
Fitzpatrick-Matthews the excavations at Baldock, providing illustrations 1.18 and 1.19.
Philippa Walton very kindly provided illustration 1.14 prior to publication in her own
work and we are grateful to Vanessa Straker for illustration I.9. Mike Baillie generously
corresponded to update us on recent work regarding climate change. Maggie Kneen
provided the beautiful reconstruction of St Mary’s Deerhurst that is illustration 5.13.
Ellen Heppell kindly supplied the photograph by the late Ron Hall of the fish trap on
the Nass that is illustration 4.13.
We are grateful to Bryan Sitch for the opportunity to view the skeletal remains from
early excavations at Heronbridge held by Manchester Museum and provision of
illustration 2.10. Jon Newman very generously discussed Anglo-Saxon Suffolk at some
 acknowled gements xv

length, and Tom Williamson his recent work on Anglo-Saxon landscapes and rural
settlements. Thames Valley Archaeological Services kindly granted permission to
reproduce illustration 7.8. We must also thank the St Edward Brotherhood at
Brookwood, Surrey for permission to photograph the shrine of St Edward and for their
kind hospitality when visiting.
All errors of fact, misconceptions and mistakes, however, remain solely our respon-
sibility.
We also thank Heather McCallum, the rest of the staff at Yale University Press – in
particular Tami Halliday, Katie Harris, Steve Kent, Jessica Lee and Rachael Lonsdale
– our illustrator, Martin Brown, and our copy-editor, Richard Mason, for the consider-
able effort and care they have put into this volume and for the assistance they have
given us at all stages of the process.
Our greatest debt, as ever, is to our families, particularly Cheryl and Rosa: this
book is for them.
 Introduction
nicholas j. higham and martin j. ryan

English history opens with the Anglo-�Saxons. For our own convenience, we generally I.1 Opposite page
divide history into periods: for England the Anglo-�Saxon period is the first, therefore, Photographer and publisher
Richard Keene makes notes at
the starting point. Running from the fifth century through to the eleventh, it is also the the foot of the Anglo-Saxon
longest. From a twenty-�first-�century viewpoint, though, there can be a feeling that cross in the churchyard of St
it all happened a very long time ago. Since the last Anglo-�Saxon monarch, King Lawrence, Eyam (Derbyshire).
Harold II, fell at the Battle of Hastings some 40 generations have been born and died, The photograph was taken by
John Alfred Warwick in July
great plagues and wars have come and gone, and the pace of technological change has
1858
been such that the world we live in now is very different.
Given all that, do the Anglo-�Saxons still have relevance? Do they really matter? A
little surprisingly, perhaps, there are many indications that they do. In important ways,
the Anglo-�Saxons were the first English; they gave their name to England (ultimately,
‘land of the Angles’), and the adjective ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ is used today to describe a vast
array of cultural phenomena, ethnic markers and character traits believed to be partic-
ular to Britain, the United States and other parts of the English-�speaking world. It is
I.2 Archdioceses and dioceses
of the Anglo-Saxon Church:
(a) in 735; (b) in 1066
 2 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

clear that for many people now living in England, and, indeed, elsewhere, the Anglo-�
Saxons are still recognised as an historic form of ‘us’ or ‘we’ in ways that other historic
groups simply are not. Beginnings matter.
There are numerous dimensions to this assertion. Modern English, one of the most
important and widely used languages in the world, began with and developed from the
speech of the Anglo-�Saxons, which we call Old English or Anglo-�Saxon. That does not
mean to say that Old English is easily understood in the modern day, for it is not, but
nonetheless the English we speak today is its direct descendant.
So, too, was England unified, or created, in the Anglo-�Saxon period. The English
monarchy dates back to the tenth century and the shape of England has changed
comparatively little since. English Christianity dates back even earlier, beginning with
I.3 Internal structure of
England: (a) English shires as
designated in Domesday Book,
1086; (b) Opposite page:
English counties before the
major re-organisation of 1974
 introduction 3

a process of conversion in the late sixth and seventh centuries, with key centres of
authority established at Canterbury (rather than London) and York. Though there are
today many more dioceses than there were in the Anglo-�Saxon period, the oldest, such
as Rochester, Lichfield and Winchester, all began in the seventh century, supplemented
by others, including Durham, Dorchester-�on-�Thames and Wells, added after the
Viking Age. Even many local churches were founded by the eleventh century with
their parish boundaries already in place; indeed, some retain structural details centu-
ries older than that.
The whole system of English regional government, through shires and hundreds,
originated in the Anglo-�Saxon period. Look at the shires of the Domesday Book
entries for 1086 and you see very much the same structure as lasted up to the
4 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

re-�organisation of local government in 1974. Even much of the settlement pattern of

England derives from the Anglo-�Saxon period. It is tempting to look back to the
Romans for the foundation of Britain’s pre-Â�industrial towns, but the major centres of
Roman Britain had fallen into ruin and were deserted by ad 500. They were only
revived as urban nodes in the later Anglo-�Saxon period, when they were refortified
against the Vikings. Many reused old Roman walls but plenty more, like Hereford and
Shrewsbury, were built from scratch. And the relationship between towns and shires
dates to this period, with particular centres linked to the running of the wider county
and sharing the name, hence Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cheshire (Chester-�
shire) and Herefordshire.
Not only the towns but also many villages and dispersed townships date back to
this period and many English manors or country estates originated then. Study a map
and look up local parish or township names in the Domesday Book and, like as not,
you will find them listed, discover who held them in 1066, how much land there was,
of what kind, and how much tax was owed. England is an old country, therefore, and
many of its basic structures and its local geography were sketched out, at least, in the
Anglo-�Saxon period.
But there is more to it than that. There are issues around national identity, that
sense of social cohesion and belonging centred on a shared history and perspective on
the world, which rest on Anglo-�Saxon foundations. In November 2005 the British
government introduced a written test for those applying for citizenship or for indefi-
nite leave to remain in the UK. The test consisted of twenty-�four multiple-�choice ques-
tions, to be answered in forty-�five minutes, and covered aspects of British society,
culture, government and law. When the test was first mooted a few years earlier, there
was debate as to whether it should include a section on British history and various
possible historical questions circulated, including ‘When was Britain last invaded?’
The ‘official’ answer to this question was 1066, when Duke William of Normandy (‘the
Conqueror’) defeated and killed King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, in other
words the date which we use to close the Anglo-�Saxon period. Predictably enough,
newspaper columnists and correspondents countered with a range of objections and
alternative answers – 1940 when Germany occupied the Channel Islands; 1797 when
the French attacked Fishguard in south Wales; the Jacobite Rising of 1745; the ‘Glorious
Revolution’ of 1688 when William of Orange overthrew King James II, and so on.
Perhaps partly in response, historical questions were dropped from the test.
Nevertheless, when a study guide was compiled to aid those sitting the test, entitled
Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide to Citizenship, it included a survey of British
history which begins with the construction of Stonehenge and concludes with the late
twentieth century. The description of events in the fifth and early sixth centuries is as
follows:

As the Roman Empire gradually became weaker, new tribes invaded [Britain] from
Northern Europe looking for better land. These were called the Jutes, Angles and
Saxons. These people spoke dialects which later became the basis of English. The
people of Britain fought against these new invaders and were led for a while in the
 introduction 5

sixth century by the legendary King Arthur. Eventually, however, the invaders took
over all of southern and eastern Britain, setting up their own kingdoms and pushing
the Britons to the west and to the north.

The people whose origins are described here are, of course, the Anglo-�Saxons and they
dominated what is now England and parts of lowland Scotland until the battle in 1066
that may or may not have marked the last time Britain was invaded. The British
government in the early twenty-�first century considered that this was needful for
British citizens to know.
It is these Anglo-�Saxons, then, and their interactions with the wider world of which
they were a part, who are the subjects of this book. Most of the individuals featured in
the following pages would recognise the story told in the guide – with the exception of
its reference to King Arthur – and many would certainly feel comfortable that it offered
the story of their own origins. Indeed, the description quoted rests very heavily on the
account written in the early eighth century by the Venerable Bede.
Yet this passage is noteworthy less as a witness to the longevity of one particular
vision of the fifth century than for what it tells us about modern ideas and attitudes
towards the Anglo-�Saxons. The Anglo-�Saxons are, the guide implies, important in a
way that, say, the Beaker Culture of the Bronze Age is not; the Anglo-�Saxons are there-
fore included whereas the Beaker Culture is excluded. Their presence in a brief and
very general guide to upwards of five thousand years of British history marks the
perceived significance of the Anglo-�Saxon period and the continuing interest it holds
for modern audiences.
This interest was spectacularly confirmed with the discovery in 2009 of a vast cache
of Anglo-Â�Saxon gold in a field in the English Midlands – the Staffordshire Hoard. Not
only did reports of its discovery dominate the news media but members of the public
queued sometimes for upwards of four hours to see the hoard when elements were first
displayed at Birmingham Museum. The amount and quality of the material discovered
I.4 The queue for entry to
Birmingham Museum to view
the Staffordshire Hoard when
first exhibited
 6 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

no doubt in part explain this fascination, but such public enthusiasm also reflects a
more general interest in the Anglo-�Saxons. Numerous societies devoted to the study or
re-creation of the Anglo-�Saxon Age have been founded in Britain, the United States
and elsewhere. Novels set in the period, such as Bernard Cornwell’s series The Saxon
Stories, are routinely best-� sellers. The popular London-� based satirical magazine
Private Eye even features a character called Athelstan (an Anglo-�Saxon name), who
boasts of one thousand years of ‘Anglefolc blood’ running in his veins and a diet
consisting solely of mead and pottage.
Present-�day interest in the Anglo-�Saxon period is widespread, therefore, and it
takes many forms, ranging from the studiously academic to the playfully anachro-
nistic. But such interest has been by no means a historical constant. The current idea
– as reflected in Life in the United Kingdom – that the Anglo-Â�Saxons are worth knowing
about would have been vigorously contested if not flatly denied at numerous points in
the past: ‘Let them lie in dead forgetfulness like stones’ as one Elizabethan scholar,
Richard Harvey, wrote. Such can seem strange to a modern audience, for the signifi-
cance of the Anglo-�Saxons might on the face of it appear self-�evident.
It is not the purpose of this book to assess the extent to which we see the Anglo-�
Saxons as ‘us’ in the past, nor to estimate the debts modern societies owe to the
Anglo-�Saxon period. Thinking about such questions, however, and in particular how
they have been answered in the past is a useful and necessary preparation for any study
of the Anglo-�Saxons. Despite the often-�invoked image of academics working away in
ivory towers, in reality most scholars do not operate in a rarefied environment,

I.5 Migration into and out of

Britain, 400–600
 introduction 7

free from external influences. ‘Popular’ images of the past impact on scholarly
reconstructions – how many have come to the study of the Anglo-Â�Saxons through
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, for example. Nor do scholars approach their sources in
a neutral, disinterested way, free from preconceptions. The questions scholars ask of
the past, the way they interpret the evidence, even the particular pieces of evidence
they select and the weight they give to them are all shaped by the concerns of earlier
scholarship. Such influences are inescapable; although an awareness of them does not
remove their effect, exploring previous interpretations can at least help to situate
modern accounts within the scholarly traditions of which they are a part.

On Being Anglo-�Saxon
To begin with terminology: a book with the title The Anglo-�Saxon World makes at the
outset a central assumption, namely that the Anglo-�Saxons constitute a meaningful and
discrete object of study. That is, the Anglo-�Saxons were, in sufficiently significant ways,
distinct and different from the other inhabitants of, say, the island of Britain or the
Atlantic Archipelago in the Early Middle Ages. The application of ethnic labels – such
as ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ – to peoples and groups in the Early Middle Ages is fraught with diffi-
culties, and the nature of early medieval ethnicity today remains the subject of intense
debate. To apply any label to the past is necessarily to simplify and to homogenise,
emphasising similarity and continuity at the expense of difference and complexity. Yet
it is clear that the people we now label Anglo-�Saxons were seen by themselves and by
others as representing, in important ways, a distinct and identifiable group.
Such did not preclude competition, enmity or rivalry between different groups of
Anglo-Â�Saxons – far from it. Nor did it mean that Anglo-Â�Saxons would necessarily be
hostile to the other peoples of Britain; indeed, Anglo-�Saxons and Britons would some-
times ally against other Anglo-�Saxons or against other Britons. Likewise, it should not
be assumed that this shared identity was fixed or stable, meaning the same thing at all
times. One of the recurring themes in this book is the way in which collective identi-
ties have been refashioned and reactivated in numerous different contexts and for
multiple purposes. Nevertheless, despite such qualifications and complexities, ‘Anglo-Â�
Saxon’ remains a meaningful, albeit imperfect, label.
‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ is, however, a modern label and one that would not have been easily
understood, if understood at all, by many of those to whom it is now applied. The
compound noun ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ and variants thereof were first used by writers on the
Continent in the mid-�eighth century, seemingly to distinguish Germanic-�speaking
peoples living in lowland Britain from the Saxons (sometimes called the Old Saxons)
living in northern Continental Europe. By the end of the ninth century, ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’
was being used by King Alfred the Great to describe the extent of his power; he was
‘king of the Anglo-Â�Saxons’. In this context, the term signified Alfred’s rule over his own
kingdom of the West Saxons (including ‘Saxon’ Sussex and Essex and ‘Jutish’ Kent) and
also Mercia, a kingdom supposedly founded by Angles. It did not include Northumbria,
beyond the Humber, but in the mid-Â�tenth century Alfred’s successors took over
much of this more northerly Anglian realm as well. They still employed the royal style
8 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

‘king of the Anglo-Â�Saxons’, but the term gradually fell out of use and was used only
sparingly of kings in the eleventh century. It was only in the sixteenth century that the
term ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ was again routinely employed, being used in roughly its modern
sense to describe the inhabitants of England, or what would become England, before
the Norman Conquest.
Contemporaries, however, employed a number of different terms to describe the
people we would now call Anglo-Â�Saxons. Roman writers used the term ‘Saxon’ to refer to
the barbarian peoples of northern Europe who attacked Britain by sea in the fourth and
fifth centuries, and this terminology was similarly employed by the British writer Gildas
in his account of the recruitment and rebellion of Germanic mercenaries in Britain.
Gildas’s usage seems to have influenced subsequent references in Welsh, Irish and
Scottish sources, where the Anglo-Â�Saxons are most commonly referred to as ‘Saxons’,
though ‘Angles’ does occur on occasion. The usage persists to this day as Celtic languages
use ‘Saxon’ to refer to the English, witness ‘Saeson’ in Modern Welsh or ‘Sasanaigh’ in
Irish Gaelic. Other writers employed different ethnic terminology. In the mid-�sixth
century the Byzantine author Procopius of Caesarea described the island of Britain as
being inhabited by three peoples, the Angles, the Frisians and the Britons, while at the
end of the sixth century Pope Gregory I (‘the Great’) employed the term ‘Angles’.
Gregory’s use of ‘Angles’ was perhaps what encouraged Bede’s adoption of the term
in his magnum opus, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia ecclesias-
tica gentis Anglorum, completed 731). Though Bede recorded the story of the settle-
ment in Britain of three tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, when referring to
these people collectively he tended to label them ‘Angles’ and their language, despite
different dialects, as ‘English’. Bede’s terminology would prove highly influential.
At the end of the ninth century, King Alfred and the scholars close to his court were
experimenting with ideas of a unified English people, employing the term ‘Angelcynn’
to designate this group, whilst Alfred’s tenth-Â�century successors would increasingly
claim to be kings of the English (‘rex anglorum’), with the word ‘Englalonde’ (whence,
ultimately, ‘England’) in use by the late tenth or early eleventh centuries. Though
‘Angle’ or ‘English’ eventually emerged as the preferred term, there was no simple
linear progression from the vocabulary of Bede to the vocabulary used in the tenth and
eleventh centuries. Nor was usage even consistent at the time. Bede’s near contempo-
rary, Stephen of Ripon, described Wilfrid of York as ‘bishop of the Saxons’, despite his
diocese being in what Bede termed ‘Anglian’ Northumbria. Likewise, a Canterbury
scribe writing in the late 820s could describe the participants at an English church
synod as having come from various parts of Saxony, meaning not Continental Saxony
but the Anglo-Â�Saxon kingdoms in Britain. Even during the reign of Æthelstan (d. 939),
the first ruler routinely to use the royal style ‘rex anglorum’, a poet could describe the
king’s realm as ‘this Saxonia now made whole’. The Englishness of the English was,
therefore, only one of a number of possible identities that were in circulation across the
Anglo-�Saxon period.
Similar complexities surround the use of geographical or territorial terminology,
including England itself. Though something resembling the modern divisions of Britain
into England, Scotland and Wales had emerged by the end of the Anglo-�Saxon period,
 introduction 9

there was nothing natural or inevitable about their geographical extent or focus. A
unified English kingdom stretching from the River Tweed to the Channel and from the
North Sea to the Dee and Severn estuaries, with its political, cultural and governmental
foci in the south, was only one of several possible configurations. Throughout the Early
Middle Ages other polities and groupings were imaginable and, indeed, in some cases
actively pursued. Nor were what now seem obvious natural barriers – the Irish Sea or
the English Channel, say – necessarily thought of as such by the early medieval inhabit-
ants of the Atlantic Archipelago. Both Britons and Anglo-�Saxons settled in Continental
Europe, and there were considerable Irish settlements in western Britain which retained
strong links with their homelands for many generations.
By the 630s, the Anglo-�Saxon kingdom of Bernicia (eventually incorporated into
Northumbria) extended to the Firth of Forth, in what is now lowland Scotland. In the
mid-�seventh century Northumbrian kings ruled south-�west Scotland and Fife and
were pushing ever northwards until a disastrous defeat in 685 put paid to their ambi-
tions. On at least one occasion a Northumbrian army crossed the sea into what is now
County Meath in Ireland, taking hostages and causing much destruction. A kingdom
embracing territory from the North Sea to the Boyne Valley and from the Humber
to the Moray Firth may have seemed achievable at the Northumbrian court in the
early 680s.
Similarly, the boundary between Wales and the English Midlands was far from
constant. English Mercia expanded at the expense of both English and British king-
doms across the seventh century, then late eighth and early ninth-�century Mercian
kings pursued widespread conquest of their western neighbours. English armies right
up to the 1060s were intervening decisively in Wales. In practice, the modern boundary
lies further east than at any period between 700 and 1066.
The creation of a kingdom of England was likewise less about the unification of all
the English people than the use and promotion of a supposed common English iden-
tity to justify the territorial ambitions and achievements of West Saxon kings.
Significant ‘English’ areas could be found outside later Anglo-Â�Saxon England: Lothian,
for example, an area that had long been under Anglo-�Saxon control and even in the
twelfth century would be recognised as a region peopled by the English, passed under
the kings of Scotland in the later tenth century and was never recovered; northern
Cumbria (Cumberland) lay outside England until after the Norman Conquest despite
its inclusion in pre-Â�Viking Northumbria, and such ‘Northumbrian’ regions as Galloway,
Cunningham and Kyle were never recovered by a unified England centred predomi-
nantly south of the Thames.
Older identities could also prove resilient even within England. Cornwall came
under Anglo-�Saxon control over the course of the ninth to (probably) eleventh centu-
ries, but the Cornish language continued in use as did the sense that the Cornish were a
people separate from the English. In the sixteenth century the Italian scholar Polydore
Vergil could write of Britain being divided into four parts, one inhabited by the English,
another by the Scots, the third by the Welsh and the fourth by the Cornish (‘Cornubienses’);
today such groups as Mebyon Kernow continue to campaign for greater political
autonomy for Cornwall and to promote its distinct cultural heritage and history.
 10 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

I.6 Northumbrian expansion,

seventh century to 685

Nor was the emergence of a single ‘English’ kingship obligatory, or even always
very likely. Even given the impetus provided by resistance to the Vikings, it was in part
at least a series of dynastic accidents that led across the tenth and eleventh centuries to
the repeated re-�imposition of a single monarchy over a land which otherwise showed
strong signs of regional self-�determination. While it is fair to say that the English saw
themselves as bound together in a single polity in the mid-�eleventh century, England
had been divided between rival political claimants to the throne in 924 (Ælfweard,
Æthelstan), 955 (Eadwig, Edgar), 1016 (Cnut, Edmund), and as recently as 1035
(Harthacnut, Harold I). Had such divisions at any point persisted, they could easily
have set down strong roots.
 introduction 11

I.7 Mercian expansion to the

820s

Studying the Anglo-�Saxons

The nature of the long-�term changes wrought by the Norman Conquest in 1066 remains
the subject of intense debate. Initially at least, however, the conquerors had good cause
to stress continuity between Anglo-�Saxon and Anglo-�Norman England. Among other
reasons, Duke William’s title to the English throne was based on his claim to be the
acknowledged heir of the late Anglo-�Saxon ruler Edward the Confessor (d. 1066), and
Edward’s status was later enhanced by confirmation of his sanctity. The Conquest like-
wise initiated a flurry of legal scholarship as the Normans sought to understand the
governmental, administrative and tenurial arrangements operating in England.
Numerous Anglo-� Saxon legal and governmental documents were collected and
compiled, with some law codes translated from their original Old English into Latin.
12 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Such legal activities also included the creation or at least confection of new texts
purportedly of Anglo-� Saxon origin or describing pre-� Conquest conditions, most
notably the so-�called Laws of Edward the Confessor produced in the mid-�twelfth century.
The Anglo-�Saxon past more generally was a subject of considerable interest to
succeeding generations. In the twelfth century several Anglo-�Norman writers, most
notably William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, produced histories of
Britain that devoted considerable attention to the Anglo-�Saxon period and drew
extensively on such pre-Â�Conquest sources as the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle and Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People. These Anglo-�Norman historians undoubt-
edly had access to many more sources from the Anglo-�Saxon period than have survived
to this day. Indeed, many current interpretations rely heavily on material included at
earliest by these authors. As will be readily apparent, however, there are some signifi-
cant dangers with such an approach and the validity of any material so used has to be
carefully assessed.
Alongside these broad-� ranging histories, accounts of individual religious
institutions founded or believed to have been founded in the pre-�Conquest period
included much Anglo-� Saxon material. Given the role that kings played in the
foundation and endowment of religious houses, these accounts often focused on the
deeds of such supposed royal patrons as Offa of Mercia, even including the texts of
purported royal grants. In some cases, such as the history of St Augustine’s Abbey,
Canterbury, compiled by Thomas of Elmham in the fourteenth century, a significant
number of the documents included are authentically Anglo-�Saxon; yet, in other cases,
such as the fifteenth-�century Chronicle of Croyland of Pseudo-�Ingulf, the majority are
forgeries.
The Anglo-�Saxon past, therefore, retained some value after 1066. Nevertheless the
Norman Conquest led gradually to a very different vision of the past, which marginal-
ised the Anglo-�Saxons, questioned their importance and challenged their value. The
extraordinary success of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain,
completed in the 1130s, popularised the legendary Trojan origins of the British, that is
of the Welsh and Cornish. According to this story, Britain had been founded by refu-
gees from Troy after the end of the Trojan War and was named for their leader, Brutus.
Geoffrey’s narrative gave a history of Britain from the time of Brutus to the abdication
of the last of the kings of Britain, ending with a very late Anglo-�Saxon conquest and
settlement. One of the great heroes of this account was King Arthur and it is Geoffrey’s
narrative that first introduces many recognisable features of the Arthurian stories,
which had hitherto circulated only in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.
Perhaps surprisingly, given the well-�founded factual criticism it attracted from
some of his contemporaries, Geoffrey’s History became the basis for most subsequent
medieval accounts of the history of Britain. A Trojan and Arthurian past came, there-
fore, to displace and to devalue the Anglo-�Saxons, marking them down as pagan,
wicked and other. Across the rest of the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of Britain, even
eventually the English included, saw themselves as descendants of the Trojans; national
pride centred on stories about Brutus and Arthur far more than on figures from the
Anglo-�Saxon past.
 introduction 13

Beyond all else, it was the Reformation and establishment of the Anglican Church
in the sixteenth century that led to a revival of interest in the Anglo-�Saxons and a belief
in the centrality of the Anglo-�Saxon period to the history of Britain. Protestant
reformers saw themselves as purifiers of a Church that had been fundamentally
corrupted. They looked to the past, therefore, almost as much as to the Bible, to find
evidence for the pure, primitive faith that they sought to restore. For the English this
meant looking to the Anglo-Â�Saxon past. Though stories such as Joseph of Arimathea’s
foundation of Glastonbury Abbey or the conversion of the second-�century British
king, Lucius, were widely believed, actual sources for the pre-�Anglo-�Saxon Church in
Britain were very few indeed. Many later texts that appeared to provide information,
much like Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History, were ill-Â�equipped to stand up to the critical
scrutiny of Renaissance Humanism and were increasingly recognised as largely fictions.
Though the Anglo-�Saxon Church had been founded from Rome, sixteenth-�century
English reformers believed traces of a primitive, uncorrupted Church could be found
in texts from the Anglo-�Saxon period. Thus such scholars as Archbishop Matthew
Parker (d. 1575) looked to Anglo-�Saxon texts for confirmation of central tenets of
Anglican doctrine, including the denial of transubstantiation and rejection of clerical
celibacy. Scholars therefore began to publish editions of texts which they believed,
often erroneously, justified their positions.
The dispersal of monastic libraries resulting from Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the
Monasteries in the late 1530s helped this work, making Anglo-�Saxon texts more
readily accessible. Some scholars assembled extensive manuscript collections. Parker’s
own library, now held by Corpus Christi College Cambridge, contains some of the
most important surviving Anglo-�Saxon manuscripts, including the earliest extant
version of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle.
In response, Catholics also quarried the Anglo-�Saxon past to argue their cause. In
1565 the Catholic theologian Thomas Stapleton translated Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
into English to demonstrate to Queen Elizabeth, and her subjects, ‘in what faith your
noble Realme vvas christened, and hath almost these thousand yeres continvved’,
namely Catholicism. And even despite these renewed appeals to the Anglo-�Saxon past,
the Arthurian and Trojan story still had its defenders; Richard Harvey’s 1593 work
Philadelphus: or A Defence of Brutes and the Brutans History rejected the importance of
the Anglo-Â�Saxons (his opinion that they should ‘lie in dead forgetfulness’ has already
been quoted) and reasserted the Trojan origins of the inhabitants of Britain.
It was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that witnessed the gradual but
almost total eclipse of the Arthurian and Trojan past in historical and other scholarly
writings, though those versions continued to be powerful sources of inspiration for
storytellers, poets and artists. Now, discussion of the Anglo-�Saxon past moved away
from the religious to focus instead on politics and governance. Just as religious
reformers in the sixteenth century had looked to the Anglo-�Saxon past to buttress
their positions, so seventeenth-�century Parliamentarians turned to the Anglo-�Saxons
once again to justify their attempts to limit the powers of the Crown. They were able to
draw on an increasing body of antiquarian scholarship that explored the origins of key
institutions, customs and laws.
14 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Some authors, such as the great jurist Sir Edward Coke (d. 1634), believed that
English institutions dated back to even more ancient times. Over the course of the
seventeenth century, however, most scholars came to the view that Parliament, the
Common Law, trial by jury and numerous other aspects of English governance had
their origins in the Anglo-�Saxon period. At the same time Continental scholars were
depicting the Germanic peoples of the Early Middle Ages as uniquely committed to
liberty and popular representation. Under their influence English writers portrayed
the Anglo-�Saxons as the freedom-�loving founders of primitive but effective demo-
cratic institutions that were ancestral to those they sought to defend and promote in
the present. The Norman Conquest had undermined these institutions, they argued,
replacing freedom and liberty with tyranny and oppression. Whether or not this
‘Norman Yoke’ had ever been fully removed from English necks was much debated.
A belief in the superiority of the Anglo-�Saxons and their institutions was not
restricted to English writers. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-
ries such notions would also be voiced increasingly by writers in the American
Colonies and, following the Revolutionary War, the United States. In 1776 the
Philadelphian author ‘Demophilus’ held up the Anglo-Â�Saxon system of governance as
a blueprint for the authors of the Pennsylvania Constitution, describing the former as
‘the best model, that human wisdom, improved by experience, has left them to copy’.
Around the same time, Thomas Paine warned the American people of the conse-
quences of being under British rule; with the colonial masters so distant what was to
stop some ‘desperate adventurer’ taking control, leaving ‘ourselves suffering like the
wretched Britains under the oppression of [William] the Conqueror’?
By far the most ardent enthusiast in this period for the Anglo-�Saxons was Thomas
Jefferson. For him, the systems of law and governance that had existed in the eighth
century were ‘the wisest and most perfect ever yet devised by the wit of man’. The
Anglo-�Saxon past offered both a model for emulation and a historical precedent for
the American experience. Jefferson’s suggested design for the Great Seal of the United
States had on one side Moses and the Israelites following the pillar of flame and on the
other a depiction of Hengest and Horsa, the legendary leaders of the Anglo-�Saxons
migrating into Britain. Such parallels between the Anglo-�Saxon conquest of Britain
and the foundation of America would only multiply in the nineteenth century as the
United States expanded westwards from the original thirteen colonies, much as the
Anglo-�Saxons had progressively expanded westwards in Britain.
The nineteenth century represented the high point of scholarly and popular Anglo-�
Saxonism, with national pride and confidence in Britain inextricably intertwined with
a belief in the importance and significance of the Anglo-Â�Saxon past. Britain’s greatness
and stability were seen in large part as the products of its Anglo-�Saxon heritage. At the
same time, in both Britain and the United States, Anglo-�Saxon scholarship became
progressively more racial in outlook. There had always been a racial element in Anglo-�
Saxon studies – Richard Verstegan’s 1605 work Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in
Antiquities, for example, presented the English as a purely Germanic people. Attention
had, however, tended to focus more on institutions, laws and customs. But in the later
nineteenth century it was the supposed racial superiority of the Anglo-�Saxons, as much
 introduction 15

as the superiority of their (supposed) institutions, that was lauded by scholars. The
Anglo-�Saxon settlement in Britain became something akin to ethnic cleansing, with the
Anglo-�Saxons sweeping away whatever they found remaining of the British people and
replacing it with their own superior bloodlines and culture. Even subsequent conquests
had not diluted the racial purity of the English (or their American cousins); the
Vikings and Normans, it was claimed, came from the same pure Nordic stock as the
Anglo-�Saxons themselves, so served to reinforce, rather than dissipate, their presence.
Popular enthusiasm for the Anglo-� Saxon period tended to coalesce around
particular figures, none more so than King Alfred the Great. Though Alfred had for
centuries been held up as a model of good kingship – in some ways replacing the
legendary figure of King Arthur – it was in the Victorian and early Edwardian periods
that his cult peaked. The celebrations at Winchester in 1901 marked what was believed,
albeit erroneously, to be the millennial anniversary of his death (which actually
occurred on 26 October 899). They included public lectures and festivities. The high
point was the unveiling of a statue by Hamo Thornycroft of Alfred (which still domi-
nates the Caves end of Winchester High Street), accompanied by an address from Lord
Rosebery, the Liberal statesman and former prime minister (1894–5), that described
Alfred as ‘the highest type of kingship and the highest type of Englishman’ and ‘the
embodiment of our civilisation’. To better prepare the public for these celebrations, a
selection of essays edited by Alfred Bowker, formerly the mayor of Winchester, was
I.8 Bronze statue of King
Alfred the Great on the
Broadway, Winchester.
Designed by Hamo Thornycroft
and commissioned by the City
Corporation, the statue was
unveiled in 1901 as part of the
misdated millenary
celebrations of Alfred’s death
16 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

published in 1899. The eulogising of King Alfred therein reached dizzying, even some-
what ridiculous heights. Frederic Harrison claimed Alfred to be widely acknowledged,
in Britain and abroad, as ‘the only perfect man of action recorded in history’, while Sir
Clements Markham even hailed the king as ‘the founder of the science of geography in
this kingdom’. In 2001 the centenary was again celebrated, but in a lower key and
without the hyperbole.
It was only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that many of the
long-Â�cherished tenets of Anglo-Â�Saxon scholarship – such as the Anglo-Â�Saxon origins
of Parliament or the Common Law – were fully and finally disproved, with legal histo-
rians establishing the post-�Conquest period as the real beginnings of the history of
English law. Popular belief in the racial superiority of the Germanic peoples dissipated,
largely as a result of two world wars. Alongside this there was widespread rejection of
racial theories of history. This was accompanied, especially after the Second World
War, by renewed interest in the non-�Anglo-�Saxon history of early medieval Britain,
with a resurgence of both scholarly and popular works investigating King Arthur and
the sub-�Roman period. Alongside such changes, however, the study of the Anglo-�
Saxon past continued to flourish, with works such as Sir Frank Stenton’s Anglo-Â�Saxon
England (first published in 1943) and Dorothy Whitelock’s The Beginnings of English
Society (1952) deservedly reaching a wide audience, both inside and outside academia.
The second half of the twentieth century saw significant changes in approaches to
the Anglo-�Saxon period. Scholars in disciplines such as archaeology, landscape history
and place name
� studies have increasingly been able to challenge the centrality of
written sources to the reconstruction of the Anglo-�Saxon past. Attention has switched
instead to previously neglected aspects and opened up new and hitherto unexpected
vistas, into trade links, for example, fields and villages, mills and fisheries, and wood-
land and heaths.
Scientists have also turned their attention to the Anglo-�Saxon past and we now
understand the environmental backdrop in ways beyond the reach of scholars only
two generations ago. Victorian writers assumed that fifth-�century Angles and Saxons
entered a Britain still largely covered with virgin forest, pushing into the great river
estuaries of the east coast to find lands to clear and settle. The newcomers, were, there-
fore, as much colonial frontiersmen (and women) equipped as lumberjacks, as warriors
exterminating the Britons.
Such assumptions were eventually overturned by new environmental sciences. First
among them was palaeobotany – the study of plant remains, particularly pollen,
preserved in chronologically ordered strata in peat bogs. This began in Denmark but
was taken up in Britain pre-�Second World War. There followed Carbon 14 dating,
begun in the US in the 1940s. Carbon 14 provides a much needed method of dating
strata within columns of peat, dating which had hitherto to rely on recognition of
common horizons, such as the ‘elm decline’, used to mark the start of the ‘Neolithic
Revolution’ around five thousand years ago. Carbon 14 became increasingly accurate and
widely used across the later twentieth century, to the great benefit of Anglo-�Saxon studies.
These breakthroughs heralded a scientific revolution. Pollen diagrams reveal the
sequence of plant colonisation in the post-�glacial era, from the initial appearance of
 introduction 17

tundra-�type vegetation, juniper and birch through the

deciduous forest climax of c. 5000 bc. Human interfer-
ence began with hunting and gathering, then grew with
the inception of agriculture and domesticated animals.
The focus was initially on prehistory, and research
methods were best suited to the longue durée approach,
but the past three decades have witnessed far greater
attention given to the first millennium ad. The concen-
tration of suitable sampling sites in the north and west of
Britain has caused problems, but in recent years there
has been a concerted effort to access pollen data from
more sites in lowland Britain, often using quite small
deposits of peat. While the results from such sites tell us
less about the wider area than samples taken from the
centres of much larger wetlands, they are beginning to
provide data more relevant to Anglo-�Saxon England as a
whole. Although the spread of sample sites remains
patchy, the overall pattern now offers a body of evidence
broadly representative of England and its several regions.
Across the first millennium ad, we now realise that
woodland was far less widespread than Victorian
scholars imagined. Indeed, it is often said that tree cover
in the Roman period, when population probably peaked,
was no more than at the outbreak of the First World War
in 1914. By 400, there was little if any Wild Wood left.
That trees are the oldest living things on Earth leads naturally to ask of the British I.9 Glastonbury Relief Road.
Isles, ‘Are there still trees standing that were growing before 1066?’ We generally think Overlapping monolith tins
inserted into a vertical face of
of the oak as the oldest of our trees, but its natural span of years is less than this. When
peat to extract the full
pollarded, though, with the upper branches harvested, or coppiced, so cut down at sequence from this substantial
ground level and allowed to regrow, the oak’s life is extended; some of the very largest deposit
today just might be candidates. A few surviving ‘champion trees’ are massive in circum-
ference; these may date back to the Viking Age, among them several in Sherwood
Forest and Windsor Great Park but also including examples at Bishop’s Castle
(Shropshire) and the Marton Oak (Cheshire), which is over 13 metres in girth.
The oldest surviving trees are, however, yews, which are markedly slower growing.
A few are silent witnesses to the Anglo-�Saxon period. Most such have survived in
churchyards, sometimes apparently pre-�dating the church. Examples are concentrated
in western England, with one at Ashburton (Somerset) 11.5 metres in circumference
and a concentration in and around Shropshire, with examples such as those at Church
Preen and Acton Scott. Ancient yews are not exclusive to England, with examples
occurring widely in both Wales and Scotland – a particularly impressive example
which is often claimed to be the oldest living thing in Britain is at Fortingall (Perthshire),
near Loch Tay. With these you can actually touch something dating back over one
thousand years.
 18 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

I.10 Silent witness. A

pollarded yew, already a
substantial tree by 1066, in the
churchyard of St John the
Baptist’s, Church Preen,
present girth 6.8 metres

Anglo-�Saxon scholarship has broadened out, therefore, from the political and
constitutional focus that dominated earlier research, embracing the environment, the
economy, society at large, culture, religion and gender. New work has increasingly
sought out a past less centred on the court and the archives preserved by a few churches,
seeking rather to explore the crowded workshops of Anglo-�Saxon towns, the wharves
of trading settlements, the highways and byways of the countryside, rural settlements,
local churches, the artistic achievements of the past and its graveyards, all alongside
the scriptoria of its major monasteries, where so many of our surviving texts
originated.
Today the study of the Anglo-�Saxons comprises a rich dialogue between scholars
from numerous disciplines. Numismatists – specialists in coins – for example, have
brought to the table previously unknown kings and new understandings of the birth,
growth and use of currency. Archaeologists offer insights into the wealth of newly
discovered settlements, changing material culture, trade links and occupational
evidence. Art and architectural historians explore the intellectual achievements,
cultural values and aesthetics of both pagan and Christianising Anglo-�Saxon England.
A range of scientists pursue new insights into the origins of the Anglo-�Saxons, their
diets and the world in which they lived, based on data of types unthinkable only a half-�
century ago. Particular mention should here be made of the effects of the Treasure Act
1996, which established the Portable Antiquities Scheme to log, identify and interpret
 introduction 19

a veritable host of new finds as these have arisen, largely through the activities of metal
detectorists. It is fair to say that as a result the material evidential base for Anglo-�Saxon
England has been drastically rewritten in recent years.
All these specialities inform the chapters that follow, though none is as fully
explored as one might wish – there is simply insufficient room in such an introductory
work to open out every disciplinary approach to the full light of day. For those wishing
to take their understanding of the Anglo-�Saxon world beyond this introductory stage,
there are bibliographies offered specific to each chapter and each section of sources
and issues, which are designed to help the reader along this route, as well as offer
access to the many and varied discussions and debates that underlie and underpin
this work.

The Organisation of this Book

It is in this spirit that our book offers a new introduction to the Anglo-�Saxons and the
Anglo-�Saxon period. The approach taken here is interdisciplinary and we have sought
to draw on evidence and insights from all fields of historical enquiry. For some periods
or debates, particular forms of evidence are foregrounded – archaeology for the Anglo-Â�
Saxon Settlement or written sources for the West Saxon conquests of the tenth century,
for example – but we have attempted to approach events from as many perspectives as
is feasible. The book is divided into chapters that explore the main events, processes
and persons of the Anglo-�Saxon period, running chronologically. Between them short
essays, entitled ‘Sources and Issues’, introduce particular pieces or forms of evidence or
set out key debates and issues. Though the formal chronological divisions of the chap-
ters frequently reflect key political changes, this is purely for authorial convenience
and we have moved outside such boundaries where it has proved necessary.

A Note on Spelling and Nomenclature

In addition to the letters of the Roman alphabet, in their writings the Anglo-�Saxons
employed a number of characters derived from the runic alphabet, namely Æ (ash), Đ
(eth), Þ (thorn) and Ƿ (wynn). Except when quoting directly from texts, eth, thorn and
wynn have been replaced in this volume by their modern equivalents, ‘th’ for Đ and Þ
and ‘w’ for Ƿ; ash has been retained. The spelling of personal names was not standard-
ised in this period, so the name of a single individual could be spelled in numerous
different ways. Where possible we have used the spellings as given in the Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography and have been guided by its conventions for indi-
viduals not included therein. Place names are given in their modern forms and spell-
ings – so Whitby rather than Streanæshalch, for example. Where two or more places
with the same name exist or confusion is possible, we have given reference in brackets
to the historical county (i.e. pre-� 1974) in which they are located. Where
a recorded place name can no longer be located with confidence, it is set in italics
(e.g. Clovesho).
 chapter 1

Britain in and out of the

Roman Empire
nicholas j. higham

The Venerable Bede opened his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed
in ad 731, with the Roman conquest of Britain. Without the benefit of archaeological
scholarship, Bede knew far less than we do about Roman Britain, but he had access to
many of the same literary texts and the landscape with which he was familiar was
scattered with Roman-Â�period ruins in ways that we can only imagine. Close to Bede’s
own monastery at Jarrow just south of the River Tyne, Hadrian’s Wall loomed large,
with its attendant vallum, road, forts and milecastles. He knew it well. And when he
visited York he would have seen the massive fortress walls and great buildings within,
some still even roofed, towering over the bishop’s church. The masoned stones from
which the great monastic churches were built came from Roman ruins, such as the
bridge abutment at Corbridge on the Tyne, which Bishop Wilfrid quarried for stone to
build Hexham.
The bishops of Rome loomed large, too, in Bede’s world: here the Western Church
was centred, its authority preserved and orthodoxy defended; from here had come
Augustine of Canterbury, spearheading the English conversion. Late seventh-�and
eighth-�
century English clerics saw themselves as champions of this ‘Roman’
Christianity, suppressing heresy and re-Â�establishing the ‘Roman’ Church in Britain.
For Bede, therefore, Roman Christianity in the present coloured that time when
Britain had been part of the Roman Empire.
Today, albeit for different reasons, the Roman period remains a natural starting
point for any book focused on Anglo-�Saxon England. Just what sort of Roman
Britain we envisage, how we depict its ending, and what type of sub-�Roman Britain
then followed, conditions any discussion of – and attitudes to – the ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’
period that came after. And attitudes to Roman Britain have changed dramatically
across the past century. Early twentieth-�century Britain was in awe of Rome, seeing
it as a civilising force in a Britain otherwise given over to barbarism. More recently
the Roman Empire has been viewed less favourably, as an institutionalised
military dictatorship exploiting the peoples and lands which it had conquered. As
Britain’s own empire disintegrated, so did attitudes to the Roman World begin to
change.
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 21

1.1 Places named in Britain in

chapter 1

Roman Britain
The main outline of Britain’s provincial history is easy to summarise: the island lay on
the edge of Julius Caesar’s conquests in Gaul (58–51 bc). He crossed the Channel in
force in the summers of 55 and 54 bc, but Britain was not permanently annexed until
the next century, following invasion in ad 43 by the armies of the emperor Claudius.
Conquest took several generations but gradually brought under control the resources
of an island which the Roman author Tacitus, for one, considered rich. In fact, it was
probably a drain on imperial resources for a century and more.
 22 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.2 The later Roman Empire.

Stretching from Cumbria in
Britain to Upper Egypt on the
Nile, the Roman Empire was
vast. By the late fourth century
it was divided between the
Latin West and the Greek East.
Britain stands out in being
separated by the Atlantic from
the remainder of the Roman
World, and as the most
northerly of the twelve dioceses

Although several British products were highly valued – such as pearls, hounds and
tin – the island was economically marginal. In terms of its agricultural climate, it lay
on the very edge of the Roman World. The north and west were incapable of supporting
wide-�scale arable farming. High rainfall, impervious soils and low temperatures meant
that here even most low-�lying areas were ill-�suited to the sort of agrarian regimes char-
acteristic of more southerly climes. Many standard crops of the Empire, such as olives,
simply could not be grown in Britain; others, such as vines, were only established in
particularly favourable localities in the south and east of the island.
Difficulties of the topography had consequences for the expansion of Roman polit-
ical power. Despite periodic efforts to conquer the whole island and even threaten
Ireland, successive land frontiers were established on Hadrian’s Wall (122–38) and
then the Antonine Wall (141–58), which excluded the more northerly, mountainous
areas. In the second half of the second century the Hadrianic frontier was re-�occupied
and would henceforth provide a northern boundary. Scotland would not be conquered
and incorporated into the Empire, albeit Roman influence there was considerable;
Ireland too stayed outside. In that sense, the Roman conquest of the British Isles
remained an unfinished project.

Frontier Society
In the mid-Â�second century about 10 per cent of the entire Roman Army, some 40,000–
55,000 troops, were stationed in Britain, giving a very ‘military’ character to the prov-
ince. The troops were not distributed evenly, with hardly any stationed east of the
Severn or south of the Humber. The largest concentrations were at the three great
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 23

1.3 Relief and rainfall:

defining the upland/lowland
divide in Britain. Contours are
at 123 and 246 metres (400
and 800 ft). Rainfall is below
762 millimetres (30 in) in
eastern England, rising to two
and three times this level in
the north and west

legionary fortresses of Caerleon (south Wales), Chester and York, each capable of
accommodating some 5,500 soldiers though only rarely were more than a fraction
present. Stretching across Wales and the north of Roman Britain lay a network of
auxiliary forts, each holding 500–1,000 men. Following the withdrawal from southern
Scotland, auxiliaries were concentrated along the Hadrianic frontier from the Solway
to the Tyne estuary, and in its hinterland. In Wales and northern England a distinctive,
‘frontier’ society evolved. At its core was an economy centred on soldiers, whom the
imperial government paid and supplied. Markets at the gates of most forts gradually
became permanent settlements, known as vici, dominated by shops and trading
booths. Outside lay parade grounds, small temples, shrines and cemeteries, many with
stone memorials. The army controlled extensive grazing lands, made numerous
demands on local communities, and exercised authority over the tribes of the north
and west.
 24 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.4 Hadrian’s Wall. Milecastle

39 at Steel Rigg looking east

The military garrisons were in some respects, however, only small islands of
governmental influence within the wider landscape. Rural settlements lay scattered
across the better �drained lowlands, valley sides and hill slopes up to around the
300 metre contour. The indigenous population lived in enclosed settlements that
changed little in consequence of Roman occupation beyond the appearance of a few
pots, small items of metalwork and cheap jewellery. Such settlements retained pre-�
Roman characteristics throughout much of the period, with roundhouses still in use,
for example, and enclosures and small fields with clear debts to the Iron Age. Military
garrisons in their stone forts seem somewhat isolated amidst a settlement pattern
which otherwise consisted almost entirely of extended family farms and without much
in the way of towns (Carlisle, Corbridge and Carmarthen were small-�scale excep-
tions), rural shrines or villas. Local elites are barely visible archaeologically, very few

1.5 Auxiliary fort and vicus at

Old Carlisle, Cumbria
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 25

coins were lost in the countryside and there was little indigenous investment in Roman
culture, perhaps because the pressure of taxation and requisitioning by or on behalf of
the army left little surplus in the hands of the local population.
Within this ‘upland’ or ‘military’ zone, the army was dominant, with its own
cultural apparatus, epigraphic and religious traditions, expertise in masonry and
metalworking, and appetite for foodstuffs, drink and leather. Comparatively high
levels of literacy have been revealed by writing tablets from around ad 100 excavated
at Vindolanda just south of Hadrian’s Wall. The army was initially drawn primarily
from Gaul, with some units from more distant parts of the Empire and on occasion
from outside, although recruitment became far more local in the third century.
Similarly, prominent members of the civilian community servicing the army’s needs in
the vici seem to have been in large part incomers, such as Barathes from Palmyra
(in Syria), who buried his British wife outside the fort at South Shields. The contribu-
tion of the local community was mostly in the form of labourers, recruits to the army
(early generations of whom were sent to the Continent), slaves and prostitutes.
Part of what had driven the Roman conquest of Britain was its mineral wealth, and
therefore extractive industries were active from the early years, particularly in upland
areas. Tin in Cornwall, gold at Dolaucothi (Wales), lead (and silver) in eastern and
north-�eastern Wales, the Peak District and the northern Pennines, salt at Droitwich, in
Cheshire and on the coasts, coal in the East Midlands and iron in the Weald and south-�
east Midlands – these were all exploited, although none developed into major indus-
tries by Continental standards. Management was largely via imperial monopolies or
concessions, so the profits from these activities rarely fed back into local communities,
but they probably helped to offset the considerable costs to the imperial government
of garrisoning the island province.

The Lowland Zone

The British lowlands developed in rather different ways to the uplands, although still
much affected by the unusually heavy Roman army presence. A network of roads was
constructed, centred on London which rapidly became the principal port through
which trade and supplies for the army entered Britain. London (Londinium) emerged
as the provincial capital in the aftermath of the Boudiccan revolt in ad 60–1. Before
the Roman Conquest there were no towns in Britain, though there were some coastal
trading sites and quite numerous oppida – massively ditched and embanked settle-
ments of high status. Three colonial towns (coloniae) were quickly established by the
settlement of retired soldiers at Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln; York and London
were later accorded comparable status in recognition of their size and roles as provin-
cial capitals. As the conquest proceeded and the military zone pushed northwards and
westwards, civil government was gradually transferred to newly constituted tribal
territories (civitates) and the towns which developed as their centres. These were very
variable in size: the provincial capital London was by far the largest, covering some
128 hectares, but most civitas centres were only about 40 hectares and northern or
western examples, such as Carmarthen, as small as 6 hectares.
 26 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.6 Roman roads in Britain.

Initially built for military
purposes, increasingly they
connected the towns, both
major and minor, as lowland
forts were abandoned

Most of these towns lie beneath later cities that have obscured the Roman levels.
Since the late 1960s, however, excavation has achieved new understandings of the
Roman towns of Britain, nowhere more so, perhaps, than at London itself. London was
unusual in not being a tribal centre but bordering several civitates. It developed rapidly
as a trading port around a mid-�first-�century fort guarding the river crossing, then,
following the destruction caused by the revolt in ad 60, was rebuilt as a planned town
with large-�scale public buildings. By the late first century, an auxiliary fort had been
constructed at Cripplegate and there were impressive concentrations of buildings.
Emperor Hadrian’s visit in ad 122 boosted civic construction and London had become
a major city by the mid-�second century, with perhaps 50,000 inhabitants. A substantial
complex beneath Cannon Street station has been interpreted as the governor’s palace.
The largest forum north of the Alps lay at the centre of the city and several temples
have been identified. This is the only site in Britain exhibiting extensive use of imported
high-�quality Roman building stone.
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 27

London’s wealth and magnificence reflected its administrative functions and its
role as the principal centre of Continental trade via extensive harbour facilities that
have been excavated on both sides of the Thames around London Bridge. The city lost
momentum, however, in the later second century – declining trade and/or plague have
been blamed. London entered a recession from which it never fully recovered in this
period, with continuing shrinkage in the number of buildings and a drop in popula-
tion, although claims that it shrank to a mere ‘administrative village’ are exaggerated.
London was walled on the landward side, probably by the imperial usurper Clodius
Albinus, before his death in civil war in ad 197. London Wall is massive: at around
3 kilometres long, 6 metres high and 2.5 metres thick it was the largest stone structure
in Roman Britain barring only Hadrian’s Wall. It was extended along the river front in
the second half of the third century, perhaps to counter seaborne raiders.
London was by far Britain’s grandest urban settlement, but others which were not
later built over have much better preserved archaeology, particularly Verulamium
(St Albans), Silchester (Hampshire) and Wroxeter (Shropshire), where excavation
over many decades has revealed much of their complex history. Street grids were
fundamental to the early towns, with central provision for a forum and basilica where
government and trade were centred. Although early digs focused exclusively on stone
foundations, timbered or half-�timbered buildings predominated throughout, with
utilitarian structures giving way to civic buildings in stone in the second century,
accompanied by the construction of numerous townhouses, also increasingly in stone
(or with stone foundations). Compared to other Western provinces, however, urban
development was slow. Major towns are more thinly distributed, building inscriptions
far fewer and bath suites, piped water and facilities for entertainment more modest.
The only circus identified in Britain, albeit the largest so far discovered outside Italy,
lies outside the early capital, Colchester, and was clearly part of the imperial project.
Similarly, Britain’s only front-Â�ranking classical temple is there. Elsewhere the Romano-Â�
Celtic temples typical of northern Gaul were copied both in town and country,
although Bath itself, where the indigenous cult of Sulis was conjoined with that of the
Roman goddess Minerva, is an exception.
Towns were, however, walled unusually early in Britain, some being equipped with
earthwork circuits with a stone facia even in the late first century ad. This style was
unusual in Gaul, where only the grandest towns were fortified before the third century.
It is unclear why this occurred in Britain and why so early. One might suppose that
walls were built primarily to provide defence against raiders from outside Britain or
protection against rebellion within, but this may be too simplistic. The emphasis on
gateways may best be explained as a means of self-�advertisement to compete for trade
and status. The suggestion that walls appeared particularly early close to tribal bound-
aries would support such a view if we had a clearer grasp of where such divisions lay.
Perhaps urban defences served multiple functions to do with the separation of urban
and rural spaces, policing, defence, security and civic status, though it is difficult to see
this as any different from towns in Gaul. Excepting London and the other coloniae,
walls were paid for by local subscription, so they were necessarily something which
local communities wanted. A ‘British’ impulse is suggested by the similarity between
28 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

some town walls and the defences of the great pre-�Roman oppida which preceded
several such walls (as at Colchester). The impulse to equip new towns with walls is one
of many factors which differentiate Britain from its Continental neighbours.
The urge to build defences is visible too at many minor towns. Small towns were
quite numerous and differed in size (but consistently under 20 hectares). The factors
encouraging their development varied widely. They provided accommodation and
facilities for travellers, offered markets to local industries (as salt extraction, pottery
production or mining), served the needs of the military (as Catterick), and provided
local markets. Small towns are often difficult to differentiate archaeologically from
large villages or villa complexes but generally have some extra dimension not
found elsewhere. Many small towns, such as Bath, Gosbeck and the newly discovered
Elms Farm, Heybridge (Essex), developed around a temple complex which
attracted numerous visitors, so supporting the hotel and catering trades and stimu-
lating the sale of local goods and services. The presence of stone buildings was highly
variable in these settlements, with some, such as Heybridge, almost entirely timber-�
built.
Along the roads emanating from the major towns well-�ordered cemeteries devel-
oped. The rather disparate burial practices of the late pre-�Roman Iron Age gave way in
the first and second centuries to Roman-�style cremation with commemorative grave
markers. The dominant rite shifted in the late second and early third centuries to inhu-
mation, often in new cemeteries. Coffins were common and wealthy graves might
include decorated stone sarcophagi. Large-�scale excavations at Bath Gate (Cirencester),
Poundbury (Dorchester) and Lankhills (Winchester), and in extra-�mural cemeteries
at York and Leicester, have revealed how well �regulated these were. The scarcity of
recutting suggests that graves were well �marked and managed long term. Even so, the
cemeteries so far identified were never sufficiently extensive to accommodate more
than a small proportion of the dead from Roman Britain. Many sectors of society,
particularly in the countryside, were disposing of bodies in ways which are far less
accessible to archaeology than these suburban burial grounds.
Despite the comparatively modest scale of urban development in Roman Britain,
the major towns were both foci of Roman culture and central to the administration.
London had emerged as provincial capital by ad 100. Around ad 200, Britain was
divided into two provinces. London remained the capital of the larger, southern prov-
ince, Britannia Superior, with a governor of senatorial rank, while York was the centre
of the more northerly, smaller Britannia Inferior. Further subdivision in the fourth
century created a diocese with four, then ultimately perhaps five, provinces. Predictably,
London was the capital of Maxima Caesariensis and housed the diocesan administra-
tion. It was renamed Augusta in the mid-�fourth century, an honorific title confirming
its centrality to the government of Britain. It long housed a mint, although that ceased
production in the later Roman period. London also served as the principal focus of
taxation, with the substantial bureaucracy which that involved. York retained its status
in the north and Cirencester and Lincoln are the strongest candidates for provincial
capitals elsewhere. Civitas centres were responsible for local government and the
administration of justice and taxation, holding voluminous records.
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 29

The assumption has long been that Britain was Celtic-�speaking prior to the Roman
Conquest, using local dialects of a language shared across Gaul and parts of Spain
which then developed into medieval and modern Welsh, Cornish and Breton. That
significant regional differences existed seems plausible: lowland British Celtic was
more influenced by Latin and should perhaps be distinguished from highland British
Celtic, though the evidence is thin.
An alternative view is that only the highland zone spoke Celtic by the Roman
period and that contacts with tribes collectively known as the Belgae in France and
Belgium north of the Seine had encouraged the spread of a Germanic language in
lowland Britain. The great advantage of this model is that it helps explain the ease with
which the lowlands became English-�speaking in the next half millennium. However,
this proposal goes well beyond the evidence. There is no certainty that the Belgae were
Germanic speakers – they are at least as likely to have spoken Celtic Gaulish; while
1.7 Curse tablet from Uley.
there was clearly some contact, resulting in the tribal names Parisi in eastern Yorkshire
Honoratus appeals to the god
and Belgae and Atrebates in the south, these are not Germanic names, and cross-� Mercury to punish the theft of
Channel contacts are also well evidenced between Celtic Lower Normandy and Dorset, two wheels, four cows and
the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, and Celtic Armorica (Brittany) and the south west of various unspecified items from
Britain. Place names in eastern Roman Britain are as uniformly Romano-�Celtic as in his house. Latin in Roman
cursive script on a lead sheet
the west, with little trace of Germanic, and Celtic name development continued at least
folded to provide a degree of
into the fifth century, demonstrating that British Celtic was a living language. The case security
for a substantial Germanic linguistic presence in Iron Age and Roman Britain is best,
therefore, set aside.
Just how widely Latin spread in Roman Britain is unclear. All
surviving inscriptions on stone and writing on other materials are
in Latin. This suggests that Latin was the language of the army, of
administration, of trade and of elite discourse. It is even the
language of graffiti in Romano-�British towns, as well as on the vast
majority of the more than three hundred curse tablets of lead or
pewter sheet found at temple sites (predominantly Bath and Uley).
Many of these were written not by professional scribes but by the
supplicants themselves, implying that both Latin and literacy were
widespread; indeed, some authors took steps to obscure their
meaning, using simple codes (for example Greek lettering) or
folding or rolling them and driving a nail through, which implies
that they were nervous of others reading them. Stylus finds suggest
widespread literacy in towns, at temples and villas.
By the fourth century, Latin may have been well on the way to
replacing British Celtic across the lowlands, as occurred in Gaul,
but the evidence only need reflect a minority of the British popula-
tion. Some curse tablets were inscribed by semi-�literates or illiter-
ates, who may have struggled equally with Latin. The traditional
Roman education evidenced by British priests and writers in the
sub-�Roman period was probably the preserve of the elite. Some
place names surviving into Anglo-�Saxon England reflect sound
30 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

changes in Brittonic later than ad 400, which confirms that the language was spoken
alongside Latin even in the south east.
Personal names may provide a clue. Outside London the standard Roman nomen
and cognomen are virtually absent from inscriptions; instead provincials generally
bore Latinised versions of Celtic names and distinguished themselves in the ‘peregrine’
fashion, if at all, by reference to a parent. Immigrants, soldiers and officials probably
played a dominant role in many towns, both socially and economically, and were
responsible for a significant proportion of the inscriptions that have survived (about
three thousand), which are far fewer than in most other provinces (compare North
Africa with about sixty thousand). The bulk of the population, however, was British
and many still spoke British Celtic even in the late Roman period.

The Economy
If we turn to the rural landscape, much has been made of the changes which the Roman
period witnessed. New villa residences were characterised by novel styles of architec-
ture, hypocaust heating systems and painted wall plaster. New roads bisected the land-
scape, along which small towns sprang up, villages and farms grew and spread, rural
shrines and markets emerged, and new crops were introduced (including carrots,
cabbage and grapes). However, villas only developed in a tiny minority of settlements
and in most areas there was a high level of continuity in patterns of land use from later
prehistory. Centuriation of land into new rectilinear units characterises Roman land
allocation across much of the Empire’s Western provinces but has proved elusive in
Britain, suggesting that the conquest was not accompanied by wholesale land
re-�organisation. Overall, the countryside of Roman Britain represents a progression,
not a revolution.
The ubiquitous roundhouses of the Iron Age continued as the commonest type of
vernacular building throughout most of the Roman period and their inhabitants
worked land in ways that changed little. Since the 1950s there has been a dramatic rise
in the number of Iron Age and Roman-�period settlements which have been located,
leading to an upward revision of the population of Roman Britain. Whereas estimates
in the 1930s centred on 1 million, scholars in the 1980s and 1990s preferred 2–4
million, with some going even higher. More recently, opinion has fixed on the lower
end of this range, but whatever the precise figure offered, all now agree that the
Romano-�British population stood at or above 2 million. Though small by modern
standards, this approximates to the population in 1086, then again at the start of the
Tudor period, around 1500.
Roman Britain was, therefore, extensively and, in places, densely settled. Farming
accounted for the bulk of production and was both the principal source of wealth for
the elite and the bedrock of taxation. Villas provide a measure of the success of land-
owners, although the term is an elastic one used of any rural complex built in the
Roman style in stone or brick. They varied enormously in size and architectural
complexity: at one end of the scale palatial residences had as many as 50 rooms, many
with sumptuous mosaics, as Chedworth and Woodchester (both Gloucestershire) or
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 31

1.8 Roman villas in Britain:

(a) the palatial villa at
Chedworth, all periods; (b)
Bignor, a small villa that later
developed into a much larger
complex; (c) Lullingstone, all
periods; (d) Langton, all
periods; (e) Eaton-by-Tarporley

0 metres 25

0 yards 25

Bignor (West Sussex); at the other were small farmhouses with no more than perhaps
five rooms, as Langton (North Yorkshire) or Eaton-�by-�Tarporley (Cheshire). Some
were the residences of Romanised Britons of high status, as most conspicuously
Fishbourne (West Sussex), but many of the grander type were probably built for
incomers – officials, army officers, displaced landowners, or ‘foreign’ merchants,
agents or businessmen. Very occasionally an owner can be identified: Lullingstone
(Kent) was probably the rural retreat of the governor Publius Helvius Pertinax (185–
7), who went on to become emperor, albeit briefly, in ad 193. The vast majority of such
residences, however, are anonymous and we are left to surmise who commissioned
and inhabited them.
 32 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.9 Lullingstone Roman villa.

Aerial view reconstruction of
the central building in the later
fourth century

1.10 Fourth-century mosaic in

the dining room of Lullingstone
Roman villa. The abduction of
the princess Europa by Jupiter,
disguised as a bull, with two
cupids. The inscription makes
allusions to the works of Virgil
and Ovid, suggesting the
villa-owner was a Classically
educated sophisticate
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 33

The distribution of villas illustrates the variability of the Romano-�British rural

landscape. A recent listing identified 2,342 candidates, although these include a few
examples which should arguably be interpreted rather as small towns, villages or
shrines. Even so, the totals for each county are revealing: just five counties –
Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Wiltshire – contain
over 40 per cent of the total, while over half the 46 modern counties have fewer than
30 villas per county, and some (Cumbria, Gwynedd, Powys and Lancashire) only one
candidate apiece. This variability is greater than environmental factors and different
rates of discovery can explain – compare Suffolk’s 28 villas with Norfolk’s 217, for
example. It probably reflects, therefore, complex social and economic factors, differ-
ences between neighbouring farming regions and differing relationships between local
communities and the government. There may well have been extensive imperial estates
in some areas where villas are few.
Roman manufactures of all sorts streamed into Britain in the first century, but the
province became progressively less reliant on imports and more self-� sustaining
economically across the second century, with the development of local pottery indus-
tries, for example. Potteries were workshop-Â�based and used the potter’s wheel and
purpose-�built kilns, but they were not massive in scale by Roman standards, although
products such as Oxford colour-�coated ware had an extensive distribution south and
east of a line from Bristol to Hull. There were other major kiln groups, at Poole Harbour
(Dorset), in the New Forest, at Alice Holt (Hampshire) and in the Nene Valley, but
pottery manufacture was uncommon and never more than short-�lived outside the
lowland zone. While imports continued, finds dwindle and are numerically insignifi-
cant for the fourth century, when quantities of incoming amphora, holding olive oil
and fish sauce, diminished.
Many industries focused heavily on local markets. For example, third-�century
mosaicists based in or near Cirencester worked in elite residences in both town and
country but rarely outside a small group of adjacent tribal territories. Some two thou-
sand mosaics have been recovered in Britain, mostly bearing geometric designs but
with increasing numbers of motifs from Classical literature and mythology used in the
third and fourth centuries, most probably copied from standard pattern books.
Similarly, masons and sculptors worked mostly with locally quarried stone to respond
to both public and private commissions.

Later Roman Britain

Events both in Britain and elsewhere in the Roman Empire affected this huge super-�
state’s management of its most northerly diocese. In the East, the rise of Persia in the
third century necessitated a large-�scale redeployment of troops and resources, which
weakened the Western Empire and made it less capable of resisting barbarian inva-
sion. This gradually precipitated a shift in the balance of power in north-�western
Europe, resulting in episodic outflows of bullion from the Empire to neighbouring
barbarian groups as diplomatic gifts, payments to mercenaries or booty. Increasing
barbarian inroads in the third century created a long-�term crisis, worsened by
 34 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.11 The defences of late

Roman Britain. Note the forces
on both sides of the English
Channel, intended to stop
North Sea raiders attacking the
rich lands in Britain south of
the Wash and on the Atlantic
coasts of Gaul

currency inflation, as hard-�pressed governments repeatedly diluted the precious

metal content of the coinage. The result was a breakdown in central Roman govern-
ment of the Western Empire, with separate regimes in Gaul for substantial periods,
which only ended with Emperor Diocletian’s re-Â�unification of the Roman state at the
end of the third century. Although technically one Empire, there was a mounting
tendency for separate governments to control the East and the West throughout the
fourth century.
These changes affected communities beyond the Rhine. Within Germanic society,
sections of the adult male population increasingly opted for warfare as a career, either
in Roman armies or in the retinues of tribal elites. Raiding was endemic along and
beyond the northern frontiers of the Empire, and ever more embedded in social struc-
tures. Behind the frontier peoples, a western migration of the Huns on the Steppes had
considerable repercussions, triggering two waves of barbarian migration into the
Empire, the first in the 370s and the second in the first decade of the fifth century.
These included large bodies of warriors capable of confronting and even routing
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 35

1.12 Pevensey Saxon Shore

fort. The lower courses are late
Roman, the castle walls above
medieval

Roman armies, as occurred at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, when the Eastern
emperor, Valens, was vanquished by the Goths. Even with peace restored, the Empire
was forced to accommodate semi-�autonomous barbarian peoples within its frontiers.
Although the Huns did not actually cross the frontier until Attila’s invasion in the 450s,
their push westwards had devastating consequences for the Roman World much
earlier and began the long process of disintegration which afflicted the Western
Empire. Governments were unable to call on the resources of manpower, supplies and
money necessary to rebuild the armed forces sufficiently to re-�establish the frontiers.
By the last quarter of the fourth century, Roman authorities were ever less able to
respond to crises in Britain.
As an outlier of the Empire, Britain was particularly vulnerable to these growing
weaknesses, and as an island it was open to barbarian attack on all sides. A substantial
garrison was therefore needed to guard both the land frontier to the north and exposed
coasts elsewhere. By the mid-�fourth century, Roman army numbers had been reduced
to perhaps half or a third of those of the second century. Successive troop withdrawals
were made in response to Continental emergencies: Chester’s barracks were largely
demolished by 300; Legio II Augusta departed Caerleon in South Wales before 400; the
only legion still in its second-�century base by the end of the fourth century was
VI Victrix at York. Alongside, many auxiliary units were reduced in numbers by
anything up to 80 per cent. Declining manpower was accompanied by a shift in strate-
gies regarding neighbouring communities – a rise in gift-Â�giving and the payment of
subsidies is one possible explanation for such late Roman hoards as that found on
Traprain Law (East Lothian, Scotland), which was one of several defensive strongholds
emerging in southern Scotland. That virtually no Roman material was reaching the
Pictish heartland of north-�east Scotland may signal imperial caution regarding a
people who had proved dangerous in the third century. However, such a policy may
have stimulated Pictish raids down the east coast when Roman defences were weak.
Declining army numbers and the low pay of frontier forces reduced the buying
power of the garrisons, causing shrinkage of occupation in, and even abandonment of,
36 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

the vici. In the short term, the lessening burden of requisitioning may have benefited
Romano-�British landowners, allowing resources to be switched to building villas, as
well as late urban development at such sites as Carlisle in the hinterland of Hadrian’s
Wall. This may have been one stimulus underpinning the late flourishing of British
villas, many of which reached their maximal size and sophistication in the early fourth
century, but the evidence is patchy, at best, and signs of affluence dissipate by the
mid-�century. There are some signs of economic retrenchment already in the third
century and real decline in the fourth in levels of activity of many kinds.
Despite the dropping troop numbers, there is no reason to suppose that the defences
of fourth-�century Britain were dangerously weak. Except in exceptional circumstances,
such as the so-Â�called ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ of 367, they were effective and the British
diocese enjoyed extended periods of external peace. Evidence is thinner for the later
period, but a surviving list of late imperial commands, the Notitia Dignitatum, provides
skeletal information on garrisons in Britain, probably relevant to the late 390s, which
archaeology both confirms and supplements.
In the south, the ‘count of the Saxon Shore’ (comes litoris Saxonici) commanded the
remnants of the second legion, formerly at Caerleon but now at Richborough (Kent),
plus units stationed along the coast – some 12 in all (the Notitia names 8) with perhaps
3,500 men. The forts with which they were associated had emerged over a century and
a half: Dover on the south coast of Kent was fortified early in the second century, with
the forts of Brancaster (late second) in Norfolk and Reculver (early third) on Kent’s
eastern coast then added; in the third quarter of the third century these were supple-
mented to create a string of coastal forts from the Wash to the Solent. From this point
these fortifications begin to look like an integrated system of defence.
The later forts differed from second-�century types, with rectangular, trapezoidal or
occasionally oval ground plans and thick, high walls supplemented by projecting
towers and ditches. There was normally only one gateway, unlike the earlier fort design
with four. Many forts seem to have been used somewhat haphazardly, perhaps even on
occasion by civilians, but the scale of the walls demonstrates that they were designed
to resist enemy attack. Poor integration with the road system confirms that these forts
were intended primarily as bases for ships. This is borne out by the appearance of a
fleet detachment named from Roman Pevensey, the classis Anderetianorum, which is
evidenced in Gaul in the Notitia Dignitatum.
The Saxon Shore was one of several coastal commands on the Channel, operating
in tandem with forces stationed in similar fortifications along the coasts of Belgica
Secunda (northern France and the Rhineland) and Armorica (Brittany). Earlier
suggestions that the ‘Saxon’ designation of the command derived from Roman use of
Saxon mercenaries here has been set aside. Rather, it was named for the enemy it was
expected to confront, not the troops stationed there. These commands were for a long
time effective at keeping Germanic raiders out of the Channel and away from the
coasts of southern Britain and Atlantic Gaul beyond.
In the north, frontier forces were still stationed along Hadrian’s Wall and along the
roads southwards. These lay under the command of the dux Britanniarum stationed at
York. Many forts along the Wall, such as Housesteads, Vindolanda and Birdoswald,
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 37

were occupied, but normally by only 200–300 men, and in some cases perhaps by
fewer than 100. There is far less evidence for major new construction than on the
south coast, but there were some refurbished or rebuilt forts: at Lancaster the Wery
Wall was part of a coastal stronghold equipped with corner turrets on the Saxon Shore
model, while elsewhere existing forts, such as Maryport (Cumbria), had corner towers
added. Roman scouts (areani) are referred to in the account of the attack of 367,
suggesting a strategy of intelligence-�gathering along the frontier. The late Roman
writer on military affairs, Vegetius, may have been referring to Britain when he
described coastal scout ships painted green as camouflage.
Along the North Sea, a fort at South Shields commanded the Tyne while Brough-�
on-�Humber oversaw the approaches to York. Between the Tees and the Humber a system
of coastal signal stations was constructed, probably post-�368, in association with a fortlet
now within the medieval castle at Scarborough. A naval station at Whitby is a possibility;
finds exist but no fort has been located. North British or Pictish seaborne raids seem the
likeliest threat here, skirting the Hadrianic frontier to strike down the coast.
In the west similar precautions were taken: a mid-�third-�century fort at Cardiff is
similar to those on the Saxon Shore; a fortlet and watchtowers overlooking the seaways
around Anglesey policed those seaways against Irish pirates. Excavation has demon-
strated occupation of several forts in Wales into the second half of the fourth century.
Although these go unremarked in the Notitia, it seems likely that the listing is defective
in this respect and that a further minor command existed in the west of Britain,
guarding against raiders from Ireland, Man and/or western Scotland.
All the units commanded by the dux at York and the comes on the Saxon Shore
were limitanei – the lower-Â�grade frontier forces of the Empire. There were perhaps
12,000–13,000 in late Roman Britain. There is no evidence of a permanent field army

1.13 Vindolanda. Late Roman

buildings in the north-west
quadrant of the fort
 38 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

present in the 360s, but the Notitia does list a comes Britanniarum at the head of a
mixed force of three infantry numeri and six cavalry units, perhaps totalling in all
3,000–6,000 men. These were comitatenses – the better paid and equipped field Â�army
units, present in Britain most likely in the late 390s.
By the fourth century, the use of barbarian troops was commonplace throughout
the Roman Empire, and Britain was no exception. When Constantine I launched his
bid for empire at York, in 306, a Germanic king, Crocus, with a force of Alamanni, was
part of his army. Another group of Alamanni is known to have been sent to Britain in
372. It has often been suggested that the sub-�Roman presence of Irish in western Wales
began with the settlement of federate troops in the fourth century. Although such
barbarians provided only a minority of the garrison, the names of the commanding
officers in 367 – Nectaridus and Fullofaudes – look suspiciously Germanic. It is quite
possible that some or all of the comitatenses in the 390s were barbarians.
Overall, therefore, Britain’s defences were comparatively effective through to the
late fourth century. Recruitment to the frontier forces at least was largely local, with
sons following their fathers into service. Responsibility for the army fell more heavily
on the insular population than had been the case earlier, when the Roman army was
supplied predominantly via long-Â�distance networks. From Diocletian’s reign in the late
third century onwards, military provision was increasingly via taxation in kind, with
civilians carrying produce directly to the fort gate. British supplies were also used to
feed the army of the Rhine in the later fourth century.
Pottery continued to reach the Hadrianic frontier from southern Britain into the
late fourth century, probably as small-�scale consignments of trade goods carried
alongside official supplies. Other kinds of goods, and in particular military equipment,
were increasingly manufactured in state-�run factories. An imperial weaving mill
supplying army uniforms was located in Britain; the procurator responsible was
mentioned in the Notitia. Military units in Britain also received manufactures from
comparable factories on the Continent, as well as coin from the imperial mints.
One way of monitoring the decline of the exchange economy of Roman Britain is
through changing patterns of coin loss. By 2010 some 70,000 Roman coins were known
from Roman Britain, with rapid increases due to the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Although some areas were already under-�represented, there was widespread coin
deposition in the early fourth century suggesting a dynamic exchange economy. A

1.14 Rural sites in Roman

Britain with above average
coin loss: (a) late third to early
fourth centuries; (b) mid-fourth
century; (c) late fourth century
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 39

1.15 Second-century baths at

Wroxeter (Viroconium), the
fourth largest town in Roman
Britain with perhaps 15,000
inhabitants in its heyday. The
baths were no longer in use in
the fourth century, with part
turned over to grain storage

decline in the number of sites exhibiting high rates is noticeable by the mid-�century.
By the late 370s coin loss is concentrated in a band running from East Anglia through
the Thames Valley and central southern England. This pattern prevails to the end of
the century, with the exception of Richborough, where some 22,000 copper coins were
deposited in the last decade.
The heyday of Roman Britain’s provincial towns lay in the second century, when
local landholders built numerous townhouses and invested heavily in urban lifestyles.
Thereafter they experienced shrinkage and retrenchment. Fewer inscriptions on stone
and new sculpture reflect changing tastes, associated perhaps with a shift of power
towards career soldiers from the frontier regions or beyond. By the fourth century the
provincial elite were absenting themselves in favour of their rural estates. Increasing
numbers of basilicae and/or fora in Britain’s towns were falling into disrepair, being
demolished, or converted to other uses, as at Silchester (Hampshire) where the central
spaces were used for metalworking from the late third century onwards. The amphi-
theatre was perhaps still in intermittent use in the mid-�fourth century, but rubbish was
being dumped on the ramparts post-�350, suggesting diminishing civic control. While
some public buildings clearly remained foci of urban life, numberous theatres, amphi-
theatres, water conduits, aqueducts and public baths fell into disrepair across the
fourth century or were converted to new purposes. The extensive public baths at
Wroxeter (Shropshire) offer one of many examples.
A number of such complexes may have had pagan associations, so it is possible
that growing commitment to Christianity lay behind some at least of these changes.
An imperial decree in 341 banned urban temples, and paganism was effectively
outlawed in the 390s, although the longevity of temple complexes at Bath, Lydney
(Gloucestershire) and elsewhere suggests that implementation of such legislation was
at best inconsistent.
 40 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.16 Lead font from

Icklingham (Suffolk), with
Chi-Rho monogram on the
side, probably used for
baptism

Christianity is difficult to identify archaeologically even in the later fourth century

and the Church in Britain may have been comparatively low-�key in comparison with
Gaul. Only a handful of British bishops or their representatives attended the Church
Council at Arles in southern Gaul in 314, suggesting that they represented the prov-
inces rather than individual civitates; one, Restitutus, was probably the metropolitan
bishop of London and the senior churchman in Britain. Archaeology has so far identi-
fied few urban churches with any certainty. A substantial building excavated at
Silchester, close by the forum, was initially interpreted as a church, but doubts have
crept in that it may originally have served some other purpose. At Lincoln the church
of St Paul in the Bail in the Roman forum began life in the late fourth century, was
rebuilt on a larger scale in the fifth century, and was probably only demolished in the
later sixth century. Late Roman churches are otherwise comparatively small struc-
tures, such as that excavated at Richborough. However, lead tanks apparently used
for baptism occur with some frequency, particularly in East Anglia and Lindsey
(Lincolnshire), and several hoards reflect Christian ritual, such as the Water Newton
Treasure (Cambridgeshire). Finds such as these imply that not all Christian communi-
ties were poor, and further churches presumably await discovery. The overtly Christian
wall painting at Lullingstone Roman villa (Kent) and the Chi-�Rho monogram at the
centrepiece of a mosaic at Hinton St Mary (Dorset) corroborate elite patronage of the
new religion, although the head featured in the latter owes as much to imperial portrai-
ture as to Christian iconography.
Just how far the British had adopted Christianity by 400 is unclear. Bishop Victricius
at Rouen seems to have assumed in the 390s that St Alban was well known � among his
primarily Continental audience, but otherwise British saints are not well attested. In
practice, the progress of Conversion was probably highly variable, concentrated
particularly in the towns, among officers and administrators, and the families of the
landholding elite.
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 41

The End of Roman Britain

It is often said that the Romans left Britain in or about 410. In practice, this makes no
sense, since the Britons in some manner at least were Romans. The ending of Roman
Britain was a far lengthier and more complex phenomenon than is often realised. It is
best explored over a period of perhaps sixty or seventy years.
The so-Â�called ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ of 367 overran the defences of Roman Britain
and brought widespread raiding by Saxons, Picts and Scots, but the situation was
quickly rectified. It is unclear how significant these events were, since the reporting
was highly political – given that Ammianus Marcellinus, who is our only source, dedi-
cated his History to Emperor Theodosius I, whose father had mounted the rescue,
Marcellinus probably exaggerated the scale of the crisis. Though much is made of
Count Theodosius’s success, therefore, the fact that his expeditionary force was just
2,000 men suggests only a minor crisis.
Another imperial general, Magnus Maximus, campaigned successfully beyond
Hadrian’s Wall and then had himself proclaimed emperor in 383, taking the British
garrison to the Continent. He secured Gaul and a degree of recognition from rival
rulers of the Roman World but was defeated and killed in 388, when he invaded Italy.
His failure brought to an end hands-�on imperial management of the Rhine frontier,
which fell henceforth to the Franks. Roman control of Britain was only re-�established
belatedly, but further troop withdrawals followed in the 390s to counter barbarian
threats elsewhere.
Maximus re-�established the mint at London, but that ceased once more at his
death, leaving Britain dependent on coin imports. British coins came predominantly
from mints at Milan, Trier and Lyon, but these were in steep decline by the 390s and
virtually ended production c. 413. The last substantial influx of coin to pay the garrison
reached Britain around 400, after which soldiers went unpaid. This precipitated a
revolt in 404, the centenary of Constantine I’s successful coup at York. There followed
the successive elevation of three usurpers to the purple. The last of these, the soldier
Constantine III, led troops from Britain to Gaul c. 407 to secure the Western Empire,
both against the established authorities and new barbarian forces that had crossed the
Rhine. Despite some initial successes, his cause disintegrated under the pressure of
internal revolts, barbarian demands and imperial resistance. He was captured by forces
loyal to Emperor Honorius and put to death at Arles.
Constantine’s evacuation of a majority of the Saxon Shore forts brought about the
final collapse of Roman control of the western seaways. A devastating Saxon raid
c. 410 was recorded by Gallic chroniclers. Thenceforth the coasts of both Gaul and
Britain were open to attack. Commenting on this raid, the early sixth-�century Eastern
historian, Zosimus, later claimed (in Greek) that

they [the Saxons] reduced the inhabitants .â•‹.â•‹. to such straits that they revolted from
the empire, no longer submitted to Roman law, and reverted to their native customs.
The Britons, therefore, armed themselves and ran many risks to ensure their own
safety and free their own cities from attacking barbarians.
42 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

With the Saxon Shore command no longer operative and with no field army in post,
the Saxons struck at the richer south of the diocese. Without military help from the
Continent, the Britons were forced back on their own resources. In practice, all parties
surely anticipated the restoration of imperial control, as had always happened over the
previous three and a half centuries. Zosimus noted elsewhere that Emperor Honorius
‘sent letters to the cities in Britain, urging them to fend for themselves’, but ‘Britain’ here
is likely to be a mistake for Bruttium in Italy, with which the remainder of the passage
is concerned. He never revised this section of the work, which is strewn with errors.
Broadly contemporary was a steep decline in most aspects of the Romano-�British
economy. There was little if any further building in stone, no new mosaics, little main-
tenance of existing buildings, and a sharp reduction in trade and manufacturing. The
seminal study, by Simon Esmonde Cleary, argues that the late Romano-� British
economy rested on a cycle of economic activity driven by taxation: agricultural produce
was sold for bronze coin, which was then exchanged for the silver and gold in which
taxes were paid and manufactured goods purchased. By this reckoning the failure of
the coin supply c. 400, then the ending of Roman governance c. 410, destroyed Britain’s
economic cycle, bringing down urban markets, trade, manufacturing and the villas
which had been centres of both production and consumption. While there were
Britons in the fifth century, therefore, they should no longer be termed Romano-�
British. Rather, the whole structure of Roman life and the provincial hierarchy failed,
very suddenly and irrevocably.
Certainly, at settlement after settlement, it becomes increasingly difficult to find
evidence of Roman-� style activity. Numerous sites reveal what has been termed
‘squatter’ occupation, denoting the end of a Romanised lifestyle, with elite residences
no longer maintained and/or converted to agricultural functions, then abandoned
altogether. Occupation of many towns seems to have shrunk across the late fourth
century to the point where large parts of the walled area were unoccupied.
There are difficulties, however, with the underlying assumptions on which this case
is based, for taxation is normally a brake on enterprise rather than a stimulus, making
economic collapse as a consequence of the breakdown of tax collecting somewhat
implausible. That new coin was no longer available from imperial mints did not affect
the large quantities already in circulation. In practice, the evidence requires a more
complex explanation. Decline in various manufacturing processes had been a factor
since the 360s, if not before, and the number of sites that reveal vigorous activity was
already in steep decline in the later fourth century, even before the collapse of Roman
government. It is worth questioning whether the crisis that archaeologists identify in the
early fifth century might have occurred even had imperial control been restored.
Coin evidence is significant here, for the Roman government did not stop supplying
coin just to Britain but to all the north-�western provinces. In this respect Britain was
similar to the Rhineland, though there the reduction in manufacturing and trade was
less acute. The crisis of the early fifth century was not just a result of the collapse of
imperial government but of a culmination of changes visible across many aspects of
material culture which now intensified as the political crisis bit deep. Given the scar-
city of dateable evidence, it is unsurprising that occupation is difficult to identify in
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 43

the early fifth century, but a lack of evidence of occupation is not necessarily evidence
of a lack of occupation. We need a more nuanced view of the whole continuity/
abandonment debate.
Written sources may help us here. St Patrick was probably a child in the early fifth
century. His father was Calpornius, a provincial landowner, decurion and deacon of
the church, and his grandfather the priest Potitus, both of them associated with an
unlocated settlement called Bannavem Taburniae. All three personal names are Latin,
the place name is a Latin/Celtic hybrid, the household was Christian, and Patrick was
undergoing a traditional Roman education until at the age of 16 he was captured by
pirates. He spent six years as a slave in Ireland, then, following his escape, eventually
returned there as a missionary. His two surviving works, the Confession and Letter to
Coroticus, demonstrate that Latin remained in the mid-�fifth century the standard
medium in which to communicate; indeed, Patrick expected others to have a more
fluent command of it than he had himself. Reference to the sale of his status as a
nobleman should probably be interpreted as selling his family estate, which implies
that a land market still existed in mid-�fifth-�century Britain. Patrick was operating,
therefore, in a world still with its roots deep in Roman provincial culture.
Constantius’s Life of St Germanus, probably written 460–80, included two visits to
Britain by his hero (the first can be dated to 429). Germanus preached against the
heresy of Pelagianism, whose original proponent was the British Pelagius, who taught
in Rome very early in the fifth century. Germanus must have preached in Latin and he
allegedly met several individuals of high status, among whom one, Elafius, had a name
of Greek origin (as did Pelagius). Germanus supposedly baptised the British soldiers
who were given into his command, suggesting that many common folk at this date
were either pagans or herectics, then journeyed inland to the shrine of St Alban
(presumably that outside Verulamium), from which he took relics home. This implies
that the roads remained passable two decades after Constantine’s death, here at least.
That Germanus supposedly took back with him to the Continent on his second visit
the leading advocates of Pelagianism suggests that sufficient civil authority still existed
in Britain to enforce the exile prescribed by Roman law. This second visit has, however,
been challenged as unhistorical.
The later British writer Gildas also used Latin. He had enjoyed a traditional Roman-�
style education and his had not been disrupted as Patrick’s had. Rather his writing
displays a sophistication and erudition the equal of anything coming out of late fifth-�
or early sixth-�century Gaul. He referred in the present to compatriots selling up to
fund travel to the Continent for ordination, which likewise implies the existence of a
British land market but at an even later date.
The literary evidence therefore seems to indicate that aspects of Roman Britain
long survived 410. On this basis we should see sub-�Roman Britain as part of Late
Antique Christian Europe, for several generations at least. There is something of a
contrast, therefore, between the collapse of material culture revealed by archaeology
and the literary evidence for on-going Roman behaviours. Continuing elite culture in
turn implies the survival of the social hierarchies by which the landowning classes
were sustained.
 44 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

To an extent the problem is one of poor dating evidence. Pottery is the key dating
material of Roman Britain but potteries were in decline from the 360s onwards,
producing diminishing quantities of pottery with less and less product development,
so that many fifth-�century vessels are virtually indistinguishable from those produced
c. 370. While wheel-�turned pottery manufacturing reduced dramatically across the
first half of the fifth century, some still occurred: for example, four wheel-�turned
cremation urns displaying Roman techniques were found in the Anglo-�Saxon crema-
tion cemetery at Cleatham (Lincolnshire), which did not operate until the second half
of the century. Some areas reverted to metal or wooden vessels, others produced hand-
made pottery without the use of the potter’s wheel. Distribution of such vessels was
comparatively localised. For example, a handmade jug and pedestalled cup in a sandy
fabric found in a fifth-�century grave at Baldock (Hertfordshire) are typical of the
vessels from around St Albans at this date. That one late Romano-�British potter was
attracted by the style of early Anglian cremation urns is suggested by a vessel found at
Pirton, less than 10 kilometres away.
These are experimental pieces, made by craftsmen who were rediscovering the art
of making pottery by hand and perhaps manufacturing also in part for a new, Anglo-�
1.17 Part of an early
fifth-century, furnished
inhumation from a Romano-
British pagan cemetery at
Baldock, showing just the
pelvis and upper legs. Note the
jug and pedestalled cup, made
without use of the wheel but
reminiscent of earlier Roman
pottery
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 45

1.18 Late Romano-British

hand-made vessel from Pirton
(Hertfordshire). The fabric is
typical late Romano-British,
but the style is similar to some
early Anglo-Saxon vessels

Saxon clientele. Fourth-�century vessels were also being deposited in fifth-�century

contexts, demonstrating that older vessels were still in use.
The quantity of metalwork of probable British manufacture from the fifth century
is comparatively small. The difficulty of finding it may to an extent be a consequence
of changing patterns of deposition: a significant number of British pieces come from
Anglo-Â�Saxon graves – including the quoit-Â�style brooches which are clearly rooted in
late Roman chip-�carving techniques. The British, Type 1 pennanular brooches are
more widely dispersed, with concentrations particularly around the Severn estuary
and in south-�east Scotland, but there are concentrations in parts of Anglo-�Saxon
England, particularly Lindsey, where again they mostly come from Anglo-�Saxon
cemeteries. Other items include rings cut down from recycled late Roman bracelets,
highly decorated spindle whorls, and a variety of such mundane objects as hairpins,
which are difficult to categorise and/or date. A few sites offer a richer picture. At

1.19 Late Roman/sub-Roman

watermill at Ickham, Kent.
Reconstruction drawing
46 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Ickham in Kent, a series of watermills has been excavated, powered by leats diverting
water from the Little Stour estuary. These continued into the fifth century, as evidenced
by the deposition of dress accessories, horse trappings and glass vessels and beads. The
bulk of the pottery was manufactured post-�370 and the water channel associated with
the fourth mill was recut in the fifth century. Numerous small finds, mostly of bronze,
seem to have been manufactured on site, suggesting a workshop supplying both the
military at Richborough and the civitas capital of Canterbury into the sub-�Roman
period.
Urban deposits of this period pose particular difficulties. For decades archaeolo-
gists just cleared away everything above the stone foundations of the central Roman
period, so much evidence has been lost. The upper levels of sites tend in any case to be
the worst affected by later damage, so attention has of necessity to focus on those
which were not rebuilt as medieval towns. At Wroxeter, the bath complex was aban-
doned in the fourth century. Excavation revealed deposits which were interpreted as a
complex of poorly dated timber-�framed buildings resembling a villa. However, very
few artefacts are associated and much of this post-�Roman phase may relate less to
‘Dark Age’ occupation than to later Anglo-Â�Saxon stone robbing for the church. The
extent of post-�Roman occupation is therefore currently in question.
Canterbury has timber-�framed buildings built in the ruins of earlier stone struc-
tures, standing at least through the 420s, perhaps later, but control of urban space
declined to the point where humans and animals were buried in a pit in Stour Street
and the city seems to have been virtually abandoned. At Verulamium attention has
focused on Insula XXVII, where a masonry building constructed c. 380 was redevel-
oped to incorporate corn-�dryers early in the fifth century, then replaced by a barn.
That in turn had its foundations cut by a well-�constructed water pipeline post-�450.
The dating of this sequence has been challenged on the basis that the mosaic of the
primary building is likely to have been earlier than initially suggested, but a coin sealed
beneath does corroborate the original dating. The cult of St Alban developed outside
the town walls, though no burial church has so far been discovered. A scatter of finds
suggests continuing activity across the fifth and sixth centuries; Bede believed that
worship had continued uninterrupted to his own day.
Upper levels at Silchester have been severely affected by later ploughing, but on the
basis of imported pottery, a glass bead and an ogham inscription, occupation continued
into the later fifth century. The town seems eventually to have been intentionally aban-
doned, with the wells sealed deliberately. Occupation cannot, however, be described as
‘urban’ after around 450, at the latest.
These examples suggest decline, certainly, and the demise of urban lifestyles, but
not sudden or dramatic abandonment in the early fifth century. Rather, there are signs
of continuing organisation and management of urban space. Nor are these sites the
only ones still in use; occasional finds of coins of Valentinian III dating to the 420s or
430s suggest that such sites as Caerwent (Monmouthshire) and Dunstable
(Bedfordshire) were still occupied; Bath and Chester certainly feature post-�Roman
activity and at Whitchurch (Shropshire) it seems likely. Such signs of life stand beside
the lack of archaeological evidence of a barbarian sack of British towns, such as Gildas
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 47

later envisaged. The so-Â�called ‘black earth’ which has repeatedly been found covering
Roman deposits on urban sites has been explained variously as evidence of decayed
buildings, agricultural soils and/or the result of refugees taking sanctuary within the
walls. It likely originates from human and animal waste that has been allowed to accu-
mulate, so it indicates continuing activity alongside the collapse of civic control. We
should probably envisage fifth-�century occupation of many towns but an absence of a
Roman-�style town-�life. The distinction may, however, be clearer today than it was in,
say, 430.
Across Britain, graves provide further insights into fifth-�century activity, although
‘British’ cemeteries have so far received much less attention than their ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’
equivalents. Where alignment is very varied and grave goods are prevalent, paganism
probably survived; though Christianity did not rule out grave goods, they do generally
diminish with conversion and west–Â�east alignment was the Christian norm. The late
Roman-�period cemetery at Lankhills, Winchester, for example, reveals a predominant
west–east alignment to numerous graves, with low levels of recut suggesting a well-Â�
organised graveyard. Many bodies had footwear, evidenced by nails; a minority were
associated with grave goods but these largely consisted of belts, knives and crossbow
brooches, which may indicate the presence of a military and/or official segment of the
local population. This was probably a predominantly Christian cemetery.
Elsewhere, though, pagan complexes continued to attract burial. At Baldock
numerous graves with grave goods have been identified alongside successive repairs to

1.20 Late Romano-British

inhumation with grave goods
at Trinity Street, Southwark.
The cemetery, which is typically
pagan, is coin-dated after 388
and associated with a
Romano-Celtic temple still in
use in the late fourth century
 48 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.21 Late Roman sarcophagus

from St Martin-in-the-Fields;
one element of a Christian
cemetery which continued well
into the fifth century
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 49

the road surfaces; a strong case has been made for occupation stretching into the sixth 1.22 An onyx engraved with a
century. A large cemetery continued in use for some time outside the Roman small figure of Mars set on a plain
but very large gold ring, part of
town at Billingford, in Norfolk. Recent excavations at Southwark in south London the Thetford Hoard. This hoard,
have revealed a temple complex constructed in the second century but still in use in buried around 400, is unusual
the late fourth. An associated large cemetery revealed grave goods and a multiplicity of both in the strength of its
alignments and burial styles which suggest paganism. That such continued into the pagan content and in the
quality of the jewellery, much
fifth century so close to the diocesan capital suggests that non-�Christian religion was
of which probably came from a
widely practised and accommodated by those in charge. single workshop, perhaps even
In Gaul, where Christianisation was perhaps a generation or two further advanced, one in Britain
extramural churches constructed in the later fourth or fifth centuries within or even
beyond urban cemeteries became important centres of the Christian cult, with burial
and a variety of ritual activities attracted to them. St Martin’s grave outside Tours, for
example, quickly developed as a basilica and Germanus was similarly buried
outside Auxerre. We can assume a comparable church at St Albans, though as yet
undiscovered. Elsewhere such sites have proved elusive in fifth-�century Britain, but
St Martin-�in-�the-�Fields, Westminster, has revealed an elite burial ground lasting into
the fifth century, when a tile kiln was also in use. This site continued to attract burials
into the early Saxon period and may represent a successful extramural church
associated with late Roman London.
Hoards of metalwork have long been viewed as an important form of evidence for
the late fourth and early fifth centuries in Britain. The more spectacular, such as the
Thetford Hoard and the Mildenhall Treasure (both discovered in East Anglia), centre
on precious metal items sometimes of quite exceptional workmanship. The Thetford
Hoard consisted largely of silver cutlery and gold jewellery. Clearly, very high-�quality
pieces were finding a market in fourth-�and early fifth-�century Britain. Not all the
hoards being deposited, however, were of precious metal: the Drapers’ Garden Hoard,
found down a well in the City of London, was of 20 bronze, pewter and iron vessels.
Compared with other parts of the Western Empire, late Romano-�British metalwork
hoards are exceptionally numerous. Since other areas also suffered equivalent barbarian
invasions, collapsing security may not provide a sufficient reason for so many deposi-
tions and opinion is tending towards ritual as an explanation. The Drapers’ Garden
Hoard, for example, seems to have been part of a complex process of sealing the well.
This may again suggest that non-�Christian religious practices remained popular. A
1.23 Irregular, imitation silver
siliqua from the Hoxne Hoard.
The inscription reads ‘D N
HONO-PIUS AUG’, a garbled
attempt at the name Honorius,
emperor of the West, 395–423
 50 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

disproportionate number of hoards, characterised by particularly rich finds, come from

East Anglia. This apparent concentration of wealth does not map onto earlier distribu-
tions, for example of mosaics or other indicators of high-�status occupation.
The largest hoard of Roman precious-�metal objects so far found in Britain was
discovered in 1992 in a field near Hoxne (Suffolk) and includes 580 gold solidi and
around 15,000 silver coins. The hoard was buried in a wooden chest, within which
29 pieces of gold jewellery and 124 silver table utensils had been carefully stowed away,
after which the coins were just poured in. Over 5,000 from the imperial mints were
dated 395–402, and only 102 were later, the date range closing at 407/8. This is one of
some seventy-six hoards of about this date so far discovered, at least a third of which
were deposited later than 407/8 but within the first third of the fifth century. Whether
this hoard should be interpreted in terms of ritual deposition is unclear, but the possi-
bility certainly exists.
An important aspect of this hoard is the presence of 428 irregular imitation silver
coins which were not produced at imperial mints. A few of these were criminal
forgeries, but most were accurate copies replicating the official coinage in both weight
and metal content, so they were locally made imitations issued for governmental
purposes. Most replicated fourth-�century coins so were probably made then, but 184
post-�dated the last substantial importation of coin into Britain.
A total of 98.5 per cent of the whole coins had been clipped. Coin clipping is a
particular characteristic of British finds. It was undertaken to extract silver while
leaving the coin still in circulation, so care was taken not to cut away the central image.
All eight coins minted in 407/8 had been clipped, so both coin use and coining neces-
sarily continued thereafter. Some coins had been clipped repeatedly, reducing their
weight to perhaps a third of the original, suggesting that the practice was long lived.
We have here, therefore, evidence for management of the coinage in Britain post-�
407/8. Silver coins were both in use and being clipped to provide bullion. This silver
probably provided the silver ingots which appear in the archaeological record at this
stage, as in the Coleraine Hoard in Ireland (deposited no earlier than 407–11) and at
Vindolanda. Such ingots could be used as diplomatic gifts, for ransoming captives
and/or payments to soldiers, including mercenaries. Their worth depended on their
weight and purity. Alongside, the clipped coins for a time continued to circulate, with
a growing mismatch between their face and bullion values.
1.24 Gold tremissis minted in
Imperial taxation was in gold, not silver. Occasional individual finds demonstrate
either Merovingian or
Burgundian Gaul, found on the that gold coins continued both to enter Britain and to circulate, albeit not in great
shore of the Isle of Wight. Like
other barbarian coins of the
period this is modelled closely
on Roman coinage; the bust is
of the Roman emperor
Valentinian III (425–55) and
probably dates from his reign.
A thin scatter of such coins
from across Britain may imply
circulation there as well
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 51

numbers. Without the pressure of imperial tax collection, however, these may not have
been used as coins; rather it is tempting to see them as units of bullion or collectable
items in their own right. Across the fifth century some gold coins were adapted as
pendants and are found in Anglo-�Saxon graves.
It is only the silver coins, therefore, that imply some sort of sub-�Roman authority
even after the collapse of Constantine III’s regime and militate against a short/sharp
collapse of Roman Britain. When coin-�clipping ended is unclear: a hoard was depos-
ited at Patching in Sussex, c. 470, which included five imported siliquae that had not
been clipped, so coin-�clipping had apparently ceased by then, but the coinage probably
collapsed decades earlier than this, and with it any pan-�British authority.
The ending of Roman Britain in the early fifth century was therefore neither so abso-
lute nor so abrupt as is often imagined. For a generation, Britons surely anticipated the
re-�establishment of imperial control, if only because such had always occurred previ-
ously. One should envisage, therefore, some sort of interim government negotiating
with the authorities in Gaul, and with various barbarian groups. This is reflected both in
the British appeal which prompted Germanus’s arrival in 429 and in Gildas’s reference
to a British plea to Aëtius, who was the dominant military leader in Gaul between 430
and 454, and who was indeed ‘thrice consular’, as Gildas remarked, from 446.
Gildas provides the only surviving account of the next generation, and his has been
the basis of all later reconstructions, from Bede onwards, but this is an extraordinarily
difficult text for a modern reader to use. Gildas viewed developments from an overall
British perspective, lamenting the fate of fellow citizens of a fatherland which probably
consisted of the old Roman diocese. Barbarian attacks were against the Britons in their
totality, not just one particular local group, and the response of the British ‘proud
tyrant’ (later named as Vortigern) was agreed in council with advisors whom Gildas
termed ‘silly princes of Zoan’ advising pharaoh. This allusion to the great Egyptian
pharaoh in the Book of Isaiah reads easiest as a ruler of an extensive territory, perhaps
even the whole diocese. Gildas asserted that Britain in the present ‘has her rectores
[“governors”], she has her speculatores [“watchmen”, or perhaps “bishops”]’. He was
familiar with the Roman language of government, at least. Comparable terms recur on
inscribed memorial stones from western Britain of around this date.
Gildas refers to civil conflict across the recent past and to British tyrants in the
present, but he indicates that transformation from the Roman governmental frame-
work of the early fifth century to the petty British kingships of the sixth was compara-
tively recent. Fundamental change came with warfare between the Britons and the
Saxon warriors whom those governing Britain had hired as mercenaries. The literary
evidence, therefore, implies a degree of governmental continuity across the ending of
imperial control of Britain rather than a rapid and wholesale collapse of late Roman
Britain into petty kingships soon after 410.
That said, some shift of power from the diocese to the provinces and civitates
does seem likely after 410, given the collapse of imperial authority and of centrally
administered army units. Henceforth, the British diocese was always a rather
ramshackle affair. Local divergence is visible archaeologically in the pattern of deposi-
tion of different styles of sword-�belt fitting, which suggest several regional workshops.
 52 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1.25 Tor Dyke, near Kettlewell

(North Yorkshire), one of many
enigmatic but massive running
earthworks thought to date to
the fifth and/or sixth centuries

The implication is that different styles were favoured by different provinces, civitates
or elite families, all of whom may have employed militias in the late fourth and fifth
centuries.
More significant must be the linear earthworks, or dykes, which have been
ascribed to this period or later (the last and greatest are from the eighth century).
Their dating is notoriously difficult, but those that cut Roman remains are obviously
not prehistoric. They usually consist of one ditch and one accompanying bank, and
the larger are some of the biggest man-�made structures in Europe before the
Industrial Revolution. Scholars have used various terms to describe them, ‘travelling
earthworks’ or ‘linear earthworks’ for example, but the word ‘dyke’ (or dic as it is in
Old English) is the most commonly used, both today and in the Anglo-�Saxon period.
Archaeologists utilise scientific advances such as radiocarbon dating and Optically
Stimulated Luminescence to distinguish the prehistoric from the post-�Roman, but
some (such as Combs Ditch in Dorset) are prehistoric earthworks which were refur-
bished at the end of Roman Britain. Their distribution is intriguing, but it is unclear
what the pattern is trying to tell us. They are absent from western Wales, the
Highlands of Scotland, north-�west England, most of central England, Lincolnshire,
Sussex, Essex and Devon; some lie on their own, others, as in Cambridgeshire, form
parallel groups, while those in Norfolk seem to face each other.
Thanks to good excavation evidence historians are fairly certain that the long dykes
running parallel to the Anglo-Â�Welsh border, Offa’s Dyke, Wat’s Dyke and Rowe Ditch,
are Anglo-�Saxon; scientific dating makes it very probable that Bokerley Dyke and
West and East Wansdyke, as well as three of the Cambridgeshire dykes (Bran’s Ditch,
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 53

1.26 Dark Age dykes: probably

or possibly in use c. 400–800.
Numerous dykes were
constructed in prehistory but
only those that are thought to
have been re-used at this date
are included

Fleam Dyke and Devil’s Ditch), date from around the time of the Anglo-Â�Saxon arrival,
but in many regions the evidence is far more problematic. Contradictory results from
the excavation and survey of Norfolk’s many dykes suggest that, like the Devil’s Ditch
near Garboldisham, many were refurbished prehistoric monuments. In Cornwall a
series of unexcavated dykes cuts off large peninsulas; that they are named after giants
(the Giant’s Hedge or the Giant’s Grave, for example) simply compounds our igno-
rance regarding their origins. In Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent there are
dykes recorded in Anglo-�Saxon charters, but it is impossible to know how old these
were when first recorded.
Dykes vary massively in length; some of the East Hampshire dykes are barely
100 metres while Offa’s Dyke is at least 112 kilometres long. Those dating from the
Anglo-�Saxon period invariably consist of a single bank at least 2 metres high with no
sign of a palisade atop it and a single ditch at least 2 metres deep. None provides clear
evidence of gateways, nor of forts along their length.
Scholars are divided as to why dykes were built. Concentration on the larger
monuments has encouraged them to ascribe rather grander meanings to them than if
they had studied the numerous smaller examples. Traditionally, post-�Roman dykes
were thought to have been built by Britons against Anglo-�Saxon invaders, or by Saxons
to consolidate gains against British counter-�raids. During the late twentieth century,
however, this simplistic division of early medieval people into Britons on one side and
Anglo-�Saxons on the other locked in a fight to the death became discredited, and with
it theories of hostile ethnic groups neatly divided by defensive dykes. The lack of
54 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

garrisons and the ease with which many could be circumvented make it unlikely that
most were military frontiers.
Seminal studies in Cambridgeshire in the 1920s, then of Offa’s Dyke, Wat’s Dyke and
Wansdyke, concluded that Wansdyke and the Cambridgeshire examples were defensive,
but Offa’s and Wat’s were border markers. That dykes might merely mark borders was
taken up by later scholars, but they never explained why kings only felt the need to mark
one side of their kingdoms. One of the odd features of Anglo-�Saxon dykes is that they are
rarely contiguous with parish or county boundaries (though there is an unexcavated
dyke still marking the Surrey–Â�Kent border near Westerham), whereas prehistoric earth-
works were often reused as administrative borders. Historians have long tied themselves
in knots trying to match the known borders of early medieval kingdoms with dykes.
More recently, dykes have been interpreted more symbolically, built by kings to unite
their heterogeneous kingdoms, alongside the idea that the Romano-�British/Anglo-�
Saxon divide was more ‘cultural’ than ‘racial’. But while it seems fair to view Offa’s Dyke
in terms of royal display, no other dyke is named after a known king (many are named
after the Devil) and, despite being full of the great deeds of hero kings, nowhere in Anglo-�
Saxon literature does a writer boast that a king ordered any other dyke to be built.
An alternative is to view dykes as a deterrent to raiders at a time when raiding was
endemic. Perhaps dykes, especially the shorter ones, were intended to stop hit-�and-�run
raids. Many bisect major routeways that might have been used by raiders, and as they
seem set back from the known frontiers of kingdoms they would be places where local
defenders could gather once the border had been breached. Dykes were undoubtedly
built or rebuilt at different times and probably had various functions, but closer
analysis is currently beyond us. Whatever their immediate purpose, dykes provide us
with important evidence of the ability of sub-�Roman society to marshal considerable
resources of manpower. It seems likely that regional hierarchies were responsible for
managing these great building works. Indeed, Gildas’s comments on the Antonine
Wall may reveal an awareness of how dykes were being constructed around 500.
Additionally, there are signs of re-�occupation of numerous Iron Age hillforts,
particularly in western Britain, during the fifth and sixth centuries. The best known
examples are in the south west, including South Cadbury where there was large-�scale
rebuilding of the inner rampart and occupation of substantial new buildings in the
interior. However, they also include sites in the east of Britain, such as Yarborough
Camp, north of Lincoln, where late Roman material has been discovered, and perhaps
also Yarburgh near Louth. Occupation of such fortified sites suggests a flight from
undefended settlements to take refuge behind the reconstituted ramparts of much
older defensive sites. Some had served religious functions in the interim, so their reuse
in the fifth century may owe something to a continuing awareness of their protective
value. Such re-�occupation implies a breakdown in security and reliance on local
solutions, separate from government.
It was this problem of security that lay at the heart of events across the fifth century.
When Constantine III took with him to the Continent the British field army and
around half the Saxon Shore units, Britain was left with defences that were dispropor-
tionately located in the north, with much richer areas now vulnerable to sea-�raiders in
 b r i ta i n i n a n d o u t o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e 55

1.27 RIACUS inscription at

Vindolanda, from the later fifth
century and commemorating a
Romano-British name. Such
inscriptions testify to the
survival of Latin literacy on the
extreme northern edge of
Roman Britain

the south. Numerous forts in the north show signs of continuing activity. One of the
granaries at Birdoswald (Gilsland, Cumbria) was levelled and a great timber hall built
over it in the fifth century; at Binchester (Bishop Auckland, County Durham) the
Commandant’s House had a bath suite added in the second half of the fourth century
and subsequently extended, then with the building falling down it was used for butch-
ering cattle and metalworking and the metal-�fittings of the bath suite were robbed out,
all before the mid-� sixth century when a burial was inserted. At Vindolanda
(Northumberland), a church was constructed at the commanding officer’s residence
and the Riacus inscription and Brigomaglos memorial stone indicate literacy,
Christianity and a continuing ability to work stone. Close by, Housesteads was still
occupied. At Piercebridge (County Durham), new drains suggest continuing use of the
bath suite into the fifth century and at Catterick (North Yorkshire) timber buildings
were being erected post-�400.
In the fifth-�century lowlands, in contrast, social, economic, religious, administra-
tive and legal power rested predominantly in the hands of a civilian, landholding elite.
That elite lacked the military protection which had hitherto provided security. Beneath
the landowning class was a provincial society that was comparatively localised in many
respects and less ‘Roman’ than were most provincials on the Continent. Paganism was
still widespread, even dominant in the countryside, and present even in London’s
suburbs, and British Celtic had survived the pressure of Latin. Roman culture had
been centred in towns, which were now in terminal decline, and in the households of
the landed elite, which could no longer be maintained in the traditional style. The
‘Roman-Â�ness’ of Britain was decaying and the diocese lay exposed, lying as it did on
the outer edge of the Empire, open to land attackers to the north and seaborne raiders
on all sides. Even Bishop Germanus reportedly ended up leading British forces against
barbarian raiders. Insecurity was the fundamental problem which Britain’s leaders
56 t h e a n g l o – s a xo n wo r l d

faced and which underlies Gildas’s later description of the ‘ruin’ of Britain.
With Britons unable to provide for their own defence, they tried to call in Roman
aid. When that was not forthcoming, they hired one set of barbarians to counter the
attacks of others. That this was a typically ‘Roman’ response to such difficulties is
reinforced by Gildas’s use of terms characteristic of the late imperial employment of
barbarian mercenaries, as the hospitium (hospitality) via which they were billeted and
the annona (supplies) and epimenia (provisions) to feed them. The British authorities
were following imperial precedents.
There was a comparatively ‘Roman’ elite still running Britain, therefore, in the early
to mid-�fifth century, but they were presiding over a community that was decreasingly
Roman. For a generation or so the situation was recoverable, but the necessary impe-
rial intervention never arrived. Roman Britain changed in one sphere after another,
with progressive devaluation then failure of the coinage, the collapse of building, trade
and manufacturing, and an upsurge in piracy and raiding.
If there was one event that finally brought the old diocese to an end, then it was the
failure of British attempts to shore up security by hiring barbarian mercenaries. The
latest estimate of when Roman Britain ended has to be when the Britons failed to bring
to a successful conclusion the war against their rebellious Saxon troops. Of course,
British leaders retained control of many localities, even in lowland areas where their
authority interleaved with the new Saxon settlements, but the integrity of Roman
Britain was irrecoverable. In key respects, Roman Britain was over.
 sources and issues 1a

gildas

nicholas j. higham

In this letter I shall deplore rather than denounce, the style may be vile, nevertheless
my intention is benign, what I have to deplore with tearful complaint is a general loss
of good, a heaping up of bad, but no one should think that anything I say is said out
of scorn for humanity or from conviction that I am superior to others, rather I sympa-
thise with the difficulties and miseries of my country and rejoice in remedies to
relieve them.

So begins Gildas’s De Excidio Britanniae (On the Ruin of Britain), which is by far the
longest insular text available to us prior to 600. It is framed as a letter, as the New
Testament epistles, but obeys many of the conventions of Classical authorship. For
example, it offers as preface a brief, ‘geographical’ introduction, which owes much to
Orosius’s in his early fifth-Â�century Seven Histories against the Pagans, but it is also
surprisingly original. The bulk of the work is a condemnation of the behaviour of five
contemporary rulers and the British clergy en masse; Gildas considered that their sins
had fractured the relationship between God and His British people, causing Him to
withhold His protection. The work is an impassioned plea for repentance, moral
reform and a return to the ways of the Lord.
Despite Gildas’s own focus, however, scholars down the ages have paid more atten-
tion to the schematic review of Britain’s history down to the year of Gildas’s birth
which prefaces his main complaint – the so-Â�called ‘historical’ section which forms
chapters 4–26 of this 110-Â�chapter work. These passages provide the only extant near-Â�
contemporary insular account of the ending of Roman Britain and the settlement of
the Anglo-�Saxons.
But Gildas never set out to write history as we would understand it today; he offered
no dates and his story is so hemmed around by his condemnation of the British leaders
as to be close to incoherent. His historical section was designed to establish that there
was an inescapable relationship throughout history between sin and divine punish-
ment. Gildas’s history was the story of a new chosen people, a ‘latter-Â�day Israel’ as he
put it, and their relationship with God. The logic that sustained this account derived
from the Old Testament. It is the moral imperative that dominates, therefore, as his
introductory remarks suggest.
 58 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1a.1 Page from the earliest

surviving copy of Gildas’s De
Excidio Britanniae, an
eleventh-century manuscript in
the Cotton collection. The
collection was severely
damaged by a fire at the family
home in Westminster in 1731;
the opening line of chapter 57
appears in the least
smoke-affected section at the
centre of image, reading (in
translation from the Latin)
‘Have regard next to the words
of the chosen prophet
Zachariah, son of Iddo..’,
introducing a quotation from
the Prophet Zaccharias, I, 3-4
in the Old Testament

This may be the only history that we have from the period, but the historical section
is clearly mistaken or ill-�informed in important respects. Gildas misplaced the reign of
the emperor Tiberius (ad 14–37) after the revolt of Boudicca (or Boadicea: ad 60–1).
He assumed that the persecution of Christians by the emperor Diocletian impacted on
Britain, an impact that is otherwise unattested and seems improbable. He made the
usurper Magnus Maximus responsible for the final exodus of soldiers from Britain,
omitting any clear reference to Constantine III a generation later. And he placed the
building of the Saxon Shore forts and both the Hadrianic and Antonine Walls later
than 388, despite all of these being constructed in the second and/or third centuries.
To an extent, such errors can be explained as a consequence of a lack of sources, for
Gildas tells us that he had no British texts to draw on as they had either been destroyed
by ‘the enemy’ (presumably, the Saxons) or taken abroad by emigrants. The ‘foreign’
works Gildas accessed will not have offered dating for the Saxon Shore forts or the
northern walls, so he inserted these as best suited his needs. That said, Gildas had read
Orosius and so would have known about the usurpation of Constantine III. His omis-
sion therefore seems to have been deliberate, to keep historical examples and, in
particular, names to a minimum. Again, this is not history as we would know it. Instead
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : g i l da s 59

of a continuous historical narrative, Gildas presented episodes chosen in accordance

with his own religious imperatives and often in so generalised a form as to be almost
unrecognisable.
It is when, in the fifth century, Gildas is our only guide that these problems threaten
to overwhelm us. Following two putative Roman expeditions to Britain to chase out
Scottish and Pictish raiders, he portrays the Britons as so pressured by barbarian
attackers and shortages of food that they appealed for the third time to the Continent
for aid, this time to ‘Agitius, thrice consul’. Ever since Bede in the eighth century,
‘Agitius’ has been identified with Aëtius, the Roman commander in Gaul from around
430 to 454, who was made consul for the third time in 446. The only alternative is to
identify him with an even later Roman general in fifth-�century Gaul, Aegidius, whose
lack of consulships and late chronology effectively rule him out. According to Gildas,
after their request for assistance had been turned down, the Britons hired Saxons who
then revolted and ravaged Britain. The resulting war between Britons and Saxons ran
up to Gildas’s own birth in the year in which the Britons scored pretty well their last
victory, the siege of Mount Badon. Thereafter external peace was established – though
not freedom from civil wars, which lasted up to the present.
If, as most scholars have assumed, Gildas was here describing the first significant
arrival of Saxons into Britain, there are some real problems with his chronology. The
earliest appearance of Saxons post-�446 is at odds with archaeological evidence for their
presence by the 430s and perhaps a generation earlier. Additionally, the Gallic Chronicle
of 452 independently records Britain as largely under Saxon rule in 441. Clearly there
is a difficulty here. Perhaps Gildas was referring to an appeal in the 430s to Aëtius
before his third consulship, in which case he adjusted the wording of the appeal.
Alternatively, the Britons may have been seeking aid against the Saxons after their
rebellion, and not against the Picts and the Scots. The trouble is that historical accu-
racy, as a modern reader would perceive it, was of less interest to Gildas than his
general thesis of sin and divine punishment, and he was quite capable of manipulating
his material so as to fit best with the logic of his work. Parallels have been noted
between Gildas’s history and the proto-Â�martyr Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin
in Acts 7: 1–51, which likewise subverted literal historical truth for rhetorical purposes.
Despite the central importance of On the Ruin of Britain to our understanding of
the events of the sub-�Roman period, the work itself clearly presents considerable prob-
lems, which are compounded by our relative ignorance about the author. We know
very little regarding Gildas beyond what can be learned from his own works: alongside
On the Ruin of Britain we have only a handful of letter fragments and a brief peniten-
tial. His reputation was, however, high among the generation or two following his
death. His authority on ecclesiastical and monastic discipline was invoked c. 600 by the
Irishman Columbanus (at that time active in Frankish Gaul) in a letter to Pope Gregory
the Great, and Gildas was cited approvingly on 12 occasions in the Collectio canonum
Hibernensis, an Irish canon collection compiled around 700. Bede used On the Ruin of
Britain extensively in the first book of his Ecclesiastical History, referring to Gildas as
the Britons’ own historian and to his work as ‘a tearful sermon’. By 800, Gildas was
revered as a saint in Ireland and probably soon afterwards in Anglo-�Saxon England,
 60 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1a.2 Church of Gildas de

Rhus, Morbihan, southern
Brittany. The monastery
claimed Gildas as founder and
patron saint and parts of his
reputed skeleton are encased
in medieval silver and kept as
relics

though his cult was never widespread. By the early eleventh century, the Breton
monastery of St Gildas-�de-�Rhuys was claiming to possess his relics, and a Life written
there described him as of royal birth, from the Clyde Valley (in Scotland), and educated
by St Illtud in south Wales before emigrating to Gaul in his thirtieth year. Gildas subse-
quently appeared in various guises in a number of Welsh hagiographies produced in
the late eleventh and twelfth centuries and was the subject of a second Life, written by
Caradog of Llancarfan in the twelfth century (in this one, Gildas ends his days at
Glastonbury rather than Rhuys). These eleventh-�and twelfth-� century texts are,
however, pure fiction. While medieval authors viewed Gildas as a figure of some pres-
tige and authority, they had access to very little reliable information about him.
The Welsh Annals (Annales Cambriae), compiled in the 950s, date Gildas’s death to
570. On this basis, On the Ruin of Britain has traditionally been dated to the 540s.
Recent scholarship has, though, rightly cautioned against reliance on a mid-
�tenth-�century text which appears to have had few if any near-�contemporary sources
for the sixth century. The Annals are, in any case, internally inconsistent. They offer a
date of 516 for the Battle of Mount Badon, to which Gildas refers as occurring in the
year of his own birth, some 43 years and 1 month before the time of writing. The
resulting date of 559/60 for authorship of On the Ruin of Britain conflicts with the obit
of 547 given in the Annals for King Maelgwn of Gwynedd, who is Maglocunus, one of
the five tyrants Gildas condemns and clearly still alive when On the Ruin of Britain was
composed.
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : g i l da s 61

Given these problems in the Welsh Annals, recent commentators have attempted to
establish the date of authorship from the sequence of events recounted in the historical
section. Gildas, however, offered no dates at all and provided only the vaguest of
chronological parameters. The last event he mentioned which can be dated with any
confidence is the third consulship of Aëtius in 446, but that may well be misplaced in
his sequence. The assumptions that have to be built into estimates of any chronology
are so great as to undermine its credibility, leaving the traditional dating of authorship,
in the 540s, still widely accepted. Given that Gildas clearly received a traditional
Roman-�style education, and that there are parallels between his style and that of a
number of late fifth-�century Gallic authors, it is possible that Gildas could have been
writing as early as 500; majority opinion, however, still favours the first half of the
sixth century.
It is also unclear where Gildas was writing, although it is generally agreed that he
was voicing an insular British perspective and so probably composed the work within
Britain. In the 1970s the case was made for a northern Gildas, based perhaps in the
Chester region, but since then most have preferred to place him, if anywhere, in
southern Britain, somewhere in the region stretching northwards from Dorset.
Certainly, the five tyrants whom he castigated seem to have been located in the south
west and Wales, which may imply that Gildas was close to but outside these areas.
1a.3 The geography of On the
Ruin of Britain. The dimensions
and other basic information in
the introduction derive from
the Natural History of Pliny the
Elder, but Gildas followed
Orosius in giving a breadth of
200 miles in error for Pliny’s
300, adding ‘excepting various
large headlands’ to correct this
62 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Whilst Gildas cannot be precisely dated or located, his writings nevertheless offer
important evidence regarding what one man of this generation thought about his own
past and he is a valuable guide to insular culture in his day. He considered the employ-
ment then revolt of Saxons as a terrible blow to his people, far worse even than the
attacks of the Scots and Picts that they were intended to remedy. The Saxons are
likened by Gildas to wolves, dogs, lions and other savage beasts, and he claimed
‘nothing more destructive, nothing more bitter has ever befallen the land’ than the
coming of the Saxons. We also learn a great deal about literary culture from Gildas’s
works. He had clearly benefited from a traditional Roman-�style education and had
evidently had training at the hands of a rhetor; he refers to such a figure also having
educated King Maglocunus. To the elite at least, therefore, a high-�quality Classical
education was still available in parts of Britain when Gildas was young. There are indi-
cations that Gildas himself was sympathetic to the nascent monastic movement in
Britain but his was clearly an episcopal Church, ruled by bishops. Although he appar-
ently considered international trade a thing of the past, there were various current
contacts between Britain and the Continent, for Gildas wrote of the accessibility of
Belgic Gaul in the present. He may have had some awareness of the doctrinal contro-
versies currently engaging Christians across Europe, and is likely to have been in touch
with Ireland and the British mission there.
A powerful message emanating from the works of Gildas is just how very ‘Roman’
he and his contemporaries were. Of course, he identified himself and his fellow coun-
trymen not as Romans but as Britons, but these were very ‘Roman’ Britons still. The
system of law he defended against the tyrants, the religion in which he had immersed
himself, the biblical texts he quoted at length, the language he used, the rhetorical skills
he deployed, the elitist values to which he adhered, all derived from the Roman Empire.
Even a century or so after Britain had slipped from under imperial protection, the
social, cultural and religious values of parts at least of the British elite remained keenly
aligned with those of their contemporaries on the Continent. The ‘Britishness’ to
which Gildas was giving voice in his work was, beyond all else, modelled on Israel in
the Old Testament, but it was a very ‘Roman’ type of Israel nonetheless.
 63

sources and issues 1b

king arthur

nicholas j. higham

If asked to name a Dark Age ruler in Britain, most people think first of Arthur, but it
is extremely difficult to demonstrate that he actually existed. Most of what we today
think we know about King Arthur derives from writings of the central and later Middle
Ages, in particular from Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1130s to Sir Thomas Malory (d.
1471). These works are essentially fictional. If we are to assess the evidence for a ‘real’
King Arthur, we must search out the earliest literary evidence available.
What may be the earliest literary reference to Arthur appears in The Gododdin, an
Old Welsh collection of elegiac stanzas, parts at least of which were written in
commemoration of a failed attack by the war-�band of a king of Edinburgh on Catraeth
(most likely Catterick in North Yorkshire). The Gododdin was probably originally
composed around 600 but was revised successively before being written down in two
different versions in the second half of the thirteenth century. Arthur occurs in verse
38 of the ‘B’ version only, which in A.O.H. Jarman’s translation reads:

He charged before three hundred of the finest,

He cut down both centre and wing,
He excelled in the forefront of the noblest host,
He gave gifts of horses from the herd in winter.
He fed black ravens on the rampart of a fortress
Though he was no Arthur.
Among the powerful ones in battle,
In the front rank, Gwarddur was a palisade.

The similarity between the two names (Welsh ‘dd’Â�is pronounced ‘th’) is presumably
what prompted Arthur’s appearance here. Clearly he was considered a paragon of mili-
tary valour, but the language of this stanza includes both archaisms and later accre-
tions so there is no guarantee that the reference pre-�dates the tenth century, particularly
since it appears in only one of the two extant versions.
Other ‘early’ mentions suggest a spate of personal naming around 600: an Arthur
occurs in the genealogy of the kings of Dyfed (south-�west Wales); Bishop Adamnan of
Iona in the late seventh century referred to an Arturius, son of King Aedan of Dál
 64 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1b.1 Distribution of
Arthur-names in the British
countryside

Riata, killed in battle before 597; Irish annals refer to the death of a king in Kintyre at
the hands of an Arthur in the 620s, and an Irish legal document of the late 690s
mentions an Arthur as grandfather to Feradoch. That the name was popular in Ireland
and the Irish colonies in Britain does not require, however, the existence of an earlier
British hero-�figure of that name, fighting against incomers; indeed, it might even
suggest the opposite.
A more convincing scenario derives from the recent revival of a view which first
circulated in the later nineteenth century, that Arthur originated as a mythological
figure associated with wild places and great deeds, who was then historicised by writers
of Latin. The name certainly lends itself to this interpretation. Modern Welsh arth
(Old Welsh *arto-Â�) combined with gwr (OW *wiros) gives the name ‘bear-Â�man’. Bears
were edging towards extinction in Britain in the first millennium ad, so were a suitable
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : k i n g a rt h u r 65

association for an elusive spirit of the wilderness. Literary references are exclusively to
the Latin name Artorius, but the ambiguity of a Brittonic origin myth would not have
been lost on a British audience used to Latinised forms of Welsh names.
Supposing this to be the starting point, the man responsible beyond all others for the
historicisation of Arthur was the author of the Historia Brittonum (History of the Britons).
This work, later but not necessarily accurately attributed to the Welsh priest Nennius,
was written in the fourth regnal year of Merfyn, King of Gwynedd, 829/30. The History
championed the Britons as a martial people of the Lord and as the rightful occupiers of
all Britain. This is, therefore, a polemical work, written just a few years after Mercian
pressure on Wales had dramatically reduced in 825 and the Mercians had been forced,
albeit briefly, to acknowledge the West Saxon King Ecgberht as their ruler, and he had
also received the submission of the Welsh kings. Neither Ecgberht nor the West Saxons
are mentioned, suggesting a degree of caution regarding contemporary politics, but this
work is in other respects nationalistic and anti-�English. It explains that much of Britain
had been lost to the Saxons through the stupidity and wickedness of a ruler named
Vortigern, who appears sporadically across chapters 31 to 50, despite the presence of the
good Bishop Germanus, the Christian virtues of the Britons as a whole and the valour of
Vortigern’s own son Vortimer. Hope for the recovery of Britain is offered prophetically
via the boy Emrys/Ambrosius, a legendary figure apparently based on that Ambrosius to
whom Gildas referred as the Britons’ leader against the Saxons.
The prophecy which Emrys interprets centres on the combat of two worms, one
red (for the Britons) the other white (for the Saxons: think of rugby), taking place on a
cloth floating on an underground lake. Three times the red worm was driven back to
the edge of the cloth, three times it rallied and drove the white back. Finally the red
triumphed, pursuing its opponent across the lake. Victory of the red signified the
expulsion of the English from Britain.
1b.2 Arthur’s Stone, a
Neolithic burial chamber at
Dorstone in the Golden Valley
(Herefordshire) to which
Arthur’s name has become
attached
 66 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1b.3 Craig Arthur, near

Llangollen, a natural cliff face
named for Arthur

Three episodes were included in the work as having occurred previously, but the
final triumph was still to come, presumably under the leadership of Merfyn himself,
whose nickname ‘Frych’, meaning ‘the freckled one’, suggests red hair. The red worm
was probably intended therefore as a metaphor for King Merfyn – worm here may be
read as a metaphor for a dragon, a legendary beast which Gildas also used to represent
a British king.
The first triumph over the Saxons was their expulsion from Thanet by Vortimer
(chapters 43, 44), the third, mentioned only briefly, was Urien’s siege of the Northumbrian
king on Lindisfarne (63), but the second was a highly stylised and biblically inspired
treatment of Arthur as a type of Old Testament Joshua (56), to which the author built
up via treatment of St Patrick as a Moses figure (50–5). Arthur is the dux bellorum
(‘commander of battles’) of the Britons, an uncommon phrase paralleling the reference
to Joshua as dux belli (‘commander of battle’) in the opening lines of the Book of Judges;
his 12 victories recall the disciples of Christ (the names Jesus and Joshua are identical in
Hebrew), the 12 pebbles which Joshua collected from the Jordan when crossing into the
‘Promised Land’, and the 12 tribes into which he then formed the Israelites.
Although the twelfth battle was the historical one to which Gildas had referred as
the siege of Mount Badon in On the Ruin of Britain, the remainder look to have been
culled from a variety of literary contexts and include British defeats as well as victories.
These have no validity as a list of victories won by a British champion in the years
following Patrick’s death. This is a highly contrived British hero-Â�figure, therefore,
whose battles were of ideological rather than historical value, and whose role as a
paragon of Christian martial virtue was developed to inspire Merfyn in the present,
rather than to profile a true figure of the past.
 k i n g a rt h u r : s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s 67

That this author found his inspiration for Arthur in folk stories is sustained by his
reappearance in the list of miraculous phenomena (the mirabilia: 67–75). The mirabilia
serves to prove the continuing presence of God as an active force in territories controlled
or recently controlled by British rulers. In 73 there are two ‘Arthurian’ miracles: the first
refers to the hunting of the great boar, Twrch Trwyth, which is a tale best known from
the group of stories that came to focus on Culhwch and Olwen, but this version origi-
nates as an attempt to explain the place name Carn Gafallt (‘Horse Cairn’), near
Rhayader in the Upper Wye Valley, by reference to Arthur’s dog. That a warrior whose
name recalls the bear has a hound named ‘horse’ used in the hunting of ‘the essential
boar’ places this story firmly in the realm of the mythical. The second tale is another
local wonder-�story devised to explain the name of what was probably a prehistoric
monument, called Llygad Amr, as the resting place of Arthur’s son, Amr, whom he had
slain and buried there in a grave the dimensions of which were forever shifting. Both
Llygad and Amr mean ‘eye’, in the sense of a source of tears, serving as a metaphor for
the spring at the head of the River Gamber (sic) nearby. Superficial similarity of the
names ‘Arthur’ and ‘Amr/Gamber’ had arguably brought this explanation into existence.
Both these stories demonstrate that there were folk tales about Arthur associated
with specific features of the countryside of western Britain around 800 which our
author had come across (he specifically recalls visiting Llygad Amr and trying the
grave for size), and it seems highly likely that the Arthur of chapter 56 was inspired by
such pre-�existing stories. Arthur continues to be associated with a wide variety of
landscape features in western and to a lesser extent northern England, some of which
are natural features and some prehistoric monuments, in ways entirely consistent with
his origin in folklore.
1b.4 Tintagel, the north
Cornish promontory site under
excavation in 2000. The site
was associated with King
Arthur’s birth by Geoffrey of
Monmouth in the 1130s,
though there is no way of
knowing how much earlier the
connection was made; large
quantities of imported
Mediterranean pottery imply
the site was of high-status
around 500
 68 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1b.5 The Winchester Round

Table: this quintessentially
‘Arthurian’ piece of ceremonial
furniture reflects the value of
the cycle of Arthurian stories to
the medieval English court. It
was probably made in the
thirteenth century for Henry III,
then refurbished on behalf of
Henry VIII in the sixteenth

Once Arthur had been historicised in the History of the Britons, later authors sought
to include him too. In the mid-�tenth century, the author of the Welsh Annals (Annales
Cambriae) inserted an extended entry on the Battle of Mount Badon under the
year 516, then notice of Arthur’s death in 537. The similarity of the language used
suggests that the author based both on the History but adapted the martial Arthur
whom he found there for his own audience. The Annals were written in Dyfed (south-�
west Wales) in the mid 950s when its king, Owain, was locked in a struggle against
his cousin the king of Gwynedd, and in need of English protection. That this
work plays down conflict between Britons and Saxons, preferring to adopt a far less
nationalistic approach than the History, is a function of the politics of the time.
Arthur appears in the maternal lineage of Owain, so the author probably assumed
that he was a local figure and portrayed him very differently so as to avoid any
offence to the English court of the day. His ‘Arthur carried the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders .â•‹.â•‹.’ , contrasts dramati-
cally with the warrior responsible for 12 victories over the Saxons listed in the
History, instead invoking the figure of Simon the Cyrenian, who in Luke 23:26,
carried the cross for Christ. There is little reason to suppose the dating is accurate or
the entry historical.
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : k i n g a rt h u r 69

Thereafter, Arthur appears in several saints’ Lives written in Wales in the central
Middle Ages. To this point, Arthur had been depicted as a warrior, a miles, but now he
emerges as a figure of royal authority. This developed out of the logic of the History of
the Britons, where he is depicted as the leader of the Britons despite the presence of
kings. To later generations this read in terms of superior kingship.
Scenes reminiscent of the old figure of a warrior associated with the wild still
surface on occasion, but the Arthur of the saints’ Lives was generally a king who could
be juxtaposed with the saint being commemorated. He might appear as a relative or
associate; alternatively and more commonly he could be represented as a powerful
wrongdoer, to be corrected, humbled and forced to do penance, so enhancing the
authority of the saint. As such, Arthur was being used as an exemplar of arbitrary lord-
ship and warrior-�kingship in a world in which the behaviour of kings was frequently
offensive to the clergy. These stories feed into the later medieval cycle of Arthurian
literature but have nothing whatsoever to tell us about the sub-�Roman period, being
composed for contemporary purposes in the tenth–twelfth centuries.
It is Geoffrey of Monmouth who then took up these stories in the 1130s and
reimagined British history around the figure of Arthur, who dominates a substantial
section of his extraordinarily popular History of the Kings of Britain. It is his King
Arthur, ‘both upright and generous’ and a mighty warrior, who underlies the irruption
of the icon of chivalric insular kingship into which Arthur metamorphosed across the
centuries that followed. Geoffrey made the connection between Arthur and various
sites in the south west, including Tintagel, where he placed his birth and the court of
the rulers of Cornwall. And it was Geoffrey who popularised the ‘once and future’ king
for the Anglo-�Norman elite and so began the reconciliation of Arthur with the English.
The Round Table is perhaps the greatest surviving relic of the Arthurian revival in the
Plantagenet era, which was then ‘improved’ on behalf of Henry VIII to impress his
new Hapsburg relatives. The whole story had become firmly entrenched in England by
the fifteenth century, when Malory wrote his Morte d’Arthur.
Arthur had become, then, a media success long before the modern era. Malory’s
work was printed by Caxton in 1485 and achieved far greater circulation than any
previous Arthurian text. Tennyson recycled Malory’s epic for a nineteenth-Â�century
audience, achieving huge popularity with his Idylls of the King in the 1850s. The work
offered Tennyson the opportunity to comment on a range of modern issues in the
safety of a Romantic genre set in a pseudo-�historical past. His success only underlines
the probability that all the many Arthur figures offered ever since the ninth century
have been fictional constructs developed on the basis of non-�historical sources to
serve present political and ideological needs. If that is true for the History of the Britons,
then it is equally so for every later appearance of Arthur, since all can be traced back
ultimately to the inventiveness of one Welsh cleric, writing for and probably at the
court of Merfyn Frych in the third decade of the ninth century.
 chapter 2

The Origins of England

nicholas j. higham

In his Agricola, written at the end of the first century ad, the Roman historian Tacitus
speculated about the origins of Britain’s inhabitants. The southern Welsh, he suggested,
so resembled the Spanish that they were probably descended from immigrants
from the peninsula. Similarly the Caledonians of Scotland were likely to be descendants
of Germans, while on the same grounds lowland Britons perhaps derived from Gaul.
Ultimately, though, he dismissed the whole matter as unworthy of the attention of his
aristocratic Roman audience: ‘Who the first inhabitants of Britain were,
whether indigenes or incomers, remains unknown; do remember, we are dealing with
barbarians.’
Today broadly similar questions focus on Britain in the immediately post-�Roman
period, c. 430–570. At issue are the dramatic cultural changes that occurred primarily
in the south and east and which mark the ending of a ‘Roman’ and ‘British’ past and the
opening of something new and ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’. Both the Latin and Brittonic (Celtic)
languages died out across lowland Britain to be replaced by Old English, Christianity
was displaced as the dominant religion by Germanic paganism, material culture and
architecture changed dramatically, and to the archaeologist the whole society looks
very different indeed.
What really changed, and what caused these dramatic shifts? Should we look to
population replacement as the key, with the British population overrun by German
incomers en masse in the aftermath of Empire? Or should we suppose that the existing
population, with just a leavening of new settlers, underwent such wholesale linguistic
and cultural change that they ‘became English’? And why was this process so extreme
compared with other parts of the Western Roman Empire where Germanic warriors
settled? The whole of France, Italy and Spain had Germanic immigrants, after all, but
retained Latin, and Christianity was not seriously challenged in the first two, at least,
and in Spain only by Islamic conquest. To understand how and why the south-�eastern
core of the old British diocese changed so profoundly we need to explore evidence
from a diverse range of disciplines – historical, archaeological, genetic and linguistic.
But these questions also call for a comparative approach, so we will compare Britain’s
experience with that of other communities across the Channel, to see how and why it
differed.
 the origins of england 71

2.1 Places named in chapter 2

History and the ‘English Settlement’

Across the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, a mass Germanic migra-
tion into lowland Britain in the fifth century, the ‘English Settlement’, was celebrated as
the starting point of English history. John Richard Green wrote in 1892, ‘It is with the
landing of Hengest and his war-�band at Ebbsfleet on the shores of the Isle of Thanet
that English history begins. No spot in Britain can be so sacred to Englishmen as that
which first felt the tread of English feet.’
Although bolstered both by place name studies and burial archaeology, belief in
this event rested primarily on the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle and the writings of Bede. The
 72 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.2 Early Germanic society in

the Victorian imagination.
Pastoral scene from Illustrated
History of the World, c. 1884

late ninth-�century Chronicle provided Victorian writers with a skeletal history in

which they placed absolute faith. ‘Arrival’ stories therein featured Hengest in Kent (in
449), Ælle in Sussex (477) and Cerdic in Wessex (495), each leading tiny squadrons of
ships (three, three and five respectively). The archetype of such stories was, though,
Gildas’s account of the arrival of three shiploads of Saxon mercenaries, repeated by
Bede, which Anglo-�Saxon writers then adapted as origin myths for different kingships.
Interplay between personal names and place names demonstrates that the late
ninth-�century chronicler had no reliable sources for the fifth century. West Saxon
history opens with entries detailing the arrivals by sea of first Cerdic and his son
Cynric, both British names, then later Port – from the Latin Portum Arduni (probably
Portchester, near Portsmouth) – and his two sons, one at least of whom, Mægla,
likewise has a Celtic name. This is highly improbable. In fact, the West Saxons were
earlier called the Gewisse and probably originated in the Upper Thames Valley, only
refocusing south of the Thames under pressure from the Mercians.
Bede, writing in the early eighth century, was closer in time than the chronicler but
still far too late to be a useful primary source. However, the origins of the English inter-
ested him, and his works reveal something of what was believed at the time; addition-
ally, he so influenced all later history writing that his views merit our attention. Bede
considered ‘the arrival of the English’ (the adventus Saxonum) foundational to English
history. He was aware of dating from the Creation (which he used in his The Reckoning
of Time) and from Rome’s foundation (the standard Roman method). In the same way
 the origins of england 73

he occasionally used years since the adventus: so, for example, Gregory was pope
‘about 150 years following the arrival of the English’. In the ‘Lesser Chronicle’ (in 703)
Bede offered only two ‘English’ entries: firstly ‘The race of the Angles comes to Britain’,
and then their Conversion to Christianity. He included far more material in his ‘Greater
Chronicle’ (c. 725):

The people of the Angles or Saxons were conveyed to Britain in three long-�ships.
When their voyage proved a success, news of them was carried back home. A stronger
army set out which, joined to the earlier one, first of all drove away the enemy they
were seeking [the Picts and Scots]. Then they turned their arms on their allies [the
Britons], and subjugated almost the whole island by fire or sword, from the eastern
shore as far as the western one on the trumped-�up excuse that the Britons had given
them a less than adequate stipend for their military services.

Bede had clearly by now discovered Gildas, but was struggling with the latter’s lack of
chronology: this entry comes before Bishop Germanus’s visit to Britain in 429. Gildas’s
account then served again as the basis for Bede’s next comment on the matter:

Under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus – a man of modest means who alone
of the mighty Romans had survived slaughter by the Saxons in which his parents,
who had worn the purple, had been killed – the Britons goaded the victors to battle
and defeated them. And from that time, first one side then the other gained the
victory, until the incomers, being the stronger, gained possession of the whole island
for a long time.

Bede did not glorify the English but left the moral high ground to the Roman
Ambrosius. Nevertheless he recorded a universal Saxon conquest of Britain.
A second version of this story then occurs in the first book of the Ecclesiastical
History (in 731). Again Bede followed Gildas but now at greater length, telling the
moralising story of the problems besetting a decadent British people deprived of
Roman military protection. Chapter 12 closes with the Britons suffering brutal Irish
and Pictish raids. Their appeal for aid to the Roman commander Aëtius in Gaul failed
and they determined (in chapter 14) to call in Saxon aid ‘from across the seas’. To
Gildas this was an act of blind stupidity, but Bede reinterpreted it as ‘ordained by the
will of God so that evil might fall upon those miscreants [the Britons]’. He then focused
on the arrival of the English in chapter 15, emphasising their martial qualities.
Although he returned to it later, in mid-Â�chapter Bede abandoned Gildas’s account,
offering a passage describing the ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon Settlement’:

They came from three very powerful German peoples, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes.
The people of Kent and the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight are of Jutish stock and also
those opposite the Isle of Wight, that part of the kingdom of the West Saxons which
is today still called the nation of the Jutes. From the land of the Saxons, that is the
 74 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

region now called the land of the Old Saxons, come the East Saxons, the South Saxons
[and] the West Saxons. And besides, from the land of the Angles, that is that home-
land which is called Angulus, between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons,
which remains deserted from that time right up to the present, came the East Angles,
Middle Angles, Mercians and the whole race of the Northumbrians.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹. Their first
leaders are said to have been two brothers Hengest and Horsa, and later Horsa was
killed in battle by the Britons and in the eastern part of Kent there is a monument
bearing his name. They were the sons of Wihtgisl, whose father was Witta, whose
father was Wecta, whose father was Woden, from whose stock the royal families of
many kingdoms claimed descent.

2.3 The geography of Bede’s

description in The
Ecclesiastical History (I, 15) of
the foundation of Anglo-Saxon
England. Boundaries equate
with those thought to be in
place in the later seventh/early
eighth centuries but are
necessarily approximate
 the origins of england 75

This was added late in the writing process. Since Kent opens and closes the account,
the work probably derives from Canterbury. The political geography is that of the early
eighth century; the History contains repeated references to the present and the closing
genealogy owes debts to the Jutish settlement story at the beginning – the names
Wihtgisl and Wecta derive from vernacular and Latin names for the Isle of Wight. This
reads, therefore, as an early eighth-�century reimagining of the settlement history of the
English, framed according to the geopolitics of the present. It has little historical validity.
Bede then reverted to Gildas, developing his notice of a second, larger force into a
vast horde of incomers, then followed through Ambrosius’s leadership of the Britons
to close with the siege of Mount Badon where ‘the Britons gave not the least slaughter
to their enemies’. The next five chapters of the Ecclesiastical History are based on
Constantius’s Life of Germanus, written at Lyon c. 460–480, from which Bede took
Germanus’s two visits to Britain and his ‘Alleluia’ victory won over the Saxons and
Picts. Bede’s focus here is, however, primarily on the moral failings of the Britons. The
ultimate chapter, prior to introducing Gregory’s mission to the English (in I, 23), then
reverts to Gildas’s account. There is external peace but civil war, the continuing ruin
of cities, the collapse of ‘truth and justice’ and wholesale moral meltdown. Bede
closes with the comment that to Gildas’s complaints against the Britons should be
added the crime of never preaching the faith to the English, but God had appointed
worthier ‘heralds of the truth’ as missionaries, so prefacing Augustine’s arrival in the
next chapter.
There are differences, therefore, in the ways that the ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon Settlement’ was
portrayed in the ‘Greater Chronicle’ and the Ecclesiastical History. These are not just a
consequence of Bede having additional material in 731 but reflect his changing
purposes. In 725 he was weaving insular material into a universal chronicle intended
to provide a chronologically framed Christian understanding of the passage of time,
within which the English claimed Britain by conquest. In 731 the early passages in the
Ecclesiastical History explained to a wider audience that the moral failings of the
Britons had led to their abandonment by God and consequent loss of Britain, a
cautionary tale for a Northumbrian audience whose territory had shrunk significantly
since 685. Bede’s purposes required that these two peoples be entirely separate, each
having an independent relationship with the Lord. An English ‘arrival’ which featured
large-�scale folk movement was therefore essential in the Ecclesiastical History. Of
Bede’s several versions of the settlement story, though, this is the furthest removed
from his sources and has no independent value.
If we focus instead on Bede’s sources, it is striking just how few these are and how
little they say. Gildas’s account clearly provided the backbone, but was adapted differ-
ently in these two works. Constantius’s Life of Germanus offers only one passing
mention of Saxons. Focusing on Gildas has the advantage of using a nearer-�
contemporary account than Bede’s, but the Ruin of Britain is problematic as regards its
chronology, its geography, the characters involved, and the actual outcome of the war
between Britons and Saxons. That said, Gildas clearly had an abiding hatred of the
Saxons; he portrayed them as dangerous warriors, slave-�takers and raiders, who both
controlled territory and were a force to be feared at the time of writing.
76 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The other main ‘British’ texts of the period are Patrick’s Confession and Letter,
probably both written in Ireland in the mid-�fifth century, but neither mentions Saxons,
though they do reveal a chaotic world of slave-�raiding on both sides of the Irish Sea. A
letter of the Gaulish bishop Sidonius Apollinaris around 480 to one Namatius, who
was employed by the Visigoths in Aquitaine on ‘half military, half naval duties’ refers
to Saxon pirates. Before leaving the Continental coast, they would, he alleged, sacrifice
a tenth of their captives by drowning. These may have been Britain-�based Saxons,
shipping slaves back to England.
One other source, the so-�called Gallic Chronicle of 452, refers to Saxon success in
Britain in 441:

The British provinces even at this time have been handed over across a wide area
through various catastrophes and events to the rule of the Saxons.

This was written in southern Gaul, almost certainly by a cleric not personally
acquainted with Britain, so there are issues regarding its reliability, but it was probably
composed in the early 450s, making it near contemporary. Overall, the Chronicle
records major events in the Western Empire, with Britain mentioned several times
from the 380s onwards. The author was writing for a clerical audience, but provided an
outline of the career of Aëtius, the major ‘Roman’ military leader in Gaul until his
death in 454. Even if we cannot have complete confidence in it, this remains the
nearest-�to-�contemporary comment now available and should be accepted with some
caution. What constituted these ‘catastrophes and events’ is not explicit, the author
merely acknowledging that the story was more complex than he was recording. The
one overriding ‘fact’ here was the fall of the old diocese (‘the Britains’) ‘widely’ to the
Saxons barely a decade before this chronicle was written. That Saxon ‘rule’ in Britain
should be a matter of record a mere 12 years after Bishop Germanus’s first visit reflects
the shift of military power to the raiders. It likewise makes a mockery of Constantius’s
remark that Germanus left Britain ‘a most wealthy island’, ‘secure in every sense’.

Archaeology
In areas such as the Middle Thames Valley and Somerset, British-�style burials continue
to 500 and even beyond. At Poundbury, Dorchester, a settlement, perhaps a monas-
tery, developed on the well-�used Romano-�British extramural cemetery. Some urban
sites also show signs of continuing occupation to the mid-�or even late fifth century.
But overall, archaeologists struggle to identify distinctively British material culture by
the 430s. In eastern England and the Upper Thames Valley, we see instead new burial
practices associated with novel types of artefacts and different styles of architecture.
We use the term ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ to distinguish this new and distinctive archaeology. It
will be used here but it must be stressed that archaeology provides insights into mate-
rial culture and behaviours, not race.
Anglo-�Saxon archaeology has a long history. Seventeenth-�century writers described
ploughed-�out burials. Purposeful digging began in the late eighteenth, with the
 the origins of england 77

campaigns of Bryan Fausett and James Douglas on Kentish barrow cemeteries. Douglas
was the first to identify his finds as Anglo-�Saxon, as opposed to Roman or British. His
interpretation finally prevailed in the mid-� nineteenth century, when scholars
connected finds from graves with Bede’s description of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Settlement.
They linked such distinctive artefacts as saucer brooches with ‘Saxon’ areas, and cruci-
form brooches with ‘Anglian’ ones. The resultant framework has long structured the
whole subject, with ‘Saxon’ archaeology in the Upper Thames Valley and across much
of southern England distinguished from ‘Jutish’ in Kent, the Isle of Wight and
Hampshire, and ‘Anglian’ in the east. Similarities in pottery and metalwork from
England and north-�west Germany/southern Denmark and Lower Saxony confirm
that the English were connected with or had come from this part of the Continent.
Archaeologists experience problems with dating their finds which they address by
developing relative chronologies of manufactured goods, based on the stylistic changes
to which they were subject – a method known as typology. Typologies are anchored by
grave assemblages on the Continent, where coin-�dating is possible much later than in
England, but even so the chronology of the later phases is weak. Not only do styles
overlap chronologically as well as geographically but also the age of artefacts when
they were consigned to the ground varies widely, with some freshly made and some
already generations old.
Initially archaeologists working on Anglo-Saxon sites viewed their role primarily
in terms of elaborating and illustrating an ‘English Settlement’ story reaching them
from historians. This ‘migrationist’ or ‘culture-Â�historical’ approach is well illustrated
by J. N. L. Myres, who updated his original pre-�war study in 1986, remarking (p. 24):

Much can certainly be learnt of the course and character of the invasions from the
distribution pattern of cemeteries and settlements in relation to the geography and
geology of those parts of the country where they are found. Even more significant
does that distribution pattern appear when superimposed on that of Roman towns,
forts, villas, and villages and of the roads that connected them.

By the 1970s, however, many archaeologists were less accepting of this dependence on
history and keen to take control of their own agenda. They focused increasingly on
broad, social and economic processes, and abandoned invasion as the principal expla-
nation of change. The resulting ‘processual’ archaeology was anti-Â�historical, reinter-
preting the early Anglo-�Saxon period as prehistoric and focusing on social structure,
exchange mechanisms and access to resources, with little more than a passing wave to
migration. But late twentieth-Â�century scholars in turn challenged this ‘processual’
approach as too functionalist, inclined to generalities and overly simplistic, and
advanced instead more nuanced, complex and theoretical explanations of the data.
They imported cultural theory from other disciplines and embraced the diversity of
material that characterises the evidence. Rapid technological developments and the far
more detailed recording of recent excavations have enabled use of powerful computing
packages capable of sorting massive data sets more quickly, effectively and sensitively
than previously. In recent years this has allowed archaeologists to set aside the some-
 78 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

what subjective categorisations of specific items that earlier

prevailed in favour of analysis of whole assemblages.
The date at which Anglo-�Saxon settlement began has
long been a bone of contention. In the mid-�twentieth
century, Myres argued that a particular style of pottery,
which he termed ‘Romano-Â�Saxon’, was manufactured by
Romano-�British potters for a market consisting of Saxon
troops garrisoning the forts of the Saxon Shore. This had
the potential to push the adventus back into the fourth
century, but his thesis collapsed when it was recognised that
this ‘Romano-Â�Saxon’ pottery shared patterns of deposition
with other styles from the same kilns, so had been made for
and used by the same assortment of customers as other
contemporary styles.
2.4 Highly ornamented Attention then focused on late Roman-�type sword belts, found in graves across
copper-alloy belt buckle plate western Germany and the Rhineland as well as Britain, on the assumption that these
from an early Anglo-Saxon represented barbarians who had served in the Roman army. In Britain, some belt fittings
grave at Mucking, Essex, with
silver foil and wire detailing.
were locally made, but others came from the Continent. They are generally found in the
Of late Romano-British lowland zone, at Richborough in Kent for example, where a late Roman military pres-
manufacture in the style of ence seems highly plausible, and at Dyke Hills, Dorchester-on-Thames. However, these
late-Roman belt fittings, burial may be Roman burials as easily as Germanic. More certainly barbarian are those found
in an Anglo-Saxon grave may
in early Anglo-Â�Saxon cemeteries alongside more typically ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ metalwork,
imply employment in early
fifth-century Britain such as the three from Mucking (Essex), from among the earliest graves.
Another possible indicator is the quoit-�brooch style of metalworking. This fifth-�
century style originated in late-Roman belt equipment but was translated by British
artisans into a unique style of chip-�carved brooch. Examples are concentrated in
England south of the Thames, but occur also in Gaul. Although items are not numerous,
a high proportion were buried in early Anglo-�Saxon graves and so may indicate use by
Germanic mercenaries. Early examples are characteristically ‘late-Roman’ in style but
later ones are increasingly ‘Germanic’, suggesting stylistic change under the influence
of barbarian users. They were probably used as cloak fasteners, replacing the military
‘crossbow’ types of the late Roman period. Some eventually became female dress acces-
sories, so final deposition could be a world away from their purpose when first made.

Burials
Anglo-�Saxon cemeteries are characterised by two very different styles of deposition,
inhumation – burial of the whole body in a grave, and cremation – the deposition of
cremated remains, generally in a pottery urn. Cremation was a common rite across
northern Germany in the fourth century, but furnished inhumation also occurred on
both sides of the imperial frontier. There is a very strong connection between ‘Anglian’
areas and cremation, and ‘Saxon’ regions and inhumation, though this has become less
marked as the number of cremations discovered outside the primary ‘Anglian’ areas
has risen.
 the origins of england 79

Different rites imply divergent ways of mourning the dead and

perhaps also reflect differing social organisation. Cremations are the
more obviously Germanic and are sometimes viewed as evidence of
immigration; since cremation was very rare in fourth-� century
Britain, it is difficult to see the fifth-�century rite owing anything to
local practices. There are, however, also significant differences
between Anglo-� Saxon inhumations, a proportion of which are
accompanied by weapons, jewellery and other material, and the
Romano-�British rite, which was rarely associated with anything
more than the nails from boots, knives and/or coffin fittings.
Continuity in the use of a cemetery across the Romano-�British/
Anglo-�Saxon divide does occur (as Wasperton in Warwickshire,
Sandy in Bedfordshire and Frilford I in Berkshire), but is rare. Most
Romano-�British cemeteries of any size were associated with towns
and urban decline rendered them obsolete. Deposition therefore eventually ceased. 2.5 Silver quoit brooch, parcel-
The number of early Anglo-�Saxon graves so far identified runs to perhaps 25,000 gilt, 68 mm in diameter, with
in around 1,100 cemeteries, with discoveries still continuing. That this exceeds the bands of animals and masks.
From grave 13 in the
number of known Romano-�British graves suggests that overall population density was Anglo-Saxon cemetery of
not the key factor in determining the numbers. Clearly, only a proportion of the popu- Howletts, Kent
lation was buried in cemeteries in either period. To an extent inclusion in early Anglo-�
Saxon cemeteries depended on age. Although there are burial sites where numerous
infants and foetuses occur (as Great Chesterford, Essex), they are generally few,
suggesting that the very young were disposed of elsewhere. Other under-�represented
groups were probably the un-Â�free and ‘un-Â�English’, including Britons. Given the scar-
city of burials found for this period in the great swathes of western and northern
Britain which lack Anglo-�Saxon archaeology, their low incidence across much of the
lowland zone should not surprise us.

2.6 Distribution of the quoit

style of fifth-century metalwork
in Britain
 80 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.7 Insular distribution of

furnished Anglo-Saxon
cemeteries. Main picture: all
furnished Anglo-Saxon
cemeteries; (a) ‘Anglian’
cruciform brooches; (b)
‘Anglian’ square-headed
brooches; (c) ‘Saxon’ saucer
brooches

Early Anglo-�Saxon cemeteries were concentrated along the east coast and in the
Upper Thames Valley, later spreading across England east of a line from Lyme Regis
(Dorset) to Sunderland (Tyne and Wear). In many areas they are comparatively dense,
but there are gaps: some, such as the Weald of Kent and Sussex, can best be explained
as seasonally used terrain, from which the dead were returned to cemeteries in core
territories to north and south; others are areas where extensive marine inundation
occurred at this date, such as the Fens and Humber wetlands. There remain, however,
significant breaks, for example in Hertfordshire, parts of Essex, much of Suffolk and
parts of Yorkshire, which suggest local variability in burial preferences that goes
beyond the choice of inhumation versus cremation. Whether or not some of these
 the origins of england 81

represent ‘British enclaves’ is debated. Negative evidence offers only weak indications
on which to judge, but the distribution links, for example, with literary evidence for
British kingship in Elmet east of Leeds into the early seventh century.
Cemeteries were often laid out in or around some pre-�existing monument. The
commonest are prehistoric barrows (as at Uncleby, Yorkshire, or Millhill, Buckland
(Dover) and Saltwood, in Kent), but numerous others are represented, from Neolithic
henges through to Roman ruins, and also natural hillocks apparently mistaken for old
burial mounds. Cemetery founders favoured landmarks on which to orientate burials,
and particularly monuments already associated with the dead. The intention may have
been to assert claims on the landscape, its management and its produce, as successors
to those buried earlier.
Of known cemeteries, only perhaps 3 per cent are recorded sufficiently well for
modern statistical analysis, and it is this data set on which modern scholarship princi-
pally concentrates. Around eight hundred cemeteries are broadly dated, however, with
perhaps 60 per cent being fifth/sixth century and 33 per cent sixth/seventh, with only
some 7 per cent running across both periods. The composition varies considerably,
with 70 cremation-�only and 175 exhibiting both rites (although this latter figure seems
likely to rise as more are excavated), the rest being inhumation-�only. While cremation
was predominantly early, inhumation occurred across the whole period. With only a
few early inhumations which could be of immigrants, cremations represent the initial
horizon of Anglo-�Saxon evidence. The earliest were deposited in the first half of the
fifth century. Small numbers of un-�urned cremations occur in late Roman cemeteries,
such as Lankhills outside Winchester (Hampshire), and the two urned cremations of
early Anglo-�Saxon type from Wasperton are Carbon-�14 dated to around 400.
Cremations occur across much of southern and eastern England, but large ceme-
teries are concentrated in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and eastern Yorkshire. The largest,
such as Spong Hill (Norfolk), Sancton (Yorkshire) and Cleatham (Lincolnshire), each
contain more than 1,500 burials, which implies user populations in excess of 500,
arguably spread across a district. Such a cemetery served as a focal point on which
groups periodically converged. Although Continental parallels suggest that pyres
normally burned within cemeteries, such are rarely identified in England; rather,
cremation seems to have taken place elsewhere and the burnt remains were then trans-
ported for interment. Burial was a public spectacle laden with symbolic meaning.
Correlations between the age, sex and wealth of the dead person and the size, orna-
mentation and shape of cremation urns suggest that those responsible commissioned
vessels appropriate to the individual.
Some cemeteries have structures associated with interments, as the four-�square
posts set around burials at Apple Down, Sussex, interpreted as ‘cremation-Â�houses’.
Urns were often grouped and ‘family plots’ can sometimes be discerned. At Cleatham
the use of small plots to bury individual pots successively in intercut pits revealed the
relative chronology of such burials. Most urns, though, come from pits which were not
intercut.
Most cremation urns contain no grave goods, but perhaps 10 per cent have at least
one piece of toiletry equipment, such as tweezers, razors or bone or antler combs.
 82 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.8 Seven intercut cremation

urns at Cleatham. Suggestive
of a family group, all were
covered by large stones, one of
which is visible in the
foreground

These occur in the graves of the young as often as of adults. Some had gone through
the cremation process, others were added post-�cremation. Cosmetic equipment may
have had particular value in the context of a funeral. Other goods often accompanied
the body to the pyre or were added later, and a minority of urns contain glass beads,
small vessels, combs, brooches and/or spindle-�whorls. Larger items, such as swords,
spears or shields, only appear very rarely but may have been on the pyre.
By the end of the fifth century a secondary, generally undecorated vessel (or even
two), containing the cremated remains of a horse, frequently accompanied the primary
urn. These burials were neither age nor sex specific. The horses were not necessarily
riding animals. Unlike the far rarer horse burials in inhumation cemeteries these were
not status-�related, but were perhaps symbolic of a particular social or religious
grouping. That the traditional leaders of the first Saxon settlers both had names
meaning ‘horse’, Hengest and Horsa, may reflect this animal’s significance. Later objec-
tions by papal emissaries to the English ‘mutilation’ of horses may be linked.
Anglo-Â�Saxon cremations exhibit close similarities with cemeteries in the ‘Elbe-Â�
Weser triangle’ of northern Germany and the German-Â�Danish border regions of
Schleswig, Holstein, Mecklenburg and Fyn, with ‘Saxon’ types of decorated vessel
relating particularly to the first and ‘Anglian’ styles to the second. However, these styles
were already mixing on the Continent by the late fourth century, and the degree of
regional conformity in England is less than was once suggested. Such is the diversity of
artefacts that to date no Anglo-�Saxon cemetery has been definitively tied to a specific
place of origin in Germany as if the result of migration en bloc to Britain. Material
 the origins of england 83

culture seems to have altered as a consequence of both migration and colonisation;

additionally non-�migrants assimilated the new material in unpredictable ways. Some
English cemeteries reveal multiple associations across their periods of use.
Communities may even have cultivated differences in the use of material culture as a
means of distinguishing themselves from their neighbours.
Inhumations provide us with very different information, offering fuller skeletal
and artefactual evidence, with occasional fragments of fabric and other furnishings.
Very large inhumation-�only cemeteries do not occur; graves number from a score or
so to a few hundred, so most probably they represent settlements of perhaps 20–60
individuals. Cemeteries seem to have been well organised, with just one or two main
orientations of the graves and intercutting so rare as to suggest surface-�markers. West/
2.9 Plan of the fifth- to
sixth-century inhumation
cemetery at Buckland, near
Dover. The northern part was
excavated by Vera Evison in
1951–3, the southern by the
Canterbury Archaeological
Trust in 1994. The area
between was destroyed by a
nineteenth-century railway
cutting
 84 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

east burial is common and differs little from Romano-�British practice, although at
some cemeteries, as Castledyke South, Barton-upon-Humber, orientation is more
variable than for late Roman-�period graves. Most burials consist of a single individual
face-�up (supine) and extended, although legs are sometimes flexed or the body
crouched. Multiple burials are found occasionally, with more than one body sharing a
grave, but most have a single adult and child, probably a mother and her offspring.
Skeletal condition varies: while little bone survives in cemeteries dug into sand,
gravel or clay, on chalk or limestone skeletons are often well preserved. Burials in good
condition can be aged (although determination is imprecise beyond about 45) and
sexed (although this is problematic below 20). Overall health generally appears to have
been good, particularly as regards tooth decay, which, without refined sugar, was less
than in modern populations, and some individuals can be shown to have survived
serious illnesses, broken limbs or even surgery. Occasionally the cause of death is clear,
particularly when that was violent, although injuries likely to have resulted from
warfare are rare.
The determination of sex biologically can be compared to indications of gender in
the grave goods. In a small number of cases males are found with jewellery, which is
otherwise characteristically female. The number of males buried with annular brooches
at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, for example, suggests that here this was normal.
Elsewhere, as at Buckland (Dover), women were occasionally buried with weapons.
Where sex has not been biologically determined, therefore, there is a small risk that
determining gender solely by artefacts is inaccurate. Overall, though, grave goods
generally fluctuate in quantity and type according to the age and sex of individuals,

2.10 One of several skulls

showing clear signs of sword
slashes excavated from a
cemetery at Heronbridge,
Cheshire. It is likely that this
individual was one of the
casualties of the Battle of
Chester, c. 600
 the origins of england 85

with masculinity and femininity determining clothing and associated artefacts.

Perhaps half of both sexes were buried with none. Young children were generally asso-
ciated with gender-�neutral objects, then between the ages of 7 to 12 artefacts deposited
were increasingly gendered, although often having the appearance of hand-�me-�downs.
Such individuals were treated as young adults.
As yet only a few warrior graves have been found dating from the early to mid-�fifth
century, but these rise as a proportion of adult male graves to peak in the mid-�sixth
century at close to 50 per cent. By far the commonest weapon is the spear, occurring
in 80 per cent of weapon burials, with shields in around 50 per cent, and other weapons
(including axes, arrows and swords) in only 10 per cent. Weapons were the preserve of
a warrior caste, defined most probably by birth, since a proportion of such burials were
of juveniles or men too old or incapacitated to fight. The presence of board games in
some warrior graves suggests that these individuals had leisure time, implying that
weapons signified social rank. Other males were buried with knives, tweezers and/or
shears, generally found at the waist as if they had hung from a belt. Bodies were buried
clothed in day-�to-�day attire, in belted trousers with a tunic, some additionally wearing
a coat and/or cloak.
The characteristic artefacts found in female burials are brooches of various kinds,
strings of beads, sleeve-�clasps (in Anglian areas), knives and items hung from a belt,
most of which were in some sense functional. Brooches secured clothes, though they
might be more decorative than utilitarian, so indicative of status and wealth. Brooches
are central to the recognition of regional difference across early England. In ‘Anglian’
areas, annular, small-�long, square-�headed and cruciform brooches predominate, the
full set having one on each shoulder and one on the chest, alongside girdle-�hangers
and sleeve-Â�clasps. In ‘Saxon’ areas, disc, button, saucer and applied brooches outnumber
other styles, often in pairs on the shoulders but on occasion in a row down the upper
body, with pendants made from Roman coins and strings of beads worn across the
pelvis. In ‘Jutish’ Eastern Kent and Hampshire, styles varied again, signifying different
costume preference.
2.11 Cleatham grave 31, a
prone male burial accompa-
nied by spearhead (visible
above the far arm) and several
other metal artefacts including
a buckle, all by the near hip.
Good preservation of the bones
reflects a comparatively deep
grave cut into limestone
 86 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

We can, therefore, identify regional patterns of brooch-�wearing and variations in

female dress, but some cemeteries reveal either more than one dress style in use at the
same time or mixed styles, suggesting that ‘Anglian’, ‘Saxon’ and ‘Kentish’ fashions were
far from exclusive. Indeed, East Kent exhibits ‘Saxon’ and ‘Anglian’ influences as well as
the southern Scandinavian element characterised as ‘Jutish’, and there was additionally
Gallo-Â�Roman and Frankish material arriving. The unique ‘Kentish’ material culture
developed, therefore, out of a rich cultural admixture of neighbouring styles in the
maritime environment delimited by the English and Wantsum Channels. Numerous
gold bracteates, many bearing images deriving ultimately from Roman emperors,
mark an important distinction between this community and its neighbours.
The origins of these various different types of brooch are highly variable. Some
derive from northern Germany/Scandinavia. Indeed, some early square-�headed and
small-�long brooches were manufactured on the Continent and imported, though
insular manufacture quickly took over. However, close attention to the location in the
grave of even early imports or copies of imports suggests that their use was often
unorthodox when compared with contemporary Continental usage. Only a selection

2.12 Some brooch types in

Anglo-Saxon England: (a)
square-headed brooch from
West Stow; (b) cruciform
brooch, and (c) annular brooch,
both from Empingham II; (d)
small-long brooch from
Cleatham; (e) applied saucer
brooch from Beckford

d
e
 the origins of england 87

of the full range of artefacts available was introduced, making it uncertain whether
such graves were those of immigrants. Other styles, such as disc, annular and applied
saucer brooches, do not have close Continental parallels but actually originated in
Britain, developing from late Romano-�British metalworking traditions. Such traditions
of working can even be identified on some insular examples of more ‘Germanic’ styles
of brooch. Annular brooches – the commonest type of brooch in eastern England –
lack close Continental parallels. Even these, then, may reflect ‘British’ influence in
even that part of Britain most open to Germanic migration, though their appearance
no earlier than the late fifth century undermines arguments in favour of continuity
from late Roman Britain.
As in cremations, inhumations do appear to differentiate status within commun-
ities, although other interpretations remain possible. Those of lowest status, whether
because of age, ethnicity or social standing, were probably excluded altogether. Those
buried without grave goods were likely to be of lower status than those with, while the
artefacts associated with a minority suggest a degree of affluence. The mid-sixth
century witnessed a steepening of the social gradient visible in grave goods, with
increasing concentration of brooches, for example, in fewer graves. These can cluster,
as at Alton (Hampshire), perhaps signifying a small number of wealthier families.
Even the richest burials, however, are dispersed across the cemetery, associated
spatially with graves with poorer assemblages. These arguably represent leading figures
within extended households rather than chieftains. As at Norton (Cleveland), there are
sometimes comparable numbers of weapon-�burials and women with full brooch sets,
which may indicate high-�status couples. Where groupings of graves suggest that there
are household plots in use, there is a broad similarity in terms of scale and wealth from
one to another, with status differentiated within the plot rather than between plots.

The Early Anglo-�Saxons and the Laboratory

Scientific developments offer new methods of examining the ‘English Settlement’. The
longest established of these is palaeobotany. Human impact on vegetation varies with
population size, among other factors, and it is interesting to note that across most of
England there is little evidence from pollen diagrams of the large-�scale reforestation
that might have been expected had significant population decline occurred in the fifth
century. Indeed, some diagrams even suggest increasing pressure on the environment.
There are, of course, several ways to interpret this, one of which is to argue for large-�
scale immigration coupled with and alongside the displacement of comparable
numbers of the indigenes. Certainly, there is literary and linguistic evidence of Britons
emigrating, particularly to Armorica/Brittany, but the fluidity of population replace-
ment required to avoid widespread abandonment seems implausible. The simplest
explanation is to assume comparatively little disruption of farming, so of the farming
population.
Another area of research has long been the investigation of physical anthropology
in an attempt to distinguish incoming Germans from the indigenes, working on both
ancient people and their living descendants. This began in the nineteenth century with
 88 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.13 Finds in Kent indicative

of Jutish and Continental North
Sea coastal areas

experiments on the basis of cranial measurements (phrenology) and/or skin colour

(nigrescence) to establish the extent of post-�Roman migration. Racial stereotyping lost
favour as a consequence of the Second World War but has since revived, in conjunction
with its use in forensic science. However, cranial measurements reveal less variation
between Romano-�British and Anglo-�Saxon populations than between Anglo-�Saxon
and medieval. Burials at Cannington, Somerset, for example, show so little change in
measurements from Romano-�British to Saxon that the populations were almost
certainly the same.
2.14 Copper alloy Anglo-Saxon Larger-�scale study of selected Anglo-�Saxon cemeteries has indicated that male
button brooch from Harham burials accompanied by weapons tended to be of taller men than burials without. The
Hill, Wiltshire. At the centre is conclusion drawn was that weapon burials were predominantly ‘Saxon’ while the
a chip-carved face-mask and remainder were more likely to be ‘British’. That height might be indicative of race is
the brooch has traces of
gilding. The decoration is
plausible, but such factors as nutrition can equally cause stature to vary. There is less
derivative of quoit-style height variation correlated with material wealth in female graves. Given the apparent
differences between regional groups of Romano-�Britons and the presence of incomers
from all over and outside the Empire, plus the polyglot nature of Anglo-�
Saxon immigration, detecting race archaeologically by such means
remains fraught with difficulty.
An alternative is to focus on a particular part of the skeleton, in the
expectation that systematic variations can be identified. Study of teeth
irruption across populations identified on archaeological grounds as
either ‘Roman’ or ‘Saxon’ has suggested that locality had more influence
than burial styles. Skeletal similarities suggest that contiguous but
culturally dissimilar cemeteries, such as Berinsfield and Queenford
Farm, Dorchester-�on-�Thames, may have been used by the same popula-
tion across the period, simply abandoning one burial practice in favour
of the other.
Another approach is isotopic investigation of an individual’s diet and
lifetime mobility. Isotopes are atoms of the same element but with different
 the origins of england 89

atomic masses, the abundance of which varies systematically. They have long been
used to explore what individuals ate but can also serve as markers of a particular
environment. Oxygen isotopes vary with temperature and strontium with geology, so
a study of these in teeth – where they are fixed from a comparatively early age – may
distinguish locals from immigrants. To date, the best results come from Roman Britain.
Late Roman cemeteries at York reveal a minority of individuals with exotic eating
habits, from Central Eastern Europe, the southern Mediterranean and/or North
Africa, confirming the heterogeneous population of this northern outpost of the
Empire. At Lankhills, Winchester, excavations published in 1979 identified a group of
burials which paralleled ‘Pannonian’ graves on the Danube, and these were interpreted
as immigrant. More recently a further 350 burials have been examined. Isotopic testing
has shown that the burial rite used is a weaker than expected indicator of geographical
origin, with most of the ‘Pannonian’ skeletons exhibiting local characteristics.
Further, a minority of those previously thought indigenous actually came from
overseas.
So far, the extent to which such techniques have been applied to fifth-�or sixth-�
century burials is very limited. A small-Â�scale study on skeletons from the ‘Anglian’
cemetery at West Heslerton suggested that most of the sample had either grown up
locally or came from western Britain, with only a very few from the Continent.
Similarly, sampling of the less well-�preserved Roman-�to-�Anglo-�Saxon skeletons at
Wasperton, Warwickshire, was consistent with the majority from both periods having
been children locally, with immigration from western Britain and the Mediterranean
but not from northern Europe. At Ringlemere Farm, East Kent, isotopic analysis of 8
out of 51 inhumations suggested that some of those buried had migrated from Frisia.
Material evidence linked to Merovingian France and northern Germany and consistent
with deposition in the mid-�to late fifth century suggests that we are here seeing
incomers. These are comparatively small data sets, however, and more confident inter-
pretations must await further investment in this technology.
Another post-�Second World War arrival is the sub-�discipline of archaeogenetics,
the study of aspects of the human past, including the dispersal of populations, by
means of the analysis of genetic variation. Although there is hope that ancient DNA
may eventually provide significant evidence, other than studies on Neanderthals and
the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition the bulk of research so far has been conducted on
modern populations, working back from the present to explore migrations in the past.
This introduces a range of complexities not all of which have so far been resolved,
including issues regarding the rate of the accumulation of genetic variation as a means
of dating. At the level of Eurasia, significant patterns in the distribution of genetic vari-
ations have been identified across the past 40 years, which encourage the view that this
technique has considerable potential for the study of history. Research on mitochon-
drial DNA, inherited exclusively from the mother, suggests only gradual genetic vari-
ation across Europe, but examination of the Y chromosome, inherited from the father,
distinguishes an Atlantic Zone in western Europe, stretching northwards from the
Basque country to include western parts of the British Isles, which contrasts with a
Central European Zone including most of England.
 90 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The interface of these two zones was explored by sampling a series of small towns
on a transect from Norfolk to Anglesey. Results in 2002 suggested comparative
uniformity across England but significant differences from Wales, which researchers
explained in terms of large-Â�scale (50–100 per cent) replacement of the population of
lowland Britain by incomers from Friesland, where similar genetic patterning was
identified. Faced with widespread scepticism, one member of this team, with two new
collaborators, suggested in 2006 that the same results could have been achieved
through the operation of an apartheid system; if incoming males making up only an
initial 10 per cent of the adult male population enjoyed a significant reproductive
advantage, then they could have contributed as much as 50 per cent towards the gene
pool. Whether such an initial advantage would continue over the several centuries
required seems improbable, and basic assumptions regarding the underlying homoge-
neity of the ‘British’ and ‘Germanic’ populations are in any case implausible. But this
second paper does open the door to new ways of interpreting such data.
A more detailed study of Y-�chromosome variation, published in 2003, suggested
similarities between all the different regions of Britain and the Basque country.
Continental influence was strongest in East Anglia, the north east and the Thames
Valley, and least in Wales, the south west and south eastern England. The study esti-
mated Continental admixture averaging 38 per cent for England but only 13 per cent for
Wales, yet assumed a uniform population prior to Continental migration and did not
suggest any dating for the Continental intrusion(s). The English emerge from this work
as less homogeneous than previously supposed, with data from parts of central/eastern
England virtually indistinguishable from data from Scandinavia/North Germany but
those for other regions differing more or less significantly. It is impossible to distinguish
2.15 The second dimension of
Y-chromosome diversity in
western Europe, derived from
classical gene frequencies.
Note similarities between the
western British Isles and
northern Spain, while eastern
Britain conforms to the nearer
Continent, to which it was
joined in prehistory
 the origins of england 91

Anglo-�Saxon from Danish genetic influence, making it likely that successive prehis-
toric, migration-�period and Viking Age colonisations have magnified the effect in
eastern England. By contrast, genetic evidence from southern England was compara-
tively unlike that from Scandinavia/North Germany, as it was also for southern Scotland.
A new synthesis of the data in 2006, on the basis of published work, concluded that
the Y chromosome data from England had most in common with Belgium. If this
proves a valid comparison, then the lack of any known migration from Belgium to
England since the Roman period must cast doubt on the assumption that Germanic
immigration had much impact on lowland Britain. This study concluded that the prin-
cipal genetic traits visible within the British population were to a large extent estab-
lished ten thousand years ago by recolonisation after the last Ice Age. However, while
assumptions regarding rates of genetic mutation do vary from one study to another,
the one used here was to date the slowest, which will have privileged early prehistoric
migrations over those of the historic period.
Another recent overview does not favour dramatic population change in the migra-
tion period. While accepting that in this respect parts of eastern England are virtually
indistinguishable from Scandinavia/north-�west Germany, this stresses that the connec-
tion is not yet effectively dated, nor the numbers involved quantified. This study postu-
lates a genetic admixture deriving in part at least from colonisation following the last
Ice Age, when much of the North Sea was dry land, but then strengthened in the
Neolithic and across later prehistory, as well as in the Migration Period and Viking Age.
Overall, therefore, while archaeogenetics undoubtedly offers an important new
method of exploring the nature of the ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon Settlement’, work in this area has
not so far established the agreed parameters and common methodologies necessary to
compare one study with another to best effect. Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic
communities were arguably highly mobile, but there is a very real possibility that once
farming was established then tribal geographies would have tended to limit genetic
exchange to comparatively well-Â�defined regions. Tacitus’s remarks on several tribes, as
regards hair, skin colour and stature, suggest long-�lived differences visible around ad
100, which may have survived to the fifth and sixth centuries. Modern studies need
therefore to compare regional communities one with another, as well as with others
outside Britain, so as to build up a better picture of local tribal differences as well as of
transnational migration in the fifth and sixth centuries.

Settlement Archaeology
Although quarrying revealed the first buildings in the 1920s, early Anglo-�Saxon settle-
ments only became the object of systematic scholarly attention in the post-�war period.
The nature and quantity of artefacts deposited and the type of buildings found distin-
guish them from late Romano-�British sites. All were timber-�built, with roofs of thatch
or wooden shingles, and structures generally fall into just two types, Grubenhäuser or
‘Sunken-Â�Featured Buildings’ (SFBs), and ‘post-Â�hole buildings’, ‘houses’ or ‘halls’, which
appear in various combinations. While there are some sites where Roman-�Saxon
continuity can be postulated (as at Barton Court Farm, Oxfordshire, and Orton Hall
 92 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.16 Sunken-Featured
Building under excavation at
the early monastic site at
Lyminge, Kent

Farm, near Peterborough), in no case is this certain and these are a small minority of
places excavated to date; most early Anglo-�Saxon settlements were established on sites
which were previously unoccupied, but not necessarily unused.
Grubenhäuser, which were the first building type to be identified, are characterised
by a shallow flat-�bottomed pit of roughly oval or rectangular shape and less than 1
metre deep, which defines the bulk of the interior; most are comparatively small,
measuring rarely more than about 8 metres × 5 metres. Set around the pit, some feature
two, four, or six paired post-�holes which supported a superstructure, with dwarf walls
perhaps of turf. Entrances are rarely identified. The pit base has often been viewed as
the floor of the SFB (as at Mucking, Essex), but examination of those excavated at West
Stow (Suffolk) concluded that suspended wooden floors spanned the pit. Both views
have found support, but recent study favours suspended floors.
SFBs were initially interpreted as ‘pit dwellings’, but the discovery of larger post-Â�
constructed halls led to a rethink. The frequent presence of loom weights has encour-
aged interpretation as weaving sheds, as was assumed at Catholme (Staffordshire), but
in practice weaving is more likely to have occurred outside or in post-�hole buildings.
Many Grubenhäuser may have been grain stores, which are not otherwise evidenced.
Loom weights in the pit-�fill derive mostly from later rubbish disposal. Given literary
evidence for sleeping accommodation being separate from the hall, an alternative
would be to see some fulfilling this function, and there are clearly other options. The
pits stand out on aerial photographs or ground surveys, making SFBs a defining feature
of many early Anglo-�Saxon settlements, but they are not always present.
‘Halls’ are larger but less clearly visible, since they are defined only by the post-Â�
holes marking their walls. They are almost uniformly rectangular in plan with soft
corners, generally measuring 6–11 metres long and approximately half as wide. The
majority provided only a single room but some had an internal wall dividing the inte-
 the origins of england 93

rior into unequal spaces. Entrances are generally at the centre of the long sides, facing
each other, in a style reminiscent of Bede’s description of King Edwin’s hall in the
Ecclesiastical History. Evidence of a hearth is rare; structural evidence at West Heslerton
(North Yorkshire) suggests that these buildings commonly had timber floors supported
by the external walls. Halls are less obviously Continental in origin than are SFBs:
excepting a recent excavation at Eye (Suffolk), the great aisled buildings shared with
animals which are common in western Germania barely occur in England. These post-�
hole buildings have as much in common with late Romano-�British timber-�framed
buildings as with the lesser buildings found on German, Dutch and Danish settle-
ments, and it seems reasonable to assume a degree of input from both traditions.
These settlements generally lack boundaries, sprawling across the landscape in
ways that make them difficult to excavate in totality. Similar settlements on the
Continent have been interpreted as ‘shifting’ or ‘wandering’. In England, however, the
degree of ‘shift’ varies considerably. Mucking (Essex) has been interpreted in terms of
long-�
running settlement mobility. Excavation revealed a multi-� period landscape
including Romano-�British enclosures and a cemetery abandoned in the later third
2.17 Loom weights at the base
of an SFB at West Heslerton.
Such finds have encouraged
the view that Sunken-Featured
Buildings were often used for
weaving but in most instances
they form part of the refuse
thrown in after structural use
had finished, when they
became rubbish tips
 94 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

century, after which the Anglo-�Saxon settlement was estab-

lished, with in total 53 post-� hole buildings and 203
Grubenhäuser. The settlement began in the early fifth century
and had perhaps 100 persons at any one time using at least 10
halls and 14 SFBs. Although the size of buildings offers little
evidence of social differentiation, the wealth of artefacts in
some graves does imply a degree of hierarchy. This was inter-
preted as a shifting settlement made up of households whose
principal figures were distinguished by the weapons and
jewellery deposited with them.
West Stow (Suffolk) similarly suggests successive
replacement of the buildings, but it retained a more stable
location: 14 halls were associated with 69 SFBs, interpreted as
perhaps 4 households. Each had a substantial hall and several
SFBs, all of which were occasionally rebuilt across the fifth–
seventh centuries. Finds from the settlement were not
numerous, but the associated cemetery (dug in the nineteenth
century) yielded weapons and a variety of brooches. Such
artefacts imply that households were comparatively large and
hierarchically organised.
Some sites, however, reveal more static occupation over
centuries. Catholme is a substantial settlement that evolved
from the fifth to the ninth centuries and saw numerous struc-
tural replacements on the same location. Another example is
West Heslerton, in the Vale of Pickering, where excavation has
revealed a 22.5 hectare settlement of some 80–90 timber-Â�
framed buildings and 140 Grubenhäuser, and its cemetery.
The Anglo-�Saxon settlement replaced Romano-�British road-
side occupation slightly lower down the valley slope, where
increasingly wet conditions led to abandonment around 400.
The new settlement developed upslope from a major Roman
2.18 Plan of the Anglo-Saxon site, interpreted as a shrine, which was well used across the fourth century and seems
settlement at Mucking, Essex. to have been respected thereafter. The cemetery was focused on an older ritual land-
Phasing from the fifth century scape featuring a henge and round barrow. The new settlement was occupied for more
through to the seventh
than four hundred years.
Unlike the situation at West Stow and Mucking, where Grubenhäuser generally
cluster around post-�hole buildings, part of the West Heslerton village was dominated
by SFBs, suggesting that this was a craft or processing area where metalworking, textile
manufacturing, butchery and malting all occurred at some distance from the accom-
modation. The whole community was perhaps 75 individuals at any one time, organ-
ised within 10 households, each centred on one of the halls, which were constructed
very largely of timber, rather than wattle and daub, and benefited from high-�quality
carpentry. Around 9,000 pieces of Anglo-�Saxon pottery were found, although that very
large total is dwarfed by the 30 kilos from the Roman period, mostly from the shrine.
 the origins of england 95

2.19 Reconstruction of
hall-type buildings excavated
at West Stow, Suffolk

2.20 Plan of the large

Anglo-Saxon settlement at
West Heslerton

To set West Heslerton in context, the largest and most

intensive campaign of aerial and ground survey ever
attempted in Britain has explored an area of the Derwent
Valley 8.5 kilometres long and 2 kilometres wide (at its
widest), and discontinuously beyond that. This has revealed
even larger settlements than West Heslerton at East Heslerton
and Sherburn, identified by clusters of SFBs. Along the edge
of the valley wetlands, and immediately above the Roman-�
period ‘ladder’ settlement system, a small Anglo-Â� Saxon
settlement has been identified approximately every 800
metres with a larger one every 2.5 kilometres, with some
1,300 Grubenhäuser identified in total. All these settlements
seem broadly contemporary, implying intensive land use.
Collectively, they mark the last phase of a period of land-
scape utilisation, stretching right back to the Bronze Age,
which ended in the ninth century when the settlement was
abandoned and the site ploughed.
Despite the comparative uniformity of building types
across early Anglo-� Saxon England, there are therefore
different interpretations of the density of occupation and the
structuring, use and management of occupied areas. Debates
regarding the comparative mobility of settlement may reflect
regional differences, but equally they may result from the
comparative paucity of modern excavations and the prob-
lems of scale involved in tackling such extensive remains.

Language and Place Names

In 410 the inhabitants of the old diocese spoke either Latin or British Celtic (Brittonic)
or both, with Latin most prevalent in the lowland zone. Similarly, early fifth-�century
 96 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2.21 Half-excavated
Sunken-Featured Building at
West Heslerton. Large numbers
of these in one part of the site
suggest a workshop, storage
and/or crafts area

2.22 Post-hole defined halls,

as yet un-excavated,
intermixed with SFBs at West
Heslerton

personal names are either Latin or Celtic, with occasional Greek. Sub-�Roman, Latin
inscriptions found in Wales but with outliers in south-�west England, south-�west
Scotland and northern England confirm that the higher-�status language of Roman
Britain survived as the standard medium of Christianity, but it otherwise died away.
Although there are no inscriptions on stone in British Celtic, poetry was certainly
being composed in the vernacular by the sixth century. British Celtic had adopted
 the origins of england 97

2.23 Detail from the

geophysical survey of the
Derwent Valley. The dark
patches predominantly on the
left are SFBs, indicating a
large settlement at Sherburn,
seen here against the backdrop
of complex earlier archaeo-
logical enclosures

hundreds of Latin loanwords during the Roman period, when that was the more pres-
tigious language, but borrowing reduced steeply thereafter as Latin’s status declined.
However, contact with Latin or Latin-�affected Celtic caused sound changes in Highland
Brittonic (the ancestor of Welsh, Breton and Cornish), apparently stimulated by an
influx of Latin-�speaking lowlanders. These migrants were numerous but eventually
adopted Highland Brittonic, importing sounds and structural features from Latin
which others found sufficiently attractive to copy. The result was rapid language
change, from which emerged medieval Welsh.
German was probably heard occasionally in late Roman Britain but only became
common after the Saxon seizure of power across the lowland zone. By 570, Old English
was widely spoken and already driving other languages out of lowland Britain. Setting
aside a handful of scratched, usually single-�letter or word inscriptions on metalwork,
we have no written Old English earlier than c. 600 (and that only in much later texts),
so discussion of its initial impact and historical significance necessarily rests on later
place names and language.
English is a Germanic language in origin, which adopted fewer than 20 words now
still in use from either British Latin or Brittonic before c. 600. The vast majority of
England’s place names are no earlier than Old English. While considerable energy has
been poured into identifying pre-�English names, new discoveries are too few to affect
the overall pattern. Place �name scholars have been among the most committed
supporters of mass migration as an explanation of cultural change in the fifth and sixth
centuries, arguing for sufficient incomers to overwhelm the local indigenes and swamp
or marginalise their languages. This case is persuasive and of long standing.
There can be little argument with the data presented here, but there are issues
regarding its interpretation. Taking language first, contact linguistics leads us to expect
that loanwords are normally adopted by speakers of a substrate, low-�prestige language
from a superstrate, high-�prestige one, and speakers of a low-�prestige language become
competent in the use of a high-�prestige language far more often than the reverse.
 98 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Lengthy continuance of substrate status often leads to language extinction, as, for
example, Latin’s replacement of Gaulish in France, or Gaelic of Pictish in Scotland. Few
borrowings pass in the opposite direction. The Roman conquest of Britain led to
significant language replacement and/or bilingualism in the lowlands, and wholesale
adoption of Latin loanwords into Highland British Celtic. If a Saxon military conquest
rendered Old English the high-�prestige language in mid-�fifth-�century lowland Britain,
then we should expect English to have replaced pre-�existing languages with only a low
take-�up of loanwords. That is precisely what occurred.
Evidence of contact should be sought more in the area of phonology. If British
Celtic had already given way to Latin to an extent in south-�eastern Britain during the
2.24 Celtic and Latin place
names in England, excluding
Cornwall. For simplicity, the
symbols do not differentiate
between probable and possible
examples. Note the general
west–east contrast
 the origins of england 99

Roman period, then early Germanic incomers would have encountered both Latin
and Celtic. There have been several attempts to show that British Celtic affected Old
English structurally but these are contentious, occur mostly in the outer edges of
England and are predominantly late, associated with the spread of English into the
Pennines and western England. Earlier, contact with British, Celtic-�influenced Latin
may have caused phonological shifts as Old English separated from Old German,
though these sound changes are fewer and less pronounced than occurred in British
Celtic under the influence of Latin in the same period. It seems likely that the social
interface was very different. While it was probably fashionable for Highland Britons to
adopt a Latin-�accented Celtic, Saxons are unlikely to have favoured a British-�Latin, let
alone a Celtic, accented Old English. Bede implies that language was a key marker of
ethnicity in Britain. The low-�key sound changes which Old English experienced as a
consequence of contact with insular languages suggest that Britons seeking to anglicise
found it necessary to learn the language of their conquerors very well indeed.
Place names provide important evidence of spoken language. The place names of
Roman Britain seem to have been predominantly Latinised British Celtic, with a
scatter of purer Latin. However, outside Cornwall (and to a much lesser extent northern
Cumbria), comparatively few current place names in England were formed prior to
the spread of Old English. Although there is a gradient of sorts from east to west, there
is no other county in which pre-�English names are even a significant minority. To take
a north-Â�western example, where more might be expected, Cheshire’s four hundred or
so township or parish names include barely 2 per cent which are Brittonic and none
which are Latin (there is one possibly Latin-�originating regional name, Lyme), along-
side a very thin scatter of pre-�English elements in minor names. Such eastern counties
as Hertfordshire, Leicestershire and Suffolk have even fewer. Clearly, there has been a
near complete replacement of the place names present in the Roman period in England
(excluding Cornwall), far more so than in neighbouring regions across the Channel.
Large-�scale Germanic immigration could have had this effect. However, Romano-�
British place names exhibit no better survival rates in Wales and Cornwall than in
eastern England. In fact, one of the greatest densities of Romano-British names in
continuing use lies along the south-� east coast (Reculver, Sarre, Richborough,
Canterbury, Thanet, Dover, Lympne). Clearly, name loss was a Romano-� British
phenomenon, not just one associated with Anglo-�Saxon incomers. Research in this
area is hindered by our ignorance of so many Romano-Â�British place names – fewer
than 250 are now known. Although there are major exceptions, such as London and
Lincoln, many survivors, such as Aquae Sulis (Bath), are not now used. But there are
also English place names which contain Latin words, such as fons (‘spring’: as Bedfont),
vicus (‘settlement’: as Wickham, Nantwich), campus (‘field’ or ‘plain’: as Campsey) and
portus (‘port’: as Portland), which may reflect the early adoption of Latin terms into
the Old English lexicon across southern England. These borrowings demonstrate
language contact, but they are noticeably few.
The lack of early written material means that we know very little about English
place names before c. 670. Around 1900, it was assumed that place names containing
references to pre-�Christian religious practice or gods (as Wednesbury, West Midlands)
 100 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Opposite and those with the element -Â�ingas (meaning ‘followers of-Â�’, as Hastings, Sussex) were
2.25 Pre-English place names: early. This chronology of place name formation was overturned, however, in the 1960s.
(a) known place names from
Roman Britain; (b) pre-English
Pagan names now belong no earlier than to the late Conversion period and -�ingas
river names in England. Areas names are unconnected with pre-�Christian cemetery sites so probably later than the
1–4 reflect increasing name Settlement period. Hitherto neglected groups, such as topographical names formed
survival, from east to west; (c) with such elements as -�wood, -�ford, or -�hill, have at least as much claim to early forma-
place names incorporating Latin
tion as do habitative names.
loan words: Wicham; camp;
funta; port; (d) place names Early literary sources imply that names have been replaced or adapted over a long
incorporating the Latin loan time period. The number of pre-�English names as a proportion of the whole data set
word ‘eccles’ recorded up to 731 is as high as 26 per cent, despite these being in the writings of
Anglo-�Saxon churchmen. Bede allows us an insight into the process of name-�changing
in the case of Verulamium, which was called by contemporaries in English either
Uerlamacæstir or Uæclingacæstir. All three were eventually abandoned in favour of the
saint’s name, so St Albans, though Uæclinga survives in Watling Street.
The sequence Romano-Â�British Eburacum – Anglo-Â�Saxon Eoforwic – Scandinavian
Jorvik – modern English ‘York’ provides a comparable example in which the modern
name has changed so dramatically that had the several stages not been documented
the connection would now be lost. Clearly place names were comparatively fluid across
the early Anglo-�Saxon period, with phonological changes occurring, different names
or versions competing for currency, and non-�English options the most easily lost.
There is a strong bias in favour of major places in these texts; minor Brittonic place
names were probably numerous to a later date and replaced gradually and not always
very efficiently, leaving us sporadic evidence of early pre-�English elements in later
documentation for names of places, hills or minor settlements. Only river names seem
to counter this trend, displaying a noticeable east/west bias with only major rivers
retaining the earlier names in the east but more minor ones in the west.
It is perhaps worth challenging the assumption that it was necessarily speakers of
English who inhabited places named in that language. Welshmen lived in some marcher
manors with Old English names in Domesday Book, and such names may have occurred
widely across England in the early Anglo-�Saxon period, as speakers of British Celtic or
Latin were slowly absorbed into Anglo-�Saxon England and places were given new
names under English patronage. Pre-�English and English names were probably often
in use at the same time, as Bede’s comment on St Albans implies. The ninth-Â�century
History of the Britons provides alternative names for several places in England, which
may still have had some currency locally among more conservative language users.
Finally, widespread evidence of rural settlement shift across the Anglo-�Saxon
period may help explain the high rate of name-�changing. What we have in most cases
is the name given in the last phase of this process, as recorded in the period c. 800–1100,
in late Anglo-�Saxon charters or Domesday Book (1086). Even some Old English names
recorded by Bede are among those lost in the process. As relocation occurred, tied in
with changes of ownership, social context and use, there was a high incidence of new
naming. In this sense, name replacement reflects low levels of literate estate manage-
ment and was arguably a natural corollary of other changes in the countryside. Most
English place names are either possessive, so naming a landholder, or descriptive of
the origins of england 101
102 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

the topography in some way. That new generations of names were coined in Old
English rather than Latin or British Celtic merely reflects settlement change occurring
alongside language replacement.

Language and Social Structure

The early history of the Old English (OE) language affords some insights into aspects
of migration-�period social structure, value systems and religion. Although difficulties
arise from the lack of dating prior to Anglo-�Saxon becoming a written language,
comparison with other Germanic languages allows an exploration of their collective
roots, and Roman ethnography provides an anchor of sorts. Recent discussions fore-
ground kinship, the assembly, lordship and the war-�band as core social features.
Kinship (OE cyn) was identified by Tacitus at the end of the first century ad as the
basis of tribal armies, but large-�scale warfare seems improbable in migration-�period
England. More importantly, kinship, as the first major social unit, provided protection
to the individual, offering support in the assembly, in pursuing a feud, paying compen-
sation (wergild or ‘man-Â�value’) to avoid it, and finding oath-Â�helpers. A kinless man was
highly vulnerable. Feud was the principal mechanism for maintaining law and order
and its threat the only meaningful disincentive to violence, pushing families towards
negotiation and compensation. Maintenance of the kindred as a collective capable of
action on behalf of its members was therefore a core responsibility of freemen.
Early Germanic society was largely structured around warfare, in the context of
the kindred (feud), the war-�band (feud/raid/mercenary service) or the tribe (tribal
warfare). It is the war-�band that provided the second major organ of society, headed by
a leader who was the ‘ring-Â�giver’ (OE bēahgifa) to his followers. Generosity required
plunder or tribute, so a state of near-�constant warfare. The war-�band was held together
not by discipline of the kind instilled in a Roman army unit but by personal loyalty to
the leader, which might cut across tribal or kindred boundaries, as Bede remarked of
the warriors gathered around King Oswine of the Deirans.
Tacitus portrayed the Germanic tribal assembly (the thing) as both a legislative and
decision-�making body which was attended by freemen in arms, who showed their
support of proposals by clashing their weapons. This was, therefore, a military assembly,
in which freemen had decision-�making rights, even though led by nobles and those
more skilled in the law. In OE the word denoting ‘law’, áé, is cognate with terms
denoting ‘custom’, ‘habitual practice’ and ‘religious ritual’. In pre-Â�migration Germany,
Tiu seems to have been the god of both war and law until displaced from the former
role by Woden (whom Tacitus implied was earlier a Mercury-�figure, the messenger of
the gods), arguably in the process of migration. An assembly of those with the right to
bear arms, bearing them in proof thereof, was central to Germanic society; the right to
attend was a prerogative of the free-�born, in contrast with un-�free dependants.
At its lowest level, what we might term ‘lordship’ was invested in this class of
freemen with the right to carry weapons. The OE term frēa can denote the lord of a
household, which included dependants, and one who exercised authority over the
household’s land, as well as figures of higher rank, so ‘chieftain’ or later ‘king’. OE
 the origins of england 103

dryhten, paralleling Old High German (OHG) truhtin (‘war-Â�band leader’), appears in
Beowulf, for example, to denote ‘war leader’, so ‘king’, but cyning eventually proved the
more popular term. This signified a chieftain in pre-�migration Germany, but eventu-
ally denoted small-�scale kingship in early England. The language of kingship reflects a
shift from chieftain/petty king to large-�scale kingships in the Frankish and Gothic
worlds, when heredity gradually replaced election as the principal mechanism of
appointment.
While such linguistic evidence is poorly dated, it has the potential to help us inter-
pret other categories of evidence and aid our understanding of the migration period
more generally.

Modelling the adventus

First of all, the broad context: Roman defence of the Empire’s Atlantic and North Sea
coasts collapsed progressively across the late fourth and early fifth centuries, leaving
Britain open to raiders crossing the North and Irish Seas. That trade between Britain
and the Mediterranean dwindled implies that piracy was endemic, as suggested in
contemporary written sources. Raiding helps explain the appearance of late Roman
material in Ireland, southern Scotland and coastal Germany, but diplomatic payments
and the employment of mercenaries may also have played their part. Insecurity may
have been another factor leading to high concentrations of late Roman hoards depos-
ited in southern and eastern Britain, though interpretation of this phenomenon
remains contentious.
Irish raids led to immigration into south-�west Wales, in particular, attested both by
ogham inscriptions (using an Irish alphabet of twenty characters) and Irish names in
the genealogy of the Demetian kingship; an ogham inscription implies that at least one
Irishman was buried as far east as Silchester in Hampshire. Units of Attacotti, from
2.26 Dumbarton Rock,
stronghold of the British
kingdom of Strathclyde
104 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Ireland, appear on the Continent in the Notitia Dignitatum but may initially have been
recruited in Britain. In Scotland late Roman material is concentrated particularly at
Traprain Law, Edinburgh, Dumbarton Rock (near Glasgow) and Eildon Hill (above
Melrose), all elite sites in the fifth century; similar deposition was restricted to
Edinburgh and Dumbarton Rock in the sixth.
Without Roman oversight, the British diocese was reliant on its own resources.
Short of military units and beset by raiders, British authorities employed barbarians,
much as Roman leaders had long been doing on both sides of the Channel. Gildas’s
story of Saxons employed, reinforced, then in revolt is in broad terms plausible.
Our early written sources suggest a military conquest, as opposed to mass migration,
and this seems consistent with the comparatively small-�scale archaeological evidence
for Anglo-�Saxons pre-�450. The Saxons were initially, in essence, the field army of
sub-�Roman Britain. This would have numbered in the hundreds, perhaps even the
low thousands, but not tens of thousands. When this force rebelled, it proved
impossible to counteract and Saxons seized power. The nearest contemporary source
available, the Gallic Chronicle of 452, points to Saxon ‘rule’ over large parts of the
old diocese established in 441. Archaeologists date the earliest Anglo-�Saxon burials
at latest to the second quarter of the fifth century, and British employment of Saxons
seems broadly to coincide with the career of Aëtius in Gaul, from the 430s through to
454. Gildas’s Saxon revolt, the Gallic Chronicle’s Saxon ‘rule’, the collapse of British
taxation and coin-�clipping, and the start of recognisably Anglo-�Saxon burial probably
all happened across this one generation. Collectively they mark the beginnings of
Anglo-�Saxon England.
The problem still remains as to why Anglo-� Saxon material, ideological and
linguistic culture attained such dominance in the British lowlands, compared, for
example, with the Frankish impact on Gaul, where the incomers gradually accultur-
ated, adopting Gallo-�Roman Latin and Christianity and establishing little more than
their name. One solution is to assume that cultural impact was proportionate to the
numbers migrating, necessitating unusually high levels of immigrants settling England.
Critics of this model in the late 1980s and early 1990s argued that this was overly
simplistic. They developed alternative models featuring acculturation, ‘anglicisation’
and elite dominance or emulation. These models supposed that the culture of compar-
atively few Germanic incomers had eventually been adopted by the whole community,
much as Romanisation worked previously.
Looking across the several disciplinary approaches explored here, there is clearly
still a long way to go before we are able to comment authoritatively on the whole issue
of migration into and out of Britain. Overall, however, the evidence favours large-�scale
population continuity alongside significant migration. This is the simplest means of
interpreting the palaeobotanical evidence, which is the most mature of the scientific
data sets. Small-�scale isotopic research has identified immigration from both northern
Europe and western Britain into eastern England, but alongside far more evidence for
continuity. The small number of tests, however, means that this can currently be no
more than straw in the wind. Presently the evidence for Continental migrants is greater
for the Roman period than for later.
 the origins of england 105

Scholars have interpreted archaeogenetic research in different ways, but the case
for a mass influx across the North Sea into Britain in this period is currently unproven
and probably illusory. On balance, scientific approaches tend to favour an ‘English
Settlement’ characterised as much by acculturation as migration, and with a majority
of the population indigenous.
Considerable difficulties remain, however, for if elite dominance is invoked to
explain dramatic cultural change in Britain, then why does it not occur elsewhere, for
example in Gaul? Clearly we need a more sensitive model of cultural change than has
previously been offered, capable of explaining the shift from a late Roman and British
cultural milieu to the very different Anglo-�Saxon one. This needs to take account of
the particular circumstances in Britain and draw comparisons with neighbouring
regions where the Roman–Â�barbarian transition had dramatically different outcomes.
What follows is no more than a preliminary, outline sketch.
Britain was conquered comparatively late, it was Rome’s only substantial island
territory outside the Mediterranean, it always remained a frontier province, to an
extent at least dominated by the army, and Britons were never anything like so well
integrated into the Empire as were other Western provincials. Unlike for Gaul and
Spain, we know of no British individual who rose to imperial status prior to 400,
attained a significant military command, held office as a provincial governor, rose to
leadership in the Church or founded a major aristocratic lineage. Britons were despised
and ridiculed by Roman literati, including Gallo-�Roman authors. We should view
Britons, therefore, as socially and culturally substrate within the Empire. Uniquely,
Gildas’s work acknowledges the divide: his provincial community is ‘British’ and he
saw the Romans as different – and superior. What we have in later Roman Britain,
therefore, is a ‘Romanised’ form of ‘Britishness’, rather than full Romanitas.
The collapse of coin imports perhaps triggered the final crisis. Successive rebellions
led to a new effort by the leadership of the Roman garrison to emulate the achieve-
ments of Constantine I and secure the Western Empire, but this ended in disaster,
leaving Britain under attack from raiders. The bulk of the British units guarding the
south east went to the Continent in 407 but did not return. Britain’s separation from
the Empire occurred earlier and more completely, therefore, than in neighbouring
dioceses, once Honorius’s regime had failed to reclaim the island post-Â�410. In this
respect the Channel mattered. Although Continental authorities retained some influ-
ence, Britain was left in a no-Â�man’s-land, without military protection or legitimate
governance.
By the 430s, many of the more ‘Roman’ attributes of British culture were falling
away. There were no imperial appointees in authority. The towns were poverty-�stricken
and depopulated, with many buildings derelict and others in changed use. Alongside,
coin use was in decline and the currency undergoing rapid devaluation, taxation was
in difficulties, markets were ceasing to function, and many industries and trades had
collapsed.
This contrasts with Gaul, where Roman garrisons survived and Roman leaders
played a key role through to the late fifth century. Towns there retained populations
within smaller walled circuits of citadel-�type capable of withstanding siege, now refo-
106 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

cused around cathedrals and under the oversight of bishops. In Britain, excepting
Lincoln, there is little evidence of fifth-�century cathedral building. Black earth deposits
in many towns may imply their use as refuges by nearby country-�dwellers but their
wall-�circuits dated from centuries earlier, when their population was at its height.
Towns were increasingly indefensible.
Some scholars have suggested that the diocesan and provincial system collapsed
immediately post-�410, giving way to a multitude of small-�scale societies. Such thinking
rests on the assumption that larger and more centralised polities would have stood up
to the Saxons more effectively. However, this is to compare two very different types of
society, of which only the Saxon was organised for war. New evidence of fifth-�century
coin-�clipping suggests the survival for a while of comparatively Romanised civil
authority. On balance, our limited literary evidence implies that provincial society
retained Roman forms at least until the Saxon revolt, but sub-�Roman Britain arguably
always had rather an interim look to it. The British polity overthrown by the Anglo-�
Saxons was far weaker ideologically, militarily and economically than Roman Gaul.
Nor were the Saxons much like the Franks, whose entry into Roman territory
occurred across several generations, giving time for acculturation. Though they were
numerous, the Franks remained predominantly on the periphery of the Empire, close
to the frontier. Frankish kingship emerged across the later fifth century, and Clovis’s
conquests rapidly made this large-scale, providing a central organ capable of negoti-
ating with provincial representatives and taking over imperial responsibilities. Like
their Gothic counterparts, Frankish kings acted as diocesan authorities, collecting
taxes, for example, minting coins and appointing governors. Critically, Clovis’s mili-
tary success provided a target for conversion. His adoption of Christianity offered the
Gallo-�Roman clergy protection and a role in the new polity. Frankish/Gallo-�Roman
cooperation rested on mutual self-�interest.
In contrast, the Saxons were feared pirates then federate troops, then a rebellious
army looting the diocese, all in the space of a comparatively short period. Success
brought them wealth and overwhelming social power. The rebellious warriors cannot
have been very numerous, but other war-�bands were probably soon operating alongside
them and we should envisage a comparatively chaotic scene in the mid-�fifth century,
with raiding parties and settlers but without the sort of coordination which Frankish
kingship came to provide. Kingship had made little progress in northern Germany/
southern Scandinavia and the Continental Saxons still managed without kings in the
eighth century. There is an important contrast between the low levels of social hierarchy
evidenced within early Anglo-�Saxon England and increasingly king-�centric Francia.
The British elite had less to bring to the table than their Gaulish counterparts by the
mid-�fifth century, lacking effective taxation, a sustainable coinage, major markets or
defensible towns. There was not the same scope for cooperation as in Gaul, so little
opportunity to negotiate a modus vivendi.
Early Anglo-�Saxon cemeteries reveal a society gaining access to various metals,
particularly silver, which do not occur naturally in eastern England. Some came from
Continental Europe but most was recycled from the stock of silver in late Roman
Britain. Whereas the Franks settled the frontier provinces of Gaul, leaving the heart-
 the origins of england 107

lands below the Loire little affected, Germanic incomers to Britain seized the most
productive British lowlands, taking control of the short sea crossings to the Continent
and cutting communication between the most Romanised region of Britain and the
Roman World. Later fifth-�and sixth-�century finds are concentrated in the newly
‘English’ areas, suggesting that the incomers increasingly drew down the residual
wealth of Roman Britain. Plunder and tribute underpinned the early Anglo-�Saxon
economy, therefore, with a flow of goods and persons from British communities to
Anglo-�Saxon. This may help explain the presence of individuals apparently from 2.27 The geography of the
Anglo-Saxon Settlement: (a)
western Britain buried in Anglo-�Saxon cemeteries.
distinctively Anglian,
Circumstances in Britain and much of Gaul were therefore very different. The cremation dominant
lowland British elites were less able to engage with barbarian military domination than cemeteries and Saxon brooches
their Gallo-�Roman neighbours. Gildas refers to psalm-�singing Britons fleeing over- of the second half of the fifth
seas. These well-�educated Christians were probably members of the elite. Likewise century plotted onto the late
Roman provinces; (b) the
some lowland Britons took refuge in the upland zone, again probably mostly the division of southern Britain
better off. into different provinces based
This does not mean that the lowlands were deserted. Archaeogenetics, palaeo- on river drainage. Correlations
botany and landscape archaeology all suggest considerable continuity across the between these two maps
suggest that the drainage
Romano-�British/Anglo-�Saxon divide. Numerous medieval field systems developed
pattern influenced both Roman
from Roman-�period ones. That the archaeology of this community is elusive should territorial organisation and
not surprise us, given the collapse in deposition of recognisable artefacts in the late Anglo-Saxon settlement
108 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Roman period. Both settlement and burial archaeology are similarly poorly under-
stood in western Britain for the Early Middle Ages. In practice, a thin scatter of arte-
facts of non-�Germanic type is found in England across the first half of the fifth century,
such as various pin types, which probably reflect a British presence. Romano-�British
traditions certainly formed the basis of early Anglo-�Saxon metalworking, as evidenced
by several brooch types, hanging bowls, and such techniques as enamelling, orna-
mental punching and the use of millefiori glass, which are either rare or unknown in
Germania. Germanic incomers were, therefore, patronising local fifth-�century smiths,
who adapted their output accordingly.
Late Romano-�British society had segregated military and civilian functions, civil
law exercised within a professionalised court system applying written and encoded
law, systems of individual land-�ownership and management, provincial networks of
patronage, and a Christian religious framework. All this was overturned and/or
devalued by Anglo-�Saxon domination in ways which simply did not take hold in Gaul.
Latin lost its status as a language of power, to be replaced by Old English. Villa occupa-
tion died away across the early fifth century – indeed, it had already declined to a low
ebb. The rural workforce was reorganised at the base of a new and very different
Anglo-�Saxon social and economic system. Provincial Roman law was unenforceable in
the face of barbarian warriors and gave way to Germanic law, customary tenure,
compensation and the feud. Indigenous social hierarchies were undermined and
devalued and Christian rituals proved powerless. The institutional framework of late
Roman Britain dissolved into a society in which military capacity was embedded
within the rank of freemen, linked together via the warrior band and kindred to main-
tain order. This reintegration of military capacity and the control of land was arguably
the most significant aspect of the transition from Roman Britain to Anglo-�Saxon
England.
All this coincided with a downturn in the agricultural climate, leading to a wetter
and cooler period, marine inundation of vulnerable lowland areas, an expansion in
marshland and moss, and the abandonment of some terrains. A drop in population
seems likely, though not perhaps so severe as once thought. This crisis is reflected in
the shifts occurring in settlement location and type, with numerous late Roman-�
period sites abandoned in favour of new ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ settlements. The distinctive
halls of the new settlements reflect the shift towards a very different social structure.
Language history helps us to interpret the evidence in terms of a household headed
by a freeman, termed a ceorl in our earliest surviving law codes. This term also means
‘husband’ and is cognate with the verb ceorlian, ‘to marry’, implying that marriage
among those of free status was commensurate with acquiring the resources with which
to establish a new household. The ceorl had the right to possess weapons, attend assem-
blies and participate in public rituals. Such figures are represented by warrior graves,
which grew in number and spread geographically across the period, and their wives
and daughters were buried with equivalent signs of status.
Anglo-Â�Saxon land allocation used a unit termed a ‘hide’, defined by its ability to
sustain the household of a freeman, which Bede later translated into Latin as ‘the land
of a family’. This was not a peasant holding; each ceorl headed up a small-Â�scale hier-
 the origins of england 109

archy, a society in miniature, centred on the family but with servants and dependants
working a substantial holding (the hide would later equate to 120 acres of ploughed
land and amounted to a small estate). Low-�status dependants of the ceorl were in
various senses un-�free. Gildas remarked that many Britons gave themselves into the
hands of the Saxons, becoming slaves for ever. Many of these dependants were prob-
ably in origin British, therefore, though progressively less recognisably so as time went
by. The agrarian workforce of late Roman Britain was transformed into the rural popu-
lation of Anglo-�Saxon England.
The Old English term for a Briton, walh, from which comes the modern ‘Welsh’, 2.28 One of five inscribed
originally meant ‘foreigner’ but came to mean ‘un-Â�free person/slave’. That such were stones in Lady St Mary Church,
Wareham, bearing inscriptions
generally Britons tells us a lot about how the new society developed. While Britons
which use British names. It
were probably numerous – arguably the majority – within early Anglo-Â�Saxon society, reads ‘IUDNNE…FIL[I]QUI’,
they were characteristically of low status. There was a fluidity to markers of ethnicity conforming to the formula
with permeable boundaries between different groups. Movement was almost entirely ‘[The Stone] of X son of Y’. This
single directional, with non-� Anglo-�
Saxons seeking advancement within a newly formula is found in south-west
Britain in the sixth century but
evolving society which valued Germanic identity far more highly than British. ‘Hide’ the group at Wareham appears
is an insular, English term. Its apparent absence from the Continent underlines its to have been carved over a
significance within the new insular society which developed. The Anglo-�Saxon house- long period in the seventh and
hold and the hide by which it was supported over time drew in dependants irrespec- eighth centuries, implying the
continuance here of some at
tive of their ethnic identity and eventually converted them into Anglo-�Saxons.
least of the habits associated
The success of such a household rested to a large extent on the status of its head as closely with British Christianity.
its public representative and protector, but this depended in turn on maintenance of Unlike the south-western
his claim to Germanic descent and membership of an Anglo-�Saxon kinship group. In examples, this re-used
other words, status, security, social opportunity and access to wealth all depended on architectural masonry of
probable Roman date
investing in the dominant family’s claim to full Germanic tribal status. The Law Code
of King Ine of the West Saxons, written around 690, reveals the disadvantages faced by
households or groups of households headed by ‘British’ figures, who had access to law
110 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

but enjoyed a wergild (‘man-Â�value’) only half that of equivalent ‘Saxons’. Interpretation
of such a racially defined legal system bears comparison with Apartheid in late
twentieth-�century South Africa. Recent exploration of that parallel suggests that the
disparity at law would eventually have led Britons to lose the bulk of their assets.
Comparable differentials are also a feature of some Continental law codes, providing
lower wergilds for Romans than barbarians.
As Bede later implied, language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England.
In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance within the kindred, access to
patronage, and the use and possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who
could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic
inflection had considerable value. The leaders of Anglo-�Saxon households therefore
had a vested interest in resisting the adoption of Celtic or Latin loanwords, structural
influence and/or phonetic change, and even the use of non-�English names for their
own settlements, in case such might imply ‘British-Â�ness’ in the occupants. Self-Â�interest
therefore probably reduced the impact of earlier insular languages on Old English.
By adopting unaccented English, lower-� status individuals gradually established
themselves as ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’, and opened up opportunities for themselves and their
descendants.
This is not to suggest that the fabric of late Romano-�British society collapsed
instantaneously or uniformly across the whole of the lowland zone. The very lack of
large-�scale hierarchies within early Anglo-�Saxon society suggests that the takeover of
land was comparatively piecemeal, affecting some localities even while leaving others
comparatively unscathed. Kinship groups operated at a local level, creating small-�scale
tribal polities, even while war-�bands ventured further afield. This was, therefore, the
creation of small groups of peoples each consisting of a group of household units
centred on assembly and burial sites, but early Anglo-�Saxon communities were not
ubiquitous: the absence of early Anglo-�Saxon finds in some areas may indicate that the
immediate impact was comparatively localised. ‘British’ carved stones at Wareham
(Dorset), concentrations of pre-� English place names in, for example, Wiltshire,
Lancashire and West Yorkshire (the Pennine Wales), and the survival of pre-�English
cults at St Albans and elsewhere all point to very different local histories.
Such shreds of evidence imply that some ‘British’ communities and indeed whole
districts escaped Anglo-�Saxon land seizures for a while, but they are unlikely to have
escaped tribute. Place names in walh (as Walton, Wallasey) may reflect settlements
headed by Britons at a late date, when their scarcity made them distinctive, though this
element does also occur in OE personal names and some place names may reflect this.
Inter-�regional contact and the growth of chieftaincies eventually encouraged even
such local communities as remained distinctively ‘British’ to adopt ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’
cultural and social norms, including language.
This model of small-�scale social transformation helps to explain the low levels of
territorial integrity discernible across the fifth and sixth centuries. In Gaul, the basic
units of the Frankish kingdom were the civitates of the Roman period, which were also
the early medieval bishoprics and enjoyed a high incidence of name survival. In
England, of all the tribal names of the early Anglo-�Saxon period only Kent (the
 the origins of england 111

Cantwarena) is recognisable as a direct descendant of the Romano-�British civitas

name (Cantium), with Lindsey (Lindes Farona) and the Wrocensæte of the north-Â�west
Midlands carrying forward the names of provincial or tribal capitals (Lincoln and
Wroxeter respectively). Some tribal names derive from British Celtic, as Elmet and
Deira in Yorkshire, but these may be post-�Roman in date, contemporary with the new
creations in Old English. All these names relate primarily to the people and only
secondarily to the space where they were settled, again emphasising that it was the
network of free tribesmen, articulated by assemblies, kin groups and war-�bands, that
was focal. When writing about northern England in the 1980s, I saw the sub-�Roman
period very much in terms of a ‘Return of Tribalism’ in both English and British
versions. This sense of a shift from the administered Empire of Rome to a fundamen-
tally ‘tribal’ Britain has since been endorsed more widely and provides us with a useful
model.
Early Anglo-�Saxons probably owned multiple social identities. At the bedrock of
society lay the free-�status family, with its claim to Germanic descent, presiding over an
extended household, its dependants and its hide(s) of land. Working outwards this
leads us to that family’s ties of kinship comprising patrilinear and matrilinear connec-
tions. Another sense of belonging came from male membership, either present or past,
of a war-�band, and so links with that leader. Ceorls were involved too in communal
management of the landscape, and this was probably a key aspect of local tribal iden-
tity. Above that there was membership of supra-�tribal groupings and finally overall
there was Germanic identity, with links back into Continental society and a major fault
line vis-Â�à-Â�vis the Britons.
In late Roman Britain, citizenship, religious identity and legal status were all indi-
vidual. The establishment of Anglo-�Saxon England involved a significant shift in
favour of the family, with personal status subordinated to that of the lineage and
kindred. The centrality of the kin in early Anglo-�Saxon society contrasts with the
emphasis on the individual enshrined in both Roman law and Christianity. While on
the Continent Germanic kings adopted both comparatively early, in England kinship
remained central. Written law, when it began c. 600, was in the vernacular and still
bounded by tribal custom. The closest parallels to early Anglo-�Saxon England on the
Continent come not from Gaul or Spain but the Balkans, where the Slav takeover simi-
larly replaced the language of Empire with a new vernacular. There too we have a
society devoid of steep hierarchies and equipped with a simpler technology than the
Roman World which it replaced, without the minting of coins, without professional
classes and without trading sites or officialdom, lay or secular.
 sources and issues 2a

the anglo-�saxon cemetery at

spong hill
nicholas j. higham

Spong Hill, in central Norfolk, lies at around 40 metres above sea level on the southern
end of a low gravel ridge above the valley of the Blackwater river, which at this point
marks the southern boundary of North Elmham parish. Two Roman roads are thought
to intersect nearby, suggesting that the site was easily accessible. Reports of cremation
urns begin in 1711, when a local antiquarian wrote to the Royal Society on the subject,
and an unknown number were dug out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
without being recorded adequately. Small-�scale excavations occurred in the 1950s,
then trial excavation and survey in 1968 established the risk of wholesale destruction
from deep ploughing cutting into the subsoil. The Department of the Environment
funded a series of annual excavations between 1972 and 1981 under the overall direc-
tion of Dr Catherine Hills, which has led to total excavation of the cemetery.
Spong Hill proved to be a mixed cemetery containing both cremations and
inhumations but the vast majority were the former and this is best viewed as a cremation
cemetery which for a period late in its life also attracted some inhumations. The
original number of cremations is unknowable: 2,284 individuals have been identified
from the bone evidence recovered from recent excavations but the original number
deposited was probably 2,500–Â�3,000 or perhaps even greater. This is the largest Anglo-Â�
Saxon cemetery so far explored, representing a burying population of perhaps 750
individuals at any one time across a period of 150 years. The size of the cemetery is
such that it seems most unlikely that it could have been used only by the inhabitants of
a single settlement; rather, it probably served as a place of burial for several communities
across a wide district. One settlement contemporary with the latest phase of the
cemetery has been excavated immediately to the west, consisting of 6 or 7 SFBs and 5
post-�hole buildings, and others have been identified or are suspected in the area. It is
as yet uncertain how extensive the territory may have been of those choosing to bury
their dead here, but the location of a small Roman town nearby at Billingford and the
later Anglo-�Saxon diocese at North Elmham both suggest that over the long term this
part of the valley of the River Wensum served as the focus of a significant area.
Prior to burial, cremation of the dead body occurred on a pyre made up of both
logs and brushwood capable of reaching temperatures as high as 1200ºC. The body
was laid out on the top of the pyre fully clothed, most probably supine and extended.
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c e m e t e ry at s p o n g h i l l 113

2a.1 Spong Hill. Location map

of the cemetery’s relationship
with pre-existing Romano-
British occupation sites and
roads, as well as with
Anglo-Saxon settlements

Together with the body, food and drink were often placed on the pyre, including joints
of meat and/or suckling pigs, and some also had a horse or dog cremated with them.
Grave goods perhaps reflect the status of the deceased and their family, as well as age,
wealth and sex. The cremation rite was used for both sexes and all age groups. Where
this occurred, however, is unclear: the intense burning that would have been indicative
of a pyre was not found within the cemetery, suggesting that the actual fire occurred
elsewhere, perhaps at or close to the settlement in which the dead person had lived.
After the pyre had burned out, bones were collected. Although all parts of the body are
normally represented in the burial urn, all the bones were never present, suggesting
that sampling occurred at the pyre site. The cremated remains were then brought to
the cemetery for public deposition in an urn, perhaps at a particular date in the
calendar.
There is no simple correlation between the number of urns deposited and the
number of individuals buried. While the vast majority of urns contained the remains
of only one individual, in a small minority of cases two or more were represented, most
often an adult with a child. In other cases two pots deposited as a pair were associated
with only a single individual. In such instances, one pot was generally highly decorated
while the other was plain. The undecorated vessel normally contained bones from a
cremated animal; this is termed an ‘animal accessory’ vessel. However, division
between the two of human and animal bones was often less than clear cut; a decorated
pot might contain mostly human bones but some animal, paired with an undecorated
vessel containing predominantly animal bones but with just a small number of human.
Horses were the commonest animals involved in such deposits, occurring in around a
third of instances and representing around 227 individual horses, with sheep/goat the
next most common.
Two-�thirds of the cremation urns contained grave goods. This is a much higher
proportion than has been identified on most other English cremation sites, suggesting
that excavation here has been unusually thorough. Grave goods included both items
which had been burnt with the corpse and others which had been added to the fill of
 114 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2a.2 Plan of the cemetery.

Phase A cremations are
indicated in red, illustrating
the early distribution of deposi-
tion

the pot at a later stage, perhaps even as late as the process of deposition. Manicure sets
were particularly common in this context.
From the beginning, deposition was scattered across the whole site, with only a
minor concentration identifiable at the core. This perhaps suggests that individual
families or households established burial plots which they then maintained over a
period of anything up to a century. During the final phase, though, deposition was
concentrated particularly in the north of the site, along with the inhumations, perhaps
reflecting a partial breakdown in previous patterns of behaviour.
Precisely when the cemetery first came into use is an issue currently receiving close
attention. Excavation occurred before computing developed adequately to carry out
complex analyses but recording of the finds was sufficiently detailed, burial by burial,
for new techniques to be applied as they became available. Correspondence analysis of
finds from the individual burials has since been used to explore the different combina-
tions of artefacts found so as to build up a complex picture capable of telling us a great
deal more about the chronology of and practice at this cemetery. Comparison of the
various categories of finds with the vessels which contained them has suggested
that the cemetery began early in the fifth century, since both combs and brooches
deposited here parallel types known on the Continent across the later fourth and
fifth centuries. Spong Hill has revealed copious evidence of Roman-�period occupa-
tion. The back-�fill of a late-�Roman ditch contained fourth-�century material but this
feature then served to an extent as a boundary for the early cemetery, suggesting
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c e m e t e ry at s p o n g h i l l 115

2a.3 Cremation urns under

excavation illustrating the
density of finds in some parts
of the site. A variety of styles
and sizes is visible; some were
sealed by stones, but plough
damage has removed many,
disturbing and/or breaking the
urns

that its inception was not that much later and that the late-�Roman boundary was
still visible.
Analysis of the pottery has revealed three successive phases, termed A, B and C. Of
these B – often characterised by lavish stamping, bosses and linear designs – can be
dated by analogy with similar sites to the middle of the fifth century. Phase C pottery
typically has comparatively little decoration but often features pendant stamped
triangles; this begins c. 480 and runs into the first half of the sixth century. Phase A
is very simple, with little decoration, and dates to the first half of the fifth century.
Phase B is the earliest that is easily recognisable as ‘Anglo-Â� Saxon’ in terms of
decoration and style. This analysis demonstrates that the bulk of the cremations
(1,500–2,000 individuals) were deposited during the fifth century, with the rite losing
popularity and the cemetery eventually being abandoned at some stage around the
mid-sixth century.
Phase C vessels generally occur on the periphery of the cemetery, along with the
remains of glass vessels and ivory, which only appear in any quantity late in the
sequence. Use of the same stamp tool on more than one of the more highly decorated
vessels – predominantly of phase B – has allowed some progress to be made in estab-
lishing the relative chronology of manufacturing, with in all some 67 groups so far
identified. Heavily bossed vessels are paralleled particularly well by examples found at
Issendorf, near Stade on the Lower Elbe, but both Spong Hill and closely comparable
Continental sites then continued to be active in parallel across the fifth century. These
similarities therefore suggest ongoing contact between communities on both sides of
the North Sea, and the repeated sharing of material culture and depositional behav-
iours, rather than a single migration event at the start of the fifth century.
Other parts of the assemblage also reveal debts to Continental material but from a
variety of different areas. Three equal-�armed brooches have close parallels in northern
 116 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2a.4 Cremation urn number

1564, belonging to the middle
phase of deposition, B. Note
the wealth of stamped
decoration

Germany. The numerous miniature artefacts at Spong Hill are best paralleled in
Denmark rather than around the Elbe while arm-�clasps derive from Scandinavia and
around 100 cruciform brooches derive from late Roman Nydam-�type brooches from
Jutland. While there are clearly very strong connections between the material culture
found at Spong Hill and parts of Scandinavia and North Germany, this regional
community in East Anglia seems to have been able to pick and choose the material
they wished to adopt and/or copy, taking ideas from numerous different sources.
Whether he founders of the cemetery were Germanic immigrants remains in ques-
tion, though it is difficult not to assume that there were some incomers. What is clearer,
though, is that these communities were led by groups who looked to northern Germany
and Scandinavia for the inspiration behind their material culture. However, they also
deposited significant numbers of Roman objects, including small pieces of pottery of
no practical value. It is unclear whether these were strays deriving from earlier occupa-
tion of the site or incorporated as markers of a valued material culture which was
ancestral to this community.
Towards the later period of use, cremations overlapped with the use of the same site
for inhumation burial. All but one of these took place in a distinct group on the north-�
eastern periphery of the cemetery, with deposition occurring alongside cremation
s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c e m e t e ry at s p o n g h i l l 117

2a.5 ‘Spong Man’. A unique

clay urn lid, featuring a seated
figure, probably male, probably
of phase B. Whether this was
intended to represent the dead
person, a deity or some other
figure is unclear
 118 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2a.6 Inhumation 40 fully

excavated, cut into the natural
ground surface at the centre of
an area marked by a slight
circular ditch, perhaps
originally limiting a barrow,
and flanked by further inhuma-
tions (right)

burial. Both rites then continued in parallel until the cemetery was abandoned. In all
there were only about 57 inhumations, most of which were orientated approximately
east–west, with the head towards the west. One linear arrangement of several graves
was identified, with another possible. Most graves contained a single extended burial
in a wooden coffin without metal fixtures, although a minority contained crouched
burials. Of those that could be sexed biologically, 27 were female and 16 male but this
leaves 14 unsexed, which probably includes some children. Biological sexing coin-
cided closely with sexing via artefacts but a dozen graves with very few or no grave
goods could have been male, which would render the numbers of males and females
approximately equal.
A proportion of the metalwork finds were broken, repaired or very worn, while
others were in very good condition and appeared comparatively new. Taken together
these suggest everyday objects in normal use. Some burials were accompanied by pots
or parts of pots containing food or drink but in others pots were represented by small
shards which may have been token deposits, or had been deliberately broken. Elsewhere
the finding of metal repair clips suggested that wooden bowls may have been present,
perhaps in numerous instances. There were clear disparities in wealth between graves
but none was exceptional: there was no gold at all and only three graves contained
any silver objects. Exotic items tended to be deposited together with comparatively
rich assemblages: for example, the only imported bronze bowl was found in a female
burial with numerous other objects including a large gilt brooch and an iron weaving
batten.
Two inhumations were particularly distinguished, each occurring in a wood-�lined
chamber with a timber and turf cover within a circular ditch, which may once have
marked a low barrow, with numbers of large uncut flints used as packing. One of these,
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c e m e t e ry at s p o n g h i l l 119

grave 40, has been interpreted as a founder burial marking the inception of inhuma-
tion here: this individual was buried with a sword in its scabbard, a spear and a shield,
plus a bronze-�bound wooden bucket but there was no trace of any coffin within the
chamber.
Why a small group of inhumations should have been inserted into this large crema-
tion cemetery is unclear. However, the cremations themselves show no signs of having
been organised spatially in terms of sex, wealth or gender (as sometimes occurred on
the Continent), implying that their organisation is most likely to have derived from
social ties and family membership. It seems probable, therefore, that the inhumations
represent a particular household or very small group of households that had for some
reason adopted a different burial practice. Whether this was a group with pretensions
to greater status and power than neighbours who were practising cremation is unclear
but it is certainly one possibility.
Here cremation and inhumation ended at approximately the same time but region-
ally cremation gave way to inhumation across the sixth and early seventh centuries.
Inhumations were generally deposited in smaller cemeteries more likely to have been
exclusive to particular settlements, so perhaps we should anticipate a number of inhu-
mation cemeteries beginning in the general area during the later fifth and early sixth
centuries, when Spong Hill phase C starts to look rather more like a range of other
mixed cemeteries which belong to this period.
 sources and issues 2b

the prittlewell chambered grave

nicholas j. higham

Railway construction in the 1880s first revealed the presence of a late-�sixth/early

seventh-century Anglo-� Saxon cemetery at Prittlewell, on the northern edge of
Southend-�on-�Sea (Essex). Excavation in advance of road building in 1923 revealed
19 weapon-�burials (exceptionally including six swords), 3 burials with female jewel-
lery and other unaccompanied inhumations. In 2003 planned road-�widening led
Southend-� on-�
Sea Borough Council to commission the Museum of London
Archaeological Service (MOLAS) to undertake new archaeological investigations.
Initially, this team found just a few more inhumations in the flat-�grave cemetery,
including a new weapons-�grave, but at the south end of the site they identified a
4-metre square demarcated by wood stains. When excavated, this proved to be a real
rarity, a previously undisturbed burial chamber. The chamber – one of the largest ever
found and the first to be excavated using modern techniques – had been lined with
timber and covered with a roof of planks, then covered with an approximately 10
metre diameter mound of sandy soil. As the planking slowly decayed, highly acidic,
sandy soil trickled into the chamber, burying the body with its entire assemblage still
in situ. Unlike those at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, this mound seems to have been so
damaged, firstly by collapse and then probably by medieval ploughing, that it quickly
became unrecognisable, so disguising the presence of a rich deposit and leaving it
untouched by later grave robbers.
Excavation was necessarily from the top down, keeping within the internal faces of
the now decayed walls. Several items had been hung on the walls, and these were found
still suspended from their iron hooks, the first being an elaborate copper-�alloy hanging
bowl, with inlaid enamel mounts and cruciform strips decorating the exterior. Other
copper-�alloy vessels followed, including a Byzantine flagon, a large Coptic bowl and a
cauldron with an iron handle. On the chamber floor the body had been deposited in a
coffin set away from the walls and surrounded by one of the richest grave assemblages
ever found, laid around the edges of the chamber.
The body itself has not survived, due to the acidity of the soil, but copper-�alloy shoe
buckles, a magnificent gold belt-�buckle, gold braid from clothing found in the chest
area and tooth enamel identified in the laboratory all suggest that it was buried supine,
feet to the east. Two gold tremisses from Merovingian Francia were found in the
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e p r i t t l e w e l l c h a m b e r e d g r av e 121

2b.1 Location map for

Prittlewell

vicinity of the chest and below the waist, one of which suggested deposition in the
early seventh century while the other belongs to a less precisely dated sequence of
coins. Two small, thin and delicate gold-�foil crosses of a type otherwise only found at
this period in Alpine regions came from the head area, where they may have been laid
on clothing or perhaps a veil – although the absence of the usual attachment holes
could indicate that they had simply been placed over the eyes of the deceased. Although
biological sexing is not possible, the finds and the layout all suggest an adult male,
which conforms with other ‘princely burials’.
At his head, at the west end of the coffin, was found an iron folding stool of a kind
familiar to a modern audience from camping or fishing. This is the only example of its
kind so far found in Anglo-�Saxon England, though comparable items have come from
Roman graves and from post-�Roman burials on the Continent. To the south on the
chamber floor lay his sword, the iron fittings from his shield and two spearheads that
had fallen from the wall. In the south-�west corner, a wooden box contained smaller
objects including a lidded copper-�alloy cylinder and a silver spoon of sixth-�century
Byzantine manufacture with an inscribed cross on the inside of the bowl added later,
along with a brief inscription beneath which starts ‘FAB’ .â•‹.â•‹. . On the southern side a
lyre signified entertainment. To the east wooden and horn drinking vessels, embel-
 122 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

2b.2 Prittlewell Burial

Chamber under excavation.
Vessels mark the wall; within,
the body area inside the
wooden coffin and the iron
sword are receiving attention;
in the foreground are the
remains of the folding stool

lished with intricate and ornate metal trim, and two pairs of matching glass jars with
external applied decoration, one pair blue and the other green, reflect the feasting and
drinking culture of the great hall, much as attested by the poem Beowulf. Iron-�bound
wooden stave buckets stood in the south-�east corner, while a massive copper-�alloy
cauldron lay at the foot end of the coffin, on edge against the eastern wall.
In the north-�east corner, an iron stand 1.33 metres high was discovered still upright,
resting on its four curving feet each welded to a main shaft which is occasionally
twisted along its length. At the apex it tapers to a point but has at least two short
branches to the side. The function of this object is still being debated but it may have
had some ‘official’ purpose or have held a torch to provide light. That illumination
mattered to those making this deposition is demonstrated by the discovery in the labo-
ratory of an iron lamp from the vicinity of the cauldron, containing a yellow material
which may, on parallels from Sutton Hoo, have been beeswax.
A set of bone gaming pieces, along with two large dice made from antler, had been
deposited, probably in a bag, near the north-�east corner. With 57 individual pieces,
this gaming set is one of the largest of the period ever found in England.
In the north-�west corner a very large iron-�bound wooden tub or bucket was
located, which was almost half a metre in diameter and would have held over 80 litres
when full. The interior was excavated in the laboratory due to the excessive compres-
sion which had distorted it; inside a small, lathe-�turned, copper-�alloy bowl and an iron
scythe blade were discovered, which may indicate that this part of the assemblage was
related to the food supply to the hall.
The nature and size of the burial chamber suggest an individual of exceptional
status and this impression is confirmed by the wealth and quantity of grave goods,
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e p r i t t l e w e l l c h a m b e r e d g r av e 123

which are second only to the finds in the chamber within the ship under mound
I at Sutton Hoo. The gold-�foil crosses suggest a strong Christian influence, which is
reinforced by the orientation of the body with its feet to the east and the presence of
what may well have been a baptismal spoon, with Roman lettering and a cross inscribed
on the upper side (although the cross need not necessarily have Christian connota-
tions). The hanging bowl is likely to have been of Celtic manufacture, though as in
other instances provenance is unclear. The flagon and bowls imply trade or diplomatic
contacts with the eastern Mediterranean, whether direct or indirect.
Like Snape (Suffolk) but unlike most other ‘princely burials’ and the great mounds
at Sutton Hoo in particular, the Prittlewell chambered grave was clearly part of a larger
inhumation cemetery, and one of high status at that. If some of the weapon-�burials
prove to be demonstrably earlier than the chambered grave, this would mean that it
was added to an existing cemetery, but this matter is still under consideration. There
are parallels here with practice in Kent, where rich early seventh-�century burials
normally occur in large cemeteries, sometimes in some numbers each under its own
barrow. There are other connections also with Kent, including the glass vessels that
2b.3 Copper-alloy Byzantine
flagon found hanging on the
north wall. The flagon was cast
in a mould, the handle added
separately, attached by bands,
the lower one ornamented by
three embossed medallions of
horsemen; the lid is secured to
the ornate handle by a chain.
The only example of its kind so
far found in an archaeological
context in England
 124 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

were probably manufactured there and the evidence of

Christianity, which was particularly associated with
Canturbury in Kent at this date.
Given these connections, it is tempting to see Prittlewell
as the final resting place of the East Saxon king Saberht, the
only Christian ruler of the East Saxons known to us before
the 650s. His story is comparatively well known in outline
from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Saberht was the nephew of
the powerful Kentish king Æthelberht through his sister
Ricula, and his closest political and dynastic ally. He accepted
baptism from Kent at the beginning of the seventh century
and a bishop, Mellitus, established at London. Bede did not
date Saberht’s death precisely but implies that it was no later
than that of Æthelberht in 616, at which point Saberht’s three
2b.4 Gold-foil crosses found in sons rejected Christianity and made demands on Mellitus which he felt unable to
the burial in the face area. These
delicate Christian symbols are
satisfy, leading to his withdrawal from London back to Canterbury.
unique in Anglo-Saxon England, Certainly, several features of the burial would suit that context. If these pagan sons
only paralleled in the lands influenced the actual burial process, as one might expect, then the failure to bury in a
around the Alps in the decades Christian cemetery or in association with a church is understandable. Burial in an
around 600
inhumation cemetery in current use perhaps implies their commitment to traditional
practices, within a cemetery which already had strong associations with the elite,
perhaps even with their own kin. Such a rich chambered burial indicates a desire to
emphasise the wealth and power of the individual via mechanisms which are familiar
to us from other late pagan graves, using a burial style which owed much to Merovingian
Gaul but was not associated specifically in contemporary England with Christianity.
The assemblage speaks of the widespread connections of the individual interred, so to
2b.5 Two pairs of squat glass
jars, one blue, the other green,
his fame and fortune, and in that respect there are close parallels with the ship burial
found against the east wall. under mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, which has a similarly diverse range of artefacts. That
The blue pair have applied was, however, arguably buried slightly later and marked the burial of an individual of
plaitwork around the body; the even higher status if it was that of Rædwald, who was an imperium-Â�wielding king – a
green ones are smaller, with
king with power over other kings – at his death.
decoration at the base and
neck. The jars are probably Such interpretations are, of course, more supposition than established fact.
Kentish products of the early Whoever was buried in the Prittlewell chambered grave, he was clearly an individual
seventh century of very considerable wealth and political power, living on the cusp of the Christianisation
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e p r i t t l e w e l l c h a m b e r e d g r av e 125

2b.6 Ornate copper-alloy and

gold mount on the rim of one of
the drinking horns found at the
east end of the chamber, close
to the glass jars

of parts at least of south-�east England. The quality of workmanship on display, the

number of items of gold, the sheer quantity of goods, and the presence of several rare
or unique pieces which are likely to have kingly significance, all point to very high
status indeed. As the only ‘princely grave’ so far found undisturbed and excavated
under modern conditions, this is an extremely important find, from which research
will eventually provide important new insights into Anglo-�Saxon England in the early
seventh century.
Such questions as ‘Was he a Christian? Was he a pagan?’ are natural but ultimately
unlikely to be very helpful in moving forward the interpretation, since this is a burial
which occurred in a period stretching from the late sixth century through to about
630, which is characterised by both ideological experimentation and religious syncre-
tism. This period sees by far the richest burials that we have from Anglo-�Saxon
England, alongside growing numbers of virtually artefact-�free inhumations. The
assumption that this reflected a steepening of social hierarchies at this date seems apt.
At Prittlewell, it does seem likely that we have the burial of a historically identified East
Saxon king, but certainty continues to elude us.
 chapter 3

From Tribal Chieftains to

Christian Kings
nicholas j. higham

For Bede, English history was primarily a story of Conversion to Christianity and
the establishment of Catholicism in Britain. The coming of St Augustine and his
Italian fellow missionaries to Kent in 597 was the moment when he shifted his atten-
tion decisively from the Britons to the English. His ‘Greater Chronicle’ captures this
moment:

[Gregory] sent to Britain Mellitus, Augustine and John with many other God-�fearing
monks alongside, to convert the Angles to Christ. And when Æthelberht was quickly
converted to the grace of Christ, together with the people of Kent over whom he ruled
and together with those of neighbouring kingdoms, he gave him Augustine to be his
bishop and teacher, as well as other holy priests to become bishops.

It is Bede’s perspective that dominates most later histories. Indeed, it was often exag-
gerated, and spiced with a hostility towards pagans that he rarely showed – R. H.
Hodgkin in 1935, for example, wrote that ‘their heathen customs were often ugly
enough and reeked of blood’. But today scholars are increasingly challenging the domi-
nant role of religion in this story. While the Conversion remains important, it is better
viewed as part of a bigger history stretching back a generation before Augustine’s
arrival and on into the early eighth century. Alongside Conversion, this larger story
encompasses broader cultural changes, the emergence of kingships and kingdoms,
questions about ethnicity, social developments, the re-�emergence of coining and the
revival of trade.
This is the very start of English history. Before this point, the Anglo-�Saxons are
anonymous; from the last third of the sixth century near-�contemporary written
evidence begins to offer a faint sketch of what was going on, at the highest levels of
society at least. But it is also a period with an exceptional wealth of archaeology. The
scarcity of written sources means that material evidence must lead us initially, bringing
in other disciplinary approaches as these become available. We will start by exploring
the changes which were occurring in the burial record from the mid-�sixth century
onwards, moving on from there to settlement archaeology and ultimately to the written
record.
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 127

Burial and the Material Record

Well-�established methods of disposing of the dead across the later fifth and earlier
sixth centuries began to break down in the mid-�sixth century, with cremation declining
in popularity. It virtually ceased in the mid-�seventh. Destruction of the body by
burning was incompatible with the Christian focus on the body and expectations of
the Day of Judgment; this may eventually have discouraged cremation. However, its
initial decline was too early for Conversion to have been the cause. Whether or not the
reason was in any sense ‘religious’ is unclear; one might otherwise point towards social
changes, or the suggestion that Anglo-�Saxons were shifting away in the sixth century

3.1 Places named in chapter 3

128 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

from portraying themselves as ‘Germanic’, adopting instead more ‘Frankish’ and/or

‘Roman’ behaviours in various aspects of their lives, burial included.
Furnished inhumation, rather than cremation, therefore dominated disposal of the
dead by the later sixth century. At the same time this spread to such new areas as
Wiltshire, the north east and the Derbyshire Peak District. The spread of Anglo-�Saxon
burial practices into what had hitherto been ‘British’ areas reflects new regions being
conquered or drawn into unequal partnerships with Anglo-�Saxon elites. Western and
northern England had so far retained much from the British past, in terms of material
culture and language, but these regions were now increasingly coming into prolonged
contact with English culture. Research in the Peak District suggests land-�taking by
Anglo-�Saxon warriors to which indigenous leaders responded by themselves adopting
forms of ‘English-Â�ness’, in particular the furnished burial. The small number and
comparative wealth of these graves, and continuing traces of ‘British’ material culture
within them, all imply acculturation.
Significant changes occurred in the material being deposited in graves in the late
sixth century, but the cause is debated. Numerous existing types of artefact continued,
including handmade pottery, swords, spears, amulets, shears and double-�sided combs.
Others, such as annular brooches, finger rings and claw-�beakers, display a degree of
selection as regards the characteristics which continue, with significant stylistic
changes coming in. Alongside, deposition ceased of such well-�established artefacts as
long strings of amber beads and several brooch types, implying that they were no
longer manufactured. Exotic goods imported from Francia and the Eastern Empire
increasingly marked high status. In tandem there was a revival of insular Roman
culture, with the widespread deposition of elaborate hanging bowls of British manu-
facture. Remains of the Roman period were still very much in evidence and Roman
sites attracted the new Christian centres – Canterbury, Rochester, London, Lincoln
and York were among the new church sites adopted across the early seventh century.
The inhumation rite also exhibits differences around 600 which suggest significant
social change. By c. 550, weapons occur in perhaps half of all male graves, suggesting
those responsible were focused on the social and legal status that weapon-�ownership
conferred. Within the weapon-�bearing sector of society, however, some individuals
and families had higher ambitions. Such men may have experienced success as the
leaders of war-�bands or as figures wielding influence in the assembly.
Barrows were associated with a small minority of burials throughout the early
Anglo-�Saxon period and many cemeteries were located at or around pre-�existing
monuments. But they became noticeably more popular from the mid-�sixth century
onwards, with some cemeteries virtually given over to small barrows or burial within
a penannular ditch. Even many flat graves were now more carefully structured, exhib-
iting a greater input of both skill and labour, and wooden coffins with metal fittings
proliferated. Although the connection is far from predictive, there is a higher inci-
dence of exotic grave goods under barrows than in flat graves, and textiles were
increasingly employed to display the dead during internment.
These changes were earliest and most pronounced in East Kent, at such cemeteries
as Finglesham, St Peters Broadstairs and Updown Eastry. From there they spread
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 129

3.2 Bronze hanging bowl of

‘Celtic’ type from the ship burial
at Sutton Hoo; the focus is on
one of three external circular
escutcheons from which it
would have hung. The
escutcheon was decorated with
red and blue enamel and is
stamped with repousse
ornament. Such ‘Celtic’ finds
from high-status Anglo-Saxon
graves suggest elite patronage
of British craftsmen and an
attempt to engage with Britain’s
Roman heritage

across Anglo-Â�Saxon England, replacing both ‘Anglian’ and ‘Saxon’ styles of burial.
Outside Kent, early seventh-�century graves are less easily identified than for other
periods, creating something of a hiatus in the evidence, but regional distinctiveness as
regards clothing, metalworking and burial practices certainly diminished.
Excluding barrows, the deposition of grave goods fell away rapidly in the early
seventh century, with more and more bodies interred with few or none. In particular,
weapons-�graves become far less common. In 1936 Edward Leeds coined the term
‘Final Phase’ for cemeteries producing very few grave goods. His study began with
excavations at Burwell (Cambridgeshire) in the 1920s and 1930s. Leeds initially viewed
such cemeteries as the burial places of poor pagans but eventually reinterpreted them
as Christian. Since then, we have learned to understand ‘Final Phase’ burials rather
better. They are characterised by the Christian associations of some artefacts (including
crosses), the regularity of west–east orientation, an absence of cremation, frequent lack
of artefacts beyond a knife, the changed appearance of clothing and ornamentation,
and the scarcity of weapons. On occasion sixth-�century cemeteries were replaced,
 130 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.3 St Peter’s Tip, Broadstairs,

Thanet (Kent). Part of a large
sixth- to eighth-century
inhumation cemetery, probably
initially aligned on Bronze Age
barrows, it features rows of
graves, aligned north west/
south east, a minority of which
are surrounded by annular or
penannular ring-ditches

resulting in such paired cemeteries as Winnall I and II (Hampshire) and Sheffield’s

Hill (Lincolnshire). The later cemetery was often closer to the settlement, as at
Bloodmoor Hill (Carlton Colville, Suffolk), where a small seventh-�century cemetery
among the halls and SFBs replaced one on the hill nearby. Even so, some cemeteries
continued in use right through, as did that at Butler’s Field, Lechlade (Gloucestershire),
which, like many others, centred on an Early Bronze Age monument. Butler’s Field has
revealed the wealthiest graves so far excavated in the Upper Thames region, so its
continuing use may have related to a particular, dominant settlement.
Although ‘Final Phase’ cemeteries broadly coincide with Christian Conversion, it is
difficult to establish a causal link; contemporary Christian texts do not condemn
burial goods. Rather, this trend may mirror other shifts within contemporary society,
such as changing dress styles, an awareness that Frankish burial practices had moved
in the same direction, and a growing disinclination within the middling ranks of
society to lock away expensive items under the earth.
Alongside such changes to the use of cemeteries, small numbers of distinctive indi-
vidual burials occurred, accompanied by grave goods that were exceptional as regards
both their quality and quantity. These are generally marked by particularly prominent
features, including barrows, and on occasion contained in a timber-�built chamber. Their
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 131

exploration began on 5 August 1771, when labourers employed by the Reverend Bryan
Faussett, curate of Nackington, dug into a sizeable mound within the extensive barrow
cemetery on Kingston Down (Kent) and found beneath it an unusually large grave
containing a wooden coffin. Inside they found the skeleton of a small woman. A gold
pendant hung from her neck and the most intricate Anglo-�Saxon brooch ever discovered
gathered her clothes, which were fastened by two delicate silver safety pins at her waist.
At her feet lay two imported bronze vessels, a wooden casket and a pot. Outside the coffin
lay the remains of a child and a glass cup. The finds suggest the burial of an exceptionally
wealthy woman in the early seventh century, a period when spectacular metalworking
and particularly brooch manufacture had taken off in Kent under Frankish influence.
Weapons-�graves declined in number but became richer and grander, incorporating
chamber and barrow burial. Burial chambers sealed by a barrow occur in both southern
Scandinavia and territories peripheral to northern Francia in the late sixth century.
There were barrow burials in England from the fifth century onwards, utilising existing
mounds as well as constructing new ones, and chamber burial occurs very occasion-
ally. But the combination of rich burial in a chamber under a large barrow was some-
thing new. It was probably triggered by Frankish influence, even though the Frankish
elite had abandoned the rite before it was taken up in England, turning to forms of
Christian interment instead. Comparable chamber burials have been excavated at
Morken and Krefeld-�Gellep in Westphalia, but most famously in the richly accoutred,
late fifth-�century burial of King Chilperic, at Tournai in Belgium. The practice reached
3.4 The Kingston Brooch. The
finest so far found of the
composite brooches made in
Kent under Merovingian
influence early in the seventh
century, it features intricate use
of gold and cloisonné, with
inlaid panels of garnet, white
shell, glass and gold filigree set
in concentric circles
 132 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.5 Slender claw-beakers from

the high-status barrow-burial
at Taplow (Buckinghamshire).
These intricate glass drinking
vessels were imported from
northern Francia for an elite
market

south-�east England via the same networks as brought Coptic bowls, Byzantine spoons,
glassware, silks and wheel-�turned pottery, and was adopted primarily in the first few
decades of the seventh century.
Such exceptional graves are often found in prominent locations visible from a
distance, either alone or in small groups. It has long been suggested that early Anglo-�
Saxon boundaries utilised prehistoric burial mounds as markers, which in turn
attracted English burials to the edges of territories, but the new wave of exceptional
graves involved monuments of a scale hitherto rarely achieved. These new barrows
might be 4 metres or more in height, with the body either inserted into a substantial
but pre-�existing prehistoric monument or laid beneath a newly erected mound. They
bear witness to grandiose ideas about the setting appropriate to the final resting place
of a select few. Such rites entailed far greater costs in terms of skill, labour and more
valuable objects taken out of circulation than did anything previously.
Although female burials are occasionally found under new barrows (as mound
14 at Sutton Hoo), most were inserted into pre-�existing monuments and more, again,
into flat graves. The majority of newly erected barrows cover male burials distin-
guished by the range and quality of accompanying finds. In Germany, the social status
implicit in the combination of monument and find assemblage has led to the term
Fürstengrab – literally ‘princely grave’. The individuals buried were members of fami-
lies with aspirations, at least, to royal status. In England the term ‘princely burial’
serves the same purpose. Although these are less rich than Continental examples, they
still represent a significant shift of scale compared to earlier practices and reflect
comparatively complex funeral arrangements.
Well-Â�known examples of ‘princely burial’ include a coffin excavated in 1883
more than 6 metres below the apex of a great barrow in the churchyard at Taplow
(Buckinghamshire), accompanied by weapons, glass beakers, vessels, fabric and other
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 133

equipment, the quality and craftsmanship of which were exceptional. Likewise a male
skeleton was found at Broomfield (Essex) in a sub-�surface burial chamber made of
timber, associated with a plethora of finds which included a bronze bowl, fragments of
two drinking horns, various vessels and weapons. In 1862 a ship burial was excavated
at Snape (Suffolk), under a barrow built within a Bronze Age cemetery which had been
reused in the early Anglo-�Saxon period. The ship was 14 metres long and 3 metres
wide. Fragments of a wealth of grave goods were recovered, including spearheads, blue
glass, a glass claw-�beaker and a gold ring.
This discovery has since been overshadowed by the famous ship burial excavated
beneath mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, just over 15 kilometres to the south. Mound 2 also
had a ship burial but this had been robbed. The great ship under mound 1 lay undis-
turbed other than by decay. The ship was 27 metres long and buried in a trench cut to
accommodate it 3.5 metres below the natural ground surface. The ship contained the
greatest burial hoard ever discovered in Britain, which is now on permanent display in
the British Museum. At the centre of the ship rich textiles in red and yellow had lined
a timber chamber filled with goods befitting a king, including precious weapons, a
unique mail-�coat and helmet, and a purse containing Frankish coins, alongside gaming
pieces, drinking horns and silver table vessels. This may have been the grave of the East
Anglian king Rædwald, known to us from written sources, since the coins are
consistent with a date in the 620s when he is thought to have died and his status as an
‘over-Â�king’ might warrant the display of such wealth. Other elite burials occurred on
the same site, with mound 17, for example, yielding a young nobleman accompanied
by a full set of weapons of high quality and a riding horse with decorated bridle. Only
3.6 The ship under mound 1,
Sutton Hoo, during excavation in
1939
 134 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.7 The Sutton Hoo helmet.

This elaborate and highly
ornamented helmet is
derivative of late Roman
parade ground styles but the
closest near contemporary
parallels come from southern
Sweden. Note the facing
dragons’ heads meeting above
the forehead, and the way that
the eye- and nose-guards form
elements of the applied animal
decoration. Helmets are so rare
in pre-Viking England as to
imply exceptional status

very small numbers of inhumations in English cemeteries are accompanied by horses.

These date to the later sixth and early seventh centuries and are generally males with
rich grave assemblages. Other barrows covered cremations, several accompanied by
rich accessories.
The princely burials at Sutton Hoo did not occur in a vacuum. Excavation previous
to the erection of the National Trust visitor centre 500 metres from the great barrows
revealed an earlier mixed cemetery, focused in part at least on a prehistoric burial
mound, with numerous small barrows erected over inhumations. Beginning in the
second quarter of the sixth century and lasting into the early seventh, this compara-
tively wealthy burial ground featured numerous warrior burials and perhaps plots the
rise of a particular kin or family to wider power. Once the elite burial ground came
into use, though, these lesser burials ceased.
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 135

3.8 Purse-lid from the ship

burial at Sutton Hoo. The gold
and ivory surface is decorated
with jewelled plaques featuring
garnets and millefiori; the
outer pair of plaques show men
standing spread-eagled
between two rampant animals,
probably wolves; the interior
plaques each have a bird of
prey swooping onto a duck. The
purse contained 37
Merovingian gold coins, 3
blank flans and 2 plain gold
billets. The workmanship is of
exceptional virtuosity

At Sutton Hoo, archaeology and history come almost close enough to touch, but
elsewhere the pre-�Christian burial record is entirely anonymous, unless the names
given to individual tumuli, such as Taplow (Buckinghamshire), which means ‘Tæppa’s
mound’, or Wilmslow (Cheshire), meaning ‘Wilma’s mound’, actually identify the indi-
vidual buried. As in Francia, the very richest burials coincide with the first few decades
of Christianisation, suggesting that these represent a protest against Christianity. After
the 620s, however, elaborate ‘princely burials’ died away in Britain. Across the next
generation, Christian habits of disposing of the dead spread, region by region, and
gradually drove out alternative expressions of social rank.
Elaborate princely burials have barely been discovered outside the south east.
While Northumbrian cemeteries have yielded a high proportion of well-�furnished
burials, there is nothing indicative of exceptional status. The helmet found at Benty
Grange (Derbyshire) implies a very high-�status warrior burial, but otherwise the burial
practices of the pre-�Conversion elite in Mercia and Wessex remain obscure. This
suggests that, to an extent at least, princely burials were a product of direct Continental
contact; regions more heavily influenced by British ideas about kingship did not invest
in this strategy. Indeed, there may even be a link between the presence of British names
in a royal dynasty and the absence of princely burial. Rich female graves carry on
longer than male, certainly into the late seventh century and do occur in the far west,
as at Roundway Down (Wiltshire) and Burnett (Somerset). None, however, even
approaches the wealth on show at Sutton Hoo, Prittlewell or Taplow.

Settlement Archaeology
Anglo-�Saxon settlements of the mid-�sixth century display very little evidence of social
rank. Most carry on in very much the same way across the seventh century. Around
600, however, a minority display changes consistent with the emergence of new hier-
archies, in the form of buildings of exceptional size and unusual architectural form.
Evidence is so far limited to Yeavering (Northumbria), Cowdery’s Down (Hampshire),
Foxley (Wiltshire) and Dover (Kent).
 136 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

At Yeavering, crop marks photographed from the air led to excavation of what should
be viewed as a palace site dating to the first half of the seventh century. The excavator
interpreted the site with the assistance of passages in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History refer-
ring to a palace complex called Ad Gefrin (Yeavering: ‘the hill of goats’), which was
abandoned after King Edwin’s death in 633 and replaced by Mælmin (probably Millfield;
aerial photography has revealed similar remains there). In its setting, the site had excep-
tional claims on the past; a massive Iron Age hillfort and an earlier prehistoric henge
dominated the immediate landscape. A late sixth-�century group of buildings was devel-
oped into a prestigious complex, probably by the great pagan king Æthelfrith (d.
c. 616), whose deeds Bede lauded. A hall which features numerous ox skulls has been
interpreted as a pagan temple, with a kitchen alongside. This lay near an ‘assembly’
structure built of massive timbers which seems to have been modelled on a Roman
theatre, even though none are known so far north. The complex was then reconstructed
by King Edwin (616–33), with a great timber enclosure capable of holding very large
numbers of cattle, two halls connected by an enclosed courtyard, and a timber-�framed
church with associated cemetery. Later, the site was redeveloped once more, with the
church and fenced graveyard relocated eastwards, the assembly structure rebuilt and a
new range of halls with large annexes constructed outwards from the gable ends.
By any standards, this complex can only have been commissioned and then rebuilt
successively by powerful individuals capable of mobilising a large workforce. This
speaks of kingship, despite the minimal quantities of pottery and other artefacts
recovered.
3.9 Palace complex at
Yeavering: (a) later sixth
century; (b) late sixth to early
seventh century, with pagan
temple, associated kitchen and
assembly structure; (c) early
seventh century, great
enclosure, a range of massive
halls and first church with
cemetery; (d) halls and
assembly structure was rebuilt
with a church and cemetery on
a new site. The sequence
suggests that ritural activity
dominated the early layout
giving way to re-orientation on
the great halls in the later
phases Neither Cowdery’s Down nor Foxley is the equal of Yeavering, but both sites have
yielded large timber-�built halls, associated with annexes built out from the gable end
and with regular, fenced enclosures, dominating a range of other buildings. The major
halls had ancillary timbers around the exterior to serve as flying buttresses to help
support the weight of the roof. Cowdery’s Down lies close to Basing, which takes its
name from the Basingas, a group making up part of the seventh-century West Saxons.
Perhaps these halls represent an early centre of that people. The halls at Dover are on
a scale comparable with Yeavering. They are seventh-�century or later, probably part of
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 137

a royal monastery which provided accommodation for the king and his retainers.
Elsewhere it seems quite possible that the emerging elite pressed existing sites into
use to serve the functions which the assembly building performed at Yeavering. The
Roman theatre at Canterbury could have been in service in the reign of Æthelberht,
Æthelfrith’s contemporary in Kent, who was probably responsible for reoccupation of
the old civitas capital as a high-�status site. Such buildings had considerable value in
terms of large-�scale assemblies, public tribute-�paying and speech-�giving.
In the far north, Sprouston (Borders) offers comparable aerial photographic
evidence to Yeavering and Millfield. Elsewhere the Northumbrians were notable for
taking over defensive sites previously used by their Celtic neighbours, occupying such
strongholds as Bamburgh (Northumbria), Mote of Mark (Dumfries), Edinburgh,
Dunbar and Doon Hill (near Dunbar), where a 23-metre long hall was built inside the
palisaded enclosure. There is no sign of the use of defences of this kind, however,
outside Northumbria. In the south, some of the sites identified through concentrations
of metalwork finds – so-Â�called ‘productive sites’ – may have been elite settlements.
Rendlesham, for example, is just such a site and appears in Bede’s History as a royal
palace of the East Angles, but seems not to have been defended.
Archaeological evidence from both burials and settlements therefore suggests the
development of social hierarchies in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. This
indicates that kingship was emerging at this date. Further evidence comes from written
sources, to which we will now turn.

The Origins of Kingdoms

Bede’s description of the settlement of the Anglo-Â�Saxons, people by people, in the
Ecclesiastical History (I, 15) implies that he believed that the major kingships of the
seventh century had their origins in the settlements of different Germanic tribes in the
fifth century. However, his occasional references to smaller tribal units, termed
‘regions’ or ‘provinces’, suggest that processes of kingdom formation were still very
much ongoing across the seventh century. Today there are two competing views on
how Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms came into being. One assumes a degree of territorial
continuity across the Roman/Saxon divide and that some of the civitates and/or terri-
tories associated with Romano-�British centres were taken over by warrior bands as
going concerns. The second posits a catastrophic breakdown of Roman territorial
structures, with Anglo-�Saxon society then developing without respect to earlier terri-
tories. According to this second scenario the seventh-�century Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms
derived not from pre-�existing territories but from small tribal units coalescing to form
regional kingdoms.
Both options have some value. The first is relevant to parts of the south �east and to
England’s western and northern peripheries. Kent emerged with its Roman name of
Cantium virtually unchanged and centred on Canterbury – Roman Durovernum
Cantiacorum, then English Cantwaraburg, ‘the stronghold of the Kentish people’,
though there was probably a hiatus in its use as a high-�status site. Less convincing
claims for continuity have been made for the Romano-�British Trinovantes re-�emerging
 138 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

as the East Saxons, and for the Regni reappearing as the South Saxons. In neither case
did the urban centre retain a role, though Chichester re-�emerged later as an English
bishopric. That several seventh-�century Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms seem to map on to
the civitates of Roman Britain with some precision at least invites speculation regarding
continuity, even while it proves little.
Further west and north, where British polities survived longer, the case is more
robust. The Dumnonii became Anglo-�Saxon Devon (Defnas: the name is cognate).
The Cornovii of the extreme south west became Cornwall. Wroxeter, Roman
Viroconium, was the capital of the other Romano-�British tribe named the Cornovii; the
first element of the city’s name is shared with The Wrekin, a prominent hill over-
looking the site. That name re-Â�emerged as the early English tribal name, the Wrocensæte.
In the east, a similar case can be made for Lindsey, the area focused on Lincoln from
which it took its name, though this was not the tribal capital but that of the province.
The Old English name, Lindisfarona, incorporates an early post-�Roman, British one.
The Deiri of eastern Yorkshire similarly evolved out of a British tribal territory, centred
on the Yorkshire Wolds and the valleys of the Derwent and Rye, and the Bernicii, the
Niduari, Craven and Elmet are all pre-�English.
Above the level of the civitas, seventh-�century Northumbria closely resembles the
late Roman province of Britannia Secunda, based on York, where the bishopric was
re-�established in the 620s. The western province of Roman Britain, Britannia Prima,
retained its identity well through the fifth century if not the sixth; while the province’s
eastern lowlands were conquered, the more westerly highland region eventually
became Wales and Cornwall. Lindsey similarly represented that part of the late Roman
province of Flavia Caesariensis which adhered longest to the old provincial capital.
‘Mercians’ means ‘border-Â�people’ and this may derive from the frontier region of these
two late Roman provinces – we simply do not know. And the boundary between Flavia
Caesariensis and Maxima Caesariensis cannot have been very different from that
between the East Angles and East Saxons. There is a case of sorts, therefore, for the

3.10 The Wrekin. The hill

dominates the landscape
around Wroxeter and is visible
as far away as Lancashire and
Staffordshire. On the top is a
substantial Iron Age hillfort,
the original Uriconio, from
which Roman Wroxeter took its
name and which was the focus
of the late pre-Roman Cornovii.
The early Anglo-Saxon
Wrocensæte reflect a degree of
continuity with the Iron Age
and Roman tribe
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 139

continuing influence of provincial structures as well as civitates over the mid-�Anglo-�

Saxon kingdoms.
That said, the names of many kingdoms are late formations, coined to give expres-
sion to new social and political realities and reliant on similar names for their meaning.
The East Saxons require the existence of the West Saxons, and vice versa; similarly the
East Angles are unlikely to have been named without an awareness of Angles further
west. Bede knew that the West Saxons had earlier been called the Gewisse. The name
‘Northumbrians’ was only just coming into being in the early eighth century, with
reference to an important frontier – the Humber. Few if any of these names are likely
to have been common parlance in 570, even if some of the groupings to which they
applied were already in being.
The second option directs attention away from these larger tribal kingdoms towards
the scatter of obscure, minor peoples who were being absorbed into larger neighbours
in the Middle Anglo-�Saxon period. Some certainly had substantial territories and their
own dynasties, as the Hwicce and Magonsæte in the west and Lindsey in the east.
Others were smaller and less clearly ruled by kingly families, though the South Gyrwe,
in the Fens, had a ‘prince’ in the 660s. These smaller groups may represent survivals of
the fundamental building blocks from which the historic kingdoms were constructed.
Many were topographically defined, such as the Cilternsæte (the Chiltern dwellers) the
Arosæte (the people of the Arrow Valley) and the Pecsæte (the people of the Peak
District), so perhaps they originated in social groupings sharing access to particular
environments which they needed to manage collectively.
The last three of these names appear on the Tribal Hidage, a much debated list of
tribute payments which survives in Old English in a copy of around ad 1,000 but was
probably written initially in the seventh century. The Tribal Hidage provides a whole
melange of small-�scale peoples in the region of the Wash, such as the Spalda (cognate
with the place name Spalding) and Hicce (Hitchin). Agglomeration occurred here
when Penda, king of the Mercians, reconstituted them as the Middle Angles to provide
a kingship for his son Peada. Other minor ‘people’ names can potentially be recovered
from later regional or hundred names, such as the Blythingas (‘people of the Blyth
valley’: Suffolk) and the Beningas (‘people of the Bean valley’: Hertfordshire), who gave
their name to Benington and Bengeo respectively.
Local names such as these may mark the dawn of kingship in Anglo-�Saxon England.
The seminal argument is that propounded by Steven Bassett, who, somewhat tongue-�
in-�cheek, viewed the Tribal Hidage as if illustrative of a late stage in a sporting knock-
�out competition, such as the fifth round of the F.A. Cup (1989, p. 26):

Most of the little teams have long gone, there are a few potential giant-Â�killers left – the
Spalda, the Arosætna, the East and West Willa – survivors only because they have so
far avoided being drawn against the major teams. But the next round will see them
off; they have had their brief moment of gloryâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.

There are assumptions underlying this analysis, however, which warrant further
attention. One is that kingship originated specifically in the context of territorial
 140 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.11 Map of the Tribal Hidage,

a probable seventh-century
tribute list of unknown origin.
Often thought to be Mercian
because it begins with ‘the
original lands of the Mercians’,
but their inclusion may imply it
is Northumbrian. Written in two
parts, with a (correct) total for
the first list after 19 entries,
then an (incorrect) grand total
after the secondary list, this
structure implies the final list
follows dramatic expansion of
tribute-taking from the
Midlands across southern
England. Entries are numbered
1–34; dubious identifications
are distinguished; those
omitted from the map are
un-located; the number of
hundreds of hides allocated to
each name is given in brackets
and some names have been
modernised

organisation. Another is that only warfare allowed one kingdom to expand at the
expense of another. In practice, the ‘knock-Â�out’ analogy is probably not sufficiently
flexible to accommodate the complexity of early, intertribal relations. If the Tribal
Hidage is correctly viewed as a tribute list, all the names listed are equal in the sense
that all paid tribute, but differences in the scale of payments show that some were
clearly ‘more equal’ than others. It is unlikely that the smaller peoples were in any real
sense autonomous; rather, each was dependent on more powerful figures to protect
them from expansionist neighbours. Take the Isle of Wight, for example, which had
been protected by the Mercians under Wulfhere (658–75) and his clients the South
Saxons, but was invaded and conquered by the West Saxons in the 680s.
A close reading of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History reveals that he referred to kingdoms
not by a territorial name but by their peoples (the Mercians, East Angles, and so on).
Bede was clearly aware of the location of such peoples, and that they were not somehow
detached from the land. But it was social relationships, rather than occupation of
space, which lay at the heart of kingship formation. Even the word from which ‘king’
derives belongs to a group indicative of ‘kinship’, not of Roman concepts of territorial
governance. The emphasis should be more on tribal kingship than spatial kingdom,
therefore, centred on those acknowledging the leadership of a particular ‘royal’ family
and membership of a shared identity.
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 141

The relationship between a king and his people involved their support for him and
his protection of them. The king’s war-Â�band therefore lay at its heart. While this war-Â�
band would normally include near neighbours and kindred, it also contained men
with no connection to its leader’s tribe beyond service to him. Although most aspirant
kings probably had dependants within the tribal territory, this was clearly not neces-
sary. The West Saxon prince Cædwalla first emerged in the 680s as a claimant to royal
power while an exile in the Weald. There he assembled a force sufficient to invade the
land of the South Saxons and kill their king, then take over the West Saxons. Aspirant
royals often returned from exile to press their claims, with both internal and external
support but without current control of estates.
Kingship originated, therefore, out of the relationship between tribal communities
and successful war leaders, some of whom were able, from the late sixth century
onwards, to acquire a following, wealth and influence sufficient to give permanence to
the pre-�eminence which they or their predecessors had gained. It is surely those indi-
viduals, and their close families, who are represented in the south east by the increas-
ingly elaborate ‘princely burials’.
Such individuals were not constrained by their own tribal origins to limit their
claims on power and status. Rather, in a world characterised by small-�scale tribal elites,
a successful war-�leader may well have established his influence from the beginning
over several peoples, through family connections, patronage, negotiation, marriage,
the widespread recruitment of followers and/or intimidation. In fact, the classic state-
ment of kingship formation is one already alluded to, when Penda of the Mercians
created the kingship of the Middle Angles for his son out of a dozen or so small fenland
peoples. In this sense, we should not envisage kingship formation as a linear process in
which the ‘proto-Â�kings’ of small-Â�scale tribes fought local rivals to achieve larger
agglomerations. Instead, leading figures attained kingship through their ability to
negotiate protection and support both internally and externally; the coalescence of
contiguous tribal units was surely part of the process of kingship formation from the
beginning.
To take the East Anglian kingship as an example, the close proximity of the royal
palace site at Rendlesham to the boat burials at Snape and Sutton Hoo suggests an
early concentration of kingly power in south-�east Suffolk on the north bank of the
Deben river. The absence of any rival centres visible in the archaeology of the late sixth
and early seventh centuries suggests that this family networked effectively and recon-
ciled potential rivals from an early date. Similarly, the Kentish kingship originated in
East Kent, east of the Wantsum Channel. Its expansion westwards into West Kent,
Surrey and London is visible archaeologically in the spread of distinctive artefacts in
the later sixth century. Likewise, the Northumbrian kingship began at and around
Bamburgh, expanding through processes of patronage, cultural imperialism, military
conquest and intermarriage to take in the peoples of a territory at its greatest from Fife
to the Wash.
A key factor missing from this account of kingship formation is the notion of ‘over-
kingship’, or imperium as Bede put it. Although he sometimes made little distinction
between regnum (‘kingly rule’) and imperium (‘imperial rule’), Bede understood that
142 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

‘kingship’ was tiered and that some kings had influence or authority over others. The
West Saxons, for example, had not just one single king but numerous sub-�kings who
on occasion ruled without a superior leader, and ‘overkingship’ existed above this level
as well. In his famous list of imperium-�wielding kings in the Ecclesiastical History,
(II, 5), Bede named Æthelberht of Kent as the third to have wielded ‘overkingship’ over
the southern English. Æthelberht reigned probably from the 580s to c. 616, and he was
pre-Â�eminent by 596. Since Bede names Ælle of the South Saxons and Ceawlin of the
West Saxons before Æthelberht in this list, then ‘overkingship’ probably existed by the
560s, at least, so before ‘princely burials’ had entered the archaeological record.
‘Overkingship’ obviously cannot precede kingship. Still more challenging is the
comment of Procopius in the mid-�sixth century:

The island of Brittia is inhabited by three very numerous nations, each having one
king over it. And the names of these nations are Angili, Frissones and Brittones, the
last being named from the island itself.

One might just dismiss Procopius as an unreliable witness; he wrote in the distant
Eastern Empire and relied for his information on Frankish ambassadors to the impe-
rial court. That he included stories about the souls of the dead being shipped over from
Gaul clearly undermines his credibility, but these remarks are not so far distant from
those of Bede. Both imply that Anglo-Â�Saxon kingship began earlier than ‘princely
burials’. If so, then the new burial rite was perhaps reflective more of reactions to
Christianity than of the inception of kingship itself. In that case, Anglo-�Saxon king-
ship may have originated earlier than is sometimes supposed.
While it is inadvisable to push this evidence too far, Bede’s notice of imperium in
the late sixth century emphasises the transient nature of political power, for all those
whom Bede named were from different dynasties and kingdoms. Clearly, there was
nothing institutional about it, rather imperium shifted from one leader to another
according to military strength, reputation and the chances of warfare. There are other
aspects of kingship that come into play, for a fundamental part of ‘overkingship’ in the
seventh century was the management of relations between one people and another.
Penda’s army on his invasion of Northumbria in 642 consisted of 30 war-Â�bands led by
royal or noble lords, among them the rulers of client kingdoms. Acknowledging
another king’s leadership in war was, therefore, one manifestation of an unequal rela-
tionship between rulers. The payment of tribute and accepting guidance regarding
royal marriage were others. Lesser kings of the seventh century conceded power to
overlords in other ways as well, including the involvement of the superior in granting
estates, the protection of individuals (particularly exiles), and following their lead on
matters of religion. The separate recognition of the Spalda, for example, in the Tribal
Hidage, reflects less their avoidance of conflict with major kingdoms than their reten-
tion of the protection of successive ‘overkings’. War was a threat to local elites and
failure on the battlefield could have disastrous consequences, with those not killed
forced into exile. Some dynasties suffered violent deaths in successive generations. The
extreme case is the Northumbrian, in which Theobald (603), Æthelfrith (c. 616),
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 143

Edwin (633), Osric (634), Eanfrith (634), Oswald (642), Ælfwine (679) and Ecgfrith
(685) all died in battle, and additionally Hereric and Oswine were both assassinated;
only Oswiu (670) certainly died in his bed.
Royal genealogies and lists of kings provide another means of exploring the origins
of kingship. They survive in the work of Bede and in separate lists, at the earliest from
around 800. While the Kentish kings claimed descent from Hengest, supposedly the
leader of the Saxons in the mid-�fifth century, the claim appears to have been made
comparatively late; Oisc, reputedly Hengest’s son, was the figure from whom the
Kentish kings were named the Oiscingas, suggesting that he was earlier seen as
the founder. The Kentish list has three generations before Æthelberht which look
historical: his father Eormenric, grandfather Octa and great-�grandfather Oeric Oisc.
This dynasty’s roots could therefore date to the first half of the sixth century. Kent’s
close links with the Merovingian world may account for the early appearance of
kingship here.
Other lineages look fictional earlier than around 550: the Mercians claimed descent
from Icel, so called themselves Iclingas, but the historical threshold comes with Penda
son of Pybba, who lived in the first half of the seventh century. Their names proved
popular in place name
� formation in the south-�west Midlands, which suggests they
originated there. Bede identified Ida as the founder of the Bernician kingship, dating
his reign 547–59, and the East Anglian kings, the Wuffingas, claimed descent from
Wuffa, grandfather of the earliest East Anglian king known to history, Rædwald, who
died c. 624.
The names in sixth-�and seventh-�century sections of these genealogies are highly
heterogeneous: Eormenric suggests a borrowing from Gothic while Æthelberht and
the East Anglian Sigibert reflect Merovingian naming practices, though none is likely
to have had parents from either group. There are also British or Celtic names. These
include Cerdic, the founding figure of the West Saxon dynasty, other West Saxons
including Cædwalla, who died at Rome in 688, and Penda (d. 655) and his father,
Pybba, of the Mercians. Comparable British naming occurred in apparently noble
families referred to by Bede (as bishops Chad, Cedd and Tuda), reflecting the cross-�
cultural pattern of elite naming practices. Genealogies that have British names may
reflect the convergence of petty Celtic kingship and the protective role of an Anglo-�
Saxon warrior leader, perhaps through marriage.
There are dangers in this analysis, of course, since it rests on a conjunction of
archaeological evidence, which is contemporary but difficult to interpret, with written
comment which is predominantly later. But it does allow us to begin, at least, the
process of exploring how and when Anglo-�Saxon kingship emerged. While the picture
is far from clear, kingship seems generally to have originated in the sixth century,
particularly the middle decades. In Kent it was probably early and heavily influenced
from Francia. Elsewhere it grew out of changing relationships between the leaders of
successful war-�bands, the tribal communities to which they belonged, and local British
leaders with whom they interacted. But the idea of kingship clearly came from neigh-
bouring peoples who already lived under kings, including the Franks, the Eastern
Empire and Celtic neighbours.
144 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Kingship emerged within a fluid network of inter-tribal relationships, both equal

and unequal, through which some leaders were from an early date superior to others
and able to influence and/or coerce them in various ways. Just as wergild provided a
mechanism by which feuds could be avoided, so tribute payment, military service and
the acceptance of oversight in such areas as royal marriage and religious policy enabled
kings with very different resources to coexist. A complex system of kingship emerged,
therefore, which was multilayered and fluid. The outcome of a battle between two
powerful war-�bands might have effects on inter-tribal relationships across a consider-
able distance. Take, for example, the victory of Rædwald of the East Angles over
Æthelfrith of the Bernicians by the River Idle c. 616. This catapulted Rædwald into the
role of ‘overking’ across the south and replaced Bernician rule of the north with that of
his protégé Edwin of the Deirans, an exile for the previous decade.

The Elite and Material Culture

The emergence of kingship signalled the start of a shift away from earlier elite econo-
mies, which had been based primarily on portable wealth obtained as plunder to
maintain a following. Plunder remained significant, but kings and nobles required
more predictable sources of income. The migration period had been characterised by
the collapse of systematic land tax, although local ‘rents’ may well have continued.
Now kings reasserted their rights to a share of production and the labour of their
peoples. Royal courts were peripatetic, travelling on circuit around the kingdom and
eating produce as they went. Rural communities delivered food-�renders to estate
centres to support the court while it was resident, and constructed and maintained
high-�status sites, roads, bridges and enclosures.
As kings and nobles gained increasing control of sources of wealth, so the ceorl
class was slowly reduced in status, eventually becoming a peasantry; the word ‘ceorl’
began its long slide to the status of an un-Â�free peasant, a ‘churl’. By the later seventh
century, substantial estates in the hands of kings, nobles and, increasingly, religious
establishments, might have hundreds of dependent families owing renders and service,
as Bede noted of Selsey in Sussex, an estate given by the local king to Bishop Wilfrid.
A king such as Oswiu of the Northumbrians was rewarding his warriors with land,
probably to hold for life. Such kings were operating what was effectively a land bank
which enabled them to buy service from elite warriors, generation by generation, by
rewarding them on completion with an estate capable of supporting an honourable
lifestyle.
At the same time, royal oversight of routeways provided better security to travel-
lers, facilitating trade and exchange. The earliest known Anglo-�Saxon pottery industry,
centred on the Charnwood Forest area of Leicestershire, was in production before 600.
Smiths worked for high-�status patrons through whom they could access exotic mate-
rials, new manufacturing techniques and incoming styles. They produced their finest
work for the developing royal courts, as evidenced at Sutton Hoo.
By the early seventh century the first trading posts, forerunners of the later emporia,
were coming into existence in Kent – candidates are Dover, Fordwich, Sandwich and
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 145

Sarre. Imports arrived in part through trade, in part via elite social networks linking
England with the Continent. Clearly both individuals and artefacts travelled.
Assemblages characteristic of English manufacture have been found in graves in the
hinterland of Calais, in Lower Normandy and as far south as Herpès, near Cognac in
Charente. English slaves are noted on the Continent in Frankish sources, in stories
centred on Pope Gregory and in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History; other exports probably
included metals, woollen cloth and agricultural produce. As the resourcing of royal
households became increasingly stable, so opportunities for merchants became more
predictable. Anglo-�Saxons certainly shared in the maritime traffic on the seas around
Britain and were probably as responsible as others for contacts between eastern
England, Scandinavia, Frisia and Francia.
As early as c. 600, the Laws of King Æthelberht gave values for compensation
expressed in shillings. Continental coins had circulated in England throughout the
sixth century, even including small numbers of Byzantine pieces, but Anglo-�Saxon
gold coining only began in the Conversion period, initially in Kent. Given that insular
issues circulated alongside imported coins, royal control of minting seems to have
been lax, even non-�existent. However, attempts to conform to Continental standards
of weight and purity, and the finding of examples which had not been reused as
pendants, both suggest that these coins were intended as currency. Early designs
followed Merovingian styles, modelled ultimately on Roman, often with the imperial
bust on the obverse and a cross on the reverse. Coins in the Crondall Hoard
(Hampshire), deposited around 640, demonstrate artistic vigour and a cross-�over
between coining and other forms of metalworking at this date.
Gold coins were being minted at York in the late seventh century, but from the
670s onwards English dynasties responded to the Frankish switch from gold to silver
3.12 Selection of coins from
the Crondall Hoard, deposited
c. 640. The largest hoard of
early seventh-century
Anglo-Saxon coins so far
found, it illustrates the variety
and artistic quality of the coins
in circulation
 146 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

coining by producing their own silver penny, or sceatta coinages. The far greater quan-
tities than hitherto reflect the ease of access to silver, as opposed to gold.
Coin finds occur scattered across southern and eastern England but are particu-
larly numerous at the emporia (or wics), where some at least were minted. These
sprawling trading and manufacturing centres developed from the mid-� seventh
century. Hamwic on Southampton Water is perhaps the best known, but others lay at
Ipswich and on the western approaches of London at Aldwych (literally, ‘the old wic’).
All extended over 40–60 hectares. These emporia exhibit peak coin loss in the early
eighth century, which may indicate heightened trading activity. Hamwic was refounded
on a new site at this date, with a planned layout. This was a unique international
trading hub for the West Saxons, as were Ipswich for the East Angles and London for
the Thames basin – coming under the control variously of Kent, Essex, Mercia and the
West Saxons. On the Humber, coin finds imply a wic at North Ferriby by 700, but
Fishergate outside the walls of York was also beginning about then.
Away from the main wics, ‘productive sites’ characterised by significant coin loss
are also relevant to discussion of trade. Some were arguably elite residences or reli-

3.13 Wics, or emporia, and

‘productive sites’: large solid
circles signify the main trading
and manufacturing sites on
both sides of the Channel;
small hollow circles are
‘productive sites’, here only
mapped consistently for
England
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 147

gious sites which attracted both exchange and manufacturing, others may have been
markets or collecting points on trade networks emanating from the emporia. Bawsey
(Norfolk), Barham and Coddenham (Suffolk), Carisbrook (Isle of Wight) and
Flixborough (Lincolnshire) were all sites where exotic trade goods were in use: at
Flixborough, wheel-�thrown pottery from the Seine Valley and other burnished wares
from northern France and the Rhineland were present in the late seventh century, and
porpoise, dolphin and larger whale bones indicate marine resources reaching the site
via the lower Trent.
Trade was increasing by c. 700, encouraging new industries. The cooking vessels
and decorated pitchers termed ‘Ipswich Ware’ and fired near the modern city were
traded into East Anglia and around south-�east England, while stamped pitchers of the
same type travelled up the east coast. Traded items or goods reaching a consumer via
gift exchange could come thousands of kilometres. At his death Bede famously gifted
pepper, from southern India, and incense, from Arabia or the Horn of Africa, to his
fellow priests. Archaeological finds from similarly exotic locations include cowrie
shells from the Indian Ocean, silks from China and Byzantium, elephant and walrus
ivory, and metal vessels from Byzantium and the eastern Mediterranean.
The bulk of these goods presumably flowed through the emporia and commodities
were necessarily passing the other way as well. The number of loom weights found on
rural settlements may imply cloth production at near-�industrial levels. Many crafts
occurred at the wics, including comb manufacture using bone and antler. Metalworking
was recovering from its slump in the fifth century. The frequent finding of buckles,
strap ends and other mundane metal objects suggests that smiths were numerous.
Aside from manufactured goods, ores, slaves and agricultural produce of various kinds
could all have been exported from Anglo-�Saxon England to finance exotic imports.
Around 600, ‘Anglian’ and ‘Saxon’ regional styles in clothing and jewellery began to
give way across England to fashions which had developed in Kent under Frankish
influence. This took place when Kentish hegemony extended across much of southern

3.14 Ipswich Ware of the

mid-Anglo-Saxon period from
excavations in Canterbury,
demonstrating the coastal
trade in pottery from East
Anglia
 148 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.15 Brooches from a woman’s

grave in the Buckland (Dover)
cemetery. A pair of high-quality,
radiate-headed silver brooches
with garnet inlays, imported
from Francia, and a quatrefoil
brooch, with ivory inlay and
garnet set in a cloisonné cell,
over mercury-gilded, patterned
silver foil

England and may have been politically driven. Change embraced all of material goods,
styles of dress and funerary practices. Salin Style I metalwork gave way to Style II at
this point, distinguished by more fluid forms, delicate gold filigree and the use of
garnet, as seen to good effect at Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) and in the Staffordshire Hoard.
New cultural impulses came both from the old Roman Empire on the Continent and
insular traditions, such as the often beautifully ornamented, bronze hanging bowls
found in Anglo-�Saxon graves, particularly in the early seventh century. These derive
from Celtic traditions of metalworking, though where remains a mystery. Frankish
cultural influence on Kent and Sussex is well evidenced and occasional references in
Continental writings suggest that Frankish kings might on occasion have thought of
the peoples of the south east as their political dependants.
In the period 575–81 Bertha, daughter of the deceased Frankish king Charibert,
was married to Æthelberht of Kent when he was still only ‘the son of a certain king in
Kent’, as Gregory of Tours put it. The marriage was probably brokered by King
Chilperic, who dominated north-�west France between 574 and his death in 584 and
who would have been using the daughter of his deceased half-�brother to extend his
own influence across the Channel. Bertha was a member of the most powerful family
in western Europe, therefore this marriage would have helped the Kentish king to gain
‘overkingship’. Now, for the first time (as far as we know), a Christian had influence at
the heart of a powerful English kingship. Bertha brought with her a familiarity with
mechanisms for state-�building. In her entourage was a bishop. At this point we must
turn our attention away from issues of kingship and the elite economy to explore reli-
gious affiliation and the English Conversion to Christianity.
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 149

English Paganism
Archaeology provides little direct information regarding Anglo-�Saxon paganism.
Gold bracteates, which are concentrated in sixth-�century eastern Kent, may have been
associated with a northern Germanic religious cult; certainly they remind us of Kent’s
‘Jutish’ connection with Scandinavia. Some stamps cut into cinerary urns may be reli-
gious symbols, including the swastika, for example. There is a total absence so far in
England of the carved wooden idols found in Danish and German peat bogs, but small
metal figurines occasionally occur in cemeteries.
The lack of literacy before the Conversion to Christianity and distaste among
Christian writers thereafter for pagan practices mean that we know little about pre-�
Christian religion. Bede, in The Reckoning of Time, provides the traditional English
calendar of months: Eosturmonath (April) already contains the English name of Easter
and may indicate a goddess and/or seasonal festival; Blodmonath (November) signifies
the culling of livestock as winter approached; Giuli (both January and December)
recalls Yuletide; Bede also noted that the English New Year began on 25 December,
called Modranecht (‘night of the mothers’), implying that the winter solstice marked
the depths of winter, with the new year reflecting the lengthening days thereafter. In
English, days of the week retain the names of the gods Tiu (Tuesday), Wutan/Woden
(Wednesday) and Thunor (Thursday), and the goddess Freia (Friday), alongside the
Moon, Saturn and the Sun.
Anglo-�Saxon paganism encompassed a hierarchy of divine powers, from gods and
goddesses to elves, spirits and ghosts. Central was the desire to gain divine approba-
tion, or good luck – in Old English hál (giving us ‘hale’, ‘healthy’). Animal sacrifice was
used to earn divine favour, but references also to human sacrifice occur in the letters

3.16 Gold bracteates from

Buckland (Dover), used as
pendants in richly furnished
sixth-century women’s graves.
The bracteates were probably all
made in Kent but the Kentish
group are outliers of a
distribution otherwise centred
on Norway, Denmark, northern
Germany and southern Sweden.
In Kent, therefore, they reflect
Scandinavian, as opposed to
Frankish, connections; the use
of gold underlines their cultural
value
 150 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

of Sidonius Apollinaris; the display of King Oswald’s head and hands on stakes in
642 by the pagan king Penda could be interpreted similarly. Auspices were important,
with priests responsible for foretelling whether or not a proposed course of action
might be attended by good fortune. Some burials were accompanied by balls of crystal,
which were probably considered to have ‘magic’ power. Similarly, occasional female
burials, such as one excavated at Bidford-�on-�Avon (Warwickshire) dating from the
sixth century, were accompanied by numerous amulets of one kind or another, perhaps
for use in telling fortunes. The behaviour of birds was observed to predict events, as
noted both by Procopius and the anonymous author of the Whitby Life of Gregory.
Little has come down to us concerning pagan priests beyond their existence, but the
role was probably inherited, as it was in later Iceland. Bede’s comments on the Deiran
‘chief priest’, Coifi, imply that priests neither used weapons nor rode stallions. Both
taboos would have distinguished them from others of the elite.
While archaeologists have proposed several temple sites, only Yeavering has so far
been generally accepted. Temple building may well belong predominantly to the
Conversion period, appearing in reaction to churches. Germanic religion traditionally
favoured groves or woodland glades. Old English hearg, which appears in place names
as ‘harrow’ (hence Harrow-Â�on-Â�the Hill, Middlesex), is generally translated as ‘temple’.
‘Harrow’ names regularly occur at a distance from Roman roads and may represent

3.17 Place names relating to

possible pre-Christian temple
sites. Some hearg names may
reflect the presence of temples
specific to particular peoples or
communities, while the
distribution of weoh sites
implies that these were more
wayfarers’ shrines
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 151

tribal ritual sites, attendance at which may even to an extent have defined that people.
Recent research suggests that some ‘harrow’ place names identify sites connected with
Romano-�British and/or prehistoric rituals, throwing up the possibility that Anglo-�
Saxon paganism may be rooted in earlier cult practices, though this may have been
entirely coincidental. Old English weoh (‘idol’) also occurs in place names (as Wye,
Kent), probably indicating pagan sanctuaries. Since weoh names are commonly close
to a Roman road, they perhaps marked a different type of sacred place, accessible to
travellers and distinguished from hearg sites in terms of rites, participants and perhaps
the deities involved.
The names of gods also occur in place names, with Woden (as Wednesbury,
Staffordshire, and Woodnesborough, Kent) and Thunor (as Thundersley, Essex) the
commonest. Stories of the deeds of gods and heroes were an important part of pagan
culture and some proved long-�lived: scenes from a tale about the smith-�god, Wayland,
appear carved on the front panel of the whalebone Franks Casket, which is arguably of
late seventh-� century manufacture, perhaps in southern Northumbria. A scene
depicting the story of Wayland’s brother Egil decorates its only surviving lid panel.
Such scenes remind us that much that was pagan retained value and familiarity in
Conversion-�period England, providing a richness and depth to a newly Christianised
culture.
Gods were also invoked as a means of naming and interpreting the landscape, as
Wayland’s Smithy (a Neolithic long barrow on the Berkshire Downs), or Wansdyke
(literally ‘Woden’s dyke’). They were replaced in that role in the Christian era by the
Devil – as Devil’s Dyke (Cambridgeshire).
3.18 The Franks Casket, a
lidded rectangular box made of
whale bone carved in relief with
scenes from Roman, Jewish,
Christian and Germanic
traditions, accompanied by
carved texts in Old English and
Latin. This front panel features
both a composite scene (left),
representing the legend of
Weland the Smith and (right)
the Adoration of the Magi
 152 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.19 Devil’s Dyke, Newmarket.

The Dark Age dyke with the
highest bank and deepest
ditch in England, this was one
of a series cutting the Icknield
Way between East Anglia and
Middle Anglia. Clearly it was
named, perhaps re-named, in
the Christian era

Harrow (Middlesex) and Wednesbury (‘Woden’s fortress’) are both elevated sites
which later attracted Christian churches. At Harrow sufficient traces of early activity
have been found to justify interpretation as a pagan complex. The shrine mentioned by
Bede at Goodmanham on the Yorkshire Wolds could likewise have been on the site of
the later parish church. Pope Gregory’s letter to Bishop Mellitus while en route to
England in 601 urged that pagan sites be ritually purified and reused as churches, and
that is a possibility in such instances. However, pagan-�type names are commonest on
estate boundaries and only rarely associated with sites of later churches. Indeed, many
are only known from boundary clauses in later charters. Overall, place names that
refer to pagan religion are thinly scattered across southern and central England, east of
Dorset and predominantly south of a line from Lichfield to Ipswich. The distribution
correlates poorly with early Anglo-Â�Saxon burials – there are noticeable gaps in East
Anglia, East Yorkshire and the north east, and only a single example in Lincolnshire. It
seems most unlikely that surviving ‘pagan’ place names provide a reliable guide to the
distribution of shrines in, say, 600; rather, such names say more about patterns of
name-�survival, suggesting that names indicative of pagan practices were more likely to
survive on the margins, distant from mission stations.
Paganism centred not on faith but on rituals designed to bring benefits to the indi-
vidual or the community. Pagan sacred sites, intercession and priestly status were all
probably older than Anglo-�Saxon kingship, and traditional religion was embedded in
many aspects of Anglo-�Saxon life, including warfare, story-�telling, the assembly, legal
practice, medicine and the agricultural calendar. As kingly power developed, so
analogy with other convert societies encourages us to expect tensions between kings
and the priestly class. Conversion to Christianity offered kings influence over religious
affairs, with priests under their own protection and operating at sites of their own
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 153

choosing. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Christianisation of the English looks to have

been sponsored largely by kings.

Conversion to Christianity
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History dominates the English Conversion story. He wrote for his
own contemporaries, focusing initially (book I, 23–33) on Pope Gregory’s responsibility
for and efforts to support the Augustinian mission, quoting papal letters to England at
length. Augustine reached Kent in 597, rapidly baptised the king and was established
by him at Canterbury. Early success led to the foundation of further bishoprics at
Rochester and London. After the deaths of Gregory, Augustine and King Æthelberht
of Kent, however, the mission experienced difficulties. It was rescued by Paulinus’s
conversion of King Edwin of the Northumbrians, in the 620s, and from this point
Bede’s focus shifts northwards. Edwin’s death in 633 brought renewed crisis, but a new
style of Christianity was introduced by King Oswald in the mid-�630s from the
monastery of Iona where he had been in exile, leading to the foundation of Lindisfarne
as a monastery and bishop’s seat. This northern Irish/Scottish form of Christianity
then spread across Northumbria and central England, as far as Essex. The story of
Northumbria and the Scottish mission dominates Bede’s book III and he promoted the
memory of its heroes, particularly King Oswald and Bishop Aidan. He then tells how
the English Church was reunited under Canterbury through the actions of King Oswiu
of the Northumbrians at the Synod of Whitby in 664.
In the late 660s the elderly Greek Theodore was appointed by the papacy as leader
of the newly unified English Church, bringing with him another distinguished émigré,
the African Hadrian, as abbot of the monastery at Canterbury. There was a need to
unify and reorganise since the Church was in disarray. There were precious few bishops
in post and several dioceses were excessively large. Theodore imposed order, split
dioceses, clarified doctrine, and provided leadership to a Church which had
been divided since the 630s. In Bede’s view the early years of Theodore’s episcopacy
(668–90) were a golden age for both English Christianity and kingship, from which a
decline later occurred, marked most particularly by King Ecgfrith’s death in battle
against the Picts in 685. Bede was himself a child of this era (b. 672/3) and the twin
monasteries at which he resided were founded then, Monkwearmouth c. 673 by the
much travelled
� Northumbrian nobleman Benedict Biscop, a close associate of
Theodore and temporarily abbot at Canterbury, and Jarrow c. 681. Both were estab-
lished under the patronage of Ecgfrith, Northumbria’s fiercely Catholic king.
Bede had much invested, therefore, in the age of Theodore and so too had Abbot
Albinus at Canterbury, Bede’s principal informant regarding the Gregorian mission
and a graduate of Abbot Hadrian’s school there. Theodore’s rule led naturally to
renewed interest in Rome and the Gregorian mission among the English: Pope
Gregory’s earliest Life was composed in England at Whitby c. 700, his cult dissemi-
nated across England, and a growing trickle of English travellers found their way to
Rome, on business or as pilgrims. Stephen’s Life of Wilfrid, written shortly after
710, records his hero’s three trips to Rome and sets great store by the authority of the
 154 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

papacy. Bede’s work was, therefore, influenced by a considerable revival of interest

in Gregory and Rome since the 670s, as well as his own admiration for Gregory’s
writings.
However, Bede’s story of an English nation eager for conversion by Roman mission-
aries is both simplistic and overly optimistic. In fact, Augustine’s mission had lost the
little impetus it had ever had by c. 616, when King Æthelberht died and Bishops
Mellitus and Iustus withdrew from London and Rochester, leaving Canterbury isolated
and on the verge of failure. While the conversion of King Edwin’s court in the north
provided temporary relief, York also had to be abandoned c. 633, leaving just a deacon,
James, to care for Rome’s converts. Although Pope Honorius (d. 638) sent Bishop
Birinus to Britain as a missionary, this was independent of Canterbury. Papal interest
in the Kentish mission waned and communication with Rome collapsed between the
630s and 660s. The death in 653 of Archbishop Honorius, the last survivor of Gregory’s
missionaries, brought on what could easily have been the mission’s final crisis, with the
succession at Canterbury unresolved for eighteen months.
Recent scholars have questioned Bede’s focus on Rome for the English Conversion,
arguing for a greater Gaulish/Frankish contribution. Irish missionaries have also been
credited with more success as preachers than the Romans. Other voices have argued
for a British input. King Æthelberht’s preference for Roman missionaries may imply
that they were seen in Kent as less beholden to Frankish kings at a date when there was
a danger of subordination to Francia. The uniformity with which Gregory’s Romans
then monopolised episcopal authority at Canterbury suggests a deliberate policy, but
in practice even the papal missions had a strong Frankish element, and all should be
viewed against the ever-�shifting backdrop of Merovingian dynastic politics. The first
recorded bishop in Kent was the Frankish Liudhard, who reached Canterbury with

3.20 The west interior end wall

of St Martin’s Church,
Canterbury. According to Bede,
this was used by Bertha and
her bishop prior to Augustine’s
arrival. Bede asserted that the
church dated back to Roman
Britain and the architecture
parallels known buildings from
that period. Additionally, its
location outside the walls may
indicate a Late Antique
extramural church
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 155

Æthelberht’s bride, Bertha, probably in the period 575–81. Liudhard’s name appears
on a gold medalet recovered from the vicinity of St Martin’s at Canterbury, where Bede
tells us that he ministered to his flock. The church dedication reflects Bertha’s
close association with Tours. That a bishop accompanied the princess implies the
intention to baptise. His letter to her demonstrates that Pope Gregory viewed Bertha
as capable of furthering the mission, but her advocacy of Christianity surely pre-�dated
Augustine’s arrival.
When it did come, Gregory’s mission was a collaborative venture undertaken in
partnership with one branch of the Merovingian royal house working against another.
The sudden and unexpected death of Gregory’s ally, the powerful King Childeberht,
precipitated Augustine’s return to Rome in 596. Sent back with new letters of introduc-
tion, Augustine engaged Childerberht’s mother, Brunhild, and his heirs, the boy-Â�kings
Theudeberht and Theuderic, as allies and recruited Frankish clergy to aid him, later
returning to Francia to be consecrated. Gregory’s remark in a letter to Alexandria in
598 that 10,000 of the English had been baptised the previous Christmas suggests that
Æthelberht and the Kentish elite had accepted Christianity within months of
Augustine’s arrival. In that case the king was very much behind the conversion process.
Little more seems to have occurred, however, beyond the baptism of Æthelberht’s
nephew, Saberht of the East Saxons, until Theudeberht and Theuderic defeated their
rival Clothar in 600 and took over Gaul’s Atlantic coast. With the balance of power in
Francia overturned, the Canterbury mission sent back to Rome in 601 for the priests,
books and vestments which would enable expansion outside eastern Kent. Churches
and bishoprics were established at Rochester and London, but the baptism of King
Rædwald proved less successful, with the East Anglian king reverting to paganism on
his return home. By 605, relations between Theudeberht and Theuderic were deterio-
rating and open warfare broke out in 610, leading to both their deaths. This enabled
Clothar II to secure the throne of a newly reunited Francia. That senior figures from
the Canterbury mission attended his Church Council at Paris in 614 indicates that
Æthelberht was keen for reconciliation with the new Frankish superpower. Francia
loomed large, therefore, in the early history of the Church at Canterbury, and Frankish
dynastic politics were a major factor affecting even papal missions.
Frankish interest was not confined to Kent, for Continental missionaries spear-
headed the conversion of the East Angles around 630, then that of the West Saxons.
The senior representative of the Roman Church at the Synod of Whitby in 664 was the
Frankish Agilbert, recently bishop of the West Saxons and soon to be bishop of Paris.
Employing missionaries direct from overseas allowed kings greater independence
than working through the metropolitan. Although it was always Catholic, West Saxon
Christianity in particular displayed considerable independence. The desire to harness
alternative sources of divine authority encouraged Oswald and the Bernicians to adopt
Scottish Christianity from Iona in the 630s, in opposition to King Edwin’s recent
patronage of Roman missionaries and the continuing paganism of the Mercians. There
were Irish foundations in other parts of England, including a monastery established by
Fursa in East Anglia and the small house of Irish brethren noted by Bede at Bosham in
West Sussex.
156 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The whole issue of a British input is more contentious, particularly since Bede
denied it so vigorously in the Ecclesiastical History (I, 22):

To other abominable wickedness which their historian Gildas lamented in a sermon

they [the Britons] added this that they never preached the faith to the Saxons or
Angles who inhabited Britain with themâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.

In the West Midlands, however, the lack of an English Conversion story and the combi-
nation of a dominance of English place names alongside a scarcity of pre-�Christian
burials suggest a different story. Here the Britons may well have converted incoming
Angles, allowing elements of the pre-�existing British Church to survive. In reality,
many ‘Anglo-Â�Saxons’ in the west and north were probably in origin British Christians.
The Scottish mission, which established itself throughout Northumbria and Mercia,
would have had no difficulty accepting such groups as Christians. In the later seventh
century, however, Theodore presided over a Catholic Church that treated both Britons
and Scots as heretics. Its adherents stamped out the British Church wherever they
could. In so doing they were probably responsible for a dramatic rise in Anglicisation,
as Britons became far less easy to distinguish from Anglo-�Saxons.
Prior to this religious cleansing, a substantial indigenous contribution to English
Christianity is likely, particularly in western Britain, from Galloway, where the British
church at Whithorn became an Anglo-� Saxon episcopal church, via Cumbria,
Lancashire and the Welsh marcher counties down to Somerset, Dorset and Devon. A
very few Celtic church dedications remain, as St Elphin’s at Warrington. Even in
eastern England a few British Christian centres survived down to the seventh and
eighth centuries. Bede believed that the cult of St Alban had a continuous history of
miracles from the Roman period through to his own time. Pope Gregory referred in a
letter in 601 to the pre-�existing, so presumably British, cult of St Sixtus, and that same
letter addressed issues which imply that Augustine had contact with British Christians.
Eccles place names (from Latin ecclesia ‘church’ via Celtic eglwys) probably reflect the
presence of British churches, and archaeological evidence from such sites as Lincoln
suggest a Christian cult lasting into the sixth century, at least. Catholic writers had
every reason to overlook the British origins of some English church sites, so this
evidence is all the more convincing. There is a case for British Christianity having
survived comparatively well to the seventh century in western and northern England,
and in pockets, at least, even in the east and south.
What attracted English kings to Christianity in the late sixth and seventh centuries
was clearly not its British-�ness, since Britons were considered subordinate in Anglo-�
Saxon society. Rather, it seems to have been the political utility of Christianity, plus a
new interest in and desire for Romanitas. Church foundation and burial in Christian
cemeteries were taking place in Francia in the late sixth century and reached England
early in the seventh. Conversion, however, offered further advantages to kings beyond
the cultural or religious. The presence of strangely dressed and spoken religious profes-
sionals with exotic patterns of behaviour and equipped with books, wine and oil
offered a new dimension to a royal court and distinction to its king.
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 157

Christianity was, first and foremost, a religion of the book. The Old Testament
presented a style of kingship which was divinely ordained and quasi-�sacral, while the
imperial government of the New Testament had law-�making and tax-�raising powers.
Patronage of a literate clergy enabled kings to claim law-�enacting powers, encode what
had hitherto been traditional laws, and introduce changes commensurate with the
growing authority of kingship. The missionaries wrestled with the difficulty of repre-
senting the unfamiliar sounds of Old English in an alphabet adapted to Latin, but
somehow they succeeded. Although only extant in a twelfth-Â�century manuscript – the
Textus Roffensis (‘Rochester text’) – Æthelberht’s law code is the earliest surviving
document in English, written down while Augustine was still alive.
Letters made it possible for a king to communicate at a distance, and monastic
foundation provided a means of establishing a permanent royal presence in contested
territories. Christianity ensured that identical religious rituals would be replicated at
all churches throughout the kingdom, with prayers said for the king. In key ways,
therefore, Conversion restructured religious life around the royal family.
Christianity also provided rituals capable of underwriting unequal relationships
within the elite, to the benefit of powerful kings. For example, King Oswald acted as
godfather at the baptism of the West Saxon King Cynegils, whose daughter he had just
married, thereby underlining his superior status. Æthelberht probably had a compa-
rable role when King Rædwald was baptised at the Kentish court, and this was certainly
the position taken by Oswiu at the baptisms of several subordinate kings conducted
deep inside Northumbria. Oswiu also used monastic foundation as expiation of his
responsibility for the murder of a kinsman, King Oswine of the Deiri, and to elicit
divine aid before battle against Penda of the Mercians in 655.
That kings and their advisors were consciously engaged in rethinking Britain as a
Roman space was suggested above. That impulse finds echoes in Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History, which offers a Roman Britain with obvious debts to Anglo-�Saxon England.
His presentation of the English as if latter-�day Romans is particularly noticeable in the
context of their respective relations with the Britons but is never quite explicit. Such
impulses connect with royal pretensions to imperial status. Bede actually described
Æthelberht’s law code as written ‘after the Roman manner’, despite it having little
particularly ‘Roman’ about it beyond being written down. The ship burial under
mound I at Sutton Hoo included an object sometimes interpreted as a standard and
another that resembles a sceptre, the style of which owes much to Celtic work. When
referring to King Edwin of Northumbria, Bede wrote:

So great was his majesty in his realm that not only were banners carried before him in
battle, but even in time of peace riding between his cities, rural estates and provinces
with his thegns a standard-�bearer would always precede him, when walking anywhere
through public open spaces the type of standard which the Romans call a tufa and the
English a thuuf would be carried before him.

Kings were, it seems, reinventing themselves in terms of their understanding of Roman

political culture. Such strategies proved comparatively successful across the seventh
 158 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

century, allowing the greater kings both to distinguish themselves from their own
tribal elites and to pressurise and slowly extinguish lesser kingships. The declining
ability of the kings of the Hwicce to grant land without Mercian approval provides one
of the better documented examples of this process.
The establishment of dioceses in subordinate kingdoms enabled powerful rulers to
3.21 Stone sceptre or place individuals on whose loyalty they could rely in kingdoms ruled by powerful sub-�
ceremonial whetstone found in kings. Æthelberht achieved this at London, and the establishment of a bishop at
the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo
in 1939. The apex of the stone
Rochester put in place an agent through whom he could oversee the more distant and
has human masks, all slightly recently acquired parts of his own territory. Oswiu later achieved something similar on
different, on each of its four a larger scale through bishops appointed under his protection for the East Saxons,
faces, perhaps signifying Middle Angles and Mercians.
universal authority as befitting
Within their own kingdoms, church and monastic foundations provided opportu-
an ‘overking’. Above, an iron
ring surmounts the stone, on nities for kings to establish new institutional foci of royal authority, around which to
which a bronze stag is set. An reorientate local society. By the late seventh century, numerous families, both royal
enigmatic object, the sceptre and noble, were investing in family monasteries, often vesting authority in female kin.
seems emblematic of power Whitby is a prime example, ruled successively by female members of the Northumbrian
and may have mythic or
religious connotations. The
royal family from its foundation in the 650s into the early eighth century. Many such
style suggests Celtic sites were intended as places of elite burial, for Oswiu in this instance though King
influences Edwin’s remains were also reinterred there. The monastery at Canterbury became a
mausoleum for the Kentish kings, but in many kingdoms individuals established their
own foundation, generating numerous royal churches linked to different branches of
the royal family.
Conversion to Christianity therefore provided a new institutional frame-
work which offered cohesion to kingdoms, opportunities for powerful kings
to influence the less powerful, and novel mechanisms for elite patronage.
Oswiu followed the Continental precedent, presiding in person over a
church council in 664, the Synod of Whitby. It was Christianity, above all
else, that enabled powerful kings to establish themselves across the seventh
century and to institutionalise their own pre-Â�eminence. After Penda’s death
in 655, Northumbrian and Mercian ‘overkings’ vied for influence over the
Church and for power over neighbouring communities. Despite the initial
advantage going to Oswiu and his son Ecgfrith, the Mercians emerged as the
more powerful in the 680s. By the end of the seventh century, influence was
unevenly divided between them, with the Mercians dominant south of the
Humber and the Northumbrians to the north.
Conversion also brought opportunities to other sections of the elite.
Christianity offered an alternative career to that of warrior which might lead
to a position of high status, wealth and even political power – such as
Cuthbert and Wilfrid both enjoyed. Some noble families clearly saw the
Church as their preferred means of advancement. For individuals, entry to a
monastery or nunnery provided an opportunity to avoid marriage or diffi-
cult political circumstances, or to retire from family commitments in later
life. Senior clergy, including Bishop John of Hexham and York and Bishop
Earconwald of London, often founded monasteries (in John’s case Beverley)
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 159

to which they retired, having laid aside episcopal responsibilities. Earconwald, who
may have been a member of the East Saxon royal dynasty, founded a house for himself,
at Chertsey (Surrey) where he was abbot until elevated to the episcopacy, and another
for his sister, Æthelburh, at Barking (Essex). Most inmates of such foundations seem
to have come from the secular elite; Earconwald himself was clearly a member of a
very wealthy family.
Patronage of the Church was, however, expensive. While warriors expected main-
tenance at court, prestige objects and ultimately grants of land for life, part at least of
these resources eventually reverted to the Crown at their death. Additionally, the
support of an armed following generally encouraged the inflow of wealth to royal
coffers. In contrast, the foundation of churches and monasteries required the perma-
nent alienation of land as well as treasure to fund the necessary buildings, books, vest-
ments, wine and oil, and support the community. Estates granted to the Church were
measured in hides, so in units of productive land capable of supporting a household of
free status.
Grants could be large: Bede said of Æthelberht that

he gave many gifts to the bishops of each of these churches [London and Rochester]
and that of Canterbury and he also added both lands and possessions for the main-
tenance of the bishops’ retinues.

In 655, Oswiu gave land to found 12 monasteries, each with 10 hides, in thanks for his
victory over Penda; Cædwalla of the West Saxons promised Wilfrid a quarter of the
Isle of Wight, valued at 300 hides, and a quarter of the spoils of his war of conquest.
The Penitential attributed to Theodore stipulated that a third of plunder should come
to the Church. Great monasteries, such as Monkwearmouth (Sunderland), were
endowed with scores of hides, were the recipients of numerous gifts and supported
hundreds of brethren. Although other sections of elite society founded monasteries
from the later seventh century, the earliest houses were the responsibility of kings, who
provided a degree of stability for their new foundations by having records made of
their land-Â�grants in the form of the charter. This ‘booked’ land to the Church, creating
‘book-Â�land’ which was exempt from traditional inheritance practices.
The speed of conversion has occasioned considerable debate. Bede wrote as if
baptism of the king and his immediate associates equated with the Christianisation of
an entire people, but the last pagan Anglo-Â�Saxon king – Cædwalla of the West Saxons
– only received baptism, at Rome, in 688. In reality royal baptisms only started the
process and Christianisation of the rest of society may have taken generations. The
active suppression of paganism seems only to have begun late in the seventh century,
and monastic foundation on a large scale likewise only took off about then. Assessing
progress is problematic and the results are not entirely consistent. Clearly the Church
was wealthy by the early eighth century, but Bede considered that this had come at a
cost and the quality of its personnel and practices was at risk.
One measure is the length of time before the English Church was self-�sustaining.
The foundation of schools to train clergy was an essential aspect of establishing
160 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Christianity. Augustine presumably founded one at Canterbury and Bede tells us that
Felix did so in East Anglia in the 630s, but there is little evidence that either prospered.
Ithamar, at Rochester (Kent), is often seen as the first bishop to have been trained in
England, but his Old Testament name is typical of British practices, not Roman, so he
may have been British trained. Another candidate is Thomas, Felix’s deacon and then
his successor as bishop of the East Angles in the late 640s. He had probably served
what amounted to a clerical apprenticeship combined with attendance at Felix’s school.
The West Saxon, Deusdedit, was the first English archbishop of Canterbury, in 655.
Wigheard, one of Deusdedit’s clerics, was despatched to Rome in 664 for consecration
and was considered by Bede well fitted to be archbishop at Canterbury, but he died
in Italy.
In the north such figures as Cuthbert were educated in the Scottish monastic tradi-
tion and many travelled to Ireland to further their education, while Wilfrid and
Benedict Biscop went to Gaul and Rome. Southern English training only really took
off in the 670s under Abbot Hadrian’s oversight at Canterbury. It is the scholarship of
such figures as Aldhelm (d. 709/10), abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne,
and Bishop Wilfrid (634–710), that attracted Bede’s praise. It was this generation and
the next, with such figures as Bede himself, Abbot Ceolfrith of Monkwearmouth/
Jarrow (d. 716) and Bishop Tobias of Rochester (d. 726), that permanently established
Christian learning among the English.
Clearly, Monkwearmouth/Jarrow lay at the forefront of the new English learning,
with its magnificent library and Bede’s own vast output of exegesis and school books.
The making of three massive Bibles under Abbot Ceolfrith’s direction perhaps
marks this progress most clearly. One, the Codex Amiatinus, survives at Florence. Its
2,060 pages, made from parchment processed from around 1,550 calf hides, are a
monument to the wealth at Ceolfrith’s disposal, the scale of literary production of
which the greatest Anglo-�Saxon monasteries were by then capable, and the skills of its
scribes. Other magnificently illustrated books were made elsewhere, including the
Durham, Echternach and Lindisfarne Gospels, all of which arguably date from the late
seventh or early eighth centuries. According to an interlinear gloss added when they
were at Chester-�le-�Street around 970, Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne from 698, was
the author of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Even at lesser monastic sites, literacy was probably widespread in the early eighth
century, but the production of large-�scale and highly ornamented texts was centred on
very few houses. Except for a small minority of individuals, such as King Aldfrith of
the Northumbrians (685–707) who had trained in Ireland for a career in the Church,
neither reading nor writing is likely to have spread very far within secular society.
However, the monastic community was substantial by the early eighth century.
Although there were clearly illiterate monks, particularly those who took vows late in
life, literate clerks were numerous and their skills well understood. Additionally, such
bishops as Wilfrid also educated the children of the elite in their own households.
Some houses were double foundations in which communities of monks and nuns both
resided, including Whitby and Coldingham in Northumbria and Barking in Essex.
Some nuns were literate, corresponding with Bede, for example, and the Anglo-�Saxon
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 161

3.22 Front cover of the

Lindisfarne Gospels. This
sumptuously illustrated Gospel
Book, written c. 690-721, was
originally bound in richly
decorated and bejewelled
leather but the binding was
lost in the Viking Age. This
replica, made in the mid-
nineteenth century, probably
gives a realistic impression of
its original splendour

missionaries in Germany; the erudite abbot (later bishop) Aldhelm addressed letters
to communities of nuns.
Sculpture offered another form of literacy, not just via inscriptions but also through
relief sculpture used to convey religious ideas and motifs, often brightly painted. The
inception belongs to the second half of the seventh century, with such figures as Bishop
Wilfrid introducing carved ornamentation of a type he had encountered on the
Continent to his magnificent new churches at Hexham and Ripon. Scenes from the
Bible, portraits of the saints and various styles of ornamentation proliferated, some-
times resulting in works of considerable sophistication, carrying subtle Christian
messages. The cross shafts at Ruthwell (Dumfries) and Bewcastle (Cumbria) offer
sophisticated examples which were very much in tune with contemporary liturgy at
the start of the eighth century.
Written evidence that pagan practices survived the Conversion is not substantial,
though this may be due as much to bias as to anything else. Evidence of apostasy
suggests continuing knowledge of and respect for paganism in some regions. King
Ealdwulf of the East Angles (d. 713) reputedly used to recall seeing Rædwald’s pagan
temple still standing when he was a boy, suggesting that this was a substantial building
through the 630s and 640s. Bede remarked in his Life of Cuthbert that many still took
refuge in incantations and amulets to ward off the plague while his hero was active (d.
687). In the Ecclesiastical History he noted that some of the East Saxons restored dere-
lict temples in the 670s for similar reasons. Severe epidemics in the 660s and 680s
clearly posed considerable challenges to society to which neither religion had effective
answers, despite the various efforts made to write miracle cures into several hagiogra-
phies. Bishop Daniel of the West Saxons wrote to Boniface in Germany proffering
 162 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3.23 The Bewcastle Cross. At

4.4 metres high, this
incomplete cross shaft is one
of the finest pieces of
pre-Viking Age Northumbrian
sculpture. The west face, here,
shows relief panels featuring
(from top) St John the Baptist,
Christ treading the beasts, and
St John the Evangelist, with his
eagle. Runic inscriptions
appear on three sides and
seem to commemorate kings
Ecgfrith (d. 685) and Aldfrith
(d. 705), suggesting that the
cross was carved and erected
no earlier than c. 710–30

advice on how best to persuade pagans to accept Christianity in terms which suggest
that he was practised in the art as late as the 720s. Written evidence for pagan practices
comes from the Penitential attributed to Archbishop Theodore, written after his death
in 690, although section I, 15, headed ‘Of the Worship of Idols’, is very short:

1. He who sacrifices to demons in trivial matters shall do a year’s penance, but in

serious matters ten years’ penance.
2. If any woman puts her daughter on the roof or into an oven to cure a fever, she
shall do seven years’ penance.
3. He who causes cereals to be burned where a man has died, for the health of the
living and the house, shall do five years’ penance.
4. If a woman performs diabolical incantations or divinations, she shall do a year’s
penance or the three forty-� day periods, or forty days according to the
offenceâ•‹.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.
5. In the case of one who eats food that has been sacrificed and later confesses, the
priest should consider the person, his age, how he had been brought up and
how it had happened. So also the priestly authority shall be modified in the case
of a sick person.â•‹.â•‹.â•‹.

Some of these practices had little religious significance but were perhaps alien to
Theodore and so interpreted as pagan survivals. Others are unmistakeable. Overall,
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 163

they imply that pagan rites retained a following but were increasingly associated with
the elderly, who had been pagans from birth. Others were healing rites practised by
women, who may have felt excluded by the male-�centred nature of ritual within
Christianity, which cut across the ‘cunning-Â�woman’ role that is evidenced occasionally
in pre-�Conversion burials. While mixed houses and nunneries offered positions of
power and influence to a minority of well-�connected women, all were excluded from
priestly functions. Furnished burial shows a female bias in the later seventh and early
eighth centuries, perhaps for similar reasons.
Contrasting the law code of Æthelberht (c. 600) with that of Wihtred (695) illus-
trates the extent to which Kentish kings embraced Christianity by the close of the
seventh century. While the earlier code merely fitted the clergy into the existing
compensation system, a century later we find pagan sacrifice prohibited, the enforce-
ment of Christian marriage and the Sabbath, and a ban on eating meat during
prescribed fasts. By the end of the seventh century, therefore, parts at least of England
were well on their way to becoming a Christian land.

Conversion-�Period England: A Conclusion

Across the later sixth, seventh and early eighth centuries, Anglo-�Saxon society was
transformed. The tribalism implicit in mid-�sixth-�century burials proved incapable of
accommodating growing inequalities of wealth, status and power. Cremation gave way
to inhumation across the period and the inhumation rite became more variable. ‘Final
Phase’ burials appear, provided with very few grave goods and often in a new
cemetery. In the south east ‘princely burials’ in the very late sixth and early seventh
centuries reflect the emergence of new social hierarchies and the rise of kingship; they
also probably reflect opposition to Christianity. That opposition died away thereafter
and progressively the elite abandoned traditional burial rites in favour of church-�
centred inhumation with ever fewer grave goods, while the remainder of the
population increasingly used field cemeteries. Richly furnished inhumations are rare
by the late seventh century, and many, like the female bed-�burial at Trumpington
(Cambridgeshire), are accompanied by Christian symbols, in this case a pendant
cross. By 730 this transformation was virtually complete, with no more than an occa-
sional scatter of furnished burials thereafter until the Viking Age. The rise of kingship
was accompanied by significant cultural change which reflected a shift away from
Scandinavian influence in favour of Francia and the Eastern Empire, combined with a
growing reinvestment in the insular Roman heritage. Fashions in dress, styles of orna-
mentation and of metalwork were all affected.
Under Frankish influence, coining in gold revived in the seventh century, spreading
outwards from Kent alongside the Conversion, with larger-�scale minting of silver
pennies in evidence from c. 675. From the later seventh century, new emporia or
wics gave access to external trade and became important centres of small-�scale
manufacturing, minting and crafts. In the south and east smaller ‘productive
sites’ developed in their hinterlands, as centres of consumption, production and/or
dissemination.
164 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Alongside these developments, missionaries from Italy, Francia, the Britons and
Scottish Dál Riata introduced Christianity to the Anglo-Â�Saxons, converting all the
English courts by the close of the 680s and establishing literacy, a bookish set of rituals,
new forms of record-�keeping and a political ideology which embraced kingship. Kings,
and particularly powerful kings, sponsored the mission and supported it with substan-
tial grants of land and material wealth, gaining in return a valuable set of state-�forming
mechanisms. The development of kingship and the process of Conversion went hand
in hand.
We began this chapter with the Anglo-� Saxon community as pagan. By the
730s paganism was extinguished as a separate cultural force, if not entirely dead, and
Christianity was firmly established, with growing numbers of monastic houses and
churches and a sufficient flow of educated clerics to maintain an English Church. The
Romanists had won the contest with Iona, secured the framework of a Christian
Church in England and even persuaded Iona to adopt Roman practices. It would be
false to suppose that Christianity had swept away all aspects of paganism, but it had
become the dominant intellectual paradigm, affecting how the Anglo-�Saxons saw
themselves, their past, their future and their role on earth.
A single archbishop presided over the English Church from 669 until the archbish-
opric at York was recreated in 735. Theodore began the task of breaking up the massive
early dioceses, so that Mercia and Northumbria both had as many as four bishops and
the West Saxons and East Angles two each, though pre-�existing tribal groupings clearly
influenced these dioceses. This chapter ends, therefore, with the Anglo-� Saxons
Christian and organised under kings. While there had been perhaps
30 or 40 small-�scale tribal kingships when the Tribal Hidage was written, by the 730s
the more powerful kings had successfully reduced this to perhaps seven, converting
many smaller communities to provinces in their own extended kingdoms. By the
standards of Francia, even the greatest Anglo-�Saxon kingships appear small; the contest
for supremacy between Mercia and Northumbria across the seventh century had
brought neither total success. The most powerful kingships were Northumbria, which
dominated northern England and southern Scotland but had failed in its bid to conquer
the entirety of Scotland, and Mercia, which dominated central England. Wessex
remained Mercia’s largest rival in the south but the East Angles, East Saxons, Kentings
and South Saxons still retained separate kingships, even when tributary to the Mercians.
State-�formation had not kept up with cultural or religious contexts in terms of the
creation of an English people. Reference to the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians tends
to emphasise regional identities. Tribes seem to have formed at the local level, despite
a common ‘English’ language which had only dialectical differences between regions.
The increasing homogeneity of burial rituals and artefact assemblages implies a
growing sense of ‘English’ identity across the seventh century. By the close of the
century, a universal religious framework and the rhetoric of the ecclesia Anglorum –
the ‘Church of the English’ – provided a stronger sense of Englishness than hitherto. In
particular, the collapse of the British Church throughout English-�dominated areas
removed the last major barrier to integration and the British become ever harder to
identify within England, becoming absorbed into English society. A sense of collective
 f r o m t r i ba l c h i e f ta i n s t o c h r i s t i a n k i n g s 165

3.24 Chapel of St Lawrence,

Bradford-on-Avon. Reputedly
founded by St Aldhelm early in
the eighth century, the chapel
was only re-discovered in the
mid-nineteenth century. While
we cannot be certain, the small
nave and chancel may well be
largely original

English-�ness was growing, therefore, but even so identity was layered and important
loyalties remained local and/or regional. Despite their collective Christianity, the
political classes do seem to have divided very much along the lines of the major king-
ships. Bede’s unwillingness to include information from Mercia demonstrates the gulf
that separated Northumbrians from their southern neighbours, despite their common
adherence to a single Church.
 sources and issues 3a

the venerable bede

martin j. ryan

Lo, the mouth of Britain, which once only knew how to gnash its barbarous teeth, has
long since learned to sing the praises of God with the alleluia of the Hebrews.

The Northumbrian monk Bede (c. 673–735) took these lines from Gregory the Great’s
Morals on the Book of Job to refer to the conversion of the Anglo-�Saxons initiated by
Augustine. Whether or not this is what Gregory meant by his words – and it seems
unlikely – they reflect the common medieval motif of the transformative and civilising
power of Christianity spreading to the farthest and most barbarous regions of the
Earth.
There can be no better microcosm of this process than Bede himself. His grand-
parents would most likely have been pagans, perhaps converting to Christianity as
adults, and Bede would have been 12 or 13 when the final Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms
embraced Christianity. His life was spent in the north east
� of England, far distant from
the great Christian centres of the world. Yet Bede became – and remains – a towering
figure in the Christian tradition. He is now best known for his Ecclesiastical History of
the English People (c. 731), a work that is the paramount source for Anglo-�Saxon
history of the seventh and early eighth centuries, but his scholarly output was far
broader, encompassing biblical commentary (exegesis), orthography, figures of speech
and tropes, metrics, geography, cosmography, poetry, the reckoning of time and
hagiography.
Even during his own lifetime, Bede’s learning and expertise were recognised, and
his works were in considerable demand within a few years of his death. Manuscripts
soon began circulating on the Continent; Anglo-�Saxon missionaries to northern
Europe wrote to religious houses in Northumbria requesting copies of Bede’s writings
and by the beginning of the ninth century he was being cited by Carolingian authors
as an authority on a par with the Church Fathers.
One of the earliest surviving copies of the Ecclesiastical History, the ‘Moore Bede’
(Cambridge University Library Kk. 5.16), was for a time held by the court library of
Charlemagne, perhaps brought there by Alcuin, a graduate of the cathedral school at
York. Further copies of the History and other of Bede’s works found readers in many
of the monastic and cathedral libraries across Francia, as witnessed by surviving
 sources and issues: the venerable bede 167

manuscripts and book-� lists. In England, the Ecclesiastical

History was translated and adapted into Old English in the late
ninth century, perhaps by a Mercian with connections to King
Alfred’s court, and was also one of the sources used by the
compilers of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle for the period up to
731.
Bede’s reputation continued to grow throughout the
Middle Ages. Anglo-�Norman historians in the twelfth century,
such as William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon,
explicitly took Bede as their model and presented themselves
as restarting and reinvigorating the tradition of historical
writing that he had initiated. Likewise, the central work of
biblical commentary in the high and later Middle Ages, the
so-�called Glossa ordinaria or Ordinary Gloss, drew extensively
on Bede’s exegesis, as did St Thomas Aquinas’s Catena aurea or
Golden Chain, a collection of Patristic and medieval commen-
tary on the four Gospels. Such was Bede’s reputation that
Dante even featured him in his Paradiso – the only Englishman
included.
Despite Bede’s importance, relatively little is known about
his life and the majority of the information that survives comes
from his own writings. He closed his Ecclesiastical History with
a short autobiographical statement, describing himself as ‘servant of Christ and priest 3a.1 St Paul’s Church, Jarrow.
in the monastery of St Peter and St Paul which is at Wearmouth and Jarrow’, and The tower is Norman, but the
recounting how at the age of seven he was placed in the monastery by his kinsmen. He chancel is substantially that of
the seventh-century monastic
describes how he subsequently spent the rest of his life there, studying the Scriptures,
church
performing the liturgy, and delighting in the opportunities given to him to learn, to
teach and to write. He became a deacon at 19 – a young age and perhaps an early
acknowledgement of his abilities – and a priest at the canonical age of 30. Bede
appended to this autobiography a list of the books he had written, running to well over
thirty entries, implying that it was as an author and teacher that he wished to be
remembered.
The circumstances of Bede’s death, on 26 May 735, are recorded in a letter by his
pupil Cuthbert, later abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, to an otherwise unknown
Cuthwin. According to the letter, Bede spent his final days praying and teaching,
dictating a translation of the Gospel of St John and making extracts from a work by
Isidore of Seville. Shortly before his death, he distributed among his brethren some of
his possessions, namely pepper (a high-�status commodity), incense and liturgical
cloths.
The monastic community of which he was a part is in many ways better docu-
mented than Bede himself. The twin-�sited monastery of Wearmouth-�Jarrow is known
through Bede’s own writings – particularly his History of the Abbots of Wearmouth and
Jarrow – and an anonymous biography of one of the abbots, Ceolfrith, probably
produced in the second decade of the eighth century.
168 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

There survives considerable Anglo-� Saxon fabric in the churches currently

standing on the two sites and, in addition, archaeological excavation has revealed
much about the layout of the two monasteries and the kinds of activity that
took place there. Decorative details such as the stained glass windows, the red-
�brick floors and the turned balusters, as well as the layout and arrangements of the
buildings, all speak of monastic architects and craftsmen consciously emulating
Roman models.
Wearmouth-�Jarrow was in many respects atypical of Anglo-�Saxon monasteries. Its
founder, the Northumbrian nobleman Benedict Biscop, had undertaken numerous
pilgrimages to Rome and spent two years as a monk at the island monastery of Lérins,
off the coast of Marseilles, before he was persuaded by King Ecgfrith of Northumbria
to found a monastery at Wearmouth, around the year 674. Benedict returned to the
Continent to recruit stonemasons and glaziers who could build a church for him in the
Roman style, and he ensured through this and subsequent trips to Rome and else-
where that Wearmouth, and later Jarrow (founded in 682), were well-�stocked with
relics, paintings and books. Such were the activities of Benedict and his successor
Ceolfrith that the library of Wearmouth-�Jarrow possessed at least two hundred
volumes and was one of the most extensive in England.
Wearmouth-� Jarrow was one of a number of so-� called Romanising centres in
Northumbria, that is, monasteries and religious institutions that sought to demonstrate
their special links with and allegiance to Rome and the Mediterranean world. Such links
and ideals could be expressed in numerous ways. The stone churches and monastic
precincts of Wearmouth and Jarrow would have been the most visible signs of these
affinities, but forms of the liturgy would likewise have underscored Roman connections
– from one of his trips to Rome, Benedict brought back John the Archcantor of St Peter’s
to teach Roman chant to the monks of Wearmouth – as would artistic and cultural output.
The most famous of the cultural productions of Wearmouth-�Jarrow is the so-�called
Codex Amiatinus, one of three single-Â�volume Bibles – pandects – produced at the monas-
tery in the early eighth century. The Codex was intended as a gift for the pope, though it
is unclear whether he ever received it, and it eventually ended up in a monastery in Monte
Amiato (hence the name). Such was the debt of the Codex to late antique and Italian
exemplars in terms of its script and decoration that it was only in the nineteenth century
that its Anglo-�Saxon provenance was recognised. Whether or not Bede took any part in
the production of the Codex is unknown, indeed his apparent surprise at the departure of
Abbot Ceolfrith with it on his way to Rome may suggest that he had been left undisturbed
to continue with the exegesis on which he was then engaged. On the other hand, a work
as intellectually demanding and ambitious, not to mention as spiritually meaningful, as
the production of the Codex and its sister-�pandects would have held considerable appeal
for Bede and it seems likely that he must have had some input into the project.
That the Codex Amiatinus remains one of the most important witnesses to the
Latin text of the Bible is an indication of the intellectual resources of Wearmouth-�
Jarrow, resources that Bede utilised fully in his own studies. His writings draw exten-
sively and often verbatim on the works of earlier authors – indeed, he even devised a
system of marginal annotations to demonstrate which authority he was utilising at any
 sources and issues: the venerable bede 169

3a.2 Christ in Majesty from

the Codex Amiatinus, one of
the three pandects produced at
Wearmouth-Jarrow in the early
eighth century. The debt of the
Codex Amiatinus to Late
Antique Italian exemplars is
unmistakeable

given point. Yet it would be a mistake to see him as merely a compiler or copyist. His
writings show an intelligent and creative mind at work, carefully selecting and shaping
his source material, adding to it and correcting it where he felt necessary. Moreover, a
number of Bede’s biblical commentaries, such as that on the construction of the
Tabernacle or on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, are sustained explorations of
particular themes or particular books of the Bible not otherwise tackled by Late
Antique or medieval writers.
 170 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Bede was not unaware of his own abilities or the merits of his writings. His oft-�
repeated statement that he was following in the footsteps of the Church Fathers is less
a claim to be a humble imitator and transmitter of Patristic wisdom and more an asser-
tion of being part of that same tradition, of following the same bearings. Bede could
even be stirred to anger if his learning and wisdom were challenged. In his first work,
on time, Bede offered a radical recalculation of the age of the world. Bede’s study of the
earlier books of the Old Testament led him to the conclusion that the world was some
1,200 years younger than the influential calculation by Eusebius of Caesarea suggested.
Bede’s revised reckoning necessitated redating the incarnation of Christ and set him
at odds with those who believed that the Six Ages of the World were each of one
thousand years’ duration. Bede’s critics misrepresented his arguments – wilfully or
otherwise – and he was accused, in his absence, of heresy by members of the house-
hold of Bishop Wilfrid. Bede’s response was to label his accusers drunken and lewd
yokels before offering a detailed explanation as to why they were wrong.
Though Bede’s works were intended to serve a range of different immediate
purposes – some were designed for the monastic classroom, some commissioned by

3a.3 The opening of book III of

the Tiberius Bede, describing
the events following the death
of King Edwin of Northumbria.
The work is an early
ninth-century copy of Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History, possibly
produced at Canterbury
 sources and issues: the venerable bede 171

other churchmen, some seemingly Bede’s own initiative – they

nevertheless show particular concern with a number of issues that
were obviously of especial interest to him. Most notable among
these, and apparent across the largest range of Bede’s writings, was
the need for reform of the Church in Northumbria. Such concerns
are made most explicit in Bede’s last surviving work, a letter to
Bishop Ecgberht of York dating to 734. In it he laments the prob-
lems of an avaricious yet pastorally negligent episcopacy, detailing
how numerous villages and hamlets do not see their bishop from
one year to the next and yet are not exempt from rendering payment
to him. Likewise, Bede complains of countless monasteries in
Northumbria founded not out of genuine religious devotion but in
order to gain land and privileges.
Such concerns are adumbrated by his exegesis. Especially in his
later biblical commentaries, Bede put forward a model of the ideal
Church leader – ascetic, educated and pastorally active – drawing
on language and concepts taken from the writings of Gregory the
Great. Bede likewise explored such ideas in his other writings. His
prose biography of Cuthbert, for example, recast the saint as the
exemplary Gregorian-�style pastor, an embodiment of the reforming
ideals which Bede espoused. 3a.4 Reconstruction of stained
This specific reforming agenda in part underlies Bede’s most widely read work, the glass from Jarrow. Excavations
Ecclesiastical History of the English People. In the preface Bede emphasises his explicitly of the monastic complex
hortatory intentions: uncovered a number of
fragments of pre-Viking
stained glass. This is a
Should history tell of good men and their good estate, the thoughtful listener is recreation of glass found in the
spurred on to imitate the good; should it record the evil ends of wicked men, no less building that may have served
effectually the devout and earnest listener or reader is kindled to eschew what is as the monastic guesthouse
harmful and perverse.

Though Bede provided numerous exemplary religious figures in the text – Gregory the
Great, Aidan, Wilfrid, Hild, Cuthbert, Æthelthryth, amongst others – and did, indeed,
record the evil ends of less pious churchmen and women, his attention was clearly on
the laity as well. The Ecclesiastical History is the only one of Bede’s works dedicated to
a secular patron, King Ceolwulf of Northumbria, and some of the greatest heroes of
the text are secular figures, kings in particular. What Bede offered in the Ecclesiastical
History was an all-�encompassing vision of the reform of Christian society. Numerous
episodes in the text emphasise the message that peace and prosperity result when
kings and the Church, particularly bishops, act in harmony and in accordance with
God’s laws. Such a message had an immediate, contemporary relevance; the eighth
century had witnessed considerable political and dynastic upheaval in Northumbria
and Ceolwulf was himself deposed, albeit briefly, in 731.
If the Ecclesiastical History spoke to a particular historical moment, Bede neverthe-
less conceived of his narrative in much broader terms. The text situated the English
 172 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3a.5 A mid-twelfth-century
manuscript of Bede’s
commentary on the Gospel of
Luke, produced in southern
England. This page shows the
preface to the work, including
Bede’s address to Bishop Acca
of Hexham, one his main
patrons

people within the grand sweep of salvation history and staked their claim to be a part
of the wider Christian world. Bede undoubtedly took as his model the Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius of Caesarea – known to Bede in the Latin translation and continu-
ation made by Rufinus of Aquileia in the late fourth century – a work that detailed the
history of the first centuries of Christianity, showing the growth and spread of the early
Church and the conversion of different peoples, most notably the Romans. This model
provided Bede with a methodology and technique – Eusebius included extracts from
numerous documents and sources in his work – and a sense of the underlying driving
force of history, the relationship between man and God. Thus, though Bede’s History
can often read like a modern work of history – he cites his sources and quotes directly
from other texts – his work is intended less to reconstruct history for its own sake and
more to show how the past reveals the unfolding of Divine will and the lessons that
should be drawn from this. In this sense, it is important that the Ecclesiastical History
be read very much in the context of Bede’s wider output and his overall aims as a
scholar, a priest and a monk within one of the most ‘Roman’ centres of contemporary
Northumbria.
 sources and issues 3b

the staffordshire hoard

nicholas j. higham

On 21 July 2009, Terry Herbert was running his metal detector across a field a few
kilometres south-�west of Lichfield when he came across hundreds of Anglo-�Saxon
metal objects: the Portable Antiquities Scheme quickly became involved and an exca-
vation and geophysical surveys were undertaken. More than 3,571 objects have now
been recovered totalling over 5 kilograms of gold and 1.4 kilograms of silver. This is by
far the largest quantity of Anglo-Â�Saxon gold objects ever found in one spot – to give
the obvious parallel, the gold from Sutton Hoo mound 1 totals less than 1.7 kilograms.
The whole assemblage was declared Treasure on 24 September at a coroner’s inquest.
It was then valued by the Treasure Valuation Committee and purchased by the
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery,
Stoke-�on-�Trent, following a successful campaign of public subscription topped up by
grants from the Art Fund and the Heritage Memorial Fund.

3b.1 Map showing the find

spot of the Staffordshire Hoard.
This part of Mercia was
probably still very ‘British’ at
least until the eighth century
 174 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3b.2 High-quality gold filigree

work, though still unwashed,
on one of over 90 highly-
decorated sword pommels from
the hoard

3b.3 Sheet-gold incised What was actually found? The bulk of the hoard consists of sword fittings, with over
plaque, probably from applied ninety pommel caps so far identified, some in a fragmentary state, over 350 decorative
decoration on a shield,
featuring two stylised birds of
plates which had been removed from the hilts of swords, knives and daggers, and smaller
prey grasping a large fish in numbers of pyramids, pommel rings and buttons, all probably accessories to sword and
their talons scabbard. There are also fragments from one or more helmets, including decorated
cheek fittings and an animal head comparable to those on the Sutton Hoo helm. Any one
of several hundred of these items would have been a major find, but the discovery of an
entire collection on this scale sent shock waves through the archaeological community
and engaged the wider public in ways that we rarely see: the temporary exhibition staged
at Birmingham Museum from September to October 2009 attracted over forty thousand
visitors, many queuing outside for over four hours to see it.
Many pieces display decorative techniques of the highest quality. A beautiful sheet-�
gold incised plaque featuring two stylised birds of prey grasping a large fish in their
talons probably derived originally from applied decoration on a shield owned by a
king or nobleman, and bears comparison with the gilt-�bronze plaque featuring a
similar hawk or eagle from the shield from mound 1 at Sutton Hoo. The commonest
decorative style on the Staffordshire Hoard pieces is gold filigree work, often with
three-�strand bands of beaded wire on raised back-�plates, but a substantial minority
have cloisonné decoration utilising garnet, niello and occasional millefiori inlays.
Taking the sword pommel caps as a sample, some 60 per cent are decorated with gold
interlace but about a quarter feature garnets set in gold cloisonné of a type which finds
parallels at Sutton Hoo on the sword fittings, although the hoard contains no work-
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e s ta f f o r d s h i r e h oa r d 175

manship as fine as the Sutton Hoo purse and shoulder clasps. A few are of silver or
copper alloy. The cloisonné work reveals a delicacy comparable to the finest pieces so
far excavated, including examples where garnet inlays have been used to create patterns
featuring animal figures, as opposed to the commoner geometric designs; these align
with the Salin Style II interlaced animal ornamentation to be seen carved lightly on
numerous gold surfaces. In all, almost thirty pieces exhibit Salin Style II decoration,
making this by far the largest collection ever found and substantially increasing the
total number of such items known. Garnets are a particular feature of this collection,
despite their more normal association with ‘female’ objects. They occur on around
150 separate pieces, such as pyramids, pommel caps and hilt plates, in association with
both filigree and cloisonné techniques. Analyses already carried out by a team in Paris
suggest that most Continental garnets came from India; the team will include stones
from the Staffordshire Hoard in ongoing study to determine their origin.
The largest single item is a gold cross weighing 140 grams, which has been folded
inwards on itself to form a ball, presumably for ease of transport. The gold arms feature
flowing but carefully regulated and balanced animal interlace of the highest quality,
leading towards round mounts for decorative stones at the ends of each arm and the

3b.4 Garnet-decorated gold

cross, originally serving as a
rich facia to a wooden cross.
There are clear signs of repair
but it had been folded up prior
to deposition, presumably to fit
into a bag for ease of travel
 176 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

3b.5 Cross fragment bearing

a biblical inscription from
either Numbers or Psalms. A
rougher version, probably a
trial attempt, is on the
reverse, which would not have
been seen had this piece too
fronted a wooden cross

ascender, with another at an equal distance down the base, with the largest, oval in shape,
at the crux. One mount still retains a garnet in its original position, which had been
chipped, cracked and then mended with a small strip of gold even before deposition.
This crucifix would originally have been fitted on a wooden cross. Another two possible
cross fragments were discovered, one of which carries a Latin inscription which trans-
lates: ‘Rise up, Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those that hate thee be driven
from thy face’, a biblical quotation from both Numbers (10: 35) and the Psalms (variously
listed 67 or 68). The context suggests that it was the latter which the author had in mind
for what was probably the arm of a processional cross: again a mount for a decorative
stone lies at the extremity, this time with beaded gold wire as a border. The inscription
occurs on both faces of the gold strip, with what looks like a trial piece on the inside
which was then concealed when the strip was nailed to the wood – the nail holes survive.
However, spelling mistakes occur even in the finished text on show, suggesting that the
person responsible was barely literate. The text would have been very suitable to a proces-
sional cross being carried into battle against pagans or heretics, and in this sense the
crosses fit with the military focus of the bulk of the hoard.
There are, however, other objects that are less obviously military in style, promi-
nent among which are several gold-�wire serpents, bent in the characteristic looping
shape of a snake in motion and with the head formed distinctively but quite subtly.
These are not obviously brooches since they are without pins or fasteners of any kind
and there are very few parallels indeed for them, although a comparable example in
silver has come from Faversham (Kent).
What was this assemblage intended for, when was it deposited and in what circum-
stances? Answers to such questions may become clearer as work continues, given that
many pieces are now (2012) only just being cleaned of soil, but overall the assemblage
seems distinctly unbalanced. There is a total absence of iron, for the hilt fittings had
3b.6 Gold wire serpent, one of
several in the hoard, for which
there are very few parallels
elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon
England
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e s ta f f o r d s h i r e h oa r d 177

been stripped from the sword blades; there are no knives, spears, horse fittings, gaming
pieces, vessels or coins, no belt buckles (although there are two small buckles which
may have come from a helmet), and none of the female dress fittings and accessories
which would be expected were this a cemetery site. Rather, this is a highly gendered
hoard made up entirely of objects with male associations and particularly linked to
warfare, but without the actual weapons: only the valuable, precious-�metal accessories
are included. To find these categories of artefact in such numbers is remarkable. The
frequent absence of sword pommels, for example, from graves, even ‘princely burials’,
indicates that they were often handed down across the generations, or perhaps even
returned to the patrons who had given them. To find so many present here may suggest
they were reclaimed from the sword when that went out of use (for example, through
burial with a body) and recycled. Swords of the period were comparatively easy to
disassemble, with the fittings coming away from the iron blade and the hilt, but in
addition to the weapon fittings the hoard contains a range of fine garnet-�inlaid plates
and strips the function of which is, as yet, unknown.
The date of the deposit is somewhat conjectural. Not all the material is of one date:
parallels suggest that some items could be of late sixth-�century workmanship, with
other pieces clearly deriving from the seventh century or potentially the eighth, the
problem being that dating by comparison does not necessarily offer close parameters.
The inscription necessarily dates from the Christian era but experts are currently in
disagreement, with some being comfortable with the seventh century whereas others
argue that it is later. On the whole archaeologists are inclined to the view that the hoard
was deposited in the later seventh century but contained items which were anything
up to three-�quarters of a century old at that point.
The social context of the assemblage is even more contentious. Given that the
predominant content is the precious-Â�metal accessories to war gear – or ‘male gangland
bling’, as the historian David Starkey remarked in January 2010 when exhorting public
donations – one explanation must be that this was the spoils of war resulting from a
victorious army having stripped the precious metal from the equipment of their dead
opponents. The pagan Penda’s victory over the Christian Oswald in 642 has been
mooted as one possibility, though this was probably too early to fit with the material in
its totality. But an objection to this explanation would be that Anglo-�Saxon society
valued the weapons themselves at least as much as the precious metals that were
attached, as evidenced for example in the poem Beowulf. The will of Prince Æthelstan
in 1014 bequeathed to his brother Edmund Ironside what he described as King Offa’s
sword, which would already have been well over a century old at that date. The Bayeux
Tapestry’s lower border shows swords being collected from the fallen in their totality.
An alternative would be to see the assemblage as tribute rather than booty, offered
perhaps in extremis by an inferior force to purchase the right to depart or the favour of
a powerful figure. There again, similarly unbalanced hoards in southern Scandinavia
and northern Germany dating to the Roman Iron Age have been termed ‘war booty
sacrifices’ and interpreted either as material donated to the gods or as war trophies.
Although there is no hint otherwise that this location was a sacred site, it seems quite
possible that this was a deposit made in a ritual context.
178 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The finds came from the end of a low hill immediately beside Watling Street, which
was probably then heath or woodland. There was no trace of a mound or pit; the mate-
rial came from the plough soil and was exposed by ploughing. All the archaeological
features identified by excavation were ephemeral, without clear association with the
metalwork. The soil is patchy, with sand, pebbles and glacial till. The assemblage came
from a localised area of clay which was probably distinguished by surface vegetation,
suggesting that the hoard was buried shallowly with the intention of retrieval. All of
the material could easily have fitted into a single bag, so a substantial pit would not
have been necessary. The gold was equivalent in weight to perhaps 800 solidi, so the
value of about eight hundred riding horses, which implies substantial value but less
than one might expect from a royal treasury, for example.
Another factor is the township name on the edge of which the hoard was discov-
ered, which is Hammerwich. ‘Wich’ – from Latin vicus – was used variously of a
dependent settlement, a centre of specialised production or a place where trading
occurred, while the first element of the same is Old English hamer (‘hammer’), perhaps
suggesting a metalworking centre. Deposition so close to a Roman road implies that it
had recently been moved. The area probably had a very low population indeed and
was used mostly as summer pasture. One possibility must be that the assemblage
related less to warfare itself than to metalworking, in which case this may have been a
consignment for use in ornamenting new weapons, which for some reason was buried,
rather than being delivered, then not retrieved.
Finally, we should consider the sociopolitical context of the hoard. The Mercians
– ‘the people of the frontier’ – are perhaps the least understood of the major Anglo-Â�
Saxon kingships: the predominant archaeological material comes from cemeteries
further east, and there is a lack of written evidence. Stylistic parallels link the material
discovered here to Kent, East Anglia and/or Northumbria, but it is equally possible
that parts of the hoard, at least, were manufactured in Mercia: several different work-
shops appear to be represented, but smiths were probably itinerant so we cannot easily
establish the geography of manufacture. Though this is in material cultural terms a
very ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ hoard, western Mercia in the seventh century was culturally ambig-
uous, with British linguistic and religious culture only giving way slowly to Anglo-�
Saxon and with plentiful signs of continuity across the period. Penda’s own name is
British in origin as are those of other family members, and the population of this
region was probably biologically very largely British. The Staffordshire Hoard is
thereby rendered the more enigmatic, though its social connections are surely exclu-
sively with the elite: in some sense, it seems reasonable to suppose that the hoard is less
representative of the local population around Cannock and Lichfield at this date than
of kings and ealdormen, retainers and priests, who thought of themselves as in some
sense ‘Anglian’ or ‘Saxon’ and were in the process of forging a new ‘English’ identity.
Gold served as the social capital on which hierarchies were built and it lubricated the
interfaces that were central to the royal court, patronage and status. It is that milieu on
which the Staffordshire Hoard sheds new light.
 chapter 4

The Mercian Supremacies

martin j. ryan

When I consider the deeds of this person, I am doubtful whether I should commend
or censure. At one time, in the same character, vices were so palliated by virtues, and
at another virtues came in such quick succession upon vices that it is difficult to
determine how to characterise the changing Proteus.

So William of Malmesbury, writing in the twelfth century, described the difficulties he

faced accounting for the character of Offa, king of Mercia from 757 to 796. A modern
audience can only sympathise with William here. Offa, and, indeed, the eighth century
as a whole, continue to present formidable problems of interpretation.
The difficulty is not a lack of sources, for in comparison with the preceding centu-
ries the eighth is richly documented, both through texts and, increasingly, archaeo-
logical excavation. Rather, what is lacking is a coherent narrative, such as that supplied
for the seventh century and early eighth century by Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. Bede’s
work provides a means of making sense of the seventh century, a way of understanding
the relationship between different events and of comprehending something of their
wider significance. Though we may now question the motives behind Bede’s selection
of material or challenge his overall picture, we can do so precisely because his writings
have given us the wherewithal to unravel many of the complexities of the seventh
century. For the eighth century, by contrast, although the sources permit us to estab-
lish the overall shape of things and even shine a bright light on certain episodes, the
relationship between different events and their meaning and importance is far harder
to determine.
Since the nineteenth century at least, the eighth and early ninth centuries have
been characterised as the period of the Mercian supremacy. That is, this period saw the
political, military, economic and, perhaps, also the cultural dominance of the Midlands
kingdom of Mercia. Successive Mercian rulers extended their authority over much of
southern England and in the process brought to an end the independence of a number
of the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms.
For scholars in the first half of the twentieth century – particularly Sir Frank
Stenton – the Mercian hegemonies of this period brought the Anglo-Â�Saxons to within
touching distance of political unity. The extensive overkingships of Mercian rulers
 180 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.1 Places named in chapter 4

such as Æthelbald and Offa were, like those of their seventh-Â�century Northumbrian
counterparts, staging posts on the path to the united England that would be achieved
under the West Saxon kings in the tenth century.
Such visions of the Mercian supremacy have by now, rightly, receded. The Mercian
overlordships of the eighth century need to be understood, as much as is possible, on
their own terms, not as trial runs or failed attempts at English unity. The distinctive
and idiosyncratic nature of the successive Mercian overkingships and, indeed, of the
Mercian polity as a whole, needs to be appreciated. Mercia remains central to any
account of the eighth and early ninth centuries but labels such as ‘Mercian supremacy’
 the mercian supremacies 181

or ‘Mercian hegemony’ may obscure considerable complexities. Mercia’s influence

over its neighbours was both fluctuating and frequently contested. The danger lies in
viewing all events through the lens of an assumed, continuous Mercian pre-�eminence.
Whatever the extent of their authority in this period, the power and wealth of the
Mercian kings were due in large part to their ability to harness the changing economy
of Anglo-�Saxon England from the late seventh to mid-�ninth centuries. International
trade expanded exponentially and emporia, such as those at York, Ipswich,
Southampton (Hamwic) and particularly London, increased both in size and in
organisational complexity in this period.
The rural landscape was likewise exploited with mounting intensity. Settlements
and their associated field-�systems were restructured and reorganised. Some settle-
ments shifted location to heavier, more fertile soils; others moved from subsistence
agriculture to specialised – and perhaps market-Â�orientated – production. The control
and management of natural resources were intensified. Archaeological excavation has,
for example, revealed an abundance of fish-�traps and weirs in rivers and estuaries
while the written sources describe an increasing investment in such activities as the
extraction of salt from brine springs.
The rising wealth of Anglo-�Saxon England was, however, not only exploited by the
royal dynasties. The most obvious beneficiary and perhaps the main driving force of
this growing economy was the Church. The late seventh to mid-�eighth centuries was a
period of monastic foundation and endowment on a vast scale. Rich and powerful
monasteries now commanded extensive landed resources – in some cases on the scale
of small kingdoms – and were the foci of economic and cultural innovation.
Yet the very success of such monasteries and the rapid integration of the institu-
tional Church into Anglo-�Saxon society brought problems. The perceived worldliness
of some monasteries and their apparent embrace of the world view and values of aris-
tocratic society caused consternation in some ecclesiastical circles. Leading churchmen
pursued vigorous programmes of reform, with varying degrees of success. Moreover,
the wealth and importance of some institutions were such that they could not avoid
becoming part of wider struggles for power and influence. As kings sought to exert a
closer control over monasteries and their landed resources and manpower, so
churchmen (bishops in particular) sought to check this encroachment and to exercise
and extend their own power, with the interests of individual monasteries often taking
a back seat. Such contests culminated in the early ninth century in a bitter struggle
between King Cenwulf of Mercia and Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury for control
of a number of key monasteries in Kent – a struggle from which neither man emerged
with much credit.

Mercia in the Eighth Century

The centrality of Mercia to modern accounts of the eighth century is in many ways at
odds with the surviving source materials. Apart from charters, Mercian rulers seem to
have commissioned remarkably few written texts. If works comparable to Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History or to the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle were composed by Mercian
182 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

authors, they have not survived. Mercian kings may have produced law codes, for King
Alfred of Wessex in the ninth century claims to have drawn on a code of King Offa
when composing his own. None, however, is now extant, unless by Offa’s law code
Alfred meant the report of the papal legates who toured England in the 780s.
It is a distinctive feature of the Mercian hegemonies, therefore, that many of the key
events of the reigns of such kings as Æthelbald or Offa are documented only in sources
produced in other kingdoms. Our understanding of the character and personality of
these rulers is therefore shaped by the views of external writers, such as the West Saxon
Boniface or Northumbrian Alcuin. Whilst such non-�Mercian witnesses were by no
means universally hostile, they would necessarily have had a perspective different from
those inside Mercia and from those closer to its rulers.
It is tempting to look to better documented
Â� kingdoms and time periods – such
as Northumbria in the seventh century or Wessex in the ninth – for insights into
eighth-�century Mercia. Offa might more closely resemble Alfred the Great had but the
texts produced at his court survived.
Given the vagaries of the preservation and transmission of texts, not least the dele-
terious effects of Viking raiding in the ninth century, such an approach is an eminently
reasonable one. Yet the very absence of source materials may tell us something
important about the nature of the kingdom of Mercia and the Mercian hegemonies.
Royal power and authority could manifest themselves in a multiplicity of ways, not
all of which need to have generated the same amount or same types of written
evidence. Likewise hegemony could take many forms and the intentions behind the
extension of overlordship could vary significantly. The structure and organisation of
the Mercian kingdom may have differed considerably from other, better documented
kingdoms.
Mercian domination of large swathes of southern England was not in any case a new
phenomenon in the eighth century. For lengthy periods of the preceding century,
Mercian kings such as Penda (d. 655) or Wulfhere (d. 675) exerted considerable influ-
ence over their neighbours. The true extent of Mercian power in this period is probably
obscured by Bede’s Northumbria-Â�centred narrative. Charter evidence shows that the
Mercian kings of the early eighth century – Æthelred (abdicated 704), Coenred (d. 709)
and Ceolred (d. 716) – continued to exercise some form of overlordship over the kingdom
of the Hwicce, parts of Middlesex (including London), Surrey and possibly Essex.
The significance of the Mercian hegemonies of the eighth and early ninth centuries
is, then, more about the duration and nature of Mercian power than its extent. The
reigns of Æthelbald (716–57) and Offa were amongst the longest of any Anglo-Â�Saxon
ruler; indeed, Æthelbald has a claim to be the longest-Â�reigning Anglo-Â�Saxon monarch.
The contrast with Northumbria is particularly marked: some 12 kings ruled there
during the reigns of Æthelbald and Offa in Mercia.
The Mercian overlords of the eighth century were also very different rulers from
their seventh-�century counterparts. The enhanced importance of international trade
has already been noted, and emporia and other trading centres were resources that
could be managed to advantage by ambitious kings. Though land remained the key
source of wealth in this period, the pre-�eminence of Mercian rulers in southern
 the mercian supremacies 183

England may have owed much to their control of the key port of London and its rural
hinterlands. The geographical focus of Mercian rule also shifted to reflect these new
sources of power. Though the traditional Mercian heartlands in the Trent Basin
retained their importance, with Lichfield, Repton and Tamworth being particularly
prominent, charters show Mercian kings increasingly active in the region that is now
Greater London.
Christianity likewise had transformed the exercise and ideology of kingship.
Literacy allowed for the more carefully organised – and hence more intensive – exploi-
tation of royal resources and facilitated the delegation of royal authority. If the physical
presence of the king remained enormously important, the written word could never-
theless act as an extension and reinforcement of the royal will, and a means of shaping
and controlling perceptions of the king and his rule. Yet Christianity also heightened
the demands and expectations placed upon rulers. Anglo-�Saxon monarchs governed
as Christian kings and could draw on all the ideological apparatus that such a status
brought with it, but the morality of their conduct was now judged according to
Christian principles, with the Church presenting itself as the arbiter of royal behav-
iour. Kingship was no longer – if, indeed, it ever had been – simply about leadership in
battle or the taking of plunder and the imposition of tribute. Kings were expected to
uphold justice, to promote learning and wisdom, to patronise the Church and to
further Christianity.

The Reign of Æthelbald

Penda’s son, Æthelred, finally retired in 704 after 29 years as king of the Mercians,
becoming a monk at Bardney (Lincolnshire). He was succeeded first by his nephew
Coenred then his son Ceolred. Æthelbald descended from a distant branch of the royal
family and was in exile during the latter’s reign, at least. The Life of St Guthlac, written
by the otherwise unknown Felix for Ælfwald, king of the East Angles (713–49), depicts
the exiled Æthelbald in close contact with Guthlac, who was likewise a Mercian royal
but living as an anchorite near Crowland (Lincolnshire). Guthlac had allegedly proph-
esied Æthelbald’s ascent to the throne, perhaps indicating political endorsement by the
saint and the East Anglian court.
Ceolred’s death in 716 enabled Æthelbald to gain the throne, but it was arguably the
death of Wihtred of Kent (725), then the abdication of Ine of Wessex (726), that
allowed him to emerge as the most powerful of the southern English kings, leading
Bede, in the penultimate chapter of his History, to term him the ‘overking’ of England
south of the Humber. This comment may reflect or may even have inspired statements
of authority that can be found in some of Æthelbald’s own charters, most famously the
‘Ismere Diploma’ of 736. In this, Æthelbald is styled ‘king not only of the Mercians but
also of all the provinces which are called by the general name “South English”
[Sutangli]’, while in the witness list he is styled more simply but more grandiosely ‘king
of Britain’. It is difficult to know what to make of such titles. King of Britain surely
represents aggrandisement, though whether Æthelbald himself, his advisors, or the
scribes of the charters were responsible is unclear. ‘King of the South English’ may
 184 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.2 The Ismere Diploma. The

charter records a grant of land
made by King Æthelbald to his
follower Cyneberht for the
purposes of founding a
monastery. One of the earliest
Anglo-Saxon documents dated
using the Anno Domini system
– the year 736 can be read in
the final lines of the body of
the charter – the charter
includes a subscription by
Æthelbald as ‘rex Britanniae’

confirm or echo Bede’s assertion of a south Humbrian overlordship, but might equally
mean specifically southern Anglian peoples rather than all those south of the Humber.
At any rate, such royal styles are rare in Æthelbald’s reign – indeed, they only occur in
texts originating from Worcester – and charters most frequently title him simply ‘king
of the Mercians’.
The overall impression of Æthelbald’s rule south of the Humber is that he sought to
exercise concerted control over a relatively restricted area. Beyond the Mercian heart-
lands, Æthelbald exerted greatest influence and power in an area running roughly
south-�east from the Trent Basin towards London, following very approximately the
line of Watling Street. He had direct control over the Hwicce, with its royal dynasty
appearing in charters as sub-�kings or lower rather than as fully independent rulers.
Æthelbald similarly exercised direct control over Middlesex and London – the latter
traceable particularly through a series of toll exemptions granted to various religious
institutions. Economic interests – chiefly, though not exclusively, the great trading
 the mercian supremacies 185

centre at London – were carefully exploited. Some territorial expansion took place,
particularly into the frontier regions of Berkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset, at the
expense of the West Saxon kings.
For large parts of southern England, however, Æthelbald must have been at most a
distant overlord whose authority, such as it was, impinged little. The kings of Kent
continued to grant land in their own names without reference to the consent or witness
of the Mercian king. Æthelbald’s own involvement was indirect, consisting chiefly of
grants to religious houses in Kent, either of toll exemptions or of land outside Kent.
Successive archbishops of Canterbury – Tatwine (d. 734), Nothhelm (d. 739) and
Cuthbert (d. 760) – were either from religious houses in Mercia or in regions under
Mercian control, which may have been a result of Æthelbald’s influence in Kent,
though not necessarily.
Conclusive evidence of Æthelbald’s direct involvement in South Saxon, East
Anglian or East Saxon affairs is likewise lacking, though his annexation of Middlesex
and London was ultimately at the expense of the East Saxon kings. Æthelbald’s rela-
tionship with the kings of Wessex seems more complex, though this may be because
more evidence survives from Wessex than from other kingdoms. Æthelbald clearly
gained territory at West Saxon expense, and Cuthred of Wessex (r. 740–56) fought
against him on a number of occasions. However, the two kings also mounted at least
one campaign together, in 743 against the Britons – probably the Welsh. In practice,
then, there is only limited evidence of Æthelbald’s south Humbrian hegemony as
suggested by Bede, and in many areas it probably amounted to little more than the
recognition of superiority and perhaps some taking of tribute.
North of the Humber, Æthelbald’s interventions were even more limited, restricted
to two raids on Northumbrian territory in 737 and 740. The latter, significantly, took
place while King Eadberht of Northumbria (r. 737–58) was away fighting the Picts.
The evidence for Mercian involvement in Wales is equally exiguous. Welsh sources
record destructive Mercian raids on the Wye Valley in this period – perhaps the result
of the campaign of 743 – and the ninth-Â�century Pillar of Eliseg records the Mercians
being driven from Powys in the middle of the eighth century, but beyond this it is
difficult to go.
Contemporary assessments of the nature of Æthelbald’s rule create an impression
of periodic violence lapsing into despotism. Æthelbald granted land to a Mercian
abbess in recompense for murdering her kinsman, while a monk had a vision of
Æthelbald being tormented by demons after his death. Such negative depictions of
Æthelbald loom largest in a letter sent to him around 746 by the Continental missionary
Boniface. Though the letter noted Æthelbald to be ‘very liberal in almsgiving’ and
‘famed as a defender of widows and of the poor’, the bulk of it is a sustained assault on
Æthelbald’s moral failings and his ill-Â�treatment of the Church. Æthelbald was accused
of violating church privileges and treating monks ‘with greater violence and extortion
than any Christian kings have ever done’ – the import of which is explored below.
Moreover, Boniface asserted that Æthelbald had never taken a lawful wife and instead
committed fornication with nuns and virgins dedicated to God.
In the absence of comparable Mercian sources, Boniface’s characterisation of
 186 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Æthelbald and others like it have largely won the day. There may, however,
have been further perspectives and other interpretations of Æthelbald’s
behaviour. His sexual relationships clearly fell short of appropriate
Christian unions – at least in the eyes of Boniface – but Christian marriage
was only one of a number of reproductive strategies that could be pursued
by Anglo-Â�Saxon rulers. Though Æthelbald’s liaisons attracted condemna-
tion they need not necessarily have been the product of unbridled lust.
Marriage or monogamy meant the elevation of one woman to a position of
prominence and the concomitant increase in her own power and influence
as well as that of her family. Rejecting marriage or stable unions may have
been one way in which Æthelbald sought to negotiate the complexities of
Mercian politics, even if it risked ecclesiastical censure. If so, he would not
be the only Christian Anglo-�Saxon king to follow such a policy.
4.3 Later eighth-century However such charges against Æthelbald ought to be understood, they indicate at
silver-gilt finger ring, least that his rule was divisive and aspects of his power resented. Such an impression is
recovered from the Thames
near Chelsea. The animal
confirmed by the manner of his death. Æthelbald’s long reign came to an end in 757
interlace decoration has when he was murdered – treacherously at night by his bodyguards, according to one
affinities with the later source. He was buried in the church at Repton (Derbyshire), perhaps in the crypt that
‘Trewhiddle Style’ had been constructed during his reign and which subsequently served as a royal
mausoleum.
The specific reasons for Æthelbald’s murder are unknown. Perhaps his lengthy
reign had been in part his undoing; the witness lists of his charters suggest that he had
outlived his early supporters. Whether his successor, Beornred, was implicated in his
murder is likewise unknown. At any rate, Beornred’s own reign lasted only a few
months before he was driven out by Offa, a cousin of Æthelbald and grandson of
Eanwulf, a man who had enjoyed extensive patronage during Æthelbald’s reign.
Offa clearly took some time to establish himself securely on the Mercian throne.
One set of annals has Offa attempting ‘to conquer the Mercian kingdom with sword
and bloodshed’ after driving out Beornred, while a charter from later in his reign
suggests Offa became king only in 758. In such circumstances, Offa can have inherited
little of Æthelbald’s southern hegemony. It is likely to be in this period that King
Cynewulf of Wessex (r. 757–86) temporarily regained control of Berkshire and parts of
the Thames Valley, and that the Welsh reasserted themselves in Powys.

The Reign of Offa

In certain respects, Offa’s reign closely resembles that of Æthelbald. The geographical
concentration of his power was similar: he appears most active and his authority most
secure in the Mercian heartlands and the corridor stretching south-�east to London,
with Chelsea an especial focus of his activities by the 780s. Similarly, international
trade and its royal oversight retained their importance. These are illuminated particu-
larly in a letter from the Frankish ruler Charlemagne (r. 768–814) encouraging Offa to
control the quality of English exports and promising protection of English merchants
in Francia.
 the mercian supremacies 187

In other ways, however, Offa appears a very different ruler from Æthelbald. He
attempted to harness more fully the ideological apparatus offered by Christianity and
the Church, seeming to draw particular inspiration from ideas about Christian king-
ship and rule being developed in the courts of the Carolingian monarchs of Francia.
Likewise, Offa’s power and influence over other Anglo-Â�Saxon kingdoms were greater
and more extensive than Æthelbald’s and he sought to exercise them in a more direct
way. By the 780s, Offa had effectively brought to an end the independent royal dynas-
ties of Kent, the South Saxons and the Hwicce. In the latter two kingdoms, members of
the dynasties may have survived as non-Â�royal leaders – ealdormen – operating under
Offa’s control. In Kent he seems to have preferred to place Mercian nobles in positions
of authority.
By the final decades of his reign, Offa had become the ruler of a kingdom stretching
from the Midlands down to the south-Â�east coast – a vast territory by Anglo-Â�Saxon
standards. That Offa and those around him conceived of this territory as a uniform
kingdom, an enlarged Mercia, is clear. In his charters and on his coinage he appears,
almost without exception, simply as the king of the Mercians, adopting no grander or
more expansive royal style. Offa was not attempting to unify the English – even
assuming such a concept was meaningful in the eighth century – but simply to expand
Mercian authority.
The extent of Offa’s power outside this territory is less clear. East Anglia may have
come under Offa’s authority by the 790s, for coins were minted there in his name. His
rule there was, however, resisted: in 794, King Æthelberht of East Anglia was beheaded
on Offa’s orders. Even less is known of Offa’s relationship with the kings of the East
Saxons. London and Middlesex remained under Mercian control, as they had been in
Æthelbald’s reign, but Offa does not appear to have exercised any authority in the East
Saxon kingdom itself.
Offa’s relationship with King Cynewulf of Wessex is likely to have been strained, for
Offa reasserted Mercian authority over the Thames Valley by defeating the West
Saxons at Bensington in 779 and subsequently gained control of territory on the south
bank of the Avon. Whether or not Offa exercised a meaningful overlordship over the
West Saxons remains unclear. Relations with Cynewulf ’s successor, Beorhtric (r.
786–802), appear more cordial, for he married one of Offa’s daughters, Eadburh, and
the two kings cooperated in exiling Ecgberht, a man who would later become king
of Wessex. Another of Offa’s daughters, Ælfflæd, married King Æthelred of
Northumbria in 792, but this may have been the limit of Offa’s involvement in
affairs north of the Humber. The turbulent political situation in Northumbria in
the latter decades of the eighth century must have made a consistent Mercian policy
difficult.
Discussion of Offa’s relationship with the different kingdoms that made up Wales is
inevitably dominated by the great linear earthwork that bears his name: Offa’s Dyke.
This attribution rests on an assertion by the Welsh cleric Asser in the late ninth century
that ‘Offa [.â•‹.â•‹.] had a great dyke built between Wales and Mercia from sea to sea’. Whilst
Asser’s words have been almost universally accepted, the purpose of Offa’s Dyke and its
true extent remain much debated. The extensive excavations and surveys of the Dyke
 188 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.4 Section of Offa’s Dyke near

Clun, Shropshire

led by David Hill in the 1970s–1990s suggested that it extended only from Treuddyn in
the north to Rushock Hill in the south, a distance of just over 100 kilometres. Its purpose
was less to provide a barrier between Mercia and the whole of Wales than to reinforce a
frontier with a newly resurgent Powys. The Dyke was intended rather to impede the
easy movement of people back and forth – cattle rustlers and small-Â�scale raiding parties,
for example – than to act as a defensive barrier, capable of repelling full-Â�scale attack.
The southern extent of this truncated Dyke has, however, not received universal
support and a case can be made for the Dyke having originally extended as far south
as Sedbury Cliffs in Gloucestershire. It does seem clear, though, that the Dyke never
extended as far as the sea in the north. Though not the earthwork ‘from sea to sea’ of
Asser’s account, Offa’s Dyke was nevertheless a formidable undertaking. Estimates
of the labour involved diverge greatly – figures have ranged from 5,000 men to over
125,000 men – and much depends on whether the Dyke was constructed in a few years
or over a longer period. Even to maintain the lowest estimate of 5,000 men would have
been an exacting task, requiring not just the recruitment and organisation of the
labour force but the provisioning and housing of these workers and, perhaps, their
protection from attack. It is a testament to the organisational ability and, indeed,
administrative sophistication of Offa’s regime that such a task would even be contem-
plated let alone achieved. The Dyke must also have been a powerful ideological state-
ment, inviting comparisons between Offa and Roman rulers of the past who had
undertaken similarly grand construction projects – the Hadrianic and Antonine Walls
being the most obvious insular examples.
However imposing Offa appeared within Britain, his relationship with Charlemagne
shows clearly both his ambitions and, ultimately, the limitations of his power. Some
 the mercian supremacies 189

modern scholars, such as Dorothy Whitelock, have suggested that

Offa could aspire to – even achieve in some areas – an equality with
Charlemagne. Given that Charlemagne laid claim to being the most
powerful ruler in Europe at this date, such would be a remarkable
endorsement of the extent of Offa’s authority.
If Offa did entertain such thoughts, his contemporaries on the
Continent viewed things very differently. When Charlemagne
sought the hand in marriage of Offa’s daughter for his son, Charles,
Offa demanded a reciprocal marriage: Charlemagne’s daughter
Bertha for his son Ecgfrith. For Charlemagne, such a request was an
insult, reportedly making him ‘somewhat angry’, and he imposed a
trade embargo on English merchants in Francia. Offa responded in
kind with an embargo on Frankish merchants, but the significance
of the episode was clear: a marriage alliance between Francia and
Mercia was not one between equals, whatever Offa might have
thought.
Relations – and trade – had been restored by the mid-Â�790s, when
Charlemagne sent two letters to Offa concerning a number of
different issues. Again, though Charlemagne might address Offa as
‘beloved brother’ and ‘dearest brother’, the language of diplomacy should not be
4.5 Gilded-silver sword-grip
mistaken for the language of equality. The royal titles used in the letters – Charlemagne and pommel, dating from the
‘by the grace of God, king of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans’ later eighth century, found at
and Offa ‘King of the Mercians’ – make clear, probably deliberately so, their very Fetter Lane, London. Its use of
precious metals and complex
different statuses.
decorative schemes make this
Even the gifts accompanying the letters could underline this point. With one letter, one of the finest examples of
Charlemagne sent Offa a ‘Hunnish’ sword, part of the spoils of his campaigns against Middle Saxon weaponry; its
the Avars in Pannonia. This was undoubtedly a prestigious gift, but of the kind that a owner was clearly of high
lord gave his retainer. Indeed, Frankish sources record that Charlemagne distributed status

the plunder from the Avar treasury among his leading churchmen and nobility as well
as other faithful men; presumably this last category included Offa. In his dealings with
Offa, Charlemagne undoubtedly saw the Mercian king as an important figure and one
to be treated with some respect and, at times, flattery, but he was in no sense an equal.
Charlemagne’s power and his ambitions, as realised in his imperial coronation in
800, were of a far greater magnitude than Offa could hope to achieve.
If his claims to equality with Charlemagne cannot be sustained, nevertheless Offa
does seem to have been inspired by Carolingian concepts of the nature of royal
authority and government. Direct influence is, however, difficult to trace. The wealth
of material emanating from Charlemagne’s court, exploring the nature of kingship and
exalting his rule, finds only the faintest echo in Offa’s Mercia. Such similarities as there
are may well derive from shared traditions rather than self-�conscious emulation.
Scholars from Ireland and from Anglo-�Saxon England played a vital role in shaping
Carolingian ideologies, and Offa’s court could easily have drawn on similar resources.
One area where emulation seems clear is in the adoption of the ritual of royal
anointing. In 787 Offa had his son, Ecgfrith, anointed as co-�ruler probably by
 190 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Hygeberht, bishop of the newly established archdiocese of Lichfield (Staffordshire; see

below). Ecgfrith was the first Anglo-�Saxon ruler so consecrated, and the inspiration
would seem to be the papal anointing of Carolingian monarchs and their heirs, which
began in the 750s. Such rituals drew on Old Testament images of kingship – Samuel
anointing Saul, for example – and presented the ruler as in some way Christ-Â�like, for
Christ (Greek cριστός) means simply ‘the anointed one’. The ceremony must also have
called to mind the post-�baptismal anointing with chrism, emphasizing the transform-
ative qualities of the rite.
In other areas direct Carolingian emulation is less clear. On a number of his coins,
Offa is shown with a distinctive curled hairstyle that has its closest parallels in contem-
porary depictions of King David. Such may have been inspired by the identification of
Charlemagne with David in Frankish circles, but the Old Testament king had long
been held up as an exemplar of Christian kingship in Anglo-�Saxon literature and
insular inspiration may be more probable.
What seems clear is that Offa, like the Carolingians, sought to mobilise the possi-
bilities afforded by Christianity for the legitimation of kingship and to bring into
sharper relief the moral underpinnings of rule. As with royal anointing, such ideas are
most visible in the strategies Offa adopted to ensure the succession of his son. Though
these were long in the making, they come to the fore in the mid-�780s.
In 786 two papal legates, George of Ostia and Theophylact of Todi, toured Anglo-�
Saxon England, meeting with leading churchmen and with various kings, Offa
included. They sought, as their report put it, ‘to uproot completely anything harmful’,
promulgating a series of decrees designed to check such abuses as they had found.
Though these were presented as solutions to problems that beset all of the Anglo-�
Saxon kingdoms, certain of them would have had particular value for Offa. Canon
12 emphasised the status of kings as ‘the Lord’s anointed’, the full import of which
would manifest itself in the following year when Ecgfrith received unction.
The same canon also declared that rulers were ‘not to be those begotten in adultery
or incest’. This would, likewise, have served Offa’s interests well. In marked, and
perhaps deliberate, contrast to Æthelbald, Offa had adopted a policy of conspicuous

4.6 Silver penny of King Offa

of Mercia, produced by the
moneyer Eadhun. Offa’s
distinctive hairstyle has
affinities with depictions of
King David
 the mercian supremacies 191

monogamy. His wife, Cynethryth, regularly witnessed his charters, appearing as ‘queen
of the Mercians’ in a number of them, and coins were issued in her name, one of only
a handful of women so marked out in the early medieval west. Cynethryth’s promi-
nence no doubt reflected her importance at court – in one letter Alcuin suggests she is
too busy with the king’s business to read correspondence and in another he describes
her as ‘mistress of the royal household’ – but it also stressed the legitimacy of her union
with Offa and so the legitimacy of her offspring and their suitability to rule. Given
Æthelbald’s rejection of monogamy, such a strategy must have undermined the claims
of a number of potential rivals as well as strengthening Ecgfrith’s own claims.

4.7 Silver penny of Queen

Cynethryth of Mercia, wife of
Offa, produced by the moneyer
Eoba

If Offa exploited developing ideas about Christian kingship in his promotion of

Ecgfrith, he nevertheless also pursued other strategies perhaps less becoming of a
pious king. In a letter to a Mercian nobleman, Alcuin wrote of ‘how much blood the
father shed to secure the kingdom for his son’, implying the brutal suppression of
rivals. Such actions led, as Alcuin saw it, to divine judgment. When Offa died in July
796 – apparently of natural causes – he was, as he had hoped, succeeded by his son.
Ecgfrith, however, reigned for only a matter of months, dying – likewise, apparently of
natural causes – in December of that year. As Alcuin put it in a letter to Bishop Unwona
of Leicester, ‘you know well how the illustrious king prepared for his son to inherit his
kingdom, as he thought, but as events showed, he took it from him. [.â•‹.â•‹.] Man plans,
but God decides.’

Mercian Hegemony in the Early Ninth Century

Ecgfrith was succeeded by Cenwulf (r. 796–821), a distant cousin from another branch
of the royal dynasty. If Æthelbald and Offa dominate historical accounts of the Mercian
supremacy, nevertheless Cenwulf ’s power and authority were as extensive, perhaps
more so in some regards, as his predecessors’. The kingdom of Essex finally succumbed
to Mercian domination, with the East Saxon King Sigered (c. 798–825) witnessing
Cenwulf ’s charters first as king, then as sub-Â�king and finally simply as an ealdorman.
 192 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Cenwulf was also able to mount a series of devastating raids on Wales, killing the king
of Gwynedd in one and annexing part of what is now the county of Conwy in another.
Perhaps during the brief reign of Ecgfrith or more likely in its aftermath, Kent and
East Anglia broke free from Mercian control. In East Anglia, coins were minted for a
time in the name of King Eadwald, a member of the native ruling dynasty of that
kingdom. Cenwulf soon reasserted control over the East Anglian mint and so, presum-
ably, over the kingdom itself. In Kent, Eadberht ‘Præn’ (r. 796–8) claimed the throne,
driving out the Mercian-Â�appointed archbishop, Æthelheard, and probably sacking
Canterbury. Eadberht had been forced into exile during Offa’s reign and had spent
time at the court of Charlemagne. In connection with his exiling, Eadberht had
taken holy orders. Such would, in theory, have disqualified him from kingship
and, indeed, Pope Leo III, ultimately at the instigation of Cenwulf, excommunicated
him as an ‘apostate cleric’ in 798. The same year, whether emboldened by papal judg-
ment or finally secure on the Mercian throne, Cenwulf invaded Kent. Eadberht was
dragged away to Mercia in fetters and subsequently blinded and maimed. Perhaps in
recognition both of the importance of Kent and the difficulty of controlling it, Cenwulf
installed his brother, Cuthred, as king there under his authority.
It is in Cenwulf ’s reign, however, that the problems and tensions that seem ulti-
mately to have undermined Mercian hegemony south of the Humber appear in sharp
relief. The death of King Beorhtric of Wessex in 802 and the succession of the previ-
ously exiled Ecgberht (r. 802–39) marked the beginnings of a reversal in the fortunes
of Mercia and Wessex, a shift adumbrated by an unsuccessful Mercian raid into West
Saxon territory in the immediate aftermath of Ecgberht’s accession.
The rising power and ambitions of Wessex certainly impinged on Mercian activi-
ties, but the attitude of Mercian kings to client kingdoms contributed to the problems.
Even with his brother Cuthred installed as sub-�king, Cenwulf had little direct involve-
ment in Kent, preferring to rule it from a distance, a pattern that continued after
Cuthred’s death in 807. Cenwulf did not appoint another king in Cuthred’s place, and
though a series of charters records grants by Cenwulf to Kentish recipients, they tend

4.8 Gold coin of King Cenwulf

of Mercia, produced in London.
Gold coins were minted only very
infrequently in the Anglo-Saxon
period – this example seems to
have been intended for use in
international as well as internal
trade, while other examples may
have served as diplomatic gifts
 the mercian supremacies 193

to have been issued outside Kent. One charter shows a grant to Archbishop Wulfred of
Canterbury being witnessed first by Mercian nobility and churchmen at Croydon in
Staffordshire, and then at a separate ceremony in Canterbury some time later by the
nobility of Kent.
The impression gained from this and other charters is of a distant ruler, operating
in Kent not through the local nobility but through a select group of churchmen and
women – particularly Archbishop Wulfred, Abbess Selethryth and his own daughter,
Abbess Cwenthryth. All of these are likely to have owed their positions, in some way,
to Mercian influence. Though such an approach mirrors the policies adopted by Offa,
the dangers of it were made clear in the disputes that arose between Cenwulf and
Archbishop Wulfred over the control of a number of monasteries in Kent (see below).
The disputes were all the more protracted because such monasteries were clearly key
economic assets, and Cenwulf ’s limited involvement in Kent had facilitated Wulfred’s
build-�up of a substantial powerbase. Similarly, because Cenwulf had not directly
patronised the Kentish nobility, and so failed to establish a broad base of clients and
alliances, he had fewer options available for dealing with Wulfred and could count on
only limited local support.
The rich source materials from Kent allow the essential features of Cenwulf ’s over-
lordship there to be reconstructed in some detail and underline its potentially fragile
nature, but it is likely that such patterns were repeated in other, less well-�documented,
kingdoms. The difficulty for Mercian rulers was not so much in establishing hegemony,
hard though this was, as in making such gains permanent. It was to be the very different
model of overlordship practised by the West Saxon kings in the ninth century that
would prove to be the more durable form of hegemony.

Economy and Society in the ‘Long Eighth Century’

The past two decades have witnessed a near-�revolution in our understanding of the
Anglo-�Saxon economy in the late seventh to early ninth centuries. It is above all
archaeological evidence that has transformed our perceptions. Such evidence allows
us insights into the vibrancy of the economy in this period, the emergence of new
settlement types, and a fundamental reorganisation of the Anglo-�Saxon landscape.
Though the great trading centres, the emporia, at Southampton, London, Ipswich and
York, remain central to any understanding of the economy in the long eighth century,
it is clear that they were only one aspect of far wider networks of exchange and produc-
tion that criss-�crossed the Anglo-�Saxon landscape.
As has been outlined above, the emporia originated in the seventh century, with a
number of small-�scale settlements engaged in a limited level of trading activities that
then expanded. At London, for example, by the late 670s there was limited settlement
in the areas around present-�day Charing Cross and the church of St Martin-�in-�the-�
Fields. Archaeological evidence points to timber-� revetted embankments on the
Thames and there are documentary references to the pulling-�up of ships. In the final
decades of the seventh century, settlement spread inland, with new buildings across an
area formerly used for burial and several new roads running north-�south to connect
 194 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

these new-�built areas with the Thames. Both Southampton and Ipswich show similar
expansion from small groups of settlements. At York, by contrast, a site at Heslington
Hill that was engaged in limited long-�distance trade seems to have declined by the
mid-�seventh century and activity shifted to Fishergate on a tributary navigable from
the River Ouse.
The first half of the eighth century saw the emporia expanding to their maximum
extent, with evidence for carefully planned and organised layouts and effective main-
tenance of such infrastructure as roads, trackways, wells and drains. This period
also sees the maximum levels of coin loss at emporia, suggesting the most intense
phase of economic activity. The trading centre at London – Lundenwic – grew to some
55–60 hectares, stretching from modern-Â�day Seven Dials down to the River Thames,
at what is now The Strand and Aldwych.

4.9 Location of the Middle

Saxon trading settlement at
Lundenwic

The most extensive excavations of Lundenwic took place at the Royal Opera House
in Covent Garden. After a rapid expansion of the site in the late seventh and early
eighth centuries, the period c. 730–70 witnessed what the excavators described as a
period of consolidation and prosperity. The site was by now covered with a network of
efficiently maintained roads and alleyways. The main road, running north–south
through the site, was repaired and resurfaced on numerous occasions using gravel
from quarries on the edges of the main settlement. Timber drains lined each side of the
road and it was cambered to facilitate the run-�off of surface water.
Many of the buildings constructed during this phase had street frontages, aligned
on the north–south road, and were separated by small streets and alleyways. Some had
enclosed open-�air yards at the rear, where various activities such as butchery and the
preparation of raw materials took place. At the north-�eastern edge of the site were a
number of pits used for the preparation and tanning of hides. Finds from the buildings
 the mercian supremacies 195

4.10 Layout of the site at the

Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden during the eighth-
century heyday of the trading
centre at Lundenwic

themselves suggest that a range of craft and manufacturing activities took place,
including metalworking, weaving and textile production, and bone-�and antler-�
working. Many buildings saw a range of small-�scale craft activity while others seem to
have served more specialised purposes. One building, for example, occupied until the
middle of the eighth century, was probably a smithy, with a brickearth hearth and a
circular clay furnace that was found to contain significant quantities of slag. Hearth
bottoms and dense slag were also recovered from the open area or yard to the north of
this building. Materials recovered from across the site as well as elsewhere at Lundenwic
point to trading links with areas in what are now northern France, the Low Countries
and the Rhineland, with lava quernstones, pottery, glass and wine amongst the
commodities imported.
At Ipswich in East Anglia, manufacturing perhaps played a more significant role in
the economy, with industrial-�scale production of Ipswich Ware pottery from around
the second decade of the eighth century, alongside trade and more limited levels of
other manufacturing and craft production. The wheel-�turned and kiln-�fired Ipswich
Ware can be found on sites throughout much of Anglo-�Saxon England, from Yorkshire
to the south coast and as far west as the Upper Thames Valley, and was virtually the
only pottery used in East Anglia.
These major emporia were dominant in overseas trade but settlements in other
coastal areas maintained more limited contacts, with such beach-�trading sites as Meols
on the Wirral serving specific hinterlands. Small-�scale trading places persisted in
 196 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Kent, with the advantage of the short sea crossings, for example at Fordwich on the
Stour near Canterbury and Sarre on the Wantsum Channel. Major churches may also
have enjoyed trading privileges through their own minor ports. Such monastic sites as
Reculver were well situated for access to the sea. The discovery of imported pottery
and stone at Sandtun (West Hythe) has provisionally been linked to the monastery at
Lyminge. The site is now cut off from the coast by the spread of Romney Marsh but
offered moorings on the Middle Saxon shoreline. There was also evidence for fishing,
probably seasonal, and limited production and manufacture, suggesting a multi-�
functional site with some involvement in cross-�Channel trade.
The role of royal power in stimulating the revival of trade remains much debated.
The emporia do not look like de novo settlements, established under royal authority
and control; their development and growth seem more organic. Yet the expansion in
trade of the late seventh and early eighth centuries would have required considerable
investment in labour and raw materials, which suggests some level of elite involvement
in the process. Kings may have played a part, but this expansion need not necessarily
always have been a royal agenda. Elite burial was occurring in Ipswich in the late
seventh century, and the Church may have been involved in the redevelopment of
early eighth-�century Southampton. Either could imply the involvement of other
elements within the elite.
What is clear is that from the final quarter of the seventh century, kings were
increasingly concerned to supervise and profit from trade. In the 680s the law code of
Kings Eadric and Hlothere of Kent makes reference to a royal official tasked with
witnessing transactions – a wic-Â�reeve – and to a royal hall for vouching to warranty in
London. Where this hall was based is unknown. Lothbury in the City of London is one
possibility, for the first part of the name may derive from Hlothere and some Middle
Saxon material has been recovered from the area. Another possibility is Whitehall. A
succession of Middle Saxon structures has been excavated there and included a
substantial hall. This complex of buildings was clearly of high status and the materials
recovered point to a connection with the nearby trading settlement.
By the eighth century at the latest there is evidence for kings collecting tolls from
traders and merchants, with individuals described as tax-�gatherers or toll-�collectors
appearing in some charter witness lists. Certain favoured religious institutions were
rewarded with exemptions from these tolls, with privileges surviving for the bishops of
London, Worcester and Rochester, and for the communities of Minster-�in-�Thanet and
Reculver. In some cases such exemptions were only for a single ship at a particular
trading site – most commonly London. Others applied at a number of ports, such as

4.11 Gilt bronze tweezers

dating from the later eighth to
early ninth centuries, found at
Reculver, Kent
 the mercian supremacies 197

that issued by King Eadberht II of Kent in the early 760s to Minster-�in-�Thanet freeing
two of their ships from toll at Sarre and freeing a third, newly constructed, from tolls at
Sarre and Fordwich. This document also makes reference to the royal right of pre-�
emption – that is, a first option – on goods being imported. It also states that if any of
the ships so freed were wrecked or otherwise lost, their replacements were to be brought
with their goods to Fordwich, perhaps to inspect their size and cargo capacities.
Tolls were probably collected from those travelling to and from trading centres by
road, as happened on the Continent, though the first explicit Anglo-�Saxon reference to
this practice occurs only in the late ninth century. Royal supervision of traders and
merchants is further evidenced in one of Charlemagne’s letters to Offa, already referred
to above. Anglo-Â�Saxon traders in Francia were to be protected and supported ‘according
to the ancient custom of trading’, and if they were oppressed they would be able to seek
justice from Charlemagne’s officials. The Frankish king expected similar protection
for Francish traders in Mercia.
The letter also dealt with some objects of trade. Charlemagne noted Offa’s request
for black stones – probably marble columns or perhaps quernstones – and stated that
he would arrange for the transport of such that could be found. Charlemagne then

4.12 Gold plaque, inlaid with

niello from the ‘productive site’
at Brandon, Suffolk. The image
is a zoo-anthropomorphic form
of the eagle symbol of St John
the Evangelist, whose name is
recorded in the inscription.
Mounting holes at each corner
suggest use as part of a book
cover
198 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

complains of the poor quality of imported English cloaks, claiming them to be too
short, perhaps suggesting that if Offa dealt promptly with this issue he would expedite
despatch of the black stones. The earlier breakdown in the relationship between Offa
and Charlemagne, which resulted in a trade embargo between Francia and Mercia,
likewise indicates the extent to which rulers were both involved with and profiting
from international trade – an embargo was both achievable and damaging to those
targeted.
Understandings of the relationship between the emporia and their hinterlands have
been transformed over the past generation by the discovery of significant numbers of
so-Â�called ‘productive sites’ – named for the large quantities of coinage and non-Â�ferrous
metalwork recovered. Most have been discovered by metal detectorists but few have
been fully excavated by archaeologists, though this situation is now improving.
Alongside their method of discovery and their levels of coinage and metalwork,
these ‘productive sites’ share a number of other characteristics. Their distribution is
largely concentrated in the south and east of England, particularly towards the coast
but with some in the Middle and Upper Thames Valley. They are generally close to
main routes of communication, either navigable rivers or roads and trackways, be
these prehistoric or Roman. There are nevertheless significant differences between the
various ‘productive sites’, both in terms of levels of material recovered and the range of
activities undertaken. Some, such as Flixborough or Brandon (Suffolk) were clearly
major settlements, yielding imported goods and evidence of crafts, industry and
literacy (particularly in the form of styli). Others were more minor, producing lower
levels of coinage and metalwork, and they show less evidence of being multifunctional
settlements.
Given the high levels of coinage recovered, it seems clear that many, if not all, the
‘productive sites’ were involved at some level in commerce and trade; this would
explain their presence on major routes and the frequent finds of imported pottery and
other goods. Some may have emerged simply as places where traders or merchants
congregated, at seasonal fairs or markets. Such may be the case with South Ferriby
(Lincolnshire), a probable terminus for ferries across the Humber and for the difficult
crossing of the Ancholme floodplain, so an obvious focus for travellers. At other sites,
there is evidence, both contemporary and later, for ecclesiastical functions. Flixborough
(Humberside), for example, may have been a monastery for at least parts of its lifespan,
while the discovery of styli and a gold plaque with a representation of John the
Evangelist (perhaps part of a book cover) at Brandon similarly suggest an ecclesiastical
community of some kind. Likewise, significant numbers of ‘productive sites’ in East
Anglia were later the sites of monasteries or churches, or formed parts of the endow-
ments of such institutions.
Given the role of monasteries and churches in international trade, as highlighted
by the toll exemptions referred to above, it is not surprising that religious communities
may have been stimuli for networks of exchange and production at the local and
regional level. The liturgical life of such communities necessitated access to imported
goods, particularly wine and olive oil; written sources as well as archaeological excava-
tions of known religious sites demonstrate that they could be centres for industrial
 the mercian supremacies 199

production and craft-�working, as at Whitby (North Yorkshire) and Lyminge. Given

that the written evidence points to the close supervision of traders and merchants by
royal officials, some of the ‘productive sites’ may also have been secular administrative
centres, where the need to pay tolls and taxes and have goods inspected also provided
an opportunity for trade and commerce.
Below the emporia and ‘productive sites’ in the economic hierarchy was a large
number of settlements – harder to detect archaeologically – that supplied them with
raw materials and foodstuffs but were otherwise outside the networks of international
trade and exchange that developed over the course of the seventh and eighth centu-
ries. There is evidence that certain settlement sites in this period were moving from
general subsistence farming to more specialised and, probably, market-�orientated
production. Such seems to have been but one part of a much wider intensification of
rural production and exploitation of landed resources that took place across the
Middle Saxon period. By the seventh century, the nature of Anglo-�Saxon settlements
was changing, with a move away from the scattered farmsteads of earlier periods to
more structured and carefully organised layouts, with trackways, enclosures and other
internal demarcations. There is also evidence of a more general relocation of settle-
ments, a ‘Settlement Shift’, away from lighter, and in some cases more marginal, soils
to heavier and more productive soils, beginning perhaps in the middle of the seventh
century or slightly later and continuing for at least a century. This type of process is
thought to lie behind the abandonment of such sites as Mucking (Essex) and Chalton
Down (Hampshire).
The period also witnessed a marked growth in the area under cultivation, with
increasing acreages particularly of wheat, and wider use of floodplains for pasture, as
witnessed around the lower Severn. Natural resources were likewise being exploited
4.13 Middle Saxon fish-weir on
the Nass, Essex
200 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

with burgeoning intensity, with both archaeological and documentary evidence for the
construction of numerous fish-�traps and weirs on rivers and estuaries, such as those
on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex or the River Thames at Chelsea. There was similar
investment in the processing of raw materials, with watermills such as those at
Kingsbury (Berkshire) and, probably, Tamworth (Staffordshire) being constructed in
this period, and evidence for a late seventh-�century tidal mill at Ebbsfleet (Kent).
The driving force behind much of this agricultural intensification and develop-
ment is likely to have been the Church. The monastic boom of the later seventh and
eighth centuries resulted in an increasingly wealthy Anglo-�Saxon Church, with exten-
sive landed endowments. In addition, the growth of the Church meant the growth of a
static and, in agricultural terms, relatively unproductive population whose ritual life
nevertheless consumed significant resources. The expansion of such a population
would have increased demand on the agricultural surplus and perhaps required new
methods for its collection and redistribution. At the same time, the stability of land
tenure created by the introduction of bookland – effectively, land free from the usual
norms of inheritance and intended in the first instance to allow for the permanent
endowment of religious institutions – rewarded long-Â�term investment in agricultural
production and the exploitation of wider landscape resources. Such intensification of
production was made more profitable and probably was stimulated further by the
networks of long-�distance trade centred on the emporia and other sites.
If the Church played a central role in these developments, it is nevertheless clear
that kings were also making increasing demands on their subjects and undertaking
ambitious projects – the already-Â�cited Offa’s Dyke being the most obvious case in
point. Coinage offers another example of the increasing demands and ambitions of
kings in the eighth century. From the 670s to the 740s, a coinage of silver pennies –
known as sceattas – was in circulation in England and, indeed, elsewhere in northern
Europe. Few of these coins bear inscriptions, and debate continues as to the level of
royal oversight in their minting; some are likely to have been royal issues, whereas
others may have been ecclesiastical or private issues.
By the 730s, the silver content of the sceattas circulating in England had declined
significantly, mirroring the debasement of coinage elsewhere in Europe and suggesting
a general shortage of bullion. This decline seems to have been the trigger for a currency
reform, with the issuing of a new type of coin containing a higher precious metal
content, of a more uniform weight and, crucially, bearing an inscription recording the
king in whose name the coinage had been issued. Eadberht of Northumbria was the
first to undertake such a reform, probably in the 740s, and he was followed by King
Beonna of East Anglia in the 750s and Offa of Mercia and Heahberht of Kent in the
760s, with the latter two rulers inspired also by a reform of the Frankish coinage
undertaken by Pippin III. Offa would initiate a further reform of coinage, with larger,
heavier pennies being produced from the early 790s, probably in response to a similar
reform by the Frankish ruler Charlemagne.
These heavy pennies would quickly become the standard form of coinage in the
south Humbrian kingdoms, though in Northumbria the lighter, thinner type of penny,
introduced by Eadberht, would persist. These reforms were also accompanied by a
 the mercian supremacies 201

4.14 Silver ‘sceat’ of King

Eadberht of Northumbria

contraction in the number of mints in operation in England, with coins being minted
only at York, London, Canterbury, Rochester, in Wessex (probably at Winchester or
Southampton) and in East Anglia (probably at Ipswich).
Though rights to issue coinage were granted to a small number of bishops, chiefly
the archbishop of Canterbury, from the middle of the eighth century coinage in the
Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms became, effectively, royal. The level of direct royal oversight is
likely to have varied significantly. Uniformity of design and royal style across mints
could sometimes be enforced or achieved, such as during the early years of Offa’s light
coinage or after his introduction of the heavy coinage, but at other times there existed
considerable variety.
The mechanisms by which kings profited from the production of royal coinage are
likewise obscure. Moneyers may have paid kings a fee for the right to mint coins, either
at a flat rate or as a proportion of the value of coins minted, and rulers may similarly
have claimed a percentage of the value of foreign coins or bullion brought to moneyers
to be melted down and made into coins. It was perhaps the very idea of an explicitly
royally controlled and guaranteed coinage that was significant in the eighth century
rather than any level of actual royal involvement. It speaks of an increasing desire by
kings to assert their authority over all aspects of life in their kingdoms and to manage
more carefully the resources that were available to them.
Such processes can also be seen in the demands kings made of those who held
lands in their kingdom. The end of the seventh century saw the first royal privileges
freeing church lands from the payment of taxation and other burdens. Both Wihtred
of Kent and Ine of Wessex issued general decrees to that effect, and Wihtred included
a similar statement in his law code. The precise details of the burdens from which the
churches and monasteries were being freed are not spelled out by any of these
documents. In addition, despite such general statements of immunities, church lands,
at least in Kent, still owed some royal service. A charter of Æthelberht II, Wihtred’s
son, freed the land granted from all royal rights except those – left otherwise undefined
– that were generally known to be owed by all church lands in Kent. Even during the
reign of Wihtred, there is evidence that the religious institutions of Kent could be
subject to sometimes onerous burdens. Around 720 a Kentish abbess, Eangyth,
complained in a letter to the Continental missionary Boniface that she and her
 202 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.15 The Durham Liber Vitae.

A ‘Book of Life’ contained the
names of individuals
connected to a religious
community – inmates, patrons,
friends and so forth – who
were to be remembered in the
liturgy. This example was
begun in the first half of the
ninth century, probably at
Lindisfarne or perhaps
Wearmouth-Jarrow, and the
entries on this page are the
names of abbots of priestly
grade. The first named is
Ceolfrith, abbot of Wearmouth-
Jarrow

community were facing ruin because of the services they owed to the king and the
queen, the bishop and various secular officials.
As has been noted, Boniface himself wrote a letter to Æthelbald of Mercia
condemning the violence and extortion the king inflicted on monks in his kingdom.
Soon afterwards, in 749, Æthelbald issued a decree at a council at Gumley
(Leicestershire) freeing all churches and monasteries in Mercia from royal taxation
and tribute except for those burdens that fell on the whole population by royal edict
and which could not be excused, namely the construction of bridges and the mainte-
nance of fortifications. The decree also stated that Æthelbald would ensure that
churches and monasteries could enjoy without encumbrance the produce of their
lands and that they were free from making gifts to the king and to other secular powers,
 the mercian supremacies 203

unless these were made voluntarily and from affection. The possibility that gifts might
not, in the past, have been made freely gives some substance to the exactions that
Abbess Eangyth so complained about.
Æthelbald’s decrees at Gumley might represent, then, the king’s response to accusa-
tions of unjust exactions placed on monks and clerics. The freeing of Church lands
from all royal dues, with the exception of what have become known as the ‘common
burdens’, represents a statement of precisely what rights the king and the secular
powers could and could not claim from church lands. In exchange for the Church
accepting certain military burdens, Æthelbald pledged to protect the churches and
monasteries of Mercia from further taxation and burdens. After the council at Gumley,
the military obligations or common burdens appear also in documents from the
kingdom of the Hwicce, from Kent and Sussex, and eventually Wessex. By the end of
the eighth century a third burden, to provide men to serve in the army, had been
added. Although personal loyalty and the expectation of reward continued to be of
vital importance in the raising of royal military retinues, the second half of the eighth
century thus saw the beginnings of a shift away from military service as a personal
obligation to one’s lord to an expectation attendant on the holding of land, a vital stage
in the development of royal power.

Christianity and the Church

By the end of the seventh century, the Conversion period, in the strict sense, was over.
Though there had been setbacks, the Conversion of England had been achieved
remarkably quickly and with very few problems. Within a century of the arrival of the
first missionaries, the Anglo-�Saxons were, nominally at least, Christian. All of the
kingdoms were governed by rulers who professed the Christian faith, monasteries and
churches had been established, and a network of dioceses covered England. Aspects of
Christian ritual and morality such as infant baptism, observation of the Sabbath,
monogamy and regular marriages were legally enforced. Bede writes as if paganism, in
the sense of a widely supported religion or cultural force, had effectively come to an
end by the first few decades of the eighth century. Practices identified as pagan continue
to be referred to – and condemned – by ecclesiastical writers over the course of the
eighth century (and, indeed, later) but in a context of Christians lapsing into error
rather than of pagans living alongside Christians.
If the period of formal missionary activity was at an end by the beginning of the
eighth century, it was succeeded by a longer, more drawn-�out and far more obscure
process of what we might term ‘Christianisation’. Over the course of the eighth century,
therefore, the Anglo-�Saxons moved from being a converted people to being a Christian
people. The new religion filtered through to all levels of Anglo-�Saxon society, leaving
few areas untouched. As with the Conversion process, Christianisation is best seen as
a dialogue – challenging, but productive and dynamic – between the Anglo-Â�Saxons
and their new faith. As Christianity transformed and reshaped Anglo-�Saxon society,
so the Anglo-�Saxons transformed and reimagined Christianity, inflecting it in the light
of their own cultural needs.
 204 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.16 King David from the If the eighth century ultimately saw the triumph of the processes first set in motion
Vespasian Psalter. The work, by missionaries before 600, it is a triumph that seems to have left only the faintest echo
probably produced in Kent in
the earlier eighth century,
in the surviving sources. The Anglo-�Saxon Church of the eighth and early ninth
marks the beginning of the centuries appears as one beset by problems: declining standards of monasticism, secu-
south-Humbrian ‘Tiberius Style’ larisation, lay lordship of religious institutions and inadequate provision of pastoral
care. Such a picture is, to an extent, a product of the surviving sources. Most of our
information concerning the Church in this period comes not from narrative sources, as
was the case for the seventh-Â�century Church, but from documentary sources – charters,
records of litigation and dispute settlement, and the decrees of ecclesiastical synods,
such as the councils that met at Clovesho (location now unknown) or Chelsea in 816.
Such sources tend to focus on perceived abuses and controversies, but in so doing
they also provide eloquent testimony to the success of Christianity within Anglo-�Saxon
England. The elite in particular seized upon the possibilities presented by Christianity
and its attendant institutions, and the new faith was rapidly integrated into the lives
and outlook of the Anglo-Â�Saxon aristocracy. To certain ecclesiastical writers – writers
whose voices, inevitably, dominate the surviving sources – this integration could look
like the exertion of undue secular influence on the Church, but this perspective should
not be allowed to disguise the very real success of Christianity. Moreover, in responding
to this perceived secularisation, church councils of this period reveal an increasingly
assertive episcopacy, looking to resist secular encroachment and to extend their power
and influence into all areas of the religious life of their dioceses.
Condemnations of monasteries and churches as excessively wealthy and worldly
reflect the growing importance of the institutional Church in the economic and
cultural life of the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms. As has been explored above, religious insti-
tutions played a central role in long-�distance trade and commerce and could be centres
of craft-�working, production and manufacturing. The Anglo-�Saxon Church of the
eighth and early ninth centuries undoubtedly faced significant problems, but a
straightforward narrative of decline and decay is a gross oversimplification. If Bede
and a number of his Northumbrian contemporaries articulated through their writings
the idea of a Golden Age of Anglo-�Saxon Christianity in the seventh century, Alcuin
of York, writing in the 790s, could find, with equal confidence, a Golden Age in the
mid-�eighth century.
From the 670s onwards there was a rapid growth in monastic foundation and
endowment. First kings and then, increasingly, the nobility founded and endowed a
large number of monasteries, gifting some of the most important houses extensive
landed patrimonies. The result of this patronage was that the Church was massively
enriched over the course of just one or two generations. Monasteries founded in this
period drew on a range of different influences – Irish, Frankish, Italian – and in the
absence of a single, standard monastic Rule the patterns of life and religious obser-
vance at these houses would have varied considerably. While some monasteries were
large, with numerous inmates and vast landed resources, others were smaller, consisting
of a handful of individuals and possessing only very limited estates. Nor were monas-
teries in this period necessarily detached from the wider world; as will be seen, some
were also active among the laity.
the mercian supremacies 205
206 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The wide variety of forms of monastic life in this period and their varied personnel
– priests, bishops and minor clergy as well as monks and nuns – have led some scholars,
such as Sarah Foot, to champion use of the term ‘minster’ to describe religious commu-
nities in this period. Such a term has the benefit of avoiding some of the anachronistic
connotations of the word ‘monastery’ but, inevitably, carries its own set of connota-
tions, not all of which are helpful. In this chapter the term ‘monastery’ will be used but
should be understood in this wider sense, as a word embracing a varied range of
different types and sizes of community.
For Bede, the extraordinary enthusiasm for the monastic life in the early eighth
century might be counter-�productive, or at best mischannelled. In a letter to Bishop
Ecgberht of York in 734 he bemoaned the numerous monasteries in Northumbria
ruled by men with no knowledge of the true monastic vocation, and vociferously
condemned the countless noblemen who had gained lands on the pretext of estab-
lishing monasteries but instead lived lives of debauchery and sin, spending their days
in the monastic enclosures and their nights in bed with their wives. Others had appar-
ently gained lands under false pretences, receiving grants for the foundation of monas-
teries only to avoid military service or to gain hereditary control over such lands.
Bede’s solution to these sham monasteries was a simple one: tear up the charters
that established them and put their lands to better use, either secular or ecclesiastical.
Whether all the nobles Bede so described would have recognised themselves in his
account seems unlikely. If some had less than pious motivations, others must have
been inspired by a genuine devotion, but the form their religiosity took did not
meet with Bede’s approval. His criticisms stem at least in part from competing and
conflicting ideas about the correct observance of communal religious life. Moreover,
in seeking to stamp out one perceived abuse, Bede opened the door to another. In the
mid-�750s, Pope Paul sent a letter to King Eadberht of Northumbria and Ecgberht, now
archbishop of York, demanding the restoration of three monasteries. These had been
seized from a certain Abbot Forthred and given to a nobleman called Moll. It is
tempting to read this letter in the light of Bede’s advice. Yet if Eadberht and Ecgberht
had liquidated estates they believed were held by a nobleman-�abbot of the type Bede
had condemned, nevertheless Forthred had been able to convince the pope, at least,
that he was a true religious. The differences between reform and secular encroachment
and between royal support of the Church and the unjust appropriation of ecclesiastical
resources could be, in part at least, a matter of perspective.
By the mid-Â�eighth century, other voices joined Bede’s in asserting that something
had gone fundamentally wrong with Anglo-�Saxon monasticism and, indeed, with the
Church as a whole. In a letter of c. 747, Boniface described to Archbishop Cuthbert of
Canterbury the steps he had taken to reform the Frankish Church and suggested
Cuthbert take similar measures to reform the Anglo-�Saxon Church. Monks ought not
to wear luxurious clothes, drunkenness among the clergy – a specifically English vice
according to Boniface – should be stamped out, and laymen who controlled monas-
teries ought to be excommunicated.
In the same year and probably in response to Boniface’s letter, a council of the arch-
diocese of Canterbury met at Clovesho, issuing canons that condemned the secularisa-
 the mercian supremacies 207

tion of monasteries and churches and criticised, among other things, displays of
excessive luxury, drunkenness and debauchery. The problem of lay lordship of monas-
teries was mentioned and such institutions were condemned, but the council stopped
short of implementing Boniface’s policy of excommunication against transgressors.
Instead, the council decreed that bishops ought to inspect and to supervise the monas-
teries in their dioceses to ensure standards were being maintained.
The canons promulgated at Clovesho were, however, less about resisting the
encroachment of lay culture on religious life than about trying to define, potentially
in new ways, where the boundaries between the secular and ecclesiastical spheres
should be drawn. How far should the mores of aristocratic culture suffuse religious
institutions? How far could Christianity and its ritual life be reshaped and reimagined
by the Anglo-�Saxons? The creative dynamism of Anglo-�Saxon England in the eighth
and early ninth centuries owed much to just this kind of cultural fusion and dialogue,
but for the bishops at Clovesho limits urgently needed to be put in place.
Other equally pressing problems also occupied the council at Clovesho. Scurrilous
rumours were circulating of rivalry between the secular aristocracy, kings included,
and the Church. Kings and their nobilities, it was said, accused the Church of being
insincere in its affections for them and envious of the wealth that they possessed. To

4.17 The Royal Prayerbook. The

manuscript is one of a number
of prayerbooks produced in the
later eighth and early ninth
centuries and shows the
influence of the ‘Tiberius Style’
in its decoration. The contents
of this volume are especially
concerned with matters of
illness and healing
 208 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

end such rumours, ecclesiastics and monastics were enjoined to pray not just for them-
selves but also for kings, nobles and all Christian peoples.
There is certainly evidence of growing tensions surrounding the Church in the
later eighth and early ninth centuries, but it would be wrong to draw a sharp divide, as
this canon does, between the secular aristocracy and the Church. Most, if not all, of the
leading churchmen and women were members of the nobility and a significant number
were royal. Furthermore, as the canons of Clovesho themselves made clear, there was
often little difference between the atmosphere of the aristocratic hall and that of the
monastic precincts. Individuals could move relatively freely between the two.
Equally, it would be wrong to present the Church in this period as a monolithic
whole. For Mercian overlords, powerful churchmen and women, above all the arch-
bishop of Canterbury, could represent a focus for local resistance and revolt, accumu-
lating powerbases that could threaten their own. The fluctuating political situation
also meant that such individuals could owe their positions and, perhaps, their loyalties
to previous regimes and so were often figures of suspicion to their new overlords. Yet
monasteries and other religious houses in client kingdoms could attract extensive
patronage from kings such as Offa and Cenwulf. They became very powerful and
wealthy institutions, nominally under the authority of the diocesan bishop and arch-
bishop but in practice largely beyond their control. Such may have been the case with
4.18 Detail from a frieze at St the Kentish monasteries of Minster-�in-�Thanet and Reculver in the ninth century.
Mary and St Hardulph, Breedon Tensions thus existed not only between the secular aristocracy and the Church but also
on the Hill. The birds, beasts
between different parts of the Church and between different institutions. Loyalties cut
and chimeras of this and other
friezes at Breedon owe a clear across any simple lay and ecclesiastical divide.
debt to Coptic and Byzantine Such growing tensions are made manifest in a series of disputes in the later eighth
artistic traditions and early ninth centuries. Mercian control of Kent under Offa was much resented and
 the mercian supremacies 209

sparked a successful revolt in the 770s. Offa regained control by the mid-�780s, but
probably only by comparatively brutal means, and his relationship with Archbishop
Jænberht suffered accordingly. As an ex-Â�abbot of St Peter’s and St Paul’s, Canterbury,
Jænberht was almost certainly of Kentish extraction and although he had been elevated
to the archiepiscopate during Offa’s first overlordship of Kent, and so presumably with
his consent, it is likely that the Mercian king now doubted Jænberht’s loyalty. Certainly,
Offa seized lands that had been granted to Jænberht’s kinsman Aldhun by the Kentish
King Ecgberht II during the brief period of native rule in the late 770s and 780s.
Hostility between Offa and Jænberht may also explain the Mercian king’s establish-
ment of a new archdiocese. A synod at Chelsea in 787 stripped Jænberht of part of his
province, creating a new archdiocese centred on Lichfield, in the heartlands of Mercia.
Such proved highly contentious and was, of course, bitterly opposed at Canterbury.
Jænberht died in 792 and was succeeded by the abbot of Louth in Lincolnshire,
Æthelheard, presumably under Mercian pressure. With Canterbury now neutralised
as a centre of Kentish resistance, once Archbishop Hygeberht of Lichfield died in the
early ninth century, the archdiocese was dissolved and the traditional sphere of influ-
ence of Canterbury restored.
Disputes between Mercia and Canterbury also took other forms. A papal privilege
from Pope Hadrian I makes it clear that Offa of Mercia and his wife Cynethryth had
substantial interests in several religious houses. Cynethryth herself retired to take
charge of Cookham (Berkshire) after her husband’s death in 796, but also retained
control of the church at Bedford where her husband was buried. The monastery at
Cookham had originally been granted by King Æthelbald to Christ Church, Canterbury,
but had been seized first by King Cynewulf of Wessex and then subsequently by Offa.
Despite numerous requests from successive archbishops of Canterbury, Offa retained
control of the monastery, presumably in part because of its location in the disputed
frontier zone between Mercia and Wessex. In 798 Cynethryth reached an agreement
with Archbishop Æthelheard, giving up Bedford and a number of estates in Kent in
exchange for Canterbury surrendering its claims on Cookham.
These two problems – tension and distrust between the archbishop of Canterbury
and Mercian kings, and disagreement over the control of monasteries – come together
in a protracted dispute between Archbishop Wulfred (d. 832) and King Cenwulf.
Before his elevation to the archiepiscopate, Wulfred had been a member of the Christ
Church community at Canterbury, though his roots were probably in the Middlesex
region and he retained significant landholdings there. As such he must have been a
candidate attractive to both Christ Church and King Cenwulf. Nevertheless by around
808, there were clearly tensions between the archbishop and the Mercian king, for
Pope Leo III noted in a letter to Charlemagne that a dispute between the two had still
not been resolved.
The causes of these tensions are unknown and the two enjoyed better relations
after this date, with Cenwulf making a number of grants to Wulfred in the period
809–15, albeit often in exchange for money or other estates. In 816 Wulfred held a
council at Chelsea that sought, amongst other things, radically to extend the power of
bishops over monasteries in their dioceses. Bishops were given the power to elect
210 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

abbots and abbesses and, if institutions were threatened by secular rapacity, the right
to take control of monastic properties. Such effectively inverted the existing relation-
ship between bishops and monasteries, despite the council’s claim to be following the
judgments of the Council of Chalcedon of 451.
If the council at Chelsea was intended to check the spread of lay lordship in general,
nevertheless it seemed designed specifically to strengthen Wulfred’s hand in his strug-
gles with Cenwulf. By this date, the two were in dispute over control of the monasteries
of Reculver and Minster-�in-�Thanet. This dispute is known only from a record drawn
up in 835 when, with Cenwulf dead and Reculver and Minster-�in-�Thanet in the hands
of his daughter, Cwenthryth, the matter was resolved in Wulfred’s favour by the
Mercian ruler Beornwulf.
The record of this dispute is frustratingly opaque in places and it is not clear
precisely what rights over the two monasteries Wulfred thought he had been denied.
The matter was of such seriousness that in the aftermath of the Council of Chelsea
Cenwulf had driven Wulfred into exile. Both men sought to buttress their positions in
other ways. Cenwulf himself had secured a privilege from Pope Paschal confirming his
authority over the monasteries in his possession, while Wulfred forged a number of
royal privileges, from both Kentish and Mercian rulers, granting him extensive powers
over the religious institutions in Kent. A reconciliation between the two was achieved
at a meeting in 821 at which Wulfred agreed to hand over to the king an estate of
300 hides and the sum of £120 – a vast sum – apparently in return for the restoration
of certain rights over Reculver and Minster-�in-�Thanet, though the document is vague
on this point. Whatever agreement was reached, Wulfred felt it had been broken by
Cwenthryth and he subsequently appealed to King Beornwulf, eventually gaining
control of Minster-�in-�Thanet.
Disputes of this kind were also played out at a local level, between bishops and the
nobility. It was not only royalty who treated religious houses as in some sense their
own private property. Over the course of the eighth and ninth centuries, lay lords of
monasteries increasingly treated them as resources to be exploited in whichever way
they saw fit. In the early 820s, for example, Wulfheard, the lay owner of the monastery
at Inkberrow (Worcestershire), constructed a residence for himself within the monastic
enclosure. The canons of the Council of Chelsea likewise suggested that impoverish-
ment due to secular rapacity was a danger facing many monastic institutions.
That lay owners were asset-� stripping monastic communities or progressively
encroaching on their landed resources would explain the gradual shift away from large
communities of monks to the smaller communities of clergy evidenced in the early to
mid-�ninth century. Charters from Kent, for example, suggest that religious communi-
ties there were being staffed increasingly by priests and members of the secular clergy
instead of monks. Small communities comprising perhaps a handful of priests and
members of the minor orders would require far less extensive resources to support
them than a large monastic community but would, nevertheless, be able to meet most
of the pastoral and liturgical needs of their lay patrons.
In some cases the efforts of bishops to defend standards within their own dioceses
led them to take over smaller monasteries to protect them from secular encroachment
 the mercian supremacies 211

4.19 Figure of the Virgin or an

abbess from St Mary and St
Hardulph, Breedon on the Hill

and lay lordship. The process is best seen at Worcester, where numerous small houses
and their property came into the hands of the diocesan Church during the eighth and
early ninth centuries, marking a significant improvement in its resource base. At
Worcester such processes were facilitated by pre-�existing ties between the founders or
owners of many of the monasteries so taken over and the episcopal see. The owners
and patrons of these smaller houses would also have benefited from being part of a
wider, more extensive and better resourced network of monasteries and churches.
Nevertheless, episcopal oversight and ownership need not always have been
welcomed. If bishops could be motivated by a desire to uphold standards and prevent
lay lordship, episcopal avarice could also play a part. The acceptance of lay lordship
may have been one means by which monasteries hoped to escape the unwanted
attentions of their diocesan bishop. Certainly, Wulfred was remembered at Minster-�in-�
Thanet not as the person who had rescued the monastery from the dangers of lay
control but as a despoiler of monastic property. Monasteries therefore risked finding
themselves caught between the ambitions of their lay patrons and the designs of
bishops.
212 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

If the patronage of the elite could bring problems, it nevertheless enriched the
Anglo-�Saxon Church, facilitating the development of a remarkable and productive
intellectual and artistic culture. The scriptoria of several important institutions were
clearly active in copying major works, including those of Bede, for which there was
considerable demand across the mid-�and later eighth century from Continental
Europe. Leading churchmen, such as Abbot Cuthbert of Wearmouth-�Jarrow and
Archbishop Ecgberht of York, were in correspondence with their counterparts on the
Continent, where Anglo-�Saxon missionaries were heavily involved in the Frankish
efforts to convert their neighbours to the north. Anglo-�Saxon churchmen such as
Alcuin of York were active at the court of Charlemagne and provided significant intel-
lectual underpinning for the Carolingian Renaissance. From being a major importer of
texts and scholarship across the seventh century, eighth-�century England took its place
within the Western Church as a fully participating province, able to export texts and
learning as well as draw them in.
Alongside learning and scholarship can be placed the flourishing artistic culture of
the Anglo-�Saxon Church. In Northumbria, illuminated manuscripts such as the
Lindisfarne Gospels (?720s) extended and refined the so-�called Hiberno-�Saxon style
that had developed across Britain and Ireland in the seventh century. The combining
of decorative motifs from Celtic La Tène style – peltae, triskeles and trumpet-Â�spirals
– with animal interlace deriving particularly from Germanic metalwork and interlace
and step-�patterns from Mediterranean traditions first occurred on metalwork but was
subsequently translated to other media, reaching its creative peak in the illuminated
manuscripts of the late seventh and eighth centuries.
In the south Humbrian kingdoms a different style of illumination developed across
the mid-�eighth to early ninth centuries. Hiberno-�Saxon elements were deployed but
the tradition drew more extensively on Classical and Italo-�Byzantine motifs with a
greater use of gold and purple pigment. The beginnings of the development of this
so-Â�called ‘Tiberius Style’ can be seen in the Vespasian Psalter, produced in the 720s or
730s, perhaps at Canterbury. It was subsequently used for a series of de luxe manu-
scripts such as the Stockholm Codex Aureus and the Canterbury Royal Bible, as well as
for a collection of personal prayer books, including the Book of Nunnaminster and the
Royal Prayerbook.
The eighth century also saw the development of new types of sculpture in
Northumbria, most notably free-�standing crosses, often decorated with vine-�scroll
and interlace and sometimes featuring complex and allusive iconographic programmes
executed in high relief. There is little surviving sculpture from the south until the mid-�
to late eighth century when in eastern Mercia in particular there was a flourishing of
architectural sculpture such as ornamental friezes and figural panels. As with manu-
scripts, the southern style of sculpture was more Classicising, though it still employed
certain insular decorative motifs and schemes. Some of the best examples are preserved
in the church of St Mary and St Hardulph at Breedon on the Hill (Leicestershire), with
other important works preserved at Wirksworth (Derbyshire), Peterborough (‘the
Headda Stone’) and Lichfield (the recently discovered ‘Lichfield Angel’).
If manuscripts and sculpture redeployed existing artistic traditions in a new,
 the mercian supremacies 213

Christian context, so Anglo-�Saxon vernacular poetry was pressed into the service of
Christianity. Bede records how Cædmon, a member of the Whitby community during
the time of Abbess Hild (d. 680), was divinely inspired to compose Christian poetry in
Old English, a feat none had accomplished before him. Though little vernacular poetry
from this period survives – only a few lines of Cædmon’s verses are extant, for example
– the recasting of the Christian story in Old English poetic diction and imagery was
clearly of considerable cultural importance. This led to a reimagining of key Christian
events and characters, with episodes such as the spreading of the Gospel by the
Apostles being seen through the lens of the secular heroic ethos. Whilst the achieve-
ments of poets such as Cædmon could be praised by ecclesiastical writers and vernac-
ular poetry was probably of vital importance in spreading the message of Christianity
to the laity, some churchmen, as has been seen, sought to place limits on such cultural
fusion. The council of Clovesho condemned those who recited in church in the manner
of secular poets, decreeing that the pronunciation of Holy Scripture should not be
mutilated and disfigured as if it were heroic verse.

Religion and the Laity

The extent to which the religious lives of the laity were transformed by Christianity
depended to a large degree on the effectiveness of provisions for pastoral care – that is,
the activities carried out by the Church to meet the spiritual needs of the laity. In the
eighth century this embraced a range of activities from administering the sacraments
– such as baptism, confirmation, communion, confession and the imposition of
penance, and the Last Rites – to preaching, teaching and more general religious advice
and guidance.
Though clearly of vital importance to the religious life of the Anglo-�Saxon king-
doms, there is surprisingly little evidence for how the pastoral needs of the laity were
met. Much of the evidence that survives is normative – setting out what ought to
happen but not necessarily what was happening. Other evidence comes from sources
stressing the inadequacy of current arrangements and the need for reform, such as
Bede’s aforementioned letter to Bishop Ecgberht in 734. Ultimate responsibility for
pastoral care lay with the bishops, and the sources repeatedly stress the need for
bishops to tour their dioceses annually to educate and to exhort the laity. Bishops were
also the only churchmen who could administer the full range of sacraments, including
confirmation, the ordination of clergy and the consecration of churches. The bulk of
pastoral work must, however, have fallen to priests and to the minor clergy.
While the surviving sources emphasise the role of priests in the provision of
pastoral care, it is less clear how such provision was organised: what areas did priests
administer to, for example, or at what kind of institutions were they based? On the
Continent in this period and in England at a later date, pastoral care was provided by
small, local churches staffed by one or two priests and under direct diocesan control.
Such churches are largely absent from the written sources of late seventh-�and eighth-�
century England and their apparent scarcity makes it unlikely that they could have
been the basis for an effective system of pastoral care. Instead of these small, local
 214 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.20 All Saints, Brixworth. One

of the finest surviving
examples of Anglo-Saxon
architecture, the nave is
substantially late eighth- or
early ninth-century and was
originally flanked by a series of
porticus that probably acted as
oratories. The original narthex
subsequently formed the base
of the tower, the upper sections
of which were built in the
eleventh century at the same
time as the turret. The spire
and the Lady Chapel date to
the thirteenth or fourteenth
century

churches pastoral care in this period may have been administered by religious
communities – monasteries, in the loose sense of the word discussed above. These
communities had responsibility for extensive ‘parishes’ far larger than the parishes of
later periods.
This so-Â�called ‘Minster Model’ of pastoral provision has been particularly champi-
oned by John Blair. Though it accords well with the surviving evidence, the problem is
that the written sources are dominated by monastic writers and by texts relating to
monasteries and their landed endowments. Such may provide an overly monastic
vision of Anglo-�Saxon Christianity in this period, emphasising the role of monasteries
at the expense of smaller churches. Given the small number of clergy staffing such
institutions and the very limited landed resources they would have needed to support
themselves, it is not surprising that these houses are mentioned only infrequently in
the written sources.
However pastoral care was provided, not all religious communities would neces-
sarily have been engaged in formal pastoral activities; indeed, some of the smaller
monasteries are likely to have lacked priests. Even for those communities with clergy
and active in the provision of pastoral care, meeting the needs of the laity still presented
significant problems. The extent to which the liturgy was intelligible to the laity was
 the mercian supremacies 215

4.21 The Wirksworth Slab.

Grave-cover or monument from
Wirksworth, Derbyshire, with
scenes from the life of Christ
and the early Jerusalem
community. Though less
accomplished than the
sculpture from Breedon on the
Hill, this piece exhibits a
similar range of Mediterranean
and Byzantine stylistic
influences

limited, with many of the rituals conducted in Latin, a language very few lay people
would have learned. Comprehension of Latin was a problem for priests, too. The
council of Clovesho in 747 noted that there were many priests who did not understand
the meaning of the words of the Mass or the Lord’s Prayer, presumably having learned
their part by rote. Vernacular translations needed to be made, the council decreed, to
ensure that both priests and their congregations understood the meaning and signifi-
cance of the liturgy.
Even where there was adequate provision of pastoral care, the involvement of the
laity in the ritual life of the Church was limited. As discussed, infant baptism was
assumed by the law codes and presumably would have taken place throughout the year
rather than at specific Christian festivals such as Easter. At the other end of life, very
few of the laity in this period would have been interred in the burial grounds of monas-
teries or churches, for such privileges were restricted to the elite. Nor did the adult lay
population routinely receive communion. Sources stress the need for a period of
sexual abstinence before communion and, aside from chaste couples, only children,
young adults and old people were encouraged to take communion routinely, presum-
ably because they were not sexually active. For the rest of the adult population,
communion may have been at most an annual event. The Dialogue of Ecgberht of
York, dating to the mid-�eighth century, records that the laity were accustomed to fast,
abstain from sexual intercourse, offer up alms and visit their confessors in the 12 days
before Christmas that they might receive communion on the day of the Lord’s nativity.
Some of the laity may, however, have attended church more frequently than this.
The council of Clovesho instructed priests to invite the laity to church on Sundays and
feast days to hear the word of God, listen to sermons, and be present at the sacrament
of the Mass (though presumably few of them would have been able to receive it). A
number of the surviving homilies by Bede suggest these may have been written for
 216 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4.22 Grave marker from the

monastery at Hartlepool; just
visible are the letters ‘UGUID’,
probably part of a personal
name. Numerous stone grave
markers of this type have been
found at various Northumbrian
religious sites; their decoration
and layout have affinities with
contemporary illuminated
manuscripts

such an occasion; for example, his homily for Holy Saturday refers to those in the
congregation who had not yet received baptism, suggesting he was addressing an audi-
ence of both monks and laity.
The cult of saints offered another mechanism through which the laity could express
their devotion and take some part in the religious life of the Church. Numerous figures
were venerated in this period, ranging from universal saints such as the Apostles to
minor, local saints about whom nothing, save their names, is now known. Most
churches would have possessed at least one relic and some had extensive collections.
Shrines such as the tomb of St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne became the focus of pilgrim-
ages, attracting crowds seeking the saint’s intercession or blessing, as well as beggars
looking for charity, and other less savoury characters.
Outside the formal structures of the Church other outlets for lay piety developed,
often perceived by ecclesiastics as of dubious spiritual worth. Lay people collected
relics, in some cases carrying them about their person, for in the late eighth century
Alcuin complained about the custom of wearing amulets and charms, stating ‘it is
better to copy the examples of the saints in the heart than to carry bones in bags’. In the
same letter Alcuin also condemned those who left churches and travelled to the hills
‘where they worship, not with prayer, but in drunkenness’. Another of Alcuin’s letters
from the same period made reference to meetings or assemblies of those who had
sworn pacts of brotherhood, describing such things as unpleasing to God and most
certainly incompatible with the Christian religion.
 the mercian supremacies 217

4.23 Opening of twelfth-

century manuscript of Bede’s
letter to Bishop Ecgberht. The
names of Ecgberht and Bede
can be seen in the first and
second lines of the letter
proper

What Alcuin was condemning in these letters was not the survival of pagan prac-
tices, but the existence of patterns of Christian lay religiosity that did not meet with his
approval. Christianity had moved beyond the confines of the Church, quite literally in
some cases, and outside the ritual structures of organised, institutional religion. Such
practices might meet with condemnation but they are testimony to the penetration of
Christianity into Anglo-�Saxon society and its acceptance by the laity and incorpora-
tion into their wider lives.
 sources and issues 4a

the ‘continental missionaries’

martin j. ryan

Have pity on them, for even they themselves are wont to say; ‘We are of one blood
and one bone’; remembering that the way of all the earth draws near, and no one
shall confess to the Lord in hell, nor shall death praise, and the way of all the earth
draws near.

So the Anglo-�Saxon churchman Boniface (d. 754) wrote in a letter of 738, appealing to
the English for aid, both spiritual and material, for his mission to bring Christianity to
the Old Saxons. Boniface is the best known of countless Anglo-�Saxon churchmen and
women who were active in the mission fields of northern Europe from the late seventh
to ninth centuries – the ‘Continental Missionaries’ as they are known collectively.
Their religious and cultural impact was significant and long-�lasting; Boniface, for
example, has been called ‘the Apostle of the Germans’, albeit with little justification,
while some of the religious institutions founded by these missionaries came to be
amongst the most prestigious and important in Europe. They also played a central
role in spreading insular artistic and scribal traditions to the Continent. Manuscripts
originating from England and elsewhere in the Atlantic Archipelago served as the
inspiration for new works, either emulating insular decorative schemes or fusing
them with Continental traditions. Insular artists and scribes themselves also found
homes in the scriptoria and ateliers of these new foundations. Such was the extent of
intellectual and cultural exchange that it is the treasures of these Continental houses
that provide the best insight into the now largely lost riches of the pre-�Viking Anglo-�
Saxon Church.
The motivations for Anglo-�Saxon churchmen and women to travel to the Continent
varied significantly. Boniface would stress the kinship between the Anglo-�Saxons and
the Old Saxons as a factor, at least in the contexts of letters to England. General biblical
injunctions to spread the word of God must have provided the inspiration for many,
regardless of ethnic affiliations. The Irish, who had brought Christianity to parts of
Anglo-�Saxon England and were also active on the Continent, offered another source
of inspiration. Their idea of voluntary exile from one’s homeland for the sake of God
(‘peregrinatio pro amore dei’) was particularly influential. Thoughts of personal
advancement may have motivated some, whereas ties of kinship may have drawn
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e ‘ c o n t i n e n ta l m i s s i o n a r i e s ’ 219

4a. 1 Religious foundations in

Northern Europe in the age of
the Continental missionaries

others. The monastery at Echternach in Frisia founded by Willibrord (d. 739), for
example, was ruled subsequently by two of his brothers, Aldberct and Beornrad, while
Abbess Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim (d. 782) was a kinswoman of Boniface and was
put in charge of the foundation by him.
This outward flow of people, ideas and objects was facilitated by the growth in
long-�distance trade of the later seventh and eighth centuries. Boniface, for example, is
known to have travelled from the trading settlement at London to Frisia on a merchant’s
ship that was returning to its home port, the emporium at Dorestad. He undertook
another similar journey from London to the emporium at Quentovic. The successes of
the missionaries were also closely tied in with the rising power of the Carolingian
dynasty, with figures such as Pippin II (d. 714), Charles Martel (d. 741), Carloman (d.
754) and Pippin III (d. 768) actively supporting their work and through military
 220 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4a.2 The Calendar of St

Willibrord. The marginal
annotation details the arrival
of Willibrord and his
companions in Frisia in 690
and may have been penned by
Willibrord himself

expansion and political influence bringing some stability to the often turbulent areas
of the mission fields.
Much is known about the lives of some of the key missionaries. Boniface was the
subject of a number of biographies, with three alone being produced within a century
of his death. There also survives a substantial body of correspondence between
Boniface and a wide range of recipients in England and on the Continent. Among the
most interesting of these letters is one by Bishop Daniel of Winchester setting out the
methods he recommends that Boniface employ when attempting to convert pagans; it
is unclear whether Daniel was offering the fruits of his own dealings with Anglo-�Saxon
pagans or simply suggesting the kinds of strategies he felt likely to bring results.
Other missionaries were likewise the subjects of hagiographies. The deeds of
Willehad (d. 789), a Northumbrian active in Frisia and Saxony, who became bishop of
the newly established diocese of Bremen, were recorded in a biography written in the
mid-�ninth century, probably on the occasion of the translation of his body to the new
cathedral. Likewise, Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim was the subject of a biography
written in the 830s by Rudolf, a monk at Fulda, the monastery where she was buried.
Though these biographies and numerous others like them focus attention on the
major figures and leading individuals, other written sources throw light on the
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e ‘ c o n t i n e n ta l m i s s i o n a r i e s ’ 221

communities surrounding them, giving a sense of the large number of people involved 4a.3 The martyrdom of St
in this missionary activity, as well as of the pull that charismatic figures like Boniface Boniface as depicted in a
could exert. tenth-century sacramentary

The earliest Anglo-�Saxon to achieve any real successes in missionary work on the
Continent was the Northumbrian Willibrord. Bede includes an account of Willibrord’s
activities in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People and he was also the subject of
biographies in both verse and prose written in the later eighth century by his kinsman,
Alcuin of York.
Willibrord first entered the monastic life at Ripon in Northumbria under the
abbacy of Wilfrid – a figure who would himself make an abortive attempt to bring
the Frisians to Christianity in 679. Willibrord subsequently travelled to Ireland to join
the monastic community at Rath Melsigi (probably Clonmelsh, County Carlow). There
he came under the influence of another expatriate Anglo-�Saxon, Ecgberht, who had
already developed plans for missionary work among the Germans. It was Ecgberht
who eventually dispatched Willibrord and 11 companions to the Continent – the
number must surely be significant here.
Rather than head directly for Frisia they landed first in Francia in 690. This date is
known from an entry in the margin of a liturgical calendar – a note possibly written by
Willibrord himself. It was only some two years later, having secured the backing of the
Carolingian Pippin II, that Willibrord travelled to Frisia. Later that same year he jour-
neyed to Rome to gain papal backing for his mission.
Willibrord was subsequently made archbishop by Pope Sergius I and, eventually,
established his see at Utrecht, having been granted lands there by Pippin, following
successful military campaigns against the Frisians. Willibrord also founded the monas-
tery at Echternach, on lands granted by the noblewoman Irmina. This last institution
was subsequently the focus of significant patronage by the Carolingian family and
came to house an important and influential scriptorium.
It was probably at Echternach that Willibrord spent his final days. He died on 7
November 739 and was buried in the church there some three days later. Outside his
 222 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4a.4 The symbol of St Matthew

the Evangelist from the
Echternach Gospels. The
provenance of this manuscript
is much debated – it may have
been produced in Britain or
Ireland or by a Continental
scriptorium under insular
influence

ecclesiastical institutions, it is less clear what impact Willibrord’s missionary activities

actually had in Frisia. Nevertheless, Willibrord is remembered as the patron saint of
the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and his tomb at Echternach is still the site of vener-
ation.
Willibrord is overshadowed by his younger contemporary Boniface, a man who
likewise began his Continental career among the Frisians. Boniface was born in Devon
in the mid-�670s, entering the monastery at Exeter as a child and eventually becoming
the head of the monastic school at Nursling near Southampton. In 716, at around the
age of 40, he chose to leave Anglo-�Saxon England to evangelise the Frisians. Political
turmoil in Frisia forced him return to England, but in 719, having first visited Rome
and received papal approval for his missionary work, he travelled again to Frisia where
he worked alongside Willibrord at Utrecht for a few years.
It was in Thuringia and Hesse that Boniface was most active, founding several
monasteries – the most important of which was that at Fulda – and establishing a
number of dioceses. Boniface formed strong ties with the papacy, travelling to Rome
on a number of occasions and remaining in close correspondence with successive
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e ‘ c o n t i n e n ta l m i s s i o n a r i e s ’ 223

4a.5 Alcuin of York (centre),

alongside Hrabanus Maurus
(left) and Bishop Otgar of Mainz
(right) from a ninth-century
Fulda manuscript

popes. Such ties culminated in Boniface’s elevation to archiepiscopal status in 732.

Initially Boniface had no fixed diocese but eventually his metropolitan see was estab-
lished at Mainz.
As already noted, the progress of Boniface’s work was much tied up with the
spread of Carolingian power. It was Charles Martel’s military campaigns against the
Old Saxons in 738 that were the trigger for Boniface to launch what was ultimately
an abortive attempt at missionary work in that region. In the 740s Boniface was
active in reforming the Frankish Church, holding a series of councils and, as has
been seen, encouraging reform of the English Church through letters to various
recipients.
In the 750s Boniface again turned his attention to missionary work, setting off for
Frisia in 753. On 5 June the following year he met his death at the hands of a band of
robbers. His body was eventually buried at Fulda, where a cult soon developed and he
was venerated as a martyr. One of the relics associated with his cult is a book, now
known as the Ragyndrudis Codex, that Boniface is said to have used to fend off his
attackers; the cuts made by swords and axes are still visible.
224 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Despite his subsequent reputation and, indeed, the way he sometimes presented
himself in his own letters, Boniface was only infrequently a missionary amongst pagan
peoples. Most of his Continental career was spent in Hesse, Thuringia and Bavaria,
regions that had had a Christian presence for a considerable time. Here Boniface was
engaged more in the reorganisation and restructuring of the Church than in formal
missionary work. Nevertheless, Boniface was a potent figure of authority both in his
own lifetime and after his death – the numerous accounts of his life that were written
were in part the product of competing attempts to claim his legacy and to determine
the meaning of his life and his death. In some of his correspondence he can come
across as a stern, austere and unyielding character, scornful of those who opposed his
plans or disagreed with his actions. In other letters he displays a lightness of touch and
a surprising wit and he was also able to inspire considerable affection in his disciples
and contacts, with his passing provoking much sadness and displays of grief amongst
his correspondents.
The Continental missionaries were but one part of a more general outward flow of
churchmen and women from Anglo-�Saxon England across the seventh to ninth centu-
ries. Numerous individuals undertook pilgrimages to Rome – Boniface’s letters include
responses to requests for information by those undertaking such journeys – and some
travelled to more distant sites such as those in the Holy Land. One of the most detailed
accounts of such a pilgrimage is the so-Â�called Hodoeporicon – more correctly the
Life of Willibald and Winibald – written by the nun Huneberc of Heidenheim. This
tells of Willibald’s journeys and adventures around the Mediterranean and the sacred
sites of the Holy Land, including his imprisonment by Saracens and the smuggling
of balsam in a calabash. Having toured the Holy Land, Willibald would subsequently
spend time at the monastery of Monte Cassino before joining Boniface to undertake
missionary work.
Perhaps the most influential and significant of these other Anglo-�Saxon travellers
to the Continent was Alcuin (d. 804). Having been educated at the cathedral school in
York, he was recruited by Charlemagne to join a growing circle of scholars at the royal
court. There Alcuin would become one of the principal intellectual architects of the
Carolingian Renaissance.
The missionaries of the seventh to ninth centuries, as well as other Anglo-�Saxon
Christians active on the Continent, are eloquent testimony to the rapid success of
Christianity within Anglo-�Saxon England. Within only a few generations of the
coming of Christianity, the Anglo-�Saxon Church was confidently looking outwards,
seeking to spread the faith to other regions and peoples, with individual churchmen
and women prepared to risk hardships, suffering and even death in order to gather
souls to God.
 sources and issues 4b

mid-�late saxon settlement at

flixborough
nicholas j. higham

Timber-�built and lacking major earthworks, most Anglo-�Saxon rural settlements have
been badly damaged by later activity. At Flixborough (Humberside), however, excava-
tions revealed not only an extensive stratigraphy, including structures occupied across
a period stretching from the seventh century to the early eleventh, but
also middens and rubbish dumps on a scale never previously uncovered on a site
of this kind. On the whole, digging at Anglo-�Saxon settlements reveals comparatively
low levels of occupation debris, the assumption being that refuse was collected
into heaps which were later carted off as manure onto adjacent farm land. This had
not occurred to the same extent at Flixborough. High levels of finds label this clearly
as a ‘productive site’, so excavation here also provided an opportunity to examine
why some sites produce exceptional quantities of finds. Although the habitation
sequence is complicated by successive rebuilding, often on the same site, then
levelling and dumping leading to large-�scale re-�deposition of material, the site does
offer a unique opportunity to explore the footprint of the inhabitants of this rural
settlement across more than four centuries. This has, in turn, provided an opportunity
to revisit the ways in which rural settlements have been interpreted in recent years and
to suggest a more complex and time-�sensitive approach, exploring comparatively
short-�term variations as regards both settlement status and the secular/ecclesiastical
divide.
The site lies in historic Lincolnshire, north of Scunthorpe in the parish of
Flixborough but some 600 metres south of the modern village, on a north–south ridge
of wind-�blown sand just above the floodplain of the Trent (to the west). Settlement
seems to have been attracted to this interface between wetlands along the river and the
good-�quality agricultural soils which were easily accessible along Lincoln Edge, to the
east. Medieval occupation nearby is well attested: immediately east of the Anglo-�Saxon
settlement is the graveyard of All Saints Church (now demolished), beyond which lie
the deserted medieval village (DMV) of North Conesby and a late medieval or early
modern moated platform. Iron Age and Roman material was found during the excava-
tions, suggesting that occupation had occurred in the general vicinity for most of a
millennium and a half, with easterly settlement drift towards the better agricultural
soils across the Anglo-�Scandinavian and Anglo-�Norman periods.
 226 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Planning consent for sand quarrying led to

excavation in 1988 south-�west of the grave-
yard, directed by Kevin Leahy, which revealed
11 badly damaged Anglo-� Saxon east-�
west
inhumations, probably of the seventh to ninth
centuries, and possible building foundations.
Larger-�scale, open-�area excavation was then
funded by English Heritage and undertaken
by Humberside Archaeological Unit (now
Humber Field Archaeology), primarily in
1989–91, under the direction of Christopher
Loveluck. Excavation, however, has to date
revealed only part of the site. Survey work
both north and west of the church suggests
that further extensive remains are waiting to
be excavated, including the Anglo-�Norman
settlement around the church itself and the
DMV beyond.
The 1989–91 excavation focused on a
section of the sand belt where a shallow valley
ran in from the west between two spurs of
sand; around 40 structures were identified,
primarily on the sand spurs but straying into
the valley as the level rose due to dumping of
rubbish. In the seventh century the area exca-
vated seems to have lain on the periphery of a
4b.1 Location map for large early Anglo-�Saxon settlement, of which successive post-�hole-�founded buildings
Flixborough were located on the southern spur. Imported lava fragments from quernstones and
small numbers of pottery vessels plus some high-�quality metalwork of English manu-
facture suggest that the site was already then a wealthy one. New building plots on
either side of the shallow valley then came into use in the decades around 700, in both
cases with post-�hole-�based structures in two phases running from the seventh century
into the eighth. These levels continued to produce residual fifth-�and sixth-�century
dress accessories indicative of a large settlement and cemetery which has not so far
been otherwise explored.
From the late seventh to the early ninth centuries (phases 2 and 3), however, the
nature and range of the artefacts and faunal remains deposited changed. Significant
quantities of fine tableware were used, broken and thrown away. This was mostly high-�
quality glass, including palm cups, a funnel-�beaker, a possible claw-�beaker and glob-
ular bowls and beakers, but also included various copper-�alloy vessels which were
damaged and discarded. Many of these artefacts had been imported from the Rhineland
and/or north-Â�western France, signifying the inhabitants’ continuing capacity to attract
exotic items as trade goods. These were excavated not just from a single part of the site
but from most of the buildings in use at this time, suggesting a spread of use of such
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : m i d - l at e s a xo n s e t t l e m e n t at f l i x b o r o u g h 227

vessels rather than their concentration, for

example, in a single banqueting hall. Beef
consumption also peaked at this time, with
cattle slaughtered as adults or ‘sub-Â�adults’
representing around half the animals
consumed on site. Study of the skeletal remains
suggests that cattle may have reached
Flixborough in part at least as specially selected
beasts delivered as food renders from subordi-
nate settlements. Many animals were of excep-
tional size by English standards, opening the
possibility that stock may have been imported.
Alongside, an exceptional range of wild
species, including cranes, wild geese, duck,
black grouse, roe deer, pine marten and hare,
suggests that hunting and falconry were
contributing to the menu. Combined, the
evidence points to conspicuous consumption
on the part of some at least of the inhabitants,
who were enjoying an aristocratic lifestyle
focused particularly on the dining table and
elite outdoor leisure activities. Sixteen
Continental silver sceattas found on site from
the first half of the eighth century are indicative of trading contacts with the Rhineland 4b.2 Plan of the excavated
and eastern England, perhaps associated with the export of wool. In the late seventh area of the site, all periods,
and early eighth centuries, pottery was reaching the site as part of a broad riverine and showing the construction of
successive buildings in
coastal trading network spanning the East Midlands. Thereafter, shelly wares made in
parallel over the line of a
Lincolnshire tended to drive out their competitors, with a predominantly overland shallow natural valley, with
pattern of distribution. It seems likely that the pottery found on the site was used ditches to the north
predominantly for less ostentatious purposes than the glassware or copper-�alloy
vessels, in the kitchens and workshops.
It was in the mid-�eighth century that the shallow valley began to be used for the
dumping of refuse on a systematic scale, drawing in material from outside the exca-
vated area. This may indicate a shift in the balance between the production of waste
and its disposal off-�site. A rather more sophisticated timber-�framed building was
constructed at about this time, some 14 metres by 6 metres and equipped with internal
subdivisions, which became the focus of a series of four inhumation graves cut through
the floors inside and another two close by outside. This structure may well have served
as a church or chapel, such as are widely referred to in the literature of the period in
association with rural estate centres. The second burial area, further south, excavated
in 1988, which was probably broadly contemporary, suggests variable degrees of inclu-
sion in the disposal of the dead, with perhaps aristocratic family members being given
preferential access to a church or mortuary chapel whereas others were deposited
further away.
 228 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

4b.3 The excavations of

1981–91 showing the spurs,
and buildings and refuse
dumps in one central shallow
valley

It was at this period that buildings constructed with continuous foundation

trenches first appeared, used alongside post-�holes and limestone post-�pads supporting
a minority of the structural uprights. Some of these more sophisticated buildings were
fitted with window glass set in lead cames, both of which occur very rarely away from
stone ecclesiastical architecture. Again, an aristocratic context is requisite. Alongside,
craft skills identified include woodworking, blacksmithing, textile manufacturing and
some non-�ferrous metalworking on a scale at least sufficient to support an elite house-
hold and provide for the needs of those who were working the estate. Numerous pieces
of querns made from Eifel lava from the Rhineland suggest the ready availability of
imports despite the easy accessibility of good-�quality sources of grindstones from the
region.
Profound changes occurred on site in the early ninth century through to the 860s.
While settlement clearly continued unabated and established building plots survived,
new buildings were constructed in the central and northern zones, and the range and
quantity of specialist crafts undertaken on site rose significantly, alongside changes in
animal husbandry and the appearance for the first time of significant evidence of
literacy. Whereas the site in the eighth century had been characterised by an excess of
consumption over production, drawing in goods and foodstuffs from outside the
immediate area, in the ninth century such evidence of conspicuous consumption died
away. Instead, it seems likely that the products of craftsmen and women based here
were being exported locally. Large numbers of clay loom weights were discovered,
including some of a new, lighter type, and spinning and weaving was one area in which
production seems to have risen dramatically, manufacturing finer quality cloth than
hitherto. It seems possible that we are witnessing a shift from the export of wool to
cloth. The back-�fill of a ditch to the north-�west of the site yielded heckle teeth, implying
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : m i d - l at e s a xo n s e t t l e m e n t at f l i x b o r o u g h 229

that fibre processing was going on nearby, but weaving-�

related artefacts were largely confined to the shallow valley
area, suggesting that different processes were being under-
taken in different areas. Non-�ferrous metalworking also
increased and lead began to be worked here for the first
time, rapidly becoming the commonest metal being crafted
on site. There is an obvious link between lead-�working and
ecclesiastical demand for its products, which may imply a
new religious interest in activities here. A substantial hoard
of iron tools, largely relating to woodworking, was found in
1994 outside the excavated area and contained in two large
lead vessels, perhaps buried ritually following their use to
construct a sacred building.
The clerical flavour of ninth-� century Flixborough is
reinforced if we turn to the over 20 styli of different types
found, which make up roughly one-�fifth of the total number
so far from Anglo-� Saxon England. These suggest that
writing on waxed tablets was a fairly commonplace activity
among some at least of the inhabitants. Several inscriptions
were found, including a lead plaque with seven Old English
names, all male bar one. This evidence for a dramatic rise in
literacy has encouraged some scholars to interpret
Flixborough as a monastic site, but this may be to harbour too close a correlation 4b.4 Larger of two lead
between literacy and clerics or monks. Such ignores evidence for the wider dissemina- vessels containing the tool
hoard
tion of literacy among parts at least of the secular elite, some of whom had enjoyed the
benefits of a monastic education, and also perhaps supposes too rigid a divide between
those who were and those who were not literate, these two in practice merging into
one another to an extent via various shades of reading and/or writing. Clearly sections
of the population at ninth-�century Flixborough were accustomed to writing, but this
does not require us to suppose that the site had necessarily been converted to a monas-
tery. It is equally possible that the estate had been granted to a major church, or even
that a great aristocratic family had installed literate estate management. What is clear,
though, is that the type of elite occupation which was characteristic of the eighth
century had either ceased or declined dramatically in the ninth. The consumption of
beef fell sharply as did that of wild animals, and the breakage of high-�quality tableware
virtually ceased. If this was still an estate in the hands of the secular elite, then it had
lost favour as a place of residence and had become, instead, a centre which was expected
to provide revenues to a household normally based elsewhere. Significant numbers of
Northumbrian stycas of the period c. 837–55 may have been in use as small change at
Flixborough, reflecting the inflexibility of the southern silver coinage.
Following the demolition of the period 4 buildings, a set of new, smaller structures
was built, varying between 3 × 3 and 3.5 × 4 metres. On parallels with West Heslerton
and elsewhere, these were interpreted as probable granaries, so still very much in
keeping with the changed use of the site. Associated with them were a number of fired-�
 230 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

clay and stone ovens, which underscore the utilitarian character of the settlement at
this date. Coins are virtually absent from the period and the appearance of weights
implies that a bullion economy was present, in the later ninth century, reflecting
disruption of the North Sea trade routes by Viking activity.
From the early tenth century, however, conspicuous consumption and ostentatious
display returned to Flixborough, with feasting again in evidence but this time without
the breakage of expensive tableware imported to the site that had been such a feature
of the eighth century. Instead, the new owners constructed the largest buildings so far
seen on site: building 7 had continuous foundation trenches some 0.5 metres deep and
a floor area of 19.7 × 6.5 metres. This new occupation represented a significant discon-
tinuity with what had gone before, which was reflected in the layout, with signs that
the settlement was shifting eastwards towards the church. This period experienced
peak consumption of wild animals and birds, suggesting that the new elite were
throwing themselves into hunting and hawking. There was virtually no evidence,
however, of trade goods coming from any distance. It was this period of occupation in
the Viking Age which is likely to have led to creation of the place name Conesby –
Kunings-Â�byr (‘king’s settlement’), which implies a new owner of the highest status.
Given that Scandinavian incomers do seem disproportionately to have taken over
ecclesiastical estates, this may provide some slight support to the notion that
Flixborough had passed to clerical or monastic ownership in the early ninth century,
but that remains no more than a possibility. For a royal residence, it is noticeable that
the household adopted a very ‘rural’ lifestyle, without the trappings of the great hall
despite the growing presence of trading centres in the region, which may imply that
this was used in some sense as a hunting lodge. That said, Flixborough was in receipt
of the full range of East Midlands pottery from the late ninth century onwards,
4b.5 Inscribed lead plaque with
names of seven individuals,
both male and female, found in
a refuse dump
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : m i d - l at e s a xo n s e t t l e m e n t at f l i x b o r o u g h 231

including the new wheel-�thrown wares emanating from York, Torksey, Lincoln and
Stamford, suggesting that the kitchens at least were functioning efficiently with the
best equipment available.
Overall, what comes out of the excavation of Flixborough is the mutability of settle-
ment through time. Here we have strong evidence of the continuous occupation of the
same site, with some sideways movement admittedly, across a very long period indeed.
Within the lifetime of the settlement, it has been possible to identify a series of compar-
atively short episodes which differ quite fundamentally one from another: the exten-
sive occupation of the seventh century gave way, probably before 700, to an elite
residence at the heart of a substantial estate, but with authority and spending power
even beyond that estate sufficient to bring in large quantities of beef cattle, trade goods
from the east coast and imports from across the North Sea. This in turn led to a phase
across the ninth century when elite consumption was largely absent and the settlement
was given over to craft production, storage and the exporting of goods into the hinter-
land. This all changed in the tenth century when once again the site became an elite
residence but occupation appears subtly different, without evidence of imports despite
the clear emphasis on status provided by the new place name and the exceptional scale
of the buildings. It has been the unparalleled stratigraphic sequence coupled with the
vast rubbish deposits present on site that have provided the opportunity to tell the
story of this settlement and its inhabitants across time. Throughout, the inhabitants
appear to have been relatively profligate in their willingness to discard artefacts, even
metal tools such as are rarely thrown away on site elsewhere: clearly recycling was not
much of an issue here even in the absence of an elite household. The lessons learned
need to be carried forward into the interpretation of sites without these unusual
features to assess their wider applicability. Across the later Middle Ages few English
rural settlements retained elite status for as long as two centuries, and it is a mistake to
assume that change was any less common in the early Middle Ages. Instead, we should
expect rural settlement to have been dynamic, with the fortunes of individual places
rising and falling according to a whole matrix of factors, most of which are beyond
archaeological recall. Flixborough, therefore, provides us with a very valuable object
lesson in the interpretation of settlement history and the wider landscape of which it
was a central part.
 chapter 5

The Anglo-�Saxons and the Vikings,

c. 825–900
martin j. ryan

Introduction
In the mid-�ninth century a Kentish noblewoman called Ealhburg made a grant to the
monastery of St Augustine, Canterbury. From an estate at Brabourne, the monastery
was to receive annually a bullock, 4 sheep, 20 hens, 240 loaves, a wey of lard, a wey of
cheese, 40 ‘ambers’ of malt (perhaps around 160 bushels) and 4 cartloads of wood. In
return, the community was to remember Ealhburg and her husband, Ealdred, in their
daily round of prayers.
This grant is one of a remarkable series of ninth-�century documents that allows us
to see something of the activities of a pious and prosperous local nobility in Kent. The
documents record them endowing favoured religious houses, exchanging lands, peti-
tioning the king, preparing for foreign pilgrimages, feeding the poor and the destitute,
and generally making provision for the health of their immortal souls through displays
of considerable largesse. Written primarily in the vernacular, these documents shed
light on a world that is largely hidden in the more formal Latin charters of the period
– women like Ealhburg play active roles in these documents, appearing alongside their
menfolk as landowners and testatrices.
Ealhburg’s own family, of some significant local standing, features prominently in
these texts, with Christ Church Canterbury a particular focus of their benefactions.
Ealhburg’s estate at Brabourne – sitting at the foot of the North Downs, an easy day’s
journey from Canterbury along the old Roman road, Stone Street – lay in the heart-
lands of her family’s power, the south and east of Kent. Her brother, Ealhhere, held
land at Finglesham, while another brother, Æthelmod, had land at Little Chart, and
Ealhburg herself owned another estate at Bishopsbourne.
Ealhburg’s donation to St Augustine’s fitted into long-Â�established patterns of lay piety
and was but one part of a more extensive network of familial religious patronage. Yet the
final clause of the grant hints at the changes that were taking place and the troubles that
were to come. If, because of disruptions and panic caused by ‘heathen invasion’, the
annual render could not be paid, double was to be paid the next year. If three years went
by in which the render could not be paid, the estate itself was to pass to St Augustine’s.
The heathens whose depredations so concerned Ealhburg were the Vikings.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 233

Scandinavians had first targeted the Anglo-�

Saxon kingdoms in the late eighth century and
the frequency of their attacks and the destruc-
tion they caused increased steadily over the
course of the ninth century. By the end of the
870s, the Vikings had overrun nearly all of the
Anglo-Â�Saxon kingdoms. Ealhburg’s own family
felt directly the impact of these attacks: her
brother, Ealhhere, was killed in battle against the
Vikings in 853; indeed, he may already have
been dead when she made her grant to St
Augustine’s.
The Vikings loom large both in contempo-
rary sources and in the modern popular imagi-
nation and the near-� total defeat of the
Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms at their hands casts a
shadow over the whole of the ninth century. It is
easy to see all events in that century as leading up
to that defeat and to construct a narrative of
decline and decay, presenting the ultimate
collapse of the Anglo-�Saxons as inevitable. Yet, if
the Vikings were a significant and meaningful
threat throughout the ninth century, nevertheless
it was only in the 860s, with the arrival of a ‘Great
Heathen Army’, that they began seriously to
undermine the security of the Anglo-�Saxon king-
doms. Even then, some form of normal life was
still possible. For all Ealhburg’s concerns about the Vikings and the grief she must have 5.1 Places named in chapter 5
felt at her brother’s death, the estate at Brabourne continued to pay the annual render to
St Augustine’s without significant disruption, despite intense Viking activity in Kent.
But as Ealhburg’s donation makes clear, even before the arrival of the Great Army,
the Viking threat could not be ignored: allowances and accommodations had to be
made. Within the text of Ealhburg’s grant there is continuity and change, old estab-
lished patterns of behaviour and new responses to shifting circumstances. If the whole
of the ninth century bears the imprint of the Vikings, nevertheless they were not the
only agents of change. The century was one of dramatic, even revolutionary, changes,
but it would be wrong to present all this as driven only by the Viking attacks or by
Anglo-�Saxon responses to them. Though it can be difficult to disentangle the two,
both internal and external forces shaped the development of the Anglo-� Saxon
kingdoms in the ninth century. The societies and peoples whom the Vikings conquered
and colonised in the 860s and 870s were very different from those they had first
attacked in the later eighth century.
From the mid-�820s, the century-�old Mercian hegemony over the south of England
began to come apart and Mercian pre-�eminence gave way before the growing might of
 234 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5.2 The Lindisfarne Stone, a

ninth-century grave marker
depicting a band of warriors.
Though often described as of
the Viking sack of the
monastery, it is more likely a
depiction of the End of Days
and the Last Judgment

Wessex. West Saxon rulers extended their power and influence east and west along the
southern coasts, taking control of Sussex, Kent and Essex, consolidating their hold on
Devon and pushing further into Cornwall. East Anglia and Northumbria offered their
submission and even Mercia itself was, for a brief time, ruled directly by the West
Saxons. By the middle of the ninth century, Wessex encompassed nearly all of the
lands south of the Thames and also those east of the Lea.
Under the leadership of King Alfred, this ‘Greater Wessex’ would survive the
Viking raiding and conquests of the ninth century relatively intact. Elsewhere, the
political and ethnic map would be fundamentally redrawn. Large areas of East Anglia,
the East Midlands and Northumbria came under Viking control and their native
ruling dynasties were permanently extinguished. Though West Saxon kings would
progressively roll back these Scandinavian conquests over the course of the tenth
century, Viking occupation and settlement would have an enduring impact on
language, culture and society.
The political changes of the ninth century were accompanied by a no less dramatic
economic upheaval. The great trading centres – the emporia – that had so character-
ised the economy of the late seventh and eighth centuries declined and eventually
failed, taking with them many of the smaller centres of trade, exchange and produc-
tion that formed their hinterlands. By the end of the ninth century, the focus of urban
life had shifted from the emporia to the network of fortified centres established by
King Alfred – centres known today, with scant regard for the niceties of Old English
spelling, as burhs. In addition to their military functions, these burhs would come to
hold a central position in the governmental, economic and cultural developments of
the later Anglo-�Saxon period.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 235

Anglo-�Saxon commentators were, however, struck most forcibly by the religious

and intellectual changes that occurred across the ninth century. In the 890s, King
Alfred would lament the decline in education and the near-�extinction of learning in
southern England. Likewise, in the tenth century monastic reformers would set out to
renew a Church that had, they believed, been stripped of its wealth and vigour by the
rapacity of kings and nobles as well as by the savagery of the Vikings.
The dramatic changes of the ninth century are, however, now seen predominantly
through West Saxon eyes. Texts from Wessex, particularly from the later years of the
reign of King Alfred (d. 899), dominate the record. The main witness for the events
of the ninth century is the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle, probably compiled at the court
of King Alfred in the 890s. The narrative of the Chronicle centres on the rise of
Wessex and on the dynasty of which King Alfred was a part. It offers an essentially
West Saxon perspective on political developments and the Viking raids and
settlements.
The Chronicle is not necessarily hostile to other Anglo-Â�Saxon kingdoms – unsur-
prising, given the cosmopolitan nature of Alfred’s court – but rather the history of
these kingdoms is of secondary concern. Events in Northumbria in the ninth century
are barely noted other than the fall of York to the Vikings in 867, with East Anglia and
Mercia likewise seriously under-�reported. Even for Wessex and King Alfred, the
Chronicle does not offer a comprehensive account. The Viking attack on Southampton
in 842, known from Continental sources, is not recorded in the Chronicle, nor are the
apparently devastating raids that took place throughout Britain in 844. Alfred’s
campaigns in Surrey, known from charters, are similarly omitted.
Other written sources do allow us to round out the picture and, on occasion, to
challenge directly the account offered by the Chronicle. Likewise, other forms of
evidence – particularly archaeology and numismatics – permit insight into areas about
which the Chronicle is largely silent, such as economic change and development.
Nevertheless, such evidence tends to be understood and interpreted in a context
provided by West Saxon sources. For good or ill, it is the vision of the past current at
the court of King Alfred in the 880s and 890s that serves as the master narrative for the
ninth century.

The Beginnings of the Viking Age

Sometime during the reign of King Beorhtric (786–802) three Danish ships landed on
the coast of Wessex, probably near Portland in Dorset. The king’s reeve, a man called
Beaduheard, came to escort the new arrivals to the royal residence thinking, it seems,
that they were foreign traders who needed to pay the required tolls. Beaduheard’s error
was soon made clear to him, for the Danish mariners slew him. The significance of this
incident was underlined in the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle: ‘those were the first ships of
Danish men which came to the land of the English’.
This first Viking attack had little wider impact; it was the raid on the island monas-
tery of Lindisfarne in 793 that attracted most contemporary comment. The ‘Northern
Recension’ of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle records a series of ominous portents –
236 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

whirlwinds, lightning and fire-Â�breathing dragons – followed on 8 June by the sacking

and plundering of Lindisfarne by heathen men. The shock and horror of this disaster
were felt well beyond Anglo-�Saxon England. At the court of Charlemagne in Francia,
the expatriate Northumbrian, Alcuin, wrote a series of letters to recipients in
Northumbria expressing his sorrow and disquiet. These letters detail the violence that
accompanied the Viking attack, the desecration of the altar and the shedding of the
blood of saints. Alcuin turned to the language of the Old Testament to describe and to
understand what had taken place: ‘in us is fulfilled what once the prophet foretold:
“From the North evil breaks forth, and a terrible glory will come from the Lord”.’
For Alcuin, the Viking assault was both a punishment and a warning. A punish-
ment for sins that had already been committed in Northumbria – Alcuin lists fornica-
tion, adultery, incest, greed, robbery, violence and vanity in one of his letters – and a
warning to the Church and nobility of Northumbria to examine more closely their
own moral conduct. Alongside calls for reform, Alcuin offered more immediate help.
When Charlemagne returned from campaign, Alcuin would see whether anything
could be done about those carried off from Lindisfarne as hostages.
Contact with Scandinavia was nothing new in the eighth century. The Anglo-�
Saxons had maintained trading and cultural links since the Migration Period. Indeed,
Alcuin chastised the Northumbrian nobility for copying Scandinavian hairstyles and
beards. Yet the raid on Lindisfarne was clearly seen as something new. Alcuin’s letters
express surprise at the nature of the onslaught; such a sea voyage, he claims, was not
thought possible nor had the Anglo-�Saxons ever witnessed such an atrocity in Britain.
The following year brought another raid. The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle records an
attack on Northumbria and the looting of a monastery at the mouth of the River Don.
If post-�
Conquest sources can be relied upon, Vikings plundered two further
Northumbrian religious sites, Hartness and Tynemouth, in the year 800. The Chronicle,
however, notes no further raids on the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms until 835, when the
Vikings raided the Isle of Sheppey. From that date onwards, Viking attacks are detailed
for almost every year until the 880s.
The Viking attacks on the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms were part of a much larger
Scandinavian diaspora across the eighth to eleventh centuries. To the west,
Scandinavians raided and established settlements and trading networks in Britain,
Ireland and the surrounding islands. They colonised the Faroes, Greenland and Iceland
and ultimately reached the Atlantic seaboard of North America, founding a short-�
lived settlement in what is now Newfoundland. Continental Europe likewise saw
extensive raiding and settlement with violent incursions into the Carolingian Empire
and Iberian Peninsula. Eventually, substantial territories were ceded to Scandinavians,
most notably the region that would later become the Duchy of Normandy. To the east,
the Scandinavians set up extensive trade routes and settlements throughout what are
now the Baltic States, Russia and the Ukraine, with the river systems of that region
providing them access to the Caspian Sea and thence to the wealth of the Middle East,
as well as to the Black Sea, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
The term ‘Viking’ is often applied to all Scandinavian activity in this period and,
indeed, the period itself is frequently labelled the ‘Viking Age’. Given the connotations
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 237

5.3 Scandinavian activity in

the Viking Age

of violence and savagery that the word ‘Viking’ still bears, this may be misleading: not
all interactions between Scandinavia and the wider world were at the point of a sword
(or the blade of an axe). Indeed, since the seminal work of Peter Sawyer in the late
1950s and 1960s, scholars have increasingly stressed the positive contributions of
Scandinavians to early medieval Europe in this period. They have foregrounded the
role of Scandinavians in international trade and in cultural development while empha-
sising that their reputation as a violent, pagan ‘Other’ is largely a product of the
Christian sources that record their activities. The absence of written sources by
the Vikings themselves meant that for too long they had been viewed only through the
eyes of their victims.
The question of whether the Vikings were especially or distinctively violent remains
a vexed one and will be touched on again below. Nevertheless, it is clear that the late
eighth century saw the beginnings of new, and at times violent, relationships between
Scandinavia and the wider world. The Viking Age witnessed Scandinavians involved
in a complex network of activities – maritime exploration, trade, raiding, piracy, mili-
tary conquest, settlement and colonisation – over extensive areas of Europe, the
Atlantic and Asia. Any attempt to account for this set of interrelated activities – to
attempt to ‘explain’ the Vikings – is necessarily doomed to failure, but it is clear that the
outflow of people and ideas from Scandinavia was bound up with a range of other
developments and changes.
Economic growth and the rise in international trade are likely to have made parts
of north-�western Europe attractive targets for Viking raiding, with moveable wealth
now more readily available. Trading links between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe
would likewise have spread knowledge about clusters of wealth – and so potential foci
for raiding – as well as information about political weaknesses and dynastic conflicts
which Vikings seem to have exploited opportunistically.
That said, the earliest Viking raids did not target the emporia and other trading
centres, though such sites would eventually be subject to attacks. Instead, monasteries
 238 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

and churches seem to have been particularly singled out – though some of these did,
of course, play a central role in trade and exchange. For Christian authors such as
Alcuin, attack on monasteries and churches represented a pagan people desecrating
sacred sites, but it is unlikely that the Vikings themselves saw these activities in reli-
gious terms. Rather, religious institutions were simply wealthy but poorly defended
sites, many of them occupying coastal or riverine locations that were easily accessible
by boat. The members of such institutions were often of high status and made useful
hostages or prisoners who might attract a sizeable ransom, as may have been the case
with the raid on Lindisfarne. Even books could be ransomed, as happened to the set of
Gospels now know as the Stockholm Codex Aureus.
5.4 The Stockholm Codex
Aureus. An early example of the
‘Tiberius Style’ this manuscript
was seized by Vikings and then
ransomed by Ealdorman Alfred
and his wife, Werburh. A note
at the top of the page records
these events and the
subsequent presentation of the
book to Christ Church
Canterbury
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 239

By the late eighth century, Vikings were able to target the increased wealth of north-�
western Europe, but change within Scandinavia itself also played a role in promoting
raids and settlement. The eighth century witnessed increasing political centralisation
in Scandinavia, with concomitant dynastic infighting and struggles for power and
influence. To stake a claim to power in this period of centralising authority – either to
resist the encroachment of others or to extend one’s own dominance – required access
to wealth in order to attract and maintain the loyalty of warriors and to take part in
diplomatic and status-�enhancing exchanges of gifts. Trade offered one source of wealth,
raiding and plunder another. Some losers in the processes of political centralisation –
rival royal dynasties or cadet branches of the successful ones – may have been driven
into exile and so sought land and power elsewhere. Others may have left voluntarily to
establish powerbases abroad in preparation for another bid for rule in Scandinavia.

The Anglo-�Saxon Kingdoms

Whatever their causes, the Viking attacks of the first half of the ninth century took
place against a backdrop of profound political change. The death of King Cenwulf in
821 was the beginning of the end of nearly a century of Mercian dominance in southern
England. Though Mercia remained a significant power for some decades, by the close
of the ninth century it had been partitioned by the Vikings and the area remaining in
Anglo-Â�Saxon hands was under West Saxon overlordship. Mercia’s place as the domi-
nant Anglo-�Saxon kingdom was taken by Wessex, with the central decades of the ninth
century witnessing something approaching West Saxon pre-�eminence.
Even contemporaries were struck by the sense that Cenwulf ’s death represented
more than simply the passing of one king. A charter of 825 recorded that after
Cenwulf ’s death there arose much discord and numerous disputes between kings and
bishops, with many churches despoiled of their lands. The reign of Cenwulf ’s brother,
Ceolwulf, was certainly short-�lived and ended badly: the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle
records that he was deprived of the kingdom in 823, though it gives no further detail.
Nevertheless, he was able to maintain much of his brother’s southern hegemony. There
may have been a brief, successful bid for East Anglian independence after Cenwulf ’s
death, but Mercian dominance there was quickly re-Â�established. Similarly, Ceolwulf ’s
control of Kent initially may have been tentative and contested but by 822 he was more
secure in his power and was consecrated king by Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury.
Ceolwulf also campaigned in Wales, destroying the fortress at Deganwy in the north
and invading Powys in the east.
In some respects, then, Ceolwulf ’s reign continued long-Â�established patterns of
Mercian activity – hegemony over parts of southern England and periodic military
expeditions into Wales – but the brevity of his reign and the manner of its ending hint
at underlying problems. The turmoil occasioned by Ceolwulf ’s removal from the
throne continued into 824, with the killing of the ealdormen Burghelm and Muca,
the latter having been a leading figure in Ceolwulf ’s regime.
The following year the Mercian hegemony began to unravel. According to the
Chronicle, the East Angles, motivated by fear of the Mercians, appealed to Ecgberht of
240 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Wessex ‘for peace and protection’. In the same year, 825, in the aftermath of defeat by
the West Saxons at the Battle of Wroughton (Wiltshire), Mercia lost control of Kent to
Wessex and the East Angles killed Ceolwulf ’s successor, Beornwulf. In 827 Beornwulf ’s
successor Ludeca was himself killed, an event that post-�Conquest sources place in the
context of an attempted retaliatory invasion of East Anglia. Though numismatic
evidence does indicate Ludeca briefly ruled East Anglia, internal disputes within
Mercia seem a more likely reason for his death. Whatever the context of Ludeca’s
death, from the late 820s East Anglia remained an independent kingdom; the East
Anglian mint subsequently produced coins only in the name of its native kings.
Though nothing else is known, this independence is in itself significant, implying a
kingdom able to resist both the reimposition of Mercian overlordship and the estab-
lishment of a West Saxon one.
This dismantling of the Mercian hegemony in the late 820s put considerable pres-
sure on the resources of Mercian kings, forcing them to seek out new strategies of
benefaction and new – sometimes acquisitive – relationships with the religious institu-
tions in their kingdom. Though there survive numerous grants by Mercian kings to
religious institutions and to the laity, they tend to be exemptions from certain royal
rights rather than outright grants of land and often such grants were made in exchange
for money or leases of land. Thus in 866 King Burgred granted land at Seckley
(Worcestershire) to one Wulferd in exchange for a life’s lease of a larger estate, a
payment of 400 silver sicli as well as various livestock and crops. In addition, several
charters from this period make reference to the seizures of ecclesiastical estates by
Mercian kings and their subsequent regranting to royal followers.
The other marked feature of Mercian rule in this period is dynastic instability. With
the exceptions of Cenwulf and, probably, Berhtwulf (d. 852), no Mercian ruler was
succeeded directly by a close relative. Rather, repetition of certain letters and elements
in the names of kings and members of the Mercian nobility suggests the existence of
perhaps three separate dynasties vying for control of the Mercian throne. The so-�called
‘C’ dynasty included Kings Cenwulf and Ceolwulf, as well as their brother Cuthred,
sub-Â�king of Kent, and a number of other important noblemen. The ‘B’ dynasty probably
included Kings Beornwulf (d. 825), Berhtwulf and Burgred (d. 874), while the ‘W’ or
‘Wig’ dynasty controlled the throne only during the reign of King Wiglaf (d. 839),
although its members occupied prominent positions in Mercia in the late eighth and
ninth centuries.
If Mercian political power and stability waned in the ninth century, the kingdom
nevertheless remained a significant force and an ally to be cultivated. Æthelswith,
daughter of the West Saxon ruler Æthelwulf, married King Burgred in 853, and Alfred,
later king of Wessex, married Ealhswith, daughter of the Mercian nobleman Æthelred
Mucel, in 868. Mercia also maintained ties with the Continent. A charter of 848 for the
monastery at Breedon-�on-�the-�Hill (Leicestershire) noted the obligation to support
envoys coming from overseas, as well as those from Northumbria and Wessex. Mercian
overlordship of parts of Wales or at least ambitions of such also continued: the Chronicle
records that in 853 Burgred called on West Saxon aid to further his successful campaign
to subdue the Welsh.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 241

5.5 Penny of King Eanred. This

coin, despite being minted in
the name of a Northumbrian
king, has closest stylistic
affinities with south-Humbrian
issues. The reasons for its
production are unknown;
tribute payment is one
possibility

Despite continuing Mercian influence, it was Wessex that dominated the Anglo-�
Saxon kingdoms across the middle decades of the ninth century. In 802 Ecgberht
gained the West Saxon throne and founded a dynasty that would eventually rule a
united England and be eclipsed permanently only by the events of 1066. Little is known
of the first decade or so of Ecgberht’s reign but his subsequent focus was initially on
westward expansion. The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle records him as ravaging Cornwall
from east to west in 815 and describes a battle between the men of Devon and the
Cornish at Galford in 825. A charter of the same year has Ecgberht campaigning against
the Britons, presumably meaning the Cornish, at Criodantreow. The campaigning
season of 825 also saw the battle between the West Saxons and the Mercians at
Wroughton, Wiltshire. Given the location, the Mercians were the likely aggressors, but
Ecgberht was victorious ‘and a great slaughter was made there’ according to the
Chronicle.
Following his victory at Wroughton, Ecgberht sent an army into Kent, with his son,
Æthelwulf, Bishop Ealhstan of Sherborne and Ealdorman Wulfheard at its head. This
army drove out King Bealdred – probably a Mercian-appointed sub-Â�king – and received
the submissions of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. This collapse of Mercian authority
over the south was more protracted than West Saxon sources imply – a Kentish charter
of 826 is dated by reference to the reign of Beornwulf of Mercia – but it was also more
comprehensive than the loss of client kingdoms. In 829 Ecgberht deposed the Mercian
ruler Wiglaf and conquered his kingdom, ruling as king of Mercia. Subsequently,
Ecgberht led his army to Dore where he received the submission of the Northumbrians.
At this stage, Ecgberht was undoubtedly the most powerful Anglo-�Saxon king. The
Chronicle marked this occasion by adding his name to Bede’s list of the seven most
powerful overkings and by describing Ecgberht as brytenwalda (‘wide-Â� ruler’ or
‘mighty-Â�ruler’). The significance of the term brytenwalda (or bretwalda, ‘ruler of
Britain’ as version ‘A’ of the Chronicle has it) has been much debated by scholars, for it
is used in no other Anglo-�Saxon source. It seems best understood not as a title or a
specific office but simply as an attempt by the compiler of the Chronicle, or its source,
to celebrate and to magnify the power of Ecgberht in a single laudatory sobriquet.
Ecgberht was at the apogee of his power and a year later, in 830, he campaigned in
Wales, reducing the Welsh to submission according to the Chronicle. The same year,
however, Wiglaf regained his Mercian throne. In charters from the 830s, Wiglaf
appears as a fully independent ruler clearly of some prestige, yet there are signs he did
 242 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5.6 Penny of King Ecgberht of

Wessex as ‘king of the
Mercians’ (‘rex m’) minted at
London

not regain the totality of his royal authority. No coins were minted in Wiglaf ’s name
after 829 or if they were it was as a brief and small single issue soon after his restora-
tion. Such may reflect the declining economic importance of London in this period –
see below – or suggest that Wiglaf ’s control of the Mercian kingdom was not as
extensive or as complete as in his first reign. Whether Wiglaf regained his throne in the
face of West Saxon resistance or took advantage of an overstretched or overambitious
Wessex is not clear, and a negotiated restoration is certainly also a possibility. There is
no indication of continued hostility between Mercia and Wessex and, indeed, the
succeeding decades witnessed increasingly close cooperation between the two king-
doms. Such even included a brokered transfer of power: in the middle of the ninth
century, Berkshire passed peacefully from Mercian to West Saxon control, even
retaining its Mercian ealdorman, Æthelwulf.
Whether Northumbrian submission to Wessex continued beyond 829 is equally
uncertain. Northumbrian history in this period is frustratingly opaque and its kings are
now little more than names. In contrast to the later eighth century, Northumbrian king-
ship in the ninth century appears relatively stable, with a single dynasty dominating the
first half of the century. This family’s dominance probably owed much to its Continental
connections. In circumstances that remain obscure, King Eardwulf (r. 796–806; 808–?)
was driven into exile in 806. He fled to the Continent, seeking aid from Emperor
Charlemagne and from Pope Leo III. Letters from the pope to the emperor describe a
flurry of diplomatic activity and show something of the wider context of Eardwulf ’s
expulsion; Cenwulf of Mercia, a nobleman called Wado and Archbishop Eanbald of
York were all implicated in the plotting. Eardwulf was eventually conducted back to his
kingdom – and perhaps to his throne – by legates of Charlemagne and of Leo, the latter
a deacon called Aldwulf who was an Anglo-�Saxon by birth.
This episode demonstrates the considerable concern of emperor and pope for
Eardwulf ’s fate and their willingness to intervene directly in Northumbrian affairs.
Such intervention would have been a source of considerable and enduring prestige and
a product of long-�established links between Eardwulf and the Continent, which may
explain the longevity of the reign of Eardwulf ’s son, Eanred: post-Â�Conquest sources
assign him a reign of over thirty years, a duration that receives some support from the
surviving numismatic evidence.
Little further is known of Eanred’s reign. He must, presumably, have led the
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 243

Northumbrian submission to King Ecgberht at Dore in 829 and this event may have
been the occasion for the production of the unique silver penny of Eanred, found at
Trewhiddle in the eighteenth century. This coin, more closely resembling contempo-
rary south Humbrian issues than Northumbrian ones, may have been part of a larger
diplomatic gift or tribute payment by Eanred to Ecgberht. Though the Anglo-�Saxon
Chronicle makes no mention of any payment, post-�Conquest sources claim tribute had
been imposed by Wessex and such would be unsurprising in this context.
If the events of the 820s had dragged it into the power struggles of the south
Humbrian kingdoms, Northumbria was soon entangled also in power struggles in the
north of Britain. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba – probably written in the tenth
century – records that Kenneth (Cináed mac Alpin), king of Dál Riata from 840,
attacked Northumbria some six times, burning Dunbar and Melrose. Such may have
been in the context of Kenneth’s conquest of Pictavia, for John of Fordun, writing in
the 1380s, reported that the Northumbrians had aided the Picts against Kenneth. Little
more is known of the political history of Northumbria until the 860s and the arrival of
the Viking ‘Great Army’. If Northumbria continued under some form of West Saxon
overlordship, the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle makes no mention of it. It seems likely that
the submission at Dore in 829 represents the entirety of Ecgberht’s dominance of
Northumbria, and only in the early decades of the tenth century would Wessex again
wield similar power over the north.
Whatever Wessex’s continued influence over the kingdoms of Northumbria and
Mercia, it maintained its hold over Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. This hegemony 5.7 Gold finger ring, inlaid
would survive the Viking attacks of the later ninth century largely intact and subse- with niello, bearing the inscrip-
quently formed the basis of a united kingdom of England. Ecgberht was succeeded by tion ‘King Æthelwulf’
his son Æthelwulf, and Æthelwulf succeeded in turn by his sons Æthelbald, Æthelberht, (‘ETHELVVLF RX’). The ring is
more likely to have been a gift
Æthelred and Alfred, with Alfred’s grandson, Æthelstan, becoming the first king of the
to a follower than something
English (927–39). West Saxon hegemony endured in a way that the earlier Mercian worn by the king himself. The
hegemony did not. peacocks and Tree-of-Life
Part of the explanation for this persistence of West Saxon power may lie in differing motifs may suggest a
connection with baptism
structures of rule. Ealdormen, exercising governmental, judicial and military functions
over particular areas – called variously regiones, prouinciae, shires and
ealdordoms – are known from all the Anglo-Â�Saxon kingdoms. Yet the
similarity of terminology conceals important differences between the
kingdoms, much as, say, the office of sheriff differs greatly in modern
Britain and the United States. The regiones of Mercia look much like
formerly independent peoples or polities, with the ealdormen the
appointed leaders of these peoples or, perhaps, members of their
former royal dynasties. The sources make reference to such ealdormen
as Hunberht of the Tomsæte or Æthelred of the Gaini – rulers of people
rather than regions. Mercia may have been more a loose confederation
of peoples than a tightly controlled and centralised kingdom, with its
king less a figure of paramount authority and more primus inter pares.
In Wessex by contrast, ealdormen appear much more like royal
officials, appointed by the king and exercising delegated royal
 244 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

authority. Though some of the West Saxon shires were formerly independent
kingdoms – such as Devon or, later, Sussex – other shires look like governmental
subdivisions based on royal centres – thus Dorset was centred on Dorchester, Wiltshire on
Wilton. The impression is of greater political centralisation in Wessex than in Mercia,
of the king and his court as the hub of the West Saxon political order.
Such continued lower down the political scale. Below the ealdormen in authority
– though not necessarily in importance – was a class of royal followers most commonly
called king’s thegns or ministri. These occupied a diverse range of positions: some
acted as reeves, appointed to manage and maintain royal estates; some fought in the
king’s immediate military retinue; others served in the king’s household supervising
his table as cup-�bearer or butler, maintaining his stables or guarding his wardrobe and
treasure. The closeness to the king that such positions brought was much sought after,
a source of considerable prestige and a marker of dignity and superior status rather
than servility.
Though ministri do feature in Mercian sources they are much more prominent in
West Saxon ones. Charters show the West Saxon king as attended on by a relatively
stable body of ministri, and the careers of a number of these can be traced in some
detail. Attendance on the king as a minister seems to have been the most important –
perhaps only – route to the office of ealdorman. Thus Æthelmod, the brother of
Ealhburg, was ealdorman in Kent in the mid-�ninth century but earlier had served
Æthelwulf of Wessex as a cellerarius, a butler or steward. Moreover, though the body of
noble families from which the West Saxon ministri – and thus ealdormen – were drawn
was tight-�knit, it was also comprehensive and encompassing. All prominent families
5.8 Gold finger ring, inlaid
with niello, inscribed inside enjoyed a share of power and the expectation of royal office, a state of affairs that made
‘Queen Æthelswith’ rebellion costly: the political status quo served the interests of all significant players.
(‘EAÐELSVIÐREGNA). Like the What rivalry there was among the nobility took the form of competition for plum
ring in the name of appointments or career advancement. It was competition for royal service and for the
Æthelswith’s father, Æthelwulf,
this is likely to have been a
delegation of royal power, not for the throne itself.
gift, perhaps in the context of West Saxon rulers also took a different approach to conquered territories from
her marriage to King Burgred their earlier Mercian counterparts. Where Mercian kings had been distant overlords of
of Mercia Kent, organising their interactions with the kingdom from outside and largely margin-
alising the Kentish nobility, West Saxon kings intervened more
directly, making regular visits and promoting members of the
Kentish nobility to positions of power, as happened with Ealhburg’s
family. Ecgberht was also able to secure the support of the arch-
bishop of Canterbury, Ceolnoth, for the succession of his son,
Æthelwulf, and for his dynasty as a whole. Ecgberht similarly
reached an agreement with Ceolnoth that recognised the right of
monasteries in Kent to seek out the protection and lordship of
Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, while at the same time guaranteeing the
status of bishops as the spiritual lords of these monasteries. Such
agreement effectively ended the decades-�old dispute between the
archbishop of Canterbury and successive overlords of Kent about
the control of Kentish monasteries.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 245

5.9 Items from the Trewhiddle

Hoard. Probably buried in the
mid-860s, the hoard was
discovered in the eighteenth
century and included both
coins and precious metalwork.
Many of the items feature
geometric motifs and stylised
zoomorphic figures and vegetal
ornamentation picked out in
niello – hence the name
‘Trewhiddle Style’ for
decoration of this type

Where West Saxon overkingship did resemble earlier Mercian practice was in the
use of sub-Â�kings. Ecgberht and then Æthelwulf appointed sons to govern Kent and the
eastern regions of ‘Greater Wessex’ on their behalf. Indeed, it seems that Æthelwulf ’s
ultimate intention was for the kingdom of Wessex and the eastern regions of Sussex,
Surrey, Kent and Essex to become separate kingdoms, with separate but related royal
dynasties. It was only the early death of Æthelwulf ’s first two sons that allowed
Æthelberht, his third son, to reunite Wessex and the eastern regions into a single king-
ship in 860. Even this occurred only after Æthelberht had secured the consent of his
younger brothers, Æthelred and Alfred. Though in part due to the careful cultivation
of conquered regions, the establishment of an enduring ‘Greater Wessex’ stretching
along the southern coast owed much to chance, early deaths and, perhaps, to the
growing recognition of the need for unity in the face of an increasing Viking threat.

Urban Life and the Economy

As the Mercian hegemony was coming apart in the second quarter of the ninth century,
the economic conditions that had allowed that kingdom to prosper were similarly
undergoing significant changes. The volume of coinage circulating in the south
Humbrian kingdoms declined dramatically in the middle decades of the ninth century
– more than halving. In Northumbria the situation differed, with debasement leading
to a dramatic increase in coinage. From the end of King Eanred’s reign (r.c. 810–?840)
the Northumbrian currency was progressively and substantially debased and by the
mid-�ninth century it was a base-�metal currency. Such made it eminently suitable for
low-�value transactions, indeed, debasement may have been a deliberate economic
decision by Northumbrian kings. Whatever the reasons for debasement, the volume of
 246 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Northumbrian coinage increased exponentially between

the 830s and 840s. In certain areas south of the Humber
– particularly East Anglia and Lincolnshire –
Northumbrian coins from this period have been found in
some numbers, suggesting that here, too, the economic
utility of a low-�value currency was recognised.
Levels of coinage do not map straightforwardly onto
economic growth or decline. There are no indications
that the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms were substantially poorer
in the ninth century than they had been in the eighth.
Indeed, the ninth century is noteworthy for the amount
of precious metalwork that has been recovered. Silver
strap-Â�ends – often with ornate niello decoration – are
near-�ubiquitous in this period and some of the finest
examples of Anglo-�Saxon jewellery date from the ninth
century. Likewise, charters and wills make repeated refer-
ence to bullion and to precious metals. Nevertheless, the
fluctuating levels of coinage in circulation must indicate
both a change in the nature of coin usage and a change in
the nature of the ninth-�century economy.
Such a change is most notable at the emporia. In
London, the trading settlement on the Strand – Lundenwic
– had been contracting in size since the later eighth
century. The excavations at the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden, found only three new buildings
5.10 Copper alloy bucket, constructed after c. 770 as well as a general decline in the upkeep of the site and the
found at Hexham. It contained maintenance of its infrastructure. A number of alleyways fell into disrepair and the
some 8,000 Northumbrian
coins from the late eighth to
main north–Â�south road through the site was not resurfaced in the ninth century,
mid-ninth centuries though it probably remained passable for some time. One of the alleyways between the
buildings was resurfaced over the course of the late eighth to ninth centuries, but
before the mid-�ninth century refuse was no longer being cleared from it and it became
a dumping ground.
Manufacturing and industrial activity did continue on the site but at levels consid-
erably reduced from their eighth-�century high. The remains of a smithing hearth were
found in one of the ninth-�century buildings, along with scrap iron and slag. Small
scale bone-�and antler-�working took place in the same building, and loom weights and
a spindle whorl were also recovered. Another building had evidence for a similar range
of industrial and craft activities, including two sword-�hilt fittings that point to the
continued manufacture of high-�status items. The tanning pits at the northern edge of
the excavated site fell into disuse in the ninth century and the area was used instead for
dumping. Textile production continued to be an important activity, with most of the
dumps and middens on the site containing loom weights and spindle whorls, but,
again, the level of activity was significantly lower than in the eighth century. The early
ninth century also saw a shift in the geographical focus of trading activity and a reduc-
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 247

tion in its levels. There is a preponderance of Ipswich Ware pottery in the later phases
of the site and some indication of an intensification of trade links with the Rhineland
at the expense of regions further to the south.
In the early ninth century a large defensive ditch, over 55 metres long,
was constructed at the northern edge of the site, passing through a number of earlier
abandoned buildings. Traces of similar ditches have been found during other excava-
tion in the area of Lundenwic, such as those at Maiden Lane or Bruce House, and it is
possible that the entire area of Lundenwic was enclosed by a ditch to the north and the
river to the south. By the mid-�ninth century, Lundenwic had been effectively aban-
doned and the site largely reverted to agricultural uses. The area around and inside the
Roman walls, downstream from Lundenwic, subsequently became the focus of Anglo-�
Saxon London. The decline of Lundenwic affected nearby settlements as well, with the
high-�status complex upstream at Whitehall being similarly abandoned by the mid-�
ninth century.
Though the precise chronologies and trajectories differ, for the other emporia the
basic pattern is the same. At Hamwic (Southampton), no new buildings were constructed
from the mid-�ninth century onwards, and there was a general decline in all activity on the
site until it was all but abandoned in the last decades of the ninth century. As with
Lundenwic, a more defensible site close by – Southampton – became the focus of urban
life in the later Anglo-�Saxon period. At York, extramural activity continued into the tenth
century and beyond, but even here the middle decades of the ninth century saw the
shifting of trade and production away from the existing site at Fishergate to new locations.
5.11 Final phase of activity on
the site at the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden. Note
the defensive ditch at the
north-west edge of the site
248 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Only at Ipswich is there evidence of continuing occupation and activity on the site
of the eighth-�century emporium, with new buildings being constructed in the late
ninth and tenth centuries. The East Anglian mint, probably at Ipswich, increased in
productivity across the middle decades of the ninth century, accounting for over a
third of south Humbrian coin finds. Across the same period, East Anglia itself was the
most highly monetarised of the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms outside of Northumbria. The
circulation of coinage in the kingdom also suggests an economy that diverged some-
what from its neighbours. Though coins from other southern mints did circulate in
East Anglia, by the mid-�ninth century locally minted coins account for nearly three-�
quarters of all finds there. If Ipswich’s decline was not as precipitous as that of the other
emporia, nevertheless the cessation of the production of Ipswich Ware pottery around
850 does imply a significant alteration in the nature of the site. Pottery manufacture
did continue, with the sand-�tempered Thetford Ware first produced at Ipswich in the
later ninth century, but its distribution was not as extensive as that of the earlier
Ipswich Ware nor, at least initially, was its production on the same scale.
Beyond the emporia there is evidence for similar changes taking place at smaller-�
scale trading centres and sites of local exchange and production. At Sandtun (West
Hythe, Kent), activity at the seasonal trading and manufacturing site declined in the
second half of the ninth century, with a marked reduction in quantities of pottery,
coins and metalwork. The site was almost totally abandoned by the end of the century,
with only a few potsherds from the later Anglo-�Saxon period recovered.
Other coin-Â�rich and metalwork-Â�rich ‘productive sites’ were similarly being aban-
doned or changing in nature in this period. At Cottam (East Riding, Yorkshire), finds
associated with the sub-�rectangular enclosure at the southern end of the site cease in the
mid-�ninth century and the area seems to have been abandoned at the same time. Focus
subsequently shifted to the north of the site, where a new enclosure complex, with a
rampart and probably a gatehouse, was constructed. Activity in this new area continued
for fifty years or so before settlement shifted again to the now deserted villages of
Cottam and Cowlam (East Riding, Yorkshire). The productive site at Wormegay
(Norfolk) underwent similar changes, with activity shifting in the later ninth century to
a short-Â�lived enclosure complex. Some ‘productive sites’, such as that near Carisbrooke
on the Isle of Wight, seem simply to have been abandoned in the ninth century; others,
such as those at Congham or Rudham (both Norfolk), continued in use into the later
Anglo-�Saxon period, though probably with some change in function.
The ending of ‘productive sites’ may be part of a more widespread and thorough-
going reorganisation of the rural landscape. Over the course of the Middle Saxon
period, settlements shifted in location, with settlement patterns in the later Anglo-�
Saxon period differing significantly from those that had gone before (see chapter 4).
Activity on the ‘productive site’ at Bidford-Â�on-Â�Avon (Warwickshire), for example,
seems to have ended around the same time as the nearby settlement shifted focus to its
current site. The evidence from Cottam and Wormegay also points to the development
of new types of elite settlement that may have acted as foci for exchange and produc-
tion as well as for local and regional governance. Cottam and Wormegay probably
represent residences of the lesser nobility, but a number of high-�status sites of similar
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 249

layout were constructed in the later ninth century. At Goltho (Lincolnshire), two
earlier farmsteads were cleared and a large sub-�rectangular enclosure, some 48 x 48
metres, bounded by a rampart and ditch, was constructed. Within the enclosure was a
complex of buildings including a large bow-Â�sided hall – a place for the public display
and practice of lordship – and a smaller bower, providing private accommodation for
the lord and his family. The complex also included a weaving shed, a separate kitchen,
complete with clay floor, and a garderobe or latrine pit.
For the emporia, and perhaps sites like Sandtun, it is tempting to invoke the Vikings
as the cause of change and decline. Certainly, Vikings targeted London in 842 and 851
and Hamwic in 840 and 842. The ditch constructed at Lundenwic also suggests a
concern for safety, with the Vikings seeming the obvious threat here. The Vikings also
sacked Continental emporia, such as Quentovic (near Étaples, France) and Dorestad
(near Utrecht, Netherlands), on a number of occasions. Viking activity must also have
threatened merchant ships and other maritime transport. Viking fleets had been active
in the English Channel since the early 790s, when Offa of Mercia had made provisions
for the protection of the coasts of Kent and Sussex. Similarly, around 800, Charlemagne
established a naval force to combat piracy off the northern Frankish coasts. Aldwulf,
the papal legate who accompanied Eardwulf back to Northumbria, was kidnapped by
pirates when returning to the Continent and was freed only when ransomed by one of
King Cenwulf of Mercia’s men.
Yet the chronology of the decline of the emporia, both in the Anglo-�Saxon king-
doms and on the Continent, does not fit well with the Vikings being the primary cause:
the emporia were already in decline when first targeted. No wholly satisfactory
explanation has been advanced for this decline. London is known from written sources
to have suffered serious fires in 764, 798 and 801, and these may have contributed
to the retrenchment of trading activity and production at Lundenwic. At Dorestad,
environmental factors such as the silting up of the river and changing sea levels may
account for its eventual abandonment. Numerous smaller trading centres that had
sprung up in Dorestad’s hinterlands also challenged its pre-Â�eminent role in commerce,
with some of these centres subsequently forming nuclei for new urban development in
the later ninth and tenth centuries. Given the interconnectedness of the emporia,
decline and change in one is likely to have had a knock-�on effect on the others, with
the Vikings supplying only the coup de grâce.
Anglo-�Saxon kings made some attempts to revive trade and commerce over the
course of the ninth century. At some point between 844 and 852 the Mercian king
Berhtwulf confirmed the exemption from toll at London granted to the bishopric of
Rochester by King Æthelbald in 733. A few years later, in 857, Berhtwulf ’s successor,
Burgred, granted to Bishop Ealhhun of Worcester ‘a profitable little estate in the town
of London … which is situated not far from the west gate’ together with the right ‘to use
freely the scale and weights and measures as is customary in the port’. Both documents
suggest that Mercian kings were endeavouring to re-�establish trade at London at a new
site, away from Lundenwic. Given the description of Ealhhun’s estate, this alternative
site lay within the Roman walls, and Berhtwulf ’s confirmation of the toll privilege may
have been designed to show that it applied to the newer trading site.
 250 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5.12 Lunette-type penny of

King Burgred of Mercia

Berhtwulf ’s reign also saw the re-Â�establishment of the Mercian mint at London after
an interruption during the final years of Wiglaf ’s reign. This earliest coinage of Berhtwulf
drew on expertise from the mint at Rochester, with either dies cut there or moneyers
active there transferred to London, suggesting that Berhtwulf lacked the necessary
craftsmen in his own kingdom. After this initial revival under Berhtwulf, the London
mint once more went into decline, being revived again only in the 860s during Burgred’s
reign. The later 860s also saw the establishment of a shared coinage between Mercia and
Wessex. This lunette-�type coinage was produced first for King Burgred at London but
was minted subsequently also in the names of the king of Wessex at the West Saxon
mints. The reasons behind this monetary cooperation are unclear but it is possible that
the creation of a larger zone of single currency was intended as an economic stimulus.
Though the emporia were in decline in the ninth century, evidence from elsewhere
in the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms suggests urban life was in many respects flourishing.
Most is known of ninth-�century Canterbury, where material from the archives of
Christ Church provides an unparalleled window onto urban life in this period. The
eastern parts of the walled city contained a number of streets lined with narrow
burgage plots. Charters reveal the existence of a set of local customs or bye-�laws stipu-
lating a minimum distance between buildings in this location – 2 feet (60 centimetres)
of ‘eavesdrip’ to allow the run-Â�off of rainwater – suggesting a densely populated area
with space at a premium. Many of these plots had appurtenant agricultural lands
outside of the city and were particularly valued assets, worth up to ten times as much
as equivalent land elsewhere, and there was a flourishing market in general for proper-
ties in Canterbury. The western parts of the city were, by contrast, given over to agri-
cultural uses – probably because the land here was prone to flooding and so less
suitable for intensive building – with larger estates owned by a number of religious
communities.
Already by the ninth century, the citizens of Canterbury were organised into frater-
nities and corporations. There was a guild of cnihtas, or retainers, probably those
charged with managing the urban properties of important landowners. The purpose of
the fraternity of mycle gemettan is obscure, but the name ‘the many guests’ or ‘many
food sharers’ suggests poorer inhabitants who depended on others for their sustenance
or perhaps workers entitled to food as part of their wages. There were also groups of
innan and utan burhware, burgesses who lived, respectively, inside and outside of the
city, the latter perhaps living in the immediate extramural environs of Canterbury.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 251

The evidence from Canterbury is exceptional and the city itself may be a special
case – having been a royal centre and an archiepiscopal see since the very early seventh
century. Canterbury was also the most important and most productive of the south
Humbrian mints, accounting for up to half of the coins found in that region. Given the
volume and wide distribution of its coinage, Canterbury must have occupied a privi-
leged position in the south Humbrian economy, and the decline of Lundenwic and
Hamwic can only have magnified Canterbury’s importance.
If Canterbury was exceptional, nevertheless there are hints of urban growth and
renewal elsewhere. Parts of Rochester, for example, were probably divided into burgage
plots by the middle of the ninth century. As at Canterbury, the presence of an episcopal
see and a mint, albeit on a smaller scale, may have stimulated urban development and
growth here. At Winchester, if an early tenth-�century poem can be trusted, Bishop
Swithun had a bridge built outside the east gate of the town in 859. Such may have been
designed to facilitate the flow of increasing traffic into the town, and by the early tenth
century this route across the River Itchen and through the walls had become the prin-
cipal market street in Winchester. It is possible that Swithun’s bridge-Â�building was part
of a more general redevelopment of Winchester undertaken at this time by the bishop
and King Æthelbald of Wessex, perhaps in response to the decline of Hamwic. How
extensive such redevelopment was is unclear and the greater part of the reconstruction
of Winchester, particularly the laying-�out of its grid of streets, probably belongs to the
later ninth century.
Whether the flourishing of urban life at Canterbury and elsewhere was a new
phenomenon in the ninth century is not clear. Viking attacks must, though, have made
walled cities attractive propositions, and the high price of urban properties is likely to
reflect in some ways the protection that towns such as Canterbury could offer. Certainly
Abbess Selethryth and her community at Lyminge were granted land in Canterbury in
804 to act as a refuge in times of need, and the community at Minster-�in-�Thanet may
have been granted a similar refuge in the city. It may also be significant that the first
West Saxon charters to impose specifically the obligation of fortress-�work belong to
the 850s.

Religion and the Church

At the end of the ninth century, King Alfred looked back to the days of his youth.
Though monasteries and churches had been full of books and treasures accumulated by
earlier generations, little profit was gained from them. By the time of Alfred’s accession
to the throne of Wessex in 871, learning and the love of wisdom had declined to such an
extent that no one south of the Thames could understand the liturgy or translate Latin
into English. North of the Thames things were little better. King Alfred’s vision of a
materially wealthy but moribund Church was echoed by his biographer, Asser. As the
Welsh cleric saw it, though there were many monasteries in Alfred’s kingdom they did
not follow a proper monastic rule, either because of Viking attacks or because great
wealth had caused the monastic life to fall into disrepute. Knowledge of the declining
state of the Anglo-�Saxon Church had even spread beyond Britain. Writing to King
252 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Alfred in the 880s, Archbishop Fulco of Rheims added the ending of regular Church
councils and synods to the list of problems besetting Anglo-�Saxon Christianity.
It is not difficult to find evidence to confirm such gloomy assessments. Book
production in Anglo-�Saxon England ceased almost entirely in the years between 835
and 885 – only three manuscripts survive that are likely to have been written during
this period. Though charters and other legal documents continued to be produced,
declining standards in Latinity and script are apparent. The evidence from the scripto-
rium at Christ Church Canterbury has become infamous. By the 870s its principal
scribe was aged, with failing eyesight, and even had he been able to see properly the
texts he was copying, his comprehension of Latin was almost non-�existent. Nor were
the other scribes at Christ Church any better. The vernacular may to some degree have
taken the place of Latin, whether through necessity or by design, for in the ninth century
there was a dramatic increase in the number of documents – land grants, memoranda,
wills and other bequests – written in Old English, particularly at Canterbury.
Outside of Canterbury and the south east, there is some evidence that standards of
Latinity were better maintained. A separate tradition of West Saxon charters continued
into the early 870s. Produced in the heartlands of Wessex and with their own distinc-
tive formulae, these charters show little of the calamitous decline evidenced at
Canterbury. Continental influence may have played a part here, for King Æthelwulf of
Wessex is known to have had a Frankish secretary, Felix. Western Mercia similarly may
have maintained better standards of Latinity and education, for when King Alfred
sought to revive learning in his own kingdom Bishop Werferth of Worcester was one of
those he called on for assistance. Nevertheless, that Canterbury – the most important
see in England – was unable to find a competent Latin scribe by the middle decades of
the ninth century suggests that, though it can be qualified, Alfred’s gloomy assessment
was far from inaccurate. Similarly, as Archbishop Fulco had claimed, Anglo-�Saxon
Church councils did come to an end in the mid-�ninth century: the last recorded synod
of the south Humbrian province was held in London in November 845.
If far from flourishing, the Anglo-�Saxon Church was by no means moribund in all
areas. Ties with the wider Christian world were maintained or revived across the ninth
century and evidence points to a continuing concern with religious orthodoxy and
right behaviour. In the 830s Bishop Ecgred of Lindisfarne wrote a letter to Archbishop
Wulfsige of York concerning heretical beliefs surrounding a letter said to have fallen
from heaven – the so-Â�called ‘Sunday Letter’. Such ideas were being spread by an Anglo-Â�
Saxon called Pehtred, who obtained his information and probably a text of the letter
from the Irish deacon and visionary, Nial.
More profitable contacts between the Anglo-�Saxon Church and other Christian
communities are evident in the correspondence of Lupus, abbot of Ferrières. In the
early 850s Lupus wrote to Archbishop Wigmund and Abbot Ealdsige, both of York,
seeking to renew ties of prayer and friendship first established in the time of Alcuin.
Lupus also requested Ealdsige to send him works by Jerome, Cassiodorus, Quintillian
and Bede that the scribe Lantramm – who was apparently known personally to
Ealdsige – might copy them at Ferrières. Even in the 870s, at the height of the Viking
attacks, the papacy maintained contact with the archbishops of Canterbury and York.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 253

Papal letters reminded them of the need for priests to wear proper clerical vestments,
and the archbishop of Canterbury was warned especially to uphold ecclesiastical disci-
pline and to enforce Christian marriage.
Decline in Latin learning likewise need not have meant a decline in religious enthu-
siasm or lay devotion. Though the level of activity did not compare with the eighth
century, a number of churches and religious institutions were constructed or enlarged
across the middle decades of the ninth century. At Repton (Derbyshire), the crypt was
extensively remodelled, with the construction of a stone vault supported by four pillars
and the digging out of two new entrances in the north-�west and south-�west corners.
This remodelling is likely to have been necessitated by the burgeoning cult of the
Mercian royal saint Wigstan (Wystan), who was murdered in 849. At Deerhurst
(Gloucestershire), the existing church was fundamentally rebuilt in the first half of the
ninth century and was decorated with extensive painted and sculptural programmes.
According to eleventh-�century traditions, the episcopacy of Ecgred of Lindisfarne
(830–45) saw the construction or remodelling of a number of churches in Northumbria
such as those at Billingham or Norham, and certainly ninth-�century sculpture has
been recovered from both sites.
The religious benefaction of lay magnates in Kent was referred to at the beginning
of this chapter and the evidence shows a continued enthusiasm among the laity for the
opportunities offered by Christianity and the Church. Such went beyond the patronage
of religious institutions or making provisions for liturgical commemoration. The
5.13 Reconstruction of the
church at Deerhurst,
Gloucestershire, as it may have
appeared in the ninth century
 254 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5.14 The crypt at St Wystan’s

Church, Repton. Constructed in
the eighth century, the crypt
was extensively remodelled in
the ninth with the addition of
vaulting, columns and new
entrances

Opposite
5.15 Cross shaft, St Peter’s
Church, Codford, Wiltshire, late
eighth to late ninth century.
Various interpretations have
been suggested for the lively
dancing figure including a
representation of the sense of
taste, King David dancing
before the Lord and the faithful
partaking of the Eucharist
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 255

charters show nobles making arrangements for the disposal of their

properties should they go on pilgrimage to Rome or putting in place
protection for their dependants when they themselves entered a religious
institutions.
Whether the pious activities of the Kentish nobility were given greater
stimulus or urgency by the Viking attacks is unclear. Certainly King
Æthelwulf of Wessex sent at least one of his sons on pilgrimage to Rome
in 853, a trip that may have had a penitential dimension and been designed
to gain divine favour. Æthelwulf himself undertook a similar pilgrimage
two years later, an indication perhaps of the need to escalate attempts at
divine placation in the face of a continued Viking threat.
That Æthelwulf ’s pilgrimage was intended as something more than
personal devotion is hinted at by his actions before setting off. In what
has become known, confusingly, as the ‘Second Decimation’, Æthelwulf
freed a tenth of certain lands in the kingdom from all royal tribute and
service. The charters recording this Decimation present it as an act
designed to benefit the whole of the kingdom, and in response members
of the Church were to recite psalms and Masses for the king, the ealdormen
and the bishops. The Decimation and the pilgrimage that followed were
thus part of a campaign of prayer and religious devotion, encompassing
the whole of the West Saxon kingdom. If this campaign was not directed
explicitly at the Viking threat, such must nevertheless have been upper-
most in the mind of Æthelwulf and his counsellors.
Assessing the impact of the Vikings on the Anglo-�Saxon Church itself
is not easy. For later Anglo-�Saxon and medieval writers, the Vikings were
a convenient mechanism to explain the termination or interruption of
religious life at particular ecclesiastical sites. Stories of Christian fortitude
in the face of extreme violence or of divine punishment of pagan raiders
(often at the instigation of a particular saint) also made for engaging and
edifying reading. The thirteenth-�century author Roger of Wendover, for
example, described the ‘admirable deed’ performed by the abbess of
Coldingham in cutting off her nose and upper lip (‘unto the teeth’) with a
razor to make herself unappealing to Viking raiders. Though the abbess
and her nuns were, according to Roger, thus spared ravishment, the
Vikings nevertheless burnt Coldingham to the ground, making martyrs
of its inmates in the process.
Despite such stories, it is difficult to find conclusive proof for Viking
destruction of religious institutions. Part of the problem, as Asser and
Alfred understood, was that the vitality of aspects of religious life in
Anglo-�Saxon England had been under threat even before the Viking
attacks. By the end of the eighth century, monasteries and religious houses
were increasingly being seen as economic assets to be exploited by their
owners – whether lay or ecclesiastical – and the landed patrimony of
some institutions had been diminished to the point of impoverishment.
256 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

At the same time, there had been a shift away from religious monastic life, with former
monasteries instead housing small numbers of clerks rather than monks or nuns. Such
processes, rather than the depredations of Vikings, may explain the disappearance of
particular religious institutions over the course of the ninth century. Likewise, when
tenth-�or eleventh-�century sources record a small community of priests on the site of
a once prosperous pre-�Viking monastery, the owner of the former monastery and not
the Vikings may have been responsible for its changed state and impoverishment.
The monastery at Medehamstede (Peterborough) is a case in point. Post-�Conquest
sources describe the monastery as having been burnt and destroyed by a Viking army
in 870 and all its inmates killed. Yet ninth-�and tenth-�century evidence suggests instead
a formerly rich and powerful monastery that had come under lay lordship, with parts
of the monastic enclosure becoming a fortified complex and its estates supporting only
a small community of clerks. Likewise, the nunnery at Nazeing in Essex is known from
archaeological evidence to have been abandoned in the ninth century, but the cause
here seems to have been the ending of royal patronage as the East Saxon kingdom lost
its independence rather than Viking violence.
This is not to suggest that Viking raiding and settlement did not seriously disrupt
religious life in Anglo-�Saxon England nor that some institutions did not suffer badly,
even fatally, at their hands. The point of Alfred’s reminiscences about the parlous state
of learning and education was that things had been bad before the impact of the
Vikings, not that the Vikings had had no impact. Indeed, he writes of everything being
‘ransacked and burned’, a reference, surely, to Viking destruction on a significant scale.
The nadir of Latin charter production at Canterbury coincided with the period of
most intense Viking activity in Kent, and the scarcity of mid-�ninth-�century manu-
scripts must in some way be the result of looting and burning of libraries and scrip-
toria. It is also difficult to explain the absence of charters and other muniments from
the religious institutions of pre-� Viking Northumbria, East Anglia and the East
Midlands except by reference to the Vikings. In addition, a number of episcopal sees
in Northumbria and East Anglia vanish from the record over the course of the ninth
century or have extended gaps in their episcopal succession, suggesting significant
upheaval and disruption.
Even if Vikings did not directly destroy an institution, their activities or Anglo-�
Saxon responses to them could put serious strain on the resources of religious houses.
Charters from the early tenth century make reference to lands that had been despoiled
of crops and cattle by the Vikings and describe the efforts that had been made to
restock them. The bishops of Worcester and Winchester were forced to lease out their
estates in order to meet their share of payments made to buy off the Vikings. Religious
institutions also had to help meet the increasing demands placed on the existing mili-
tary infrastructures of the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms. As early as 811 a grant to Archbishop
Wulfred of Canterbury imposed not only the obligation to repair fortifications and
bridges but also to destroy fortifications used by the Vikings – the first time such struc-
tures are mentioned in an Anglo-�Saxon context. Even in the early 790s, Offa of Mercia
imposed additional military burdens on churches in Kent and Sussex in the event of
Viking attacks.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 257

Kings may have been driven to more extreme 5.16 Seal die of Bishop
lengths in order to meet the Viking threat. When the Æthelwald. This Æthelwald is
probably to be identified as the
pope wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury in the mid-ninth-century bishop of
870s, although he made oblique reference to the trou- Dummoc (?Dunwich) in East
bles facing the archbishop and his Church, it was the Anglia. Dummoc was one of the
king’s violation of ecclesiastical privileges that the pope sees destroyed or left vacant
following the Viking conquests
referred to explicitly. One interpretation would be that
of the later ninth century
the king – Alfred – was expropriating Church lands and
resources to aid military initiatives against the Vikings.
Such may explain why, in the twelfth century, Alfred
was remembered at Abingdon as a Judas-�figure who
despoiled Church lands.
Far harder to quantify, though no less significant,
was the fear that the Viking attacks provoked and the
sense of the loss of safety and peace. Alcuin’s letter on
the sack of Lindisfarne made this point clearly: ‘never
before has such a terror appeared in Britain as we have
now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that
such an inroad from the sea could be made’. Likewise,
asked Alcuin, if Lindisfarne, the fount of Christianity in Northumbria, could be
attacked, what hope was there for less venerable institutions?
Churches and monasteries had been the victims of violence long before the arrival
of the Vikings, but such violence was comprehensible to members of the Anglo-�Saxon
Church. It was the product of motives and mechanisms that could be understood and
sometimes anticipated – political rivalry, dynastic infighting, invasion by neigh-
bouring kingdoms and the like. Moreover, methods, not least ecclesiastical censure,
existed for the diminution of violence and for the amelioration of its effects. Viking
attacks, by contrast, seemed from the outset savage and unpredictable, and susceptible
to few of the established remedies: such raids were a new and terrifying form of
violence. Vikings need not have been inherently more brutal than their Christian
counterparts for their brutality to appear more shocking and for their attacks to seem
savage and their consequences more severe.
Exposed coastal or island monasteries must have felt particularly vulnerable to
Viking attacks and some institutions sought safety elsewhere. The refuge in Canterbury
granted to Abbess Selethryth has already been noted and her community at Lyminge
occupied a site lying only a few kilometres from the coast. This need for security and
protection may have accelerated secularisation and the growth of lay lordship as
monasteries and churches sought out patrons capable of offering protection against
the Viking threat. Similarly, as the focus of institutions shifted to new locations, their
ability to maintain their hold on existing estates may have declined, with such lands
passing instead into lay hands.
Such problems are underlined by the activities of the community of St Cuthbert on
Lindisfarne. In the mid-ninth century the community relocated inland, eventually
settling at Chester-�le-�Street before moving to Durham in the late tenth century.
258 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Twelfth-Â�century Durham sources depict Cuthbert’s community as a pathetic band of

refugees being driven hither and yon by the Vikings. Yet the places visited by the
community in the course of their wanderings suggest more a tour of their estates and
landholdings, intended perhaps to ensure that the community retained control of
them during a period of extensive upheavals and Viking colonisation.

The Viking Attacks and the ‘Great Heathen Army’

Between 794 and 835 the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle records no Viking raids on the Anglo-�
Saxon kingdoms. It is clear that such a hiatus reflects the concerns of the Chronicle’s
compilers and the particular story they are telling rather than the reality of Viking
attacks in England and the surrounding seas. When the Chronicle does return to the
subject of Vikings in the 830s, raids are still recorded – such as that on Sheppey in 835
– but the focus is predominantly on military engagements between the Vikings and
the West Saxons. Battles are mentioned at Carhampton (836, 843), Hingston Down
(838), Southampton (840), Portland (840), Romney Marsh (841) and the mouth of the
River Parret (845). Whether this represents a change in the nature of Viking attacks or
simply a desire by the compilers of the Chronicle to present the West Saxons as actively
resisting Viking depredations is unclear – the Chronicle is certainly selective in its
account of Viking activity in this period.
The 850s witnessed a change in the scale and nature of the Viking attacks recorded
in the Chronicle. Whereas the raids of the 830s and 840s were made by forces of around
30–35 ships, the army that attacked Canterbury and London in 851 is said to have
comprised 350 ships. If this figure seems high, nevertheless the basic veracity of the
account is confirmed by Continental sources: fleets of up to 260 ships are recorded in
the 860s and even as early as the 840s fleets of 120 ships are reported. The year 851 was
noteworthy for other reasons as well. This was the first year that Vikings overwintered
in England – in this case on Thanet – rather than returning home in the autumn.
Again, this reflects a wider change in Viking activity across western Europe: Vikings
first overwintered in Ireland in 840 and in Francia in 843.
Though the size of Viking armies was growing and their activities were increasing
in intensity and duration, the Chronicle was still able to record Anglo-�Saxon, and
particularly West Saxon, successes. The force of 350 ships in 851 was met by King
Æthelwulf and his son, Æthelbald, who inflicted upon the Vikings ‘the greatest
slaughter on a heathen army we have ever heard of until this present day’. The same
year also saw another of Æthelwulf ’s sons, Æthelstan, and Ealdorman Ealhhere,
brother of Ealhburg, defeat a great army at Sandwich on the east coast of Kent. Not all
encounters resulted in West Saxon victory – after his success at Sandwich, Ealhhere
was killed in battle on Thanet in 853. Yet the impression created by the Chronicle is that
up to the 860s the Vikings were a manageable if ever-�present threat.
The turning point in the Chronicle’s narrative was the arrival in the winter of 865 of
a ‘Great Heathen Army’. It was to be this army – reinforced by the arrival of a ‘Great
Summer Army’ in 871 – that would come close to overrunning the whole of Anglo-Â�
Saxon England. Previous Viking attacks seem to have been about plunder and wealth,
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 259

5.17 Movements of the Viking

armies in England in the later
ninth century

but this army was intent on settlement and conquest, or at least would quickly become
so. Rather than coming directly from Scandinavia, this force appears to have been a
loose confederation of groups already operating in Britain, Ireland and Francia tempo-
rarily united in the pursuit of common goals. One of its leaders, Ívarr, is known to have
been active in Ireland in the 850s and early 860s, and the army contained a number of
different kings as well as numerous earls. As the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms would discover,
such an organisation in no way impeded the efficiency and capabilities of this army.
The army first made peace with the East Angles, receiving horses and supplies
from them, and in the autumn of 866 it turned its attention to York and Northumbria.
 260 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle describes a state of disunity and civil unrest: the
Northumbrians had deposed their king, Osberht, and replaced him with Ælla, despite
the latter having ‘no hereditary right’ to the throne. Though later Northumbrian
sources describe Ælla and Osberht as brothers, they nevertheless confirm the disunity
and unrest in the kingdom. Having seized York and killed both claimants for the
throne in battle, by 867 the Vikings had control of Northumbria. Post-�Conquest
sources describe the army subsequently plundering as far as the River Tyne and
appointing an Anglo-�Saxon, Ecgberht, to act as king over at least part of Northumbria.
East Anglia was the next kingdom to fall. In the winter of 869 the Vikings rode over
Mercia into East Anglia and took up winter quarters at Thetford. The East Anglian
king, Edmund, fought against them but was ultimately defeated and killed. The army
then took over all of East Anglia – the first time the Chronicle refers explicitly to an
Anglo-�Saxon kingdom being conquered by the Vikings. Edmund was soon venerated
as a martyr, killed at the hands of the pagans. A coinage bearing the inscription ‘sce
eadmund rex’ (‘O, Saint and King Edmund!’) was circulating in East Anglia by the final
decades of the ninth century, and by the mid-�tenth century the church at Beadricesworth
(later Bury St Edmunds) was dedicated to the king and claimed his relics.
Mercia had first been targeted by the Viking army in the autumn of 867, when it
took up winter quarters in Nottingham. Despite calling on West Saxon aid, the
Mercians were unable to drive out the Vikings and made peace with the army –
presumably at a price. The Mercians again bought peace when the army overwintered
in London in 871 and Torksey (Lincolnshire) in 872. Though the terms of the agree-
ment were sufficiently onerous to put a strain on the resources of Mercia, the real crisis
came in the following year when the Vikings overwintered at Repton, in the heartlands
of the Mercian kingdom.
The Viking army took control of the royal mausoleum and cult site of St Wystan’s
church. As well as its symbolic and spiritual importance to the Mercian regime, the site
occupied a commanding position overlooking the River Trent and, farther away to the
north west, the Icknield Way. The Viking force constructed a heavily ditched defensive
enclosure between the river and the church, with the latter acting as a gatehouse.
Within the enclosure itself, the army buried a number of their dead and more burials
were made in the disused mortuary chapel to the west of the enclosure. At the same

5.18 St Edmund memorial

penny, minted in East Anglia in
the late ninth or early tenth
century
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 261

5.19 Base of the Great Army at

Repton. Numbers on the plan
mark the sites of burials

time as this activity at Repton, another group of Vikings, probably also members of the
army, were cremating their dead and burying them under mounds in Heath Wood,
Ingleby – a site clearly visible from Repton.
During this time, the Vikings forced King Burgred into exile. From Mercia, he
travelled to Rome where he died soon after, being buried in the church of Santa Maria
in the English quarter. In place of Burgred, the Vikings gave the Mercian throne to
Ceolwulf, a man described contemptuously in the Chronicle as ‘a foolish king’s thegn’.
If such ideas were current in the 890s, contemporaries in Mercia nevertheless accepted
the legitimacy of Ceolwulf ’s rule. He issued charters independently, without reference
to Viking overlords, and his grants were witnessed by the Mercian clergy and nobility,
including two ealdormen who had served under Burgred. When the Vikings returned
to Mercia in 877, they divided the lands between themselves and Ceolwulf, leaving
him as the sole ruler of western Mercia – ‘English’ Mercia as it is sometimes labelled
– a position he occupied at least until 879.
Like Mercia, Wessex was targeted repeatedly by the Viking army in the 870s.
Though there were some West Saxon victories, for the most part the army had the
better of the exchanges. Soon after he succeeded to the throne in 871, King Alfred was
defeated at Wilton (Wiltshire) and after a series of subsequent battles he was forced to
make peace with the Vikings, on condition they left Wessex. When the army returned
in 876, Alfred again made peace, receiving hostages and securing oaths. The events of
the following year would see large parts of Wessex effectively conquered by the Vikings
and the West Saxon royal dynasty come close to being permanently extinguished.
After Twelfth Night, the army came to Chippenham (Wiltshire) and, according to
the Chronicle, occupied the land of the West Saxons, driving some to flight and
accepting the submission of others. Alfred escaped, travelling with a small band of
followers through the remote places of the kingdom – ‘the woods and the fen-Â�fastnesses’
as the Chronicle has it. By Easter 878, Alfred had established a fortification on the
island of Athelney on the Somerset Levels, from where he launched a series of raids
against the Vikings.
262 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Eventually, Alfred was able to gather together the men of Somerset, Wiltshire and
part of Hampshire and engage the Viking army at Edington (Wiltshire) in May 878.
Alfred’s forces put the Vikings to flight and then laid siege to a Viking stronghold,
where the survivors of the battle were holed up. After two weeks the Vikings surren-
dered, offering Alfred oaths and hostages and pledging that their leader, Guthrum,
would accept baptism. Three weeks later, Guthrum and 30 of his leading men were
baptised near Athelney. Guthrum and his army subsequently withdrew from Wessex,
passing through Mercia, and ultimately returned to East Anglia, where Guthrum
became king. At a later date – precisely when is unclear – Alfred and Guthrum agreed
a treaty, drawing a boundary between their two realms up the River Thames, along the
River Lea and thence up the River Ouse to Watling Street.
Alfred is popularly remembered as the king who saved England from the Vikings.
Yet such a reputation is misleading. There existed no England to be saved – England,
in a political sense, would be the creation of Alfred’s grandsons and great-Â�grandsons.
What Alfred’s victory at Edington secured was the immediate safety of the kingdom of
Wessex. Neither did Alfred defeat the Vikings but rather one particular Viking army.
Alfred’s claims to greatness rest less on his victory at Edington – Anglo-Â�Saxon kings
had enjoyed victories against Vikings before – and more on the steps he took subse-
quently to strengthen his kingdom.
In the year following Edington a new Viking army encamped at Fulham, and though
it subsequently moved to Francia the following year it would eventually return to Wessex
in 892, its progress on the Continent having been carefully tracked by the Chronicle. For
the next four years this army would play a cat-�and-�mouse game with Alfred and his
allies, but by the summer of 896 it was largely a spent force, with the Chronicle noting ‘by
the grace of God, the army had not on the whole afflicted the English people very greatly’.
The very different fortunes of the great Viking army of 865 and the Viking army active
in the early 890s are one indication of the real achievements of Alfred.

Alfred the Great

If the scarcity of sources means that the great Mercian kings of the eighth century
remain shadowy figures about whom little can be known, for Alfred the problem is
almost reversed. Alfred and his reign are far better documented than any previous
Anglo-�Saxon king, and very few of his successors generated a comparable level of
written sources. Alongside the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle can be placed the biography of
King Alfred written by the Welsh cleric Asser in the early 890s. Fewer charters survive
from Alfred’s reign than from those of his immediate predecessors but Alfred alone
issued a law code, the first West Saxon king to do so since Ine (d. 726).
To these texts can be added a number of works, mostly translations and adaptations
from Latin into Old English, produced at Alfred’s court or under his sponsorship.
Most remarkably, a good case can be made that four of these works – translations of
Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Augustine’s Soliloquies, Boethius’s Consolation of
Philosophy and the first 50 psalms – were produced by Alfred himself. Ultimate
certainty about Alfred’s role here is impossible, but linguistic analysis suggests these to
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 263

5.20 The Alfred Jewel. This is

likely to be a pointer or æstal
– now missing its rod – used
to follow words on a page.
Alfred is known to have
distributed such pointers with
copies of the translation of the
have been the work of the same author-�translator. Similarly, there is a consistency of Pastoral Care and a number of
ideas and concepts across the texts that speaks of a shared authorial agenda. objects similar to the Alfred
Jewel have survived. The
The comparative richness of the written record for Alfred’s reign means that far inscription around the edges of
more can be known about him than about earlier Anglo-Â�Saxon kings. Moreover, his the setting reads ‘AELFED MEC
own writings seem to offer an insight into his mind and character that cannot be repli- HEHT GEWYRCAN’, ‘Alfred
cated for any other Anglo-Â�Saxon ruler. Such is the level and the nature of the surviving ordered me to be made’. The
enamel figure is probably a
information that Alfred cannot but look exceptional, cannot but look great.
representation of the sense of
Unsurprisingly, some modern scholars – most notably Michael Wallace-Â�Hadrill and sight, intended here as more
Ralph Davies – have urged caution in our assessments of Alfred. The wealth of written than simply the physical sense.
sources – almost all, moreover, associated with Alfred’s court – conspires to over- In Alfred’s writings, sight and
the eyes are connected with
Â�emphasise Alfred’s differences from other rulers and to magnify, perhaps deliberately
the pursuit and attainment of
so, his achievements. wisdom. The eyes on the Alfred
Yet this caution must be balanced by an appreciation of what was exceptional about Jewel also may represent the
Alfred. The survival of sources may owe something to the vagaries of chance, but this eyes of the mind – an image
cannot explain everything. Even allowing for such random factors, it is clear that more frequently encountered in
Alfred’s translations – that are
than any other Anglo-�Saxon king before him, Alfred sought to rule through the written
the path through which
wisdom may enter

5.21 ‘Cross-and-lozenge’
penny of King Alfred
 264 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

word and to shape the image of his own kingship and authority through the produc-
tion of texts. In this way, Alfred more closely resembles Continental kings of the ninth
century, such as Charlemagne or Charles the Bald, than other Anglo-�Saxon rulers.
Indeed, it seems likely that Alfred drew direct inspiration for his cultural activities
from these and other Carolingian rulers.
Alfred’s achievements in the final decades of the ninth century are all the more
surprising given his family circumstances. At his birth, it must have seemed highly
unlikely that he would ever become king, let alone achieve all that he did. Alfred was
the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and three of his older brothers were kings of
Wessex before him. At least one of these, Æthelred, is known to have produced male
5.22 The opening of King heirs, though not of an age to succeed their father on his death. Nor was succession
Alfred’s will as preserved in the always straightforward and uncontested. If West Saxon kingship in the ninth century
eleventh-century Liber Vitae of
was monopolised by the line of Ecgberht, nevertheless there were clear tensions within
the New Minster, Winchester
this narrow ruling dynasty.
When his father Æthelwulf was on pilgrimage,
Æthelbald rebelled and seized the West Saxon
throne in 856. On Æthelwulf ’s return from the
Continent, the kingdom was divided, with
Æthelbald ruling the western parts – the tradi-
tional West Saxon heartlands – and Æthelwulf
ruling the eastern parts – the territories gained in
the ninth century. The reasons for Æthelbald’s
rebellion are unclear, though he had the support of
some powerful figures, among them the bishop of
Sherborne and the ealdorman of Somerset.
Æthelwulf ’s marriage to Judith, daughter of the
Frankish ruler Charles the Bald, may have been
the catalyst. Certainly, she was consecrated queen,
an act that would have raised her status above that
of Æthebald’s mother and was, according to Asser,
contrary to existing West Saxon practice. A son
from this union would clearly pose a threat to
Æthelbald’s own ambitions. That Æthelbald wed
Judith on his father’s death – a marriage that was
contrary to Canon Law – underlines the prestige
that such a union could bring.
Tensions did not end with the deaths of
Æthelwulf (858) and Æthelbald (860), nor with
those of Æthelberht (865) or Æthelred (871).
Alfred’s own will includes lengthy sections, defen-
sive and justificatory in tone, about properties he
had inherited from his father and brothers. On at
least one occasion when king, Alfred was forced to
defend publicly his possession of these estates and
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 265

his disposal of others. Certain of Alfred’s kindred clearly felt aggrieved about the
distribution of family resources and had sufficient support to challenge him. Even
after Alfred’s death in 899, his own son Edward was challenged for the throne by his
cousin Æthelwold, the son of King Æthelred.
Given his status as youngest son, it is possible that Alfred was intended for a clerical
or monastic career rather than secular office. Certainly, Asser records a youthful
Alfred learning the Divine Office, enthusiastically visiting churches and shrines to
engage in extended sessions of prostrate prayer, and collecting psalms and prayers in a
book which he kept about his person. Though an intended ecclesiastical career is
possible, such activities may be better understood as showing the influence of
Carolingian ideas about lay religiosity. These stressed the heavy moral obligations and
burdens that Christianity placed upon even the secular nobility and emphasised the
need for constant prayer and meditation on Sacred Scripture.
Such demands brought into sharp relief the apparent tensions between aspects of
the lifestyle of the warrior elite – in particular sex and violence – and the ideals of
Christian behaviour. Like others, Alfred may have found such tensions unbearable.
Asser describes a young Alfred fearing he would be unable to restrain his carnal urges
and seeking, and receiving, from God an illness that would strengthen his resolve.
Though this youthful malady – probably piles – was subsequently removed by God, it
was replaced by another, more serious illness – plausibly identified as Crohn’s disease
– that afflicted Alfred throughout his adult life.
This sickly, suffering Alfred, beset with sexual anxieties, seems at odds with the
warrior king of Edington, which has encouraged some, most notably Alfred Smyth, in
the belief that Asser’s biography is a later Anglo-Â�Saxon monastic forgery. Such doubts
are exacerbated by the problems with manuscript transmission. The sole manuscript
witness to the text was totally destroyed by fire in 1731 and the work now survives
only in early modern editions and transcripts, often with unwarranted additions and
alterations.
Yet most scholars would accept that the work is genuinely ninth-century and that
Asser’s Alfred, however strange he appears to a modern audience, is the genuine
Alfred. Sex, lust and sin were dangers that preoccupied Alfred every bit as much as did
the Vikings and were potentially as damaging. In Alfred’s own writings, lustful thoughts
appear as forces that upset the balance of the mind and the body’s equilibrium: such
things mattered to ninth-Â�century kings. Alfred’s religiosity is best understood not as
the invention of a monkish forger but as the response of a man always destined for
secular office but all too aware of the moral compromises and pitfalls of such a path.
That Alfred was intended from a young age for high secular office, even for king-
ship, is suggested by the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle. This describes how in 853 King
Æthelwulf sent the infant Alfred to Rome where he was consecrated king by Pope Leo
IV, information that is repeated by Asser. Though the Chronicle does not note this,
Alfred was probably accompanied by one of his brothers, Æthelred, for their names are
included together in the Liber Vitae of San Salvatore in Brescia.
That Alfred did meet the pope is confirmed by a fragment surviving from a letter
from Leo to Æthelwulf. In contrast to the Chronicle, this notes only that Leo decorated
266 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Alfred ‘as a spiritual son, with the dignity of the belt and the vestments of the consu-
late, as is customary with Roman consuls’. Whether the Chronicle, or perhaps Alfred
himself, misinterpreted, deliberately or otherwise, the events in Rome is unclear. It
may be that Alfred’s encounter with Leo was but a minor aspect of the visit whose
significance was later magnified. Alternatively, Æthelwulf may have been trying to
ensure that Alfred, and, perhaps, Æthelred also, were not excluded from possible royal
succession and saw papal blessing as a means of furthering this goal.
Whatever the significance of the events of 853, Alfred did, of course, succeed to the
West Saxon throne in 871 and would remain king until his death, of natural causes, in
899. The early 870s would seem an inauspicious time to gain the kingship of Wessex.
Two Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms had already fallen to Viking armies, and Mercia and
Wessex were both hard pressed. Yet even before his victory at Edington in 878, Alfred’s
actions mark him out as an ambitious and capable ruler.
Around 875, Alfred initiated a reform of the West Saxon coinage, introducing the
so-Â�called ‘Cross and Lozenge’ type. This reform restored the weight and fineness of the
coinage as well as introducing new designs that more closely imitated Classical Roman
models. Particularly noteworthy is that a number of these coins were minted in Alfred’s
name at London, as well as at mints in ‘Greater’ Wessex. One of Alfred’s earliest ‘Cross
and Lozenge’ coins produced at London even bears the royal style ‘rex sm’, presumably
to be understood as ‘king of the (West) Saxons and Mercians’. Sometime after the
expulsion of King Burgred in 873/4, Alfred had clearly been able to extend West Saxon
influence into parts of Mercia, London included.
If Alfred had influence over London, he was not the only ruler there. His reform of
the coinage was carried out in tandem with King Ceolwulf II, continuing a tradition of
monetary cooperation between Mercia and Wessex. Alfred appears the senior partner
in this relationship: as well as the ‘Cross and Lozenge’ type both kings also issued the
‘Two Emperors’ type, but where Ceolwulf ’s simply styled him ‘rex’ (‘king’), Alfred is
described on his as ‘rex anglorum’ (‘king of the Angles’ or perhaps ‘king of the English’).
Alfred’s authority over Mercia increased following the death or deposition of
Ceolwulf in the late 870s. Ceolwulf was succeeded as ruler of ‘English’ Mercia by a
certain Ealdorman Æthelred, whose antecedents are unknown. By the early 880s,
Æthelred had recognised the authority and overlordship of King Alfred and governed
‘English’ Mercia as an ealdorman, never claiming for himself the title ‘king’. This rela-
tionship with Alfred was confirmed in the late 880s when Æthelred married Alfred’s
daughter, Æthelflæd. Alfred clearly enjoyed a close and productive relationship with
Æthelred. In 886 Alfred bestowed on him authority over London, sharing with him the
task of rebuilding and restoring areas within the old Roman walls and establishing new
settlements. Similar authority seems to have been granted in other parts of Mercia,
including Gloucester and Worcester.
From the mid-Â�880s, Alfred increasingly employed the royal style ‘king of the
Anglo-Â�Saxons’, indicating his authority over both Saxon Wessex and Anglian Mercia.
There are some indications that Alfred or those at his court experimented with more
expansive notions of identity. The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle describes all the English
people – the ‘anglecynn’ – except those under Danish rule submitting to Alfred in 886.
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 267

Similarly, Alfred’s treaty with Guthrum was made with ‘the councillors of all the
English race’. Such ideas of a single English people are, however, muted and fleeting in
the Alfredian corpus. The same is true of more expansive royal styles. Asser describes
Alfred on one occasion as ‘ruler of all the Christians in the island of Britain’. Such may
reflect the submission of various Welsh kings to Alfred’s overlordship – Asser lists the
kings of Dyfed, Glywysing, Gwent and Brycheiniog – as well as Alfred’s own piety. Yet
there are no indications such titles were used routinely; Alfred was, until the end of his
reign, simply king of the Anglo-�Saxons.
As the return of a large Viking army in 892 demonstrated, despite Alfred’s gains in
the 870s and 880s the survival of his kingdom of the Anglo-�Saxons was far from secure.
What victory at Edington in 878 had bought was breathing space and time for Alfred
to strengthen his kingdom. In the preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s
Pastoral Care, probably produced in the early 890s, Alfred looked back to better days:

there were happy times then throughout England and . . . the kings, who had authority
over this people, obeyed God and his messengers; and how they not only maintained
their peace, morality and authority at home but also extended their territory outside;
and how they succeeded both in wisdom and in warfare.

Such a statement summarised well Alfred’s own aims for his kingdom – success in
wisdom and in warfare. The two goals were interconnected and success in one would
be meaningless and transitory without success in another. To strengthen his kingdom,
Alfred needed to put in place both military and educational reforms.
Taking military reforms first: Alfred clearly understood that Viking victories over
the Anglo-�Saxons were less the result of any inherent military superiority than of the
particular tactics and strategies the Scandinavians adopted. Above all, their armies
relied on their mobility, making raids and plundering and then moving on quickly
before they could be engaged. Where Anglo-�Saxon forces were set up for pitched battles
and open warfare, the Vikings actively avoided such encounters, preferring the element
of surprise and favouring hit-�and-�run tactics. By the time an Anglo-�Saxon army had
been raised and mustered, their enemy had already done much damage and had often
moved on elsewhere or retreated behind fortifications, necessitating lengthy and often
futile sieges.
5.23 The Abingdon Sword.
Recovered from the River Ock
in Oxfordshire, this sword
features detailed Trewhiddle
Style decoration in silver and
niello, including the Evangelist
symbols on the upper guard –
suitable ornamentation for a
Christian warrior facing a
pagan foe
268 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Alfred’s response was to divide his army in two. As the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle put
it, this ensured ‘that always half its men were at home, half on service’. This effectively
created a permanent standing army that could be deployed immediately when
needed. At the same time, all areas of the kingdom retained some defensive capabili-
ties when the army was on campaign. This approach was not always effective – on
one occasion, West Saxon forces laying siege to a Viking army returned home when
their period of service was over, even though they had not yet been relieved by a new
contingent – but it did allow Alfred’s army to respond more rapidly to any Viking
threat.
Of greater long-�term significance was the establishment of a network of fortified
centres – burhs – throughout Alfred’s kingdom. Though written evidence shows that
Anglo-�Saxon kings had long made use of fortifications, with archaeological excava-
tions uncovering the remains of defensive ramparts around a number of Mercian
centres, what was innovative about Alfred’s burghal system was the idea of a network
of such centres covering the whole of the kingdom. The siting of the fortifications
ensured that nowhere was more than a day’s ride from a burh. Moreover, the location
of many of them on navigable rivers, Roman roads or other important nodes of trans-
port significantly reduced Viking freedom of movement.
Yet the construction, maintenance and garrisoning of such a network placed a
considerable burden on Alfred’s subjects. The figures from the Burghal Hidage suggest
that over 27,000 men would have been required to maintain and defend the burhs. To
these must be added the expense of constructing the network in the first place. No
wonder that Asser could write of Alfred’s need to cajole and chastise his subjects to do
his bidding, and that the Welsh cleric would complain ‘of fortifications commanded by
the king which have not yet been begun, or else, having begun late in the day, have not
been brought to completion’. Alfred’s military reforms were making hitherto unheard-
of demands on his people, and this after decades of Viking raids and plundering had
already strained the resources of Wessex.
Yet, as Alcuin had seen many decades earlier, the Viking raids on Christian peoples
were possible only because God had withdrawn his protection. Military responses
alone could not hope to counter the Viking threat. Divine favour and divine support
needed to be regained if any successes were to be permanent.
For Alfred, the greatest failing of the Anglo-�Saxons was their laziness and indo-
lence in pursuing wisdom and promoting education. His comments about the parlous
state of learning in England have already been noted. In order to revive learning and
wisdom, Alfred gathered at his court scholars from throughout Britain and the
Continent: Asser himself was recruited from St David’s in Wales, Bishop Werferth
from Worcester, John from Continental Saxony and Grimbald from St Bertin (now in
Saint-�Omer, France).
Latin was the primary language for the diffusion of Christian knowledge in western
Europe and competence in Latin was the ultimate, if very distant, goal of Alfred’s educa-
tional reforms. Yet such was the decline of learning in the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms that
most of Alfred’s efforts were directed at translations from Latin into Old English. Some
were produced by scholars patronised by Alfred – such as Bishop Werferth’s translation
 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n s a n d t h e v i k i n g s , c . 8 2 5 – 9 0 0 269

5.24 The Fuller Brooch. One of

the finest examples of
Anglo-Saxon jewellery, the
central roundel features
representations of the five
senses, with sight in the
middle. Like the Alfred Jewel,
the brooch is probably a
representation of the Alfredian
search for wisdom

of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues – but others, as already mentioned, are presented as
the work of Alfred himself, aided and assisted by his advisors.
Central to Alfred’s educational reforms was the idea that the need to pursue wisdom
and learning was not simply an obligation for clergy or monks. What the writings
produced at Alfred’s court stressed was that all who held positions of authority, whether
secular or ecclesiastical, needed to seek after knowledge and wisdom. Indeed, such a
pursuit was not secondary to the appropriate and effective exercise of power but an
essential precondition of it. Alfred’s translations were, in his own words, ‘those works
men most needed to know’. They were those works that would both educate readers
and further inculcate in them the desire to seek for wisdom and spiritual guidance.
Such lofty aims were backed up with cajoling and threats. Asser recorded how
Alfred threatened to remove from office those of his nobles ‘who neglected the study
and application of wisdom’. As a result almost all of his ealdormen and thegns ‘who
were illiterate from childhood, applied themselves in an amazing way to learning how
to read, preferring rather to learn this unfamiliar discipline (no matter how labori-
ously) than to relinquish their offices of power’. The extraordinary demands Alfred
made of his subjects concerning military matters were matched by the demands he
made about learning.
Alfred’s vision of his own rule, as well as the contribution he made to the develop-
ment of Anglo-�Saxon kingship, is underlined by his law code. Alfred presented this
code as the summation of previous Anglo-�Saxon legal activity. He had extracted from
the codes of his predecessors – he names explicitly Æthelberht of Kent, Ine of Wessex
and Offa of Mercia – those laws which he found most pleasing and just; Ine’s law code
 270 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

was even included in its entirety after Alfred’s

own laws. There is certainly little in Alfred’s laws
that appears innovatory – a notable exception is a
reference to what might be a universal oath of
loyalty sworn by all his subjects, perhaps
following a Carolingian precedent.
What was innovatory was the context in
which Alfred placed his laws. The preface to the
code sets out the history of Christian law-�giving,
from the Decalogue and the laws of Moses, to
Apostolic letters and Church synods, ending
finally with Alfred’s own legal activities. The
effect is to make royal law, Alfred’s law, part of the
continuum of Christian law-�giving, presenting it
as standing in direct lineal descent from the laws
of Moses and the judgments of the Apostles. Even
the number of chapters in Alfred’s code under-
lines this. The entirety of the code, Ine’s laws
included, is divided into 120 chapters. Such not
only corresponds with the reputed age of Moses
at his death but is also the number of people on
whom the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.
Anglo-�Saxon kings before Alfred had been
Christian, some had even harnessed the tools
and ideology of Christianity to further their own
rule. Yet it is with Alfred that we see for the first
time in England the development of a fully
Christian kingship.
5.25 Page from the Tollemache
Orosius, a tenth-century manu-
script of the Old English
version of Orosius’s Seven
Books of History against the
Pagans, one of the translations
associated with Alfred’s court.
The page features one of the
additions made to Orosius’s
text, an account of the travels
of a Norwegian, Ohthere, as
told to King Alfred
 sources and issues 5a

the anglo-�saxon chronicle

martin j. ryan

He caused a book to be written in English

Of adventures and of laws,
And of battles in the land,
And of kings who made war.

So Geoffrey Gaimar wrote of King Alfred in his L’Estoire des Engles, a poem outlining
the history of England up to the reign of William Rufus (d. 1100). The book that Gaimar
was describing was almost certainly one of the manuscripts of the Anglo-�Saxon
Chronicle, perhaps that now known as the Parker Chronicle (Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 173), a compilation that does indeed include both a version of the Anglo-�
Saxon Chronicle and the laws of King Alfred. The Chronicle exceeds in importance any
other written source for Anglo-�Saxon England. Not only does it supply the chronolog-
ical framework for much of the period, providing details of characters and episodes not
otherwise recorded, but it also sheds valuable light on how the Anglo-�Saxons approached
their own history, how they retold, reinterpreted and reconfigured past events in order
to shape and to make sense of their present. Even after the Norman Conquest, the
Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle continued to be read, updated and edited, and it served as one of
the key sources of information for Anglo-� Norman historians such as Henry of
Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury and, of course, Geoffrey Gaimar himself.
As is often recognised, the title the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle is in many ways
unhelpful, even misleading, for the Chronicle is not a single text but a set of separate yet
related annals, mostly in Old English, produced at various centres in England
throughout the Anglo-�Saxon and Anglo-�Norman periods. There survive some seven
different manuscripts of the Chronicle – assigned the letters ‘A’ to ‘G’ by scholars – and
a fragment from an eighth – H – but these represent only a fraction of those that must
have originally existed. In the late tenth century, for example, the ealdorman
Æthelweard produced a Latin chronicle that drew extensively on a now lost version of
the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle. Asser, likewise, made considerable use of another version,
which is no longer extant, in his late ninth-�century biography of King Alfred.
Determining the relationship between the different surviving versions presents
formidable complexities and the history of individual manuscripts can be equally
 272 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5a.1 The manuscripts of the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

involved, with material being added, amended, erased and reordered on numerous
occasions. The different versions of the Chronicle all ultimately descend from one
produced in the early 890s, most probably at the court of King Alfred. Though this
original is no longer extant, its contents and form can be reconstructed in large part
from the surviving versions of the Chronicle and from other early witnesses such as
Asser’s Life of Alfred. The original version – sometimes referred to as the Alfredian
Chronicle or the Common Stock – comprised entries from 60 bc to, probably, the end
of 891, and may well have been prefaced by both a list of kings and an extended gene-
alogy of the West Saxon kings, since that precedes annalistic entries in the Parker
Chronicle.
In parts, the story told by this original version of the Chronicle was of the rise of
Wessex and the emergence of its dynasty as the pre-�eminent and eventually sole
surviving Anglo-�Saxon royal lineage. To that extent the text might be termed dynastic
propaganda, but the narrative of the Common Stock and its aims are far more complex
and subtle than this and its scope wider. If, as seems likely, the text was part of the
literary projects initiated and sponsored by King Alfred – or at the very least it owed
its wide circulation to him – then it might be seen as responding to the particular
needs of his kingship and his kingdom in the early 890s. The immediate context of the
production of the Common Stock may have been the return to England of a great
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c h r o n i c l e 273

5a.2 Version C, the so-called

‘Abingdon Chronicle’. This
page features entries from the
years 835–41 (recte 838–43),
describing the Viking attacks
on southern Britain

Viking army in 892 and the need for unity in the face of this renewed threat. The
Chronicle provides a shared history for the peoples under Alfred’s rule, particularly
those of the ‘Greater’ Wessex that stretched along the southern coast, uniting them and
their different traditions and stories in a single narrative, just as they had been united
under the rule of a single dynasty over the course of the ninth century. Whether the
articulation of this shared history should be seen as seeking to celebrate or as seeking
to convince is difficult to determine.
Very soon after the compilation of the original Chronicle, copies were being made
of it and material added to it at a number of different locations. The mechanisms for
the dispersal of the Chronicle are not known but, following the model of other texts
associated with King Alfred, it was presumably sent to various religious centres to be
copied, with further manuscripts being made from these. Certainly, none of the
surviving versions is a direct copy of the original Chronicle for they all display a
chronological dislocation in their annals between 756 and 845, meaning events are
dated at least two years too early.
 274 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5a.3 Version D, the ‘Worcester

Chronicle’. This page shows
the preface to the Chronicle,
describing the island of Britain
and its inhabitants

Periodic ‘updates’ to the Common Stock seem to have been issued by the West
Saxon court. Versions ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ all contain near-Â�identical batches of annals for
the years 893–6 (on the campaigns of King Alfred), 901–14 (on the campaigns of King
Edward the Elder) and 934–46 (the reign of King Æthelstan and King Edmund). Such
may have continued into the eleventh century, for versions ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ likewise
contain near-Â�identical annals for the reign of King Æthelred II, suggesting similar
semi-�official dissemination of information or texts from a central source.
The Parker Chronicle, Manuscript ‘A’, is the earliest of the extant versions, with
entries up to the end of 891 written in a single hand in the late ninth or early tenth
century, probably at Winchester. Additions were made by several different scribes in
the tenth century – it has a particularly detailed account of the reign of Edward the
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e a n g l o - s a xo n c h r o n i c l e 275

Elder – and at some point in the early eleventh century it was taken to Canterbury but
not before a copy of it had been made, either manuscript ‘G’ or the exemplar for it.
Manuscript ‘B’ was completed in the late tenth century – its final entry is for 977 –
and it contains significant Mercian elements, such as the account of the activities of
Æthelflæd of Mercia in the 910s known as the Mercian Register or the Annals of
Æthelflæd. Manuscript ‘C’ was written in the middle of the eleventh century, and up to
977 is in large parts a copy of manuscript ‘B’. It contains a stratum of material that
relates to Abingdon and its production has often been assigned to that abbey, but this
may be to place too great an emphasis on these entries. Production at a religious house
somewhere in Mercia is probably the most that can be claimed.
Manuscripts ‘D’ and ‘E’ derive in large part from a version of the Chronicle, no longer
surviving, known as the ‘Northern Recension’. This version, dating to the tenth or early
eleventh century, added significant material relating to Northumbria and the north of
England, derived from such sources as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and annals produced
at York in the eighth century. Despite the name, the ‘Northern Recension’ need not have
been written in the north of England, but its creation probably stems from the desire to
write Northumbria into the story presented by the original Chronicle at a time when
West Saxon kings were establishing their control over the north. Some of the entries
from the later tenth century, such as the account of the aftermath of the death of King
Edgar under the year 975, were written by Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023), but it
is unlikely that the entirety of the compilation of the ‘Northern Recension’ was his work.
Manuscript ‘D’ was probably compiled in the mid-Â�to late eleventh century, perhaps
at York during the archiepiscopate of Ealdred (1060–9). The exemplar for manuscript
‘E’ was at St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, around the time of the Norman Conquest,
but E itself was written at Peterborough in 1121 and continued there until 1154.
Manuscript ‘F’ is a bilingual version of the Chronicle, with entries in both Old English
and Latin, and was put together by a scribe in Canterbury c. 1100, using a number of
different versions of the Chronicle. The same scribe was also responsible for making
some alterations and additions to manuscript ‘A’ after comparing it with the exemplar
of manuscript ‘E’, suggesting significant scholarly investment in the texts of the
Chronicle at this point in time. The fragment ‘H’ contains entries for the years 1113 and
1114 and may have had some connection with Winchester, but it is now impossible to
determine its relationship to other manuscripts of the Chronicle.
Taken as a whole, the different versions of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle cover the
period from the attempted invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in 60 bc to the death of
King Stephen and the accession of Henry II in 1154. The chronological range of each
version differs, however, with only ‘E’ and ‘H’ containing twelfth-Â�century material.
The basic format of each annal is the year expressed using the Anno Domini dating
system – though, curiously, ‘B’ does not include dates after its entry for 652. The year
is then followed usually by the word ‘her’ (‘here’, i.e. ‘at this time’ or ‘in this year’) and
then the events recorded for that year. Not every year has an entry and chronological
coverage is patchy. Entries across the middle decades of the tenth century tend to be
short and few in number, and the coverage of the reign of King Cnut (d. 1035) is
equally thin.
276 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The length of entries can vary from the simple record of a death or a battle or some-
times a noteworthy natural phenomenon – such as the death of Bishop Daniel of
Winchester in 745 or the great mortality of birds recorded in 671 – to lengthy extended
entries detailing a series of events – such as the campaigns of the West Saxon kings
against the Vikings in the ninth century. The vast majority of the entries are in prose
but a number of poems are included, such as the description of King Æthelstan’s
victory at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 or King Edmund’s conquest of the Five
Boroughs in 942. As well as the annals, different versions of the Chronicle include a
range of prefatory material. Manuscript ‘A’ has already been mentioned in this regard;
‘C’ begins with a metrical calendar and a series of proverbs or aphorisms; ‘D’, ‘E’ and
‘F’ include a description of the island of Britain and the origins of the Britons, Picts
and Scots.
Despite the similarities between the various versions of the Chronicle, it is their
differences – local references, chronological dislocations, corrected or reordered
entries, additional or unique information – that are most significant and most useful,
and not only for determining a place of origin. Though the Chronicle remains central
to reconstructing events of the Anglo-�Saxon period, it is important less as a repository
of facts than as a record of the varying uses made of the past by different individuals
and groups at different times and places. For the period 1035–66, for example, versions
‘C’ and ‘E’ present divergent and often conflicting accounts of events, probably
reflecting the different factions competing for power and influence at this particularly
turbulent time. Manuscript ‘E’, for example, tends to favour Earl Godwine of Wessex
and his descendants, whereas C shows marked sympathies for the family of Earl
Leofric of Mercia, and was probably written by a member of his affinity. Similarly, the
account of the reign of King Æthelred II in versions ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ seems to have been
composed by a single author writing in the aftermath of the conquest by Cnut.
Æthelred’s reign, seen by the author in the light of this ultimate defeat, is presented as
a period of inevitable and inexorable decline and decay, hastened on by the king’s evil
deeds and bad judgements.
The various versions of the Chronicle make clear that the past mattered to the
Anglo-�Saxons and that control of its meaning and significance through the production
of texts and the maintenance of records was of fundamental importance. The past was,
however, flexible and able to be reshaped and reinterpreted to serve better the needs of
particular individuals and groups. The texts of the Chronicle preserve the traces of
these activities, with some manuscripts showing repeated scribal interventions over
time. In some cases such versions of the past have proved immensely powerful and
influential – King Æthelred’s reputation, for example, has never quite recovered
from the damage done to it by ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’. Other reconfigurations have proved
more temporary and fleeting, albeit they may have achieved their immediate
contemporary aims.
 sources and issues 5b

the rebirth of towns

nicholas j. higham

Britain’s Roman towns ceased to function in the fifth century, although both ruined
towns and forts remained highly visible and were often reused thereafter as royal and/
or church sites. A revival of trade in the later seventh and early eighth centuries focused
on a few undefended emporia or wics on the coasts and tidal rivers of the major king-
doms: at Ipswich in East Anglia, on the Strand west of London, at Hamwic near
Southampton and at Fishergate outside York. Hamwic, lying between the Rivers Itchen
and Test, is probably the best understood. Large-�scale excavation on the Six Dials site
revealed a grid of streets laid out around 700 with 68 Middle Saxon structures scat-
tered across several properties divided by pit and stake-�hole alignments. Numerous
crafts were practised: iron, bronze, lead and gold were all worked plus glass-�making,
textile manufacturing, bone-�working, pottery-�making, leather production and wood-�
working. Hamwic was probably the sole West Saxon mint and seems to have had a
regional monopoly on trade with Continental Europe across the eighth century and
into the ninth, with a network of lesser trading sites inland and on the Isle of Wight.
However, by the third quarter of the ninth century traders had abandoned these open
sites in favour of more defensible locations.
Defended royal and/or ecclesiastical centres had long been a feature of Anglo-�
Saxon England. In Northumbria examples go back to the sixth and seventh centuries,
with small but heavily fortified settlements at Bamburgh, Dunbar, Edinburgh and the
palisaded enclosure at Yeavering, as well as the Roman walls at York. In Mercia, royal
charters from the 740s onwards include clauses requiring a contribution to the
construction of ‘necessary defences’. Precisely where is unclear but excavations at
Hereford, Tamworth (Staffordshire) and Winchcombe (Gloucestershire) all revealed
substantial banks and ditches constructed by at latest the mid-�ninth century. At
Hereford on the Welsh borders the primary defences consisted of a gravel rampart and
an external ditch on the west of the city combining with the River Wye to defend the
area around the cathedral. Later work augmented the bank with turf and clay and
extended it eastwards, probably in the late ninth century, then provided a new breast-
work and fronted it with stone. The tenth-�century defences enclosed the cathedral, St
Guthlac’s, and an urban community centred on Broad Street. Tamworth was a focus of
Mercian royal government, almost certainly centred on a palace complex. In the
 278 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5b.1 Development of ninth- eastern Midlands the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle implies that Nottingham and Repton also
century Anglo-Saxon Hereford. had meaningful fortifications by the 870s and many others gained them either under
(a) mid-ninth-century gravel
and clay rampart built on the
Viking occupation or in the course of the West Saxon conquest of the Danelaw.
north and west sides of the core West Saxon charters only began to require contribution to defences in the mid-�
of the town around the ninth century. There were, however, some defences earlier: the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle
cathedral; (b) a timber-faced makes reference to Merton (?Devon) as a defensible settlement in the 750s; Asser’s Life
turf and clay rampart replaced
of Alfred refers to existing fortifications at Shaftesbury, Canterbury and Rochester
earlier defences in the late
ninth century, extending to (both the latter had Roman walls), and there are scattered references in the Chronicle
enclose St Guthlac’s in the to walls at, for example, Chippenham and Chichester, which may well pre-Â�date Alfred’s
eastern part of the town reign. Clearly though, Alfred, his daughter Æthelflæd and son-Â�in-Â�law Æthelræd (in
Mercia), and his son Edward the Elder (899–924), were responsible for numerous new
fortifications, the garrisoning of the whole network and the expansion of this West
Saxon system of burhs north of the Thames. Warfare turned into a succession of sieges,
punctuated by the construction of new defences; it is difficult to overestimate the
connection between West Saxon royal government and fortified towns.
The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle provides an account of some at least of the new founda-
tions, starting with Alfred’s building of Athelney (Somerset) in 878 and running
through Æthelflæd’s burhs in the West Midlands and Edward the Elder’s at Manchester
and further east. A document known as the Burghal Hidage lists 33 places and provides
the number of hides associated with each. Appended to this list is a set of calculations
which establishes the relationship between the length of wall and the number of hides
required to man it:

For the establishment of a wall of one acre’s breadth, and for its defence, 16 hides are
required. If each hide is represented by 1 man, then each pole [of wall] can be
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e r e b i rt h o f t o w n s 279

furnished with 4 men.

Then for the establishment of a wall of 20 poles there is required 80 hides; and for
a furlong, 160 hides .â•‹.â•‹. for 12 furlongs, 1920 hides.

The West Saxon burhs are listed in clockwise order starting in East Sussex, running
west to Lydford (Devon) and then back through northern Wessex to Southwark,
crossing the Thames to include both Oxford and Buckingham en route. Omission of
Kent and London implies that this was a working document rather than one intended
to describe the whole system. It probably belongs to the second decade of the reign of
Edward the Elder, although most of the places named were fortified significantly
earlier.
David Hill divided the places named in the Burghal Hidage on the basis of size,
interpreting the larger as towns and the smaller as campaigning forts. Many of the new
towns developed from pre-�existing royal and ecclesiastical centres. Winchester is the
classic example of a new town: lying among late pre-�Christian burials suggestive of
early claims on authority, from the seventh century a bishopric was centred within the
old Roman walls, the church (the Old Minster) surviving little altered until 971. A
royal palace probably lay alongside. Alfred and his father had both been to Rome and
were keen to stress this connection. In consequence the very ‘Roman’ practice of town
foundation was core to Alfred’s policies; this was the single most important example.
Excavation has revealed a grid of streets orientated on High Street, accompanied by a
series of channels to supply water for drinking and to power mills. The Roman walls
and gateways were retained but, excepting High Street, the earlier internal layout was
obliterated. Almost 9 kilometres of new roads were laid using some 8,000 tonnes of
cobbles. The interior was divided into substantial plots on which incomers constructed
residences and churches, and subdivided areas as tenements. The original religious
complex was expanded by the construction of the New Minster (founded by 901) and
Nunnaminster, later St Mary’s Abbey, taking up the south-Â�eastern quarter of the walled

5b.2 The Burghal Hidage. This

enigmatic early tenth-century
document lists the towns
indicated on the map (solid
circles); most are in Alfred’s
Wessex but even there not all
contemporary towns are
included; other towns of the
period in Kent and Essex are
also shown (hollow circles)
 280 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

5b.3 Winchester. A new capital

for the West Saxon kingdom in
the late ninth and early tenth
centuries, Alfred and Edward
re-used the Roman walls but
reorganised the interior

area. A mint was operating from the 870s onwards. High Street experienced rapid
commercial development across the tenth century, to the point where the monastic
quarter had to be enclosed to insulate it from the townsfolk.
By the eleventh century Winchester was home to a large urban community, with
specialised markets for meat and fish and general markets at each of the landward
gates. The cult of St Swithun attracted pilgrims. In the 970s the Old Minster was
substantially extended and a great new western tower was added to the New Minster.
The churches played an important role in the life of the town: many of England’s kings
were buried in the Old Minster and it had one of the most productive scriptoria in later
Anglo-�Saxon England, creating a market for hides, inks and colouring materials. There
was also a permanent royal establishment, including the treasury. Members of the
royal family were often present, or on their estates nearby.
Winchester has rightly been called ‘the heart of the Old English Kingdom’. The new
burh should be thought of very much in terms of a partnership between king, church
and townsfolk. Its prosperity rested both on redistribution of revenues derived from
the countryside and on manufacturing and trade; there were at least four guilds serving
the townsfolk in the later Anglo-�Saxon period. The city was omitted from Domesday
Book, but a survey compiled for Henry I around 1110 listed royal rents and services
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e r e b i rt h o f t o w n s 281

dating from the reign of Edward the Confessor, when there were around 1,130 tene-
ments, placing Winchester on a par with Lincoln in terms of population. The king’s
tenancies were held variously by shoemakers, moneyers, reeves, beadles, herring-�
mongers, blacksmiths, hay-Â�merchants, ‘wet-Â�mongers’ and goldsmiths. Medieval street
names refer to the working of gold, silver and leather. This was, then, a substantial and
successful urban settlement.
Winchester’s economic development was, however, limited by its inland position.
On the coast to the south Hamwic gave way to a new, defended settlement built on
slightly higher ground just a kilometre away at Southampton. This served as a port for
Hampshire and boasted a mint in Æthelstan’s reign, but the defences were in-Â�filled by
the mid-�tenth century and settlement was dispersed across a wide area. The port had
links with Flanders and coastal France but it was always comparatively small.
Although the road system was clearly well used by traders in later Anglo-�Saxon
England, bulk cargoes travelled predominantly by water, around the coasts and along
navigable rivers. The Graveney boat, excavated on the marshes of north Kent and
dated to the late ninth–early tenth centuries, reveals the type of vessel in use. Originally
some 13.6 metres long and 4 metres broad, it was capable of carrying 6–7 tonnes of
cargo. Recent loads had included both lava quernstones, for grinding grain, and hops.
The quernstones were blanks imported from Mayen, in the Eifel region of Germany,
implying passage of the Rhine via Utrecht then the Channel crossing, then to be
finished in England prior to sale. Such blanks are a key indicator of long-�distance trade
in early medieval Europe, also found in wrecks at Lüttingen and Salmorth in Germany.
Their presence on this vessel may suggest its use on the Channel crossing, as well as
around the English coast.
London was far larger than either Winchester or Southampton and combined the
advantages of both sites, as both a major port and a key political and religious centre.
Alfred and Æthelred’s ‘re-Â�foundation’ of London in 886 should be associated with
relocation of the trading community to the riverbank at Queenhithe within the walled
city, where the bishopric was already located. This expanded dramatically in the
second half of the tenth century, particularly around Cheapside and Eastcheap, ‘cheap’
deriving from Old English cēap, ‘to barter’. The city became as a major industrial
centre, with metalworking particularly active, as the most prolific mint in late Anglo-�
Saxon England and England’s premier trading site. By the end of the tenth century,
London was emerging as a quasi-�capital city and was of real political importance in its
own right.
Numerous other centres also developed significant commercial and craft facilities,
often around pre-�existing elite centres of royal and/or ecclesiastical power. Many of the
most successful incorporated Roman walls, as at Chester, for example, or Lincoln,
where the old legionary fortress retained its pre-�existing ecclesiastical and political
functions while trade and manufacturing developed in the Lower City, spreading
uphill in the later tenth century. The shiring of the Midlands clearly advantaged those
settlements selected as the administrative centres. Some in the east, such as Derby,
were Viking fortifications; others, such as Warwick and Stafford, were new English
burhs. Some ancient centres were marginalised in the process; Tamworth was down-
 282 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

graded on purpose, one suspects, by Edward the Elder to prevent its serving as a
centre for Mercian separatism after his imposition of direct rule on the Midlands
following his sister’s death.
The minting of coins was a core function of these new towns, to lubricate the work-
ings of their urban markets. Before 850 there were only some six mints in operation in
England, but by the mid-Â�tenth century there were between 35 and 40. Æthelstan’s
second law code, the ‘Grately Code’ dated 926–30, ordered that minting should occur
only in towns (the term used was ‘port’) and stipulated the number of coiners per
centre in southern Wessex: seven in Canterbury (four for the king, two for the arch-
bishop and one for the abbot); three in Rochester (two for the king, one for the bishop);
eight in London; six in Winchester, and in other places just one or two.
How successful were the new towns of later Anglo-�Saxon England? In comparative
terms the answer must be ‘very successful indeed’. Their walls provided critically
important defensive capabilities across the second Viking Age (the 990s to 1042).
Additionally, a range of manufacturing processes has been found in one after another
of the new towns, working bone, antler, various metals and wood and manufacturing
a range of different types and qualities of cloth. Minting occurred very widely indeed,
and trade was clearly encouraged, bringing economic specialisation and increased
wealth. There was no comparable urban development elsewhere in the British Isles,
with the partial exception of Viking Dublin and a handful of lesser sites along the
eastern Irish seaboard. English towns were denser on the ground and better estab-
lished than comparable settlements across most of Francia and Germany. Although a
proliferation of small boroughs occurred under Norman patronage in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, the basic network of urban centres remained the same as pre-�

5b.4 Viking Age bone comb

from excavations in Ipswich
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e r e b i rt h o f t o w n s 283

1066. That said, many eleventh-�century towns do seem to

have been oases of urbanity. In the north there was very little
urban development outside the shire towns before the
Norman period: Chester, for example, was the only town
worthy of the name in north-�west England in 1066.
Even in the south, where a market economy was more
deeply entrenched, urban development was patchy. In
Berkshire, all the new towns lay on the shire border along
the Thames; in Surrey only the shire town of Guildford and
the London suburb of Southwark can really claim urban
status, and there were no towns west of Bodmin in Cornwall.
In some regions, however, urban markets were becoming
increasingly accessible. Wareham, in Dorset, is among the
best �preserved Anglo-�Saxon burhs today. Walls are still
upstanding on three sides, with a fronting ditch, forming a
rectangular plan encompassing some 34 hectares on the
banks of the River Frome, with access to Poole Harbour. An
irregular grid of streets is based upon three landward gates
and the river crossing. Some 285 houses in 1066 plus further
burgesses associated with estates nearby suggest a prosperous town. This was a shire 5b.5 Western defences of the
where no one urban settlement was predominant: the Domesday account opens with late Anglo-Saxon town of
Wareham
a survey not just of Dorchester but also Bridport, Wareham and Shaftesbury. Even
Bridport, with 120 houses in 1066, was not much smaller than a shire town such as
Stafford, with 154 houses, or Hertford with 146. Dorset, therefore, along with Somerset,
Kent and Sussex, had a network of urban centres such that most farmers were within
15 to 30 kilometres of market facilities. Town life was well established by 1066 across
much of England and urban centres provided a variety of functions. The rise of towns
in later Anglo-�Saxon England made possible the increasingly specialised economy
which emerged across southern England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but it
would be a mistake to suppose that commerce and industry were the key drivers of
urbanism around 900; rather, urbanism developed out of the need to bolster royal
power, provide defences and re-�energise resistance to the Vikings.
 chapter 6

Conquest, Reform and the

Making of England
martin j. ryan

In midwinter 878, as Alfred took refuge from the Viking assaults at Athelney in the
Somerset marshes, Anglo-�Saxon kingship was virtually extinguished. Yet within sixty
years, Alfred’s grandson Æthelstan would control a territory corresponding, to a large
degree, to modern England. Alongside these extensive conquests, Æthelstan and his
successors would establish new methods of governance and administration and new
means of controlling the vast territories now at their disposal.
This process of West Saxon conquest looms large in the contemporary sources and
dominates modern accounts of the tenth century. The danger, as always, is hindsight.
That a unified England would emerge over the course of the tenth century does not
mean that such unity was inevitable nor that there had long existed the idea of or the
desire for political unification, an England waiting impatiently to be born. To assume
that successive kings had in mind this ultimate goal of unification and to interpret
their activities in this light – or, worse still, to assess the success or failure of their
reigns by this yardstick – is unhelpful and presumptive. Nor was the process of unifica-
tion one way: territory was gained and lost repeatedly by Alfred’s descendants over the
course of the tenth century. The underlying tendency, if there was one, was political
fission as much as political fusion. Old identities and loyalties died hard and could be
easily reactivated as circumstances changed and ambitions fluctuated.
West Saxon territorial gains came at the expense of the communities and kingdoms
in the north and the east that had emerged in the wake of the Viking conquests of the
ninth century. Our knowledge of these new polities is frustratingly limited. The written
sources offer an essentially West Saxon perspective on events and, as so often, the north
is seen not on its own terms but through southern eyes. Though it is clear that the Viking
conquests resulted in Scandinavian settlement across large areas of northern and eastern
England – the so-Â�called Danelaw – much about this settlement remains obscure. Its
impact can be traced through place names, material culture and, increasingly, genetics.
Though such data have most often been mined for information about numbers of settlers
and settlement, they may actually tell us more about the development of new identities
and the responses of those in the Danelaw to the new circumstances of the tenth century.
The tenth century also witnessed far-�reaching religious changes. The written
record is dominated by the so-�called Benedictine Reforms of the later tenth century.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 285

Anglo-�Saxon churchmen inspired by Continental developments as well as by their

own idiosyncratic readings of works such as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History sought to
reform and to renew communal religious life in England, privileging the monastic
Rule attributed to St Benedict of Nursia. Particularly during the reign of King Edgar (d.
975), these reformers enjoyed considerable royal support and their newly founded or
reformed communities attracted lavish patronage. These reforming centres were then
instrumental in promoting the use of standardised forms of Old English and in the
propagation of particular styles of art and manuscript decoration.
Yet if the Benedictine Reforms dominate the sources from this period, their wider
impact should not be overstressed: large areas of England were affected only mini-
mally, if at all. It was the emergence of small local churches and the development of
new systems of pastoral care – processes only imperfectly documented – that would
have the more enduring impact and more thoroughgoing effect on religious life in
England. 6.1 Places named in chapter 6

Scandinavian Settlement
Tracing the nature and impact of the
Scandinavian settlement that accompanied the
conquests of the later-�ninth century remains
acutely difficult and the subject of intense and
ongoing debate. As with the Anglo-� Saxon
takeover of lowland Britain in the fifth century,
work has traditionally focused on the question
of numbers and density of settlement, with
estimates ranging from a limited number of
high-�status settlers to something approaching a
mass migration of low-� status Scandinavian
farmers. The types of evidence drawn on are,
likewise, similar to those used to chart the
Anglo-�Saxon settlement: place names, mortuary
and settlement archaeology, material culture
and, increasingly, archaeogenetics and other
scientific data.
The idea that all or any of these can offer a
simple index of levels of Scandinavian settle-
ment has by now given way to an appreciation
of the complexities of ethnic identity and affili-
ation in the Early Middle Ages. Material culture
or language does not passively reflect ethnic
identity, much less personal origin. Rather, such
identities are actively shaped and constituted
material culture as well as social interactions,
political affiliations and other mechanisms. The
 286 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6.2 A selection of coinage from

the Danelaw. From left to right:
King Guthrum/Æthelstan,
minted in East Anglia (late
ninth century); King Siefred,
probably minted in York (late
ninth to early tenth century);
King Olaf Guthfrithsson, York
(mid-tenth century); King
Sihtric II, York (940s); King
Eric, York (mid-tenth century)

identities so constructed in eastern and northern England in the tenth and eleventh
centuries did not seek simply to claim Scandinavian ethnicity. They did not represent
the straightforward transplanting of Danish or Norwegian identities to an English
context but rather should be seen as distinctively Anglo-�Scandinavian. Much as Anglo-�
Saxon identities developed in situ in Britain rather than being imported from the
Continent, so Anglo-�Scandinavian identities were constructed to meet the particular
needs of the inhabitants of the Danelaw, not all of whom, not even a majority of whom,
need have been of Scandinavian descent.
The multiple identities that developed in the Danelaw reflect the complex circum-
stances of the establishment of Scandinavian control. The Viking armies of the ninth
century were heterogeneous in composition, representing the amalgamation of
numerous different war-�bands and groups, operating in Britain, Ireland and on the
Continent for many campaign seasons at a time with only limited contact with
Scandinavia. Behind the simple ‘Danish’ identity attributed to the Viking armies in
Anglo-�Saxon sources lay a complex mix of nationalities, ethnicities and loyalties.
The Viking armies that had conquered the Anglo-�Saxon kingdoms in the ninth
century were not the only source of settlers. Though debates continue about whether
there were subsequent migrations directly from Scandinavia in the wake of the Viking
Conquest – a scenario that seems highly likely – north-Â�west England certainly did see
further migration. Welsh and Irish sources record the expulsion of Vikings from the
Dublin area in the early tenth century with some at least of these crossing the Irish Sea
and settling on the Wirral, in Cumbria and in Lancashire. These settlers are sometimes
described in modern accounts as ‘Hiberno-Â�Norse’, that is Irish-Â�Scandinavian or Irish-Â�
Norwegian, and distinguished from the Danes who settled elsewhere in England.
Though there is some limited place name evidence for a significant Norwegian element
in the Scandinavian settlement of the north west, to draw sharp distinctions between
‘Hiberno-Â�Norse’ and Danes or to posit political factions and allegiances on the basis of
these identities is unhelpful. Ethnic boundaries were more fluid than this and alliances
more pragmatic.
The surviving written sources offer little information about the process of
Scandinavian settlement or the political structures such settlement put in place. The
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 287

Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle, for example, describes how in 876 the Viking leader Healfdene
‘shared out the land of the Northumbrians [among his followers] and they proceeded
to plough and to support themselves’, but provides no further details. Likewise, the
Chronicle includes references to numerous Scandinavian kings and earls, as well as
other nobles called holds, active in the Danelaw, but includes insufficient information
to reconstruct the political circumstances or to determine who was subordinate to
whom.
In general, the Chronicle presents settlement outside of Northumbria as focused on
urban centres or burhs, such as Northampton or Leicester, with each of these centres
having their own army. Beyond this it is difficult to go. The existence of larger political
groupings or collective identities is suggested by references in the sources to the ‘Five
Boroughs’ – namely Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford and Derby – but what
such identities meant in practice is uncertain. It is possible that the compilers of the
Chronicle were themselves unable to reconstruct fully the political structures of the
Danelaw in the period of the West Saxon conquests. Shifting allegiances, temporary
alliances and fluctuating levels of power and authority characterise this period. The
numismatic evidence adds to this picture of political complexity. Coins were issued in
the names of a vast array of rulers, some of whom are otherwise unattested, and a
number of new, often short-� lived mints emerged, such as those at Shelford
(Cambridgeshire) or Rocester (Staffordshire).
The written sources give little indication of the interactions between the incoming
Scandinavians and the native Anglo-�Saxons or the extent to which existing political
and administrative structures were retained. The tenth-�century History of St Cuthbert
offers a story in which a king, Guthred, was raised from a Viking army through
the visionary intercession of Cuthbert. In gratitude, Guthred granted Cuthbert’s
community, then based at Chester-�le-�Street, control over all the lands between the
Rivers Tyne and Wear. Stripped of its miraculous elements, such a story looks like the
leader of a Viking army acknowledging the power and influence wielded in the north
by Cuthbert’s community and coming to an agreement with them about mutual
spheres of influence. In return, Cuthbert’s community offered its allegiance to, as well
as saintly approval of, Guthred’s accession to the throne. Other accommodations of
this type must have been reached elsewhere. Numismatic evidence suggests coopera-
tion between the archbishop of York and the various Scandinavian rulers of that city in
the late ninth and early tenth centuries. At least one of these rulers, Guthfrith (d. 895),
is known to have been buried in the York Minster.
Moving beyond the written sources, place names offer one of the largest potential
data sets for Scandinavian settlement in England. Place names that include elements
from the Scandinavian languages are concentrated in northern and eastern England.
While a range of such names exists the most common are the so-Â�called ‘Grimston
Hybrids’, place names that combine a Scandinavian specific with the Old English
generic -Â�tun (‘farmstead’, ‘settlement’); those in which an Old English or Scandinavian
specific is compounded with the Scandinavian generic -Â�bý (‘settlement’ – hence, ‘town’
in modern Danish); and those containing the Scandinavian generic -Â�thorp (‘secondary
settlement’).
 288 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6.3 Distribution of
Scandinavian place names in
Britain

There remain formidable problems in interpreting the significance of these place

names. Firstly, a site with a Scandinavian place name need not have been named or
settled by Scandinavians. The Scandinavian language had a significant impact on Old
English and many words were borrowed. Some place names with Scandinavian
elements undoubtedly just reflect this linguistic borrowing. Secondly, the majority of
Scandinavian place names are recorded for the first time only in the Domesday Book
of 1086. They could, in theory, have been coined at any point between the late ninth
and the late eleventh centuries and need not provide any evidence for the initial circum-
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 289

stances of settlement. Likewise, numerous Scandinavian place names may have been
coined across this period only to drop out of usage after a time, making no impact on
the documentary record. Distribution maps of Scandinavian place names are, for the
most part, simply showing such place names as were in use in the later eleventh century.
Given the significant changes in landscape and settlement patterns in the later
Anglo-Â�Saxon period, most notably the fragmentation of the large ‘multiple’ estates into
smaller landholdings, many Scandinavian place names may have been coined only in
the mid–late tenth century. Such would explain why Scandinavian place names are
largely absent from those areas conquered early in the tenth century by West Saxon
kings. If these regions were in the hands of Anglo-�Saxon lords when estate fragmenta-
tion occurred, Old English rather than Scandinavian place names would probably
have been coined for the new landholdings.
This model of Scandinavian place name formation would accord well with analyses
based on the underlying drift geology of different regions. Analysis of this kind allows
the most agriculturally productive areas to be distinguished from more marginal zones
and Scandinavian place names to be mapped onto these. In general, Grimston hybrids
tend to be located on prime agricultural land, whereas names in -Â�bý or -Â�thorp occupy
more marginal positions. Such may suggest that Grimston names belong to the earliest
phase of Scandinavian settlement, representing the takeover by incomers of existing
Anglo-Â�Saxon sites already occupying the best lands. Names in -Â�bý or -Â�thorp would
represent later, secondary colonisation of poorer quality land either by new waves of
migrants or as a consequence of the dividing up and fragmentation of existing estates.
Despite the attractions of such a model, it cannot fully explain the situation on the
ground. Straight divisions of land into more and less agriculturally productive regions
are too simple to deal with the complexities of the early medieval landscape.
The wetlands of Amounderness in Lancashire, supposedly a marginal area, were
nevertheless a valuable and productive region, whose resources were carefully culti-
vated. Moreover, the majority of names in -Â�bý look to have been coined in a
Scandinavian-Â� speaking environment – some preserve Scandinavian inflectional
endings, for example. This would suggest that such names belong to the earliest phases
of settlement rather than a period of secondary colonisation. If so, this would also be
evidence against Scandinavian place names being predominantly the product of later
estate fragmentation.
It is unlikely that any single model of place name formation will be able to explain
fully the situation on the ground. Place names are the product of a varied range of
social, economic and political processes, and stem from interactions between different
language groups and contacts between native and incomer. If place names are not a
simple index of initial settlement density, nevertheless they cannot be explained fully
as the result of the later restructuring of landholdings.

Material Culture and the Scandinavian Settlement

Though less pronounced than the impact of place names, the Scandinavian settlement
had an undeniable effect on certain aspects of the material culture of northern and
 290 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

eastern England. Such is most notable in

stone sculpture. Not only was there a marked
increase in the production of sculpture in the
tenth century but also new iconographies and
new decorative motifs were utilised. In some
cases, this new decorative repertoire was
employed on existing types of sculpture, in
particular the free-�standing cross. Alongside
existing types, a new form of monument, the
hogback, developed. These were curved,
house-�shaped grave-�covers, frequently with
bears or other beasts at either end. They are
distributed throughout northern England
and parts of lowland Scotland, though there
are particular concentrations at sites such as
Brompton (North Yorkshire) and Sockburn
on Tees (Durham). Though hogbacks repre-
sent a new monument type, their producers
may have drawn inspiration from existing
insular sculpture or metalwork, particularly
‘house reliquaries’, such as the Bamberg
Casket or Ranvaik Casket, or stone grave-�
6.4 Distribution of hogbacks covers, such as the Headda Stone at Peterborough.
Some of this sculpture employs iconography and imagery deriving from
Scandinavian paganism, such as the figure standing by the open jaws of a vast creature
on the Gosforth Cross (Cumbria) likely to represent the god Vítharr battling the wolf
Fenrir. Much of the sculpture has a markedly secular air, with numerous depictions of
armed warriors, such as that on the cross at Middleton (North Yorkshire), or other
aspects of elite lay culture, such as the hunting scene on the cross at Neston (Cheshire).
Despite such imagery, much, if not all, of this sculpture was produced in an ecclesias-
tical milieu. The Gosforth Cross, for example, also has a depiction of the Crucifixion,
while a cluster of sculpture in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire seems to have had
links with the archiepiscopal see at York.
Despite the presence of Scandinavian iconography and decorative schemes, this
sculpture cannot be seen as the straightforward assertion of Scandinavian identity.
Stone sculpture is largely absent from Scandinavia in this period and the use of
Anglo-�Saxon motifs and forms points to the continuation of native traditions and
tastes. This new sculpture of the tenth century is best seen as reflecting the ambi-
tions and pretensions of an Anglo-�Scandinavian elite, mediated through the ecclesi-
astical workshops likely responsible for its production. The presence of pagan
iconography may represent attempts to make central tenets of Christianity compre-
hensible to newly converted Scandinavians, drawing parallels between pagan stories
and characters and events from the Bible and the life of Christ. On the other hand,
such decoration may simply represent sculptors and patrons secure in Christianity
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 291

6.5 Hogback from St Bridget’s

Church, West Kirby, a relatively
plain example featuring
tegulae (roof tiles) and
interlace decoration

and content to embrace a range of designs and subjects, whatever their ultimate
origin.
Unlike the Anglo-�Saxon takeover of lowland Britain, there is very limited evidence
in settlement archaeology for the impact of Scandinavian colonisers and settlers. In
urban centres, above all York, there are clear indications of significant trading and
industrial activities, as well as the expansion of areas under occupation and the further
development of infrastructure. Yet the trajectory of towns inside the Danelaw is not
appreciably different from those outside it. Towns under Scandinavian control do
seem to have developed more extensive international trading links – such as the
important York–Dublin axis – earlier than their southern counterparts. Until the later
tenth century, trade in London, for example, was dominated by links to Oxfordshire
and the Thames Valley rather than further afield. Nevertheless, the overall develop-
ment of urban life in England in the tenth century effectively follows the same course,
whether the towns were under Anglo-�Saxon or Anglo-�Scandinavian control or passed
from one to the other.
The impact of Scandinavian settlement in rural areas is equally exiguous. Part of
the problem lies in disentangling the consequences of Scandinavian colonisation from
wider changes in the structure of settlements and the landscape across the later Anglo-�
Saxon period. Settlement shift, the nucleation of villages and the fragmentation of
larger estates into smaller manorial-�style holdings all took place alongside Scandinavian
conquest and settlement.
Some sites have been claimed as specifically Scandinavian settlements, most
notably Simy Folds, a group of three farmsteads on Holwick Fell in County Durham.
Here each of the three farmsteads includes a long, narrow building with rounded
corners and turf and boulder foundations – features characteristic of dwellings in
Scandinavian settlements in the north Atlantic region. Carbon-�dating of material
from hearths in two of the buildings produced a date range from the seventh to elev-
enth centuries. Such a range does include the period of Scandinavian settlement in the
 292 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

north but is not sufficiently narrow to prove definitive. Likewise, though the shape and
construction of buildings at Simy Folds correspond with those from other Scandinavian
sites, the overall layout of the farmsteads reflected local, Pennine traditions.
It is similarly difficult to find evidence for a distinctively ‘Scandinavian Phase’ in
settlements occupied continuously across the middle and later Saxon periods, except
in a chronological sense. Certain sites have produced material with Scandinavian
affinities, such as the metalwork featuring Borre-�style motifs recovered from Wharram
Percy (North Yorkshire), yet other continuously occupied sites, such as Flixborough
(Lincolnshire) or Sedgeford (Norfolk), have not yielded material of this type nor
provided evidence of significant change or disruption.
Mortuary archaeology presents similar problems. The corpus of burial sites so far
identified as Scandinavian remains very limited, particularly in comparison with early
Anglo-�Saxon burials, and amounts to no more than forty sites. As with settlements,
the difficulty is determining what range of features or what types of evidence can be
considered diagnostic of Scandinavian presence or Scandinavian influence. Cremation
is a clear marker but beyond the cremation cemetery at Heath Wood, Ingleby
(Derbyshire), there are very few unquestionable examples of cremation burial from
the ninth and tenth centuries.
Furnished inhumation has long been considered another marker, but the case is by
no means compelling. Part of the problem is the considerable range and diversity of
burial practices in the middle and later Anglo-�Saxon periods. Though furnished burial
had declined significantly by the eighth century, examples continue across the Anglo-�
Saxon period, with grave goods ranging from simple dress fittings and jewellery to
knives, toilet implements and even the bodies of animals. Similarly, there existed a
varied range of mortuary practices in Denmark and Norway in this period – there was
no distinctively ‘Scandinavian’ rite. The Scandinavian settlers in England had a wide
repertoire of practices to draw on and were disposing of their dead in regions that had
pre-�existing traditions of complex and varied burial rites.
6.6 Engraving of the Fenrir
scene from the Gosforth Cross
Even when a site can reasonably by identified as containing the graves of
Scandinavian migrants or their descendants, burial rites may be indicating something
other than simple personal identity or ethnicity. At Cumwhitton in Cumbria, for
example, some six richly furnished inhumations, four male and two female, buried
over perhaps twenty-�five years in the early tenth century, have been excavated following
metal-�detector finds. One of the female burials was accompanied by two domed oval
brooches of a form typical of the late ninth to early tenth centuries and found commonly
in areas of Scandinavian settlement.
Three of the four males were buried with swords, with one of these graves also
including a bridle and spurs and featuring a curved ditch to its north-�east that may
once have enclosed the whole grave. Male inhumations of this type, furnished with
weapons and other military equipment and showing signs of significant investment in
grave construction or layout, are a common feature of many purportedly Scandinavian
burials of the late ninth to mid-�tenth centuries.
Such burials may, however, tell us less about the ethnic identity being claimed by or
for the deceased and more about social status and ambitions. As with the ‘princely
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 293

burials’ of the early Anglo-Â�Saxon period, these

burials seem to represent an attempt to underline
warrior and aristocratic status in a time of intense
competition for power and influence. The ending of
such distinctive burial practices by the mid-�tenth
century may point less to a declining emphasis on
warrior status than to a more stable social order and
heavier investment in other arenas of competitive
display, such as the commissioning of sculpture or
the foundation and endowment of churches.
The focus thus far has been primarily on material
culture as a reflection of high-� status identities.
Increasingly, however, evidence is being found
showing that the creation of an Anglo-�Scandinavian
identity went beyond a relatively narrow and
restricted elite. Metal detectorists, in particular, have
turned up increasing quantities of dress fittings,
jewellery and other personal accessories employing
Scandinavian decorative motifs whose form derives
from Anglo-� Saxon metalworking traditions or
which feature motifs from both the Scandinavian
and Anglo-�Saxon stylistic repertoire. For example, a
number of disc brooches featuring Scandinavian-�
derived Borre-�style decoration have been recovered
from the Norfolk region, but whereas Scandinavian disc brooches tend to have a 6.7 Cross-shaft from St Mary’s
convex profile, these disc brooches are flat in form, like earlier and contemporary and St Helen’s Church, Neston

Anglo-�Saxon disc brooches. Given the large numbers of such items that have been
found and the fact that many are made from base metals, cultural interaction and
artistic borrowing were clearly taking place across nearly all levels of society in the
Danelaw.

6.8 Ivory-handled knife, used

in leather-working, featuring
animal interlace and
Scandinavian borre-style
decoration. Found at
Canterbury, it was probably
manufactured in the Danelaw
– an example of the portability
of Anglo-Scandinavian artistic
culture
294 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Genetics and the Scandinavian Settlement

Alongside well-�established disciplines and data-�sets, archaeogenetics and related tech-
niques have also made a contribution to the debates surrounding Scandinavian settle-
ment. After the collapse of the crude racial forms of anthropology of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, the first studies to explore Scandinavian migration
through the physical characteristics of modern populations concentrated on the
evidence of blood groups. The results of such studies were largely ambiguous, but
more recent studies exploring a greater number of genetic systems and markers have
produced more positive results.
A 1998 study of 18 genetic systems (blood groups, serum proteins and red-�cell
enzymes) in individuals in the East Midlands suggested that the region could be
divided geographically into five separate sub-�populations and that such groupings
represented the impact of immigration. For example, the study found north-�east
Derbyshire to be genetically distinct from neighbouring regions but to have close links
with populations in Denmark. Such genetic variance mapped well onto the place name
evidence: Scandinavian place names survive from north-�east Derbyshire but are
largely absent from the north-�west of that county.
A 2003 study looked at Y-�chromosomes from individuals in 25 small towns and
cities across Britain and Ireland. These were then compared with Y-�chromosomes
from Norway and Denmark, representing Viking settlement, from Schleswig-�Holstein
for the Anglo-�Saxon contribution, and Castlerea in Ireland, representing the indige-
nous population of Britain and Ireland. The Danish and Norwegian input could not be
easily distinguished from that from Schleswig-�Holstein but such groups only made a
significant genetic contribution to areas formerly in the Danelaw. Southern England
appeared to be predominantly ‘indigenous’, suggesting that the Scandinavian settle-
ment of the ninth and tenth centuries had a greater demographic impact than the
Anglo-�Saxon one.
One of the most recent genetic studies concentrated on the Wirral and west
Lancashire and was carried out between 2002 and 2007. This study compared the
DNA of men with surnames traditional to that region – that is, ones that had been
attested in the medieval and early modern periods – with those who bore non-Â�
traditional surnames. The study found that the ‘traditional’ or ‘medieval’ population
and ‘modern’ population were in some ways genetically distinct, though both popula-
tions were closer to each other than they were to populations in North Wales and
Cheshire. Moreover, the ‘medieval’ population had an increased genetic affinity with
Norway, suggesting that the Wirral and west Lancashire had seen significant migra-
tion from that region before the modern period.
Studies of modern populations do have the potential to shed light on historic
migrations, but there remain significant difficulties in disentangling the effects of
these population movements from more recent ones. Likewise, such studies may say
less about initial settlement and migration and more about the subsequent success of
immigrant populations. As discussed above (pp. 89–91), debates still continue about
appropriate methodologies and there remains much discussion about what kinds of
questions genetic studies of this type can actually answer.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 295

6.9 Pre-Viking Anglo-Saxon

sculpture from All Saints’
Church, Bakewell. Though little
is known of Bakewell prior to
King Edward’s construction of
a burh there, the sculptural
remains show it was the site of
an important ecclesiastical
community with links to other
centres in the Peak District

The study of the skeletal remains from ninth-�and tenth-century graves themselves
is one way in which such problems can be minimised. Though DNA can be success-
fully extracted from ancient bones, it continues to be very difficult and the potential
for contamination is still high. A more promising technique is stable isotope analysis.
Isotopes of elements such as oxygen, lead and strontium preserved in tooth enamel
 296 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6.10 Building-type penny of

King Edward the Elder, by the
moneyer Wulfgar. A number of
different Building-type coins
were minted in Edward’s name
by various moneyers. The
reverse design may
commemorate the construction
of burhs or the foundation of
churches – this example
certainly resembles a front
view of a basilica-style church

can indicate where an individual grew up, as such elements are taken in with drinking
water and are retained in the enamel as the teeth develop.
Only a small number of studies has so far been undertaken and on a limited
number of sites, but these indicate well the potential of such work. At Repton,
Derbyshire, for example, three of the burials associated with the Viking occupation of
the site in the 870s were analysed. The individuals in two of these, graves G511 and
G295, could have been from the west coast of Denmark, though locations in western
Britain or the Low Countries are also possible. The third individual, G529, looks to
have been from south-Â�eastern Sweden – a further reminder of the cosmopolitan nature
of Viking armies.
Though the question of the number of Scandinavian settlers has long dominated
discussions, the surviving evidence can offer only limited answers. Yet if the
question of numbers is largely intractable, it is mostly only of secondary importance.
The processes by which the distinctive cultures of the Danelaw came into existence
and the purposes that these identities served are bound up with a range of wider
phenomena and developments, of which migration, on whatever scale, was but only
one element.

The Grandchildren of Æthelwulf

On 26 October 899, King Alfred died. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward,
known since the end of the eleventh century as ‘Edward the Elder’. Given Alfred’s
victories over the Vikings and the reforms he initiated, it is easy to assume that the
succession of his son and the subsequent dominance of his grandsons and great-�
grandsons were inevitable and assured by 899. Yet it remains unclear whether Edward
inherited to the fullest extent the royal power wielded by his father – Edward’s precise
influence over ‘English’ Mercia is particularly difficult to determine. Moreover, in the
person of his cousin, Æthelwold (c. 868–903), son of Alfred’s older brother King
Æthelred (d. 871), Edward faced a serious rival for the throne and one able to command
considerable loyalty and support. Even Alfred himself may not have intended Edward
to succeed him: some evidence suggests that he increasingly favoured Edward’s son,
Æthelstan, towards the end of his reign. Behind the simple story of succession recorded
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 297

by the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle lies a far more complex situation and one that now can
be only partially reconstructed.
Soon after the death of Alfred, Æthelwold, with a band of followers, seized
two residences, in Wimborne and Christchurch (Dorset), only departing when
Edward camped with an army at nearby Badbury Rings. Though his behaviour is
presented by the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle as a rebellion against Edward’s royal
authority, Æthelwold was every bit as eligible for the throne as Edward and clearly
had support in Wessex. Given that Edward had not yet been crowned when the
‘rebellion’ took place, Æthelwold’s actions may have been a play for a throne not yet
securely controlled rather than a revolt against well-�established and widely accepted
royal power.
The significance of the threat Æthelwold posed is underlined by his actions on
fleeing Wessex: immediately he travelled to the Danish army in Northumbria, who
submitted to him and accepted him as their king. Perhaps the Danes envisaged
Æthelwold would make a pliable client king in Wessex, much as Ceolwulf had been in
Mercia or perhaps the support Æthelwold was able to call on in Wessex was more
extensive than the account of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle would suggest. At the very
least, Æthelwold and the Danes believed they had overlapping interests.
In the autumn of 901, Æthelwold landed with a fleet in Essex and by 903 he had
persuaded the Danish army in East Anglia to break peace with Edward. Æthelwold
then harried parts of Mercia and Wessex and in response Edward ravaged parts of
what is now Cambridgeshire, though he did not directly engage Æthelwold in battle.
When Edward left East Anglia, for reasons that are unclear, some of his army remained
behind and were attacked by Æthelwold and his supporters. Though the Danish army
won the battle there were severe losses on both sides. Æthelwold was killed, as was
Eohric, probably king of East Anglia, and Brihtsige, probably a scion of one of the
ruling dynasties of Mercia.
What is striking about Æthelwold’s ‘rebellion’ is the level and the range of support
he was able to draw on: he could call on allies from Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia
and, probably, Mercia and Essex. For a time Æthelwold had a claim to be the most
powerful ruler in England. Edward’s apparent reluctance to engage him in battle may
have been well founded. The extent of Edward’s own power in the early tenth century
is difficult to reconstruct with any certainty. In his charters, Edward employed the
royal style ‘king of the Anglo-Â�Saxons’ or similar, suggesting he had inherited authority
over ‘greater’ Wessex and ‘English’ Mercia – that is, the kingdom of the Anglo-Â�Saxons
– largely intact from his father. How far Edward’s authority extended in practice
remains problematic, as does his relationship with the rulers of Mercia, his brother-�
in-Â�law Æthelred and sister Æthelflæd (Alfred’s eldest daughter).
This Æthelred had submitted to the overlordship of King Alfred in the early 880s,
a relationship that was acknowledged in the charters issued in Æthelred’s name. After
Alfred’s death, however, Æthelred’s charters and those of his wife make no reference to
the consent of any overlord. Indeed, a number of them come very close to describing
Æthelred and Æthelflæd as king and queen, employing such circumlocutions as
‘holding, governing and defending the sole rule [‘monarchia’] of the Mercians’.
298 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Likewise, the late tenth-Â�century Chronicle of Æthelweard describes Æthelred as the

king of Mercia, while a number of near-�contemporary Welsh and Irish sources describe
Æthelflæd as queen.
There also survives in some versions of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle a set of entries
known as the Mercian Register or, perhaps better, the Annals of Æthelflæd. These
provide a distinctively Mercian perspective on the events of the early tenth century,
offering particular insight into Æthelflæd’s actions against the Vikings and the Welsh
after the death of her husband in 911. These annals present Æthelflæd as a strong
ruler, pursuing her own policies and strategies against the enemies of Mercia. In this
way, she stands in a long line of powerful Mercian women, with the political traditions
of that kingdom arguably giving her greater scope for action than would have been
possible in her native Wessex, where the status of the king’s wife was considerably
lower.
Yet coins produced in Mercia in this period were issued solely in the name of
Edward as king, and Æthelred and Æthelflæd appear in a number of Edward’s own
charters as accepting his royal authority over them and Mercia. By 909 at least, Edward
was also able to command the armies of both Wessex and Mercia, sending them into
Northumbria to ravage and plunder. If Edward’s rule over the kingdom of the Anglo-Â�
Saxons was in some way acknowledged by Æthelred and Æthelflæd, nevertheless they
enjoyed considerable freedom of movement within Mercia and to outside and later
observers there was clearly something regal about their power.
Other recorded activities enhance this impression. Æthelred and Æthelflæd estab-
lished a new church at Gloucester – now known partly from standing ruins and from
archaeological excavation – which they richly furnished and decorated. In 909 the
relics of St Oswald were translated to Gloucester from Bardney (Lincolnshire) – where
they had been placed by Osthryth, Oswald’s niece and, perhaps significantly, a powerful
Mercian queen in her own right – and both Æthelred and Æthelflæd were later buried
there. It is tempting to see this new foundation at Gloucester as something like a royal
mausoleum, intended to replace the one at Repton (Derbyshire) that had been
destroyed by the Vikings.
In the last resort, it may be best to see English government in the early tenth century
in terms of a tight-Â�knit family arrangement. Edward’s brother-Â�in-Â�law and, increasingly,
his sister had a considerable but ultimately subordinate share of royal authority in that
part of the family’s realms which they managed within the distant but overall superi-
ority of King Edward.

The Expansion of Wessex

On the death of his brother-Â�in-Â�law Æthelred in 911, Edward gained direct control over
London, Oxford and the surrounding regions, while his sister Æthelflæd became ruler
of what remained of ‘English’ Mercia. From this point onwards until their deaths in
918 and 924 respectively, the recorded activities of Æthelflæd and Edward are domi-
nated by campaigns against the Vikings in East Anglia, the East Midlands and
Northumbria. The Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle details these campaigns almost exclusively
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 299

in terms of the construction of burhs at key sites, often followed by the submission of
the Viking army in that region and of the people from the area who had previously
been under Viking rule.
Though the Chronicle focuses on these burh-�building activities, Edward had earlier
pursued other strategies against the Vikings. He made reference to peace agreements
with the Vikings in his law codes, and one version of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle records
Edward making peace, ‘from necessity’, with the armies of East Anglia and Northumbria.
Similarly, a number of charters dating from of the reign of his son, King Æthelstan,
record how Edward and Æthelred encouraged thegns to purchase lands in Viking-Â�
controlled territories – examples are known from Bedfordshire and Derbyshire –
presumably as a means of spreading influence into those regions.
By 909, Edward had adopted more aggressive strategies, sending the armies of
Wessex and Mercia to ravage Northumbria, for reasons that are now unclear.
Presumably in response to this aggression, in the following year the army in
Northumbria ravaged parts of Mercia but was overtaken and defeated by the armies of
Wessex and Mercia at Tettenhall, with the Chronicle recording the deaths of two Viking
kings, two earls, five holds and many thousands of men.
A change in emphasis came in 911, when Edward constructed a burh at Hertford,
presumably intended to check Danish advances from East Anglia and the East
Midlands. The following year, Edward constructed another burh at Hertford, this time
on the south bank of the River Lea, and one at Witham in Essex, to block raids from
Colchester along the Roman road to London. The following years saw the construc-
tion of further burhs, with Edward pushing deeper into Danish-�controlled territory
and moving from a defensive to an offensive strategy.
The Mercian Register records similar activities by Æthelflæd, strengthening the
northern and western frontiers of Mercia to combat Danish attacks from the East
Midlands, Vikings active in the Irish Sea and the Wirral and, probably, the Welsh from
the west. By the death of Æthelflæd in 918, all the Danish armies south of the Humber,
with the exception of those based at Nottingham and perhaps that at Lincoln, had
submitted either to Edward or to Æthelflæd. Edward received the submission of Essex,
East Anglia, Northampton, Bedford, Huntingdon and Cambridge, while Æthelflæd
had accepted the submission of Derby and Leicester. North of the Humber, the people
of York had offered their submission to Æthelflæd, but she died soon after this
agreement was reached and it was never put into effect. The submission of York
was probably motivated as much by fear of the Scandinavian leader Ragnald, active
in Ireland and northern Britain in this period, as by the threat of Mercian military
expansion.
What such submissions actually meant is problematic. For the years from 910 until
his death in 924 – precisely the period he was most active against the Vikings – Edward
issued no charters or, at least, no authentic charters survive. If his conquests were
accompanied by the redistribution among his followers of lands previously controlled
by Vikings, such grants were not recorded in writing. There is also evidence that some
Viking landowners managed to retain control of their estates, or at least received them
back from Edward. Certain Viking leaders, such as Earl Thurferth of Northampton,
 300 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

even maintained something of their status after their submission. Moneyers who had
produced coins in Viking-Â�controlled burhs also subsequently minted coins in Edward’s
name, suggesting he was unwilling or unable to dismantle such governmental and
administrative structures as were already in place.
The activities of Edward and Æthelflæd were clearly complementary – establishing
a line of fortified centres running from the south Â�east to the north west of England –
and it is likely that their actions were in some sense coordinated. Nevertheless, some
rivalry existed. The Mercian Register is careful to present Æthelflæd as acting indepen-
dently, receiving submissions directly from Danish armies, with no indication that
such actions also implied submission to Edward; indeed, he is not mentioned until
921. By contrast the ‘A’ version of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, probably being compiled
at Winchester at this time, includes no mention of Æthelflæd until her death, with the
focus exclusively on the activities of Edward.
When Æthelflæd died in 918, Edward’s response was telling. He occupied Tamworth
(Staffordshire), where she had died, and according to the main text of the Anglo-�Saxon

6.11 Castlefield, Manchester.

Site of the Roman fort and
vicus of Mamucium and
probably location of the
Edwardian burh
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 301

Chronicle ‘all the nation in the land of the Mercians, which had been subject to
Æthelflæd, submitted to him’. Three Welsh kings, Hywel, Clydog and Idwal, also
submitted to Edward on the same occasion. The Mercian Register describes how in the
same year Ælfwynn, the daughter of Æthelred and Æthelflæd, was ‘deprived of all
authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex’. Whether Ælfwynn had enjoyed the same
level of authority as her mother or whether someone, presumably Edward, was seeking
simply to remove a potential focus of resistance, is unclear, but from 918 onwards
Mercia was under the direct authority of Edward. Had Æthelred and Æthelflæd been
survived by a son it is by no means sure that Edward would have been able to establish
direct rule anything like as easily as he did, and Mercian independence, albeit ulti-
mately under West Saxon overlordship, may have continued for some time.
In the same year that he accepted the submission of ‘English’ Mercia, Edward
received the surrender of the burh at Stamford (Lincolnshire) and captured the burh at
Nottingham, ordering it to be manned by both Englishmen and Danes. The following
year Edward directed his attention northwards, establishing a burh at Thelwall
(Cheshire), close to the River Mersey, and occupying Manchester, which he repaired,
perhaps restoring the Roman fort located in what is now the Castlefield district of the
city. In 920 Edward travelled to Bakewell (Derbyshire) in the Peak District and ordered
the construction of a burh there. At the same time, according to the Anglo-�Saxon
Chronicle, ‘the king of the Scots and all the people of the Scots, and Ragnald, and the
sons of Eadwulf and all who live in Northumbria, both English and Danish, Norsemen
and other, and also the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh
chose him [namely Edward] as father and lord.’
This event need not have been the simple submission presented by the Anglo-�Saxon
Chronicle. Other participants may have seen it more as the negotiation of a peace
treaty, recognising and confirming a recently redrawn political map – alongside
Edward’s newly acquired power in Mercia and parts of Northumbria, Ragnald had
gained control of York in 919. Whatever the events of 920 meant, the achievements of
Edward over the course of little over two decades of rule remain impressive.

The Conquest of Northumbria

Edward died in June 924 and was succeeded in Wessex by his second son, Ælfweard.
In Mercia, Edward’s eldest son, Æthelstan, succeeded to the throne. It remains unclear
whether Edward had planned such a division. There is no reason to assume he would
necessarily have been committed to continuing a unified kingdom of Wessex and
Mercia, particularly after the gains made in his reign. On the other hand, this division
may represent the reassertion of local loyalties. Certainly Æthelstan had campaigned
in Mercia with his uncle and aunt, Æthelred and Æthelflæd, and he may have been a
more attractive candidate to the Mercians than his younger half-�brother. In any event,
Ælfweard died soon after his accession and Æthelstan succeeded to a newly reunited
kingdom. Nevertheless, he faced some resistance in the heartlands of Wessex, particu-
larly Winchester, and was crowned only on 4 September 925, perhaps significantly on
the borders between Mercia and Wessex at Kingston-�upon-�Thames.
 302 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Æthelstan’s conquest of Northumbria was achieved with apparent ease. In 926 he

negotiated a marriage between his sister and Ragnald’s successor as ruler of York,
Sihtric. That the negotiations were sealed at Tamworth, deep within Æthelstan’s
kingdom, suggests the alliance was not one between equals, though no other details of
the agreement survive. When Sihtric died the following year, Æthelstan ‘succeeded to
the kingdom of the Northumbrians’, according to the ‘D’ version of the Anglo-Â�Saxon
Chronicle. Such may have been in the face of competition from other Scandinavian
leaders. The ‘E’ version of the Chronicle records that in the same year Æthelstan ‘drove
out King Guthfrith’, a figure who had been active in Britain and Ireland in previous
years and had links to both Sihtric and Ragnald.
Subsequent to his taking of Northumbria, Æthelstan ‘brought under his rule all the
kings who were in this island . . . and they established peace with pledges and oaths in
6.12 Portrait of St John the
Evangelist from the Coronation
Gospels. Produced in the late
ninth century at Lobbes, this
Gospel Book was given to King
Æthelstan by the Emperor Otto I
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 303

the place which is called Eamont’, according to the Chronicle. Post-Â�Conquest sources
record that Æthelstan then bestowed treasures on his followers and destroyed the
Scandinavian fortifications at York.
The significance of Æthelstan’s achievements in the late 920s are underscored,
perhaps magnified, in a poem composed by Peter, probably a member of the commu-
nity of New Minster in Winchester, attendant on the king in the north. The poem,
known after its opening lines as ‘Carta dirige gressus’ (‘Letter, direct your steps’) sends
a report of Æthelstan’s achievements back to his queen and the rest of his court in
Wessex. Æthelstan is described in it as ruling ‘this England [Saxonia] now made whole’
and as ‘glorious through his deeds’.
Yet the peace brokered at Eamont did not last. In 934 Æthelstan ravaged Scotland
with a land and naval force, attacking by land as far north as Kincardine and by sea
Caithness. His reasons for these expeditions are uncertain, but it is surely significant
that in 937 Æthelstan met in battle at Brunanburh – location unknown – a combined
force of Scandinavians from Dublin, under Olaf Guthfrithsson, Scots under King
Constantin I, and Britons from Strathclyde, under Owain. Despite the forces arrayed
against him, Æthelstan won the day, a victory recorded by a poem entered into the
Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle. The poem praises the martial valour of Æthelstan and his
brother, Edmund, describing the vast numbers of the enemy dead, the battlefield
soaked in blood, and how the surviving Scandinavians fled by sea and returned to
Dublin.
If Brunanburh looked at the time like a definitive victory, nevertheless West Saxon
control over Northumbria was far from secure. The political situation in Northumbria
made it particularly volatile. Along with Scandinavians, based in Northumbria, Ireland
and elsewhere, Æthelstan had to contend with the growing power and ambitions of the
kingdom of Scotland. Other powers active in Northumbria were the archbishop of
York, the influential community of St Cuthbert, with extensive landholdings between
the Tyne and Wear, and in the far north of Northumbria the quasi-�regal rulers of
Bamburgh.
If these last three may be classed as ‘English’ or ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’, there is no reason to
assume their loyalties naturally lay with the West Saxon kings. Indeed, when Ealdred
of Bamburgh was driven from his lands by Ragnald sometime around 918, he sought
sanctuary and assistance from King Constantin I of Scotland; likewise the cooperation
between the archbishop and various Scandinavian rulers of York has already been
noted and it was to continue into the mid-�tenth century. Those seeking to rule in
Northumbria had to find ways to balance these factions and to ensure the loyalties of
the different groups and powers. Æthelstan, for example, carefully cultivated the
support of the community of St Cuthbert, visiting the saint’s shrine, probably in 934,
where he presented lavish gifts to the saint, including two illuminated manuscripts.
Æthelstan’s brother, Edmund, succeeded him in 939 but soon lost control of
Northumbria, when in 940 Olaf Guthfrithsson returned there from Ireland and was
accepted as king. That same year Olaf invaded Mercia, aided in some way by Archbishop
Wulfstan of York, and took control of the ‘Five Boroughs’. Though Edmund laid siege
to Olaf and Wulfstan at Leicester, he was unable to drive the former out and was forced
 304 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

to acknowledge Olaf ’s control of this region. In

942, after the death of Olaf, Edmund recon-
quered the ‘Five Boroughs’, a victory that was,
like Æthelstan’s at Brunanburh, celebrated in
the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle in verse. The poem
presents Edmund as redeeming the ‘Danes
who were previously subjected by force under
the Norseman’ – another reminder of the
complexities of ethnic identities and loyalties
in this period.
In 944 Edmund then reconquered
Northumbria, driving out Olaf Sihtricsson and
Ragnald Guthfrithsson, the brother of Olaf
Guthfrithsson, who had established themselves
there as kings. The difficulties continued under
Edmund’s successor, Eadred (r. 946–55). The
succession of events and their chronology are
difficult to determine now, but Eadred had to
deal with the return of Olaf Sihtricsson to
Northumbria and, more problematically, with
the seizure of the Northumbrian throne by a
certain Eric, probably to be identified with the
Eric Bloodaxe whose legendary exploits are
known from later sagas. Eadred’s control of the
6.13 Opening of the Gospel of north was finally secured only when Eric was driven out by the Northumbrians,
Matthew from an eighth- perhaps in 954, and according to post-�Conquest sources subsequently murdered by an
century Northumbrian Gospel Earl Maccus at Stainmore in Cumbria.
Book. At the bottom of the left
column, a tenth-century hand
It is tempting to see Eadred’s reign as marking the end of the process of West Saxon
has recorded the freeing of the conquest and of the ‘unification’ of England. Yet the kingdom would be divided again
slave Eadhelm by King in the late 950s, with Edmund’s son Eadwig ruling south of the Thames and his younger
Æthelstan – the earliest brother Edgar reigning in Mercia and the north. Though Eadwig’s death in 959 allowed
surviving Anglo-Saxon
Edgar to reunify the kingdom, it would again be divided along similar lines in 1016
manumission
and the 1030s. Moreover, it is clear that well-�established local identities could prove
enduring: when Eadric was appointed an ealdorman in 1007, his sphere of authority
was described by the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle as ‘the kingdom of the Mercians’.
Moreover, according to post-�Conquest sources, in the 970s King Edgar ceded
Lothian to King Kenneth II of Scotland. The extent of Anglo-�Saxon authority over this
region is difficult to reconstruct and Edgar might simply have been formally recog-
nising the fact that it had passed under Scottish control. Nevertheless, Lothian had
been part of the kingdom of Northumbria and its inhabitants were considered in some
way English long after it was ceded to Scotland. The kingdom of England as it stood at
the end of Edgar’s reign has to be seen, then, as the product of a series of contingent
events, as created by chance and compromise far more than by any overall royal design
or strategy.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 305

Ruling the Kingdom in the Tenth Century

Over the course of the tenth century, the descendants of Alfred came to rule what was,
by Anglo-�Saxon standards, a vast and diverse territory, approximating to something
like modern-�day England. At the same time, they asserted authority over other kings
and peoples in Britain, with kings such as Æthelstan and Edgar claiming to be rulers
not just of the English but also of Britain as a whole, utilising titles such as ‘emperor’ or
‘basileus’ in their charters. Whatever the validity of such claims to pan-Â�British over-
lordship, it is clear that Anglo-�Saxon kings could, at times, demand extensive tribute
from British client kings and compel such rulers to attend their courts and support
their military campaigns.
The tenth century was also a period in which Anglo-�Saxon kings formed close ties
with Continental rulers, such as the Ottonian emperors of Germany. As the Carolingian
Empire fractured, new ruling families emerged, and marriage alliances with the now
comparatively venerable house of Wessex was one way for these arriviste dynasties to
cement their claims to power. Alongside these marriage alliances, Anglo-�Saxon kings
were also prepared to intervene more directly in Continental affairs. Æthelstan, for
example, aided his nephew Louis IV to gain the throne of West Francia and subse-
quently provided him with military support.
The symbolic culmination of the ambitions and pretensions of Anglo-�Saxon kings
in the tenth century was the coronation and anointing of King Edgar and his wife,
Ælfthryth, at Bath in 973 – the reasons for the delay between 959 and 973 are unclear.
In the coronation order, Edgar was presented as ‘above all the kings of Britain’ and the
ceremony was designed to draw on the Roman and imperial associations of Bath,
magnifying Edgar’s power and authority. The consecration at Bath was followed by a
meeting between Edgar and his sub-�kings at Chester, another site redolent of the
Roman past. Here he was rowed on the River Dee by these rulers, with himself as the
helmsman of the boat – symbolism that needs no further elaboration.
Tenth-�century kings were, then, very different from their earlier counterparts, not
just in terms of territory but also in their relationships with other kings and peoples.
Yet these changing circumstances made new demands on Anglo-�Saxon kings. How
could a king hope to control a territory that stretched from Scotland to the Channel?
How could the loyalties of different regions and aristocracies be cultivated and main-
tained? How, above all, could a king bring about harmony – the ultimate aim of
Christian kingship – in this vastly expanded realm?
Such questions became all the more pressing as the pace of West Saxon conquest
slowed. Campaigns in the Danelaw had offered a means of binding together the West
Saxon and Mercian nobility, giving them a common purpose and a common foe, as
well as holding out the prospect of rich reward for loyal service to the king. The final
conquest of Northumbria not only added considerably to the territories under the
control of the West Saxon dynasty but it also brought to a close this extended period of
expansive warfare. Even before this conquest, however, Anglo-�Saxon kings had been
seeking out new mechanisms of rule, consolidating and standardising a variety of
diverse practices and institutions and attempting to impose an administrative, govern-
306 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

mental and judicial uniformity across their kingdom. A central part of this process was
the increasing desire and ability of kings to intervene in the lives of their subjects, to
stamp their power and authority on society at a local level, and to claim royal control
and oversight of a range of customs and practices.
The development of the governance and administration of later Anglo-�Saxon
England can be traced in some detail, albeit imperfectly, over the course of the tenth
century. Such is facilitated by the remarkable upswing in the production of legal texts
in this period. Though Alfred had revived the moribund tradition of Anglo-�Saxon law
codes in the late ninth century, the level of legal activity in the tenth century far
outstripped anything that had gone before. The promulgation of law became, if not a
routine part of royal business, then at least a frequent activity.
This change is a reflection of the very different conception of law codes in the tenth
century to that of earlier periods. A wide range of different types of texts, with different
audiences, aims and contexts of production, is included within the broad category of
law codes. Some codes represent specific instructions or injunctions to royal agents,
while others represent the response of local groups to instances of royal law-�giving.
Still others include statements issued by the king and his counsellors directed at the
whole community, either in response to specific circumstances, such as the outbreak
of plague, or to further particular royal agendas. The promulgation of law became a
form of communication between the king, his advisors and his subjects. Law codes
were a means of demonstrating negotiation, of building consent, of establishing shared
aims and of solving problems.
The codes issued in the reign of Æthelstan offer clear insight into these processes at
work. The code known as II Æthelstan records pronouncements made at a royal
council at Grately (Hampshire), covering a wide range of issues from the administra-
tion of justice, the apprehension of thieves, the functioning of the ordeal (a test of guilt
or innocence), to the minting of coins and the purchasing of livestock. Æthelstan and
his counsellors subsequently issued another set of decrees at Exeter (V Æthelstan) after
the king had learnt ‘that public peace has not been kept to the extent, either of my
wishes, or of the provisions laid down at Grately’. In response to the failure of the
Grately decrees, Æthelstan offered, among other things, an amnesty for wrongdoers, if
they would desist from their crimes. A council held at Thundersfield (Surrey, now lost)
sometime later, imposed the death penalty on anyone who subsequently committed an
act of theft (IV Æthelstan).
These codes show Æthelstan and his counsellors responding to the success or
otherwise of previous pronouncements in achieving their aims, modifying their posi-
tions and changing tack where it proved necessary or likely to produce the right results.
The responses of some of Æthelstan’s subjects have also survived. III Æthelstan is
presented as the response of the people of Kent, led by the nobles and bishops, to
various of the king’s decrees, thanking him for the measures he has enacted, agreeing
specifically with certain declarations and offering statements that seem to represent
their understanding of the laws that have been promulgated. The document closes
with a request that Æthelstan alter the document as he sees fit and underlines the
commitment of the people of Kent ‘to carry out everything you are willing to order us’.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 307

Likewise, VI Æthelstan opens with details of the arrangements for the preservation of
order and harmony put in place by the ‘Peace Guild’ of London, as a supplement to
Æthelstan’s pronouncements at Grately, Exeter and Thundersfield. The text also
includes details of subsequent changes made by Æthelstan to his own judgments, in
particular a decision made at Whittlebury (Northamptonshire) to restrict the death
penalty to those over the age of 15.
As well as offering insight into the negotiations and compromises that helped to
shape the development of the legal framework of England, the tenth-�century codes
show the establishment of the key administrative and judicial institutions through
which kings governed. By the end of the reign of Edgar the most important of these
were the shire and the hundred (wapentake in the Danelaw). Both were territorial divi-
sions, as well as a grouping of people, a meeting and a court.
The hundred was a subdivision of the shire and varied significantly in area: some
hundreds could be as small as 67 square kilometres, others as large as 168 square kilo-
metres. In some parts of the Midlands, they come close to comprising one hundred

6.14 Secklow Mound, Milton

Keynes. The low mound may
have been specially
constructed to serve as the
meeting place of the Secklow
Hundred

hides but elsewhere, particularly in the south in ‘Greater Wessex’, hundreds could
comprise only two or three settlements. The workings of the hundred are described in
some detail in a text known as the Hundred Ordinance, dating to the reign of King
Edmund or perhaps to the early years of King Edgar. According to this code, the
hundred court was to meet every four weeks for the administering of justice; failure to
attend resulted in a 30-�shilling fine and repeated failure to abide by the judgments of
the hundred court led to an escalating series of fines, with the forfeiture of all lands and
a sentence of outlawry being the final punishment. The hundred was also responsible
308 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

for witnessing transactions and pursuing criminals, and if a trail so followed led into
another hundred the head of that hundred was to be sought out and he was to join the
pursuit.
Debate continues as to the significance of the first appearance of the hundred in
texts of the mid-�tenth century. Elements of the Hundred Ordinance can certainly be
found in earlier legislation. The law code of Alfred includes references to public meet-
ings held in the presence of the royal reeve, and one of Edward’s codes decrees that
such meetings should be held every four weeks. There are also a number of elements
common to the Hundred Ordinance and the organisation of the London Peace Guild
as outlined in VI Æthelstan. The meeting sites themselves may suggest the system of
hundreds was based on much older and more ancient elements. Meeting sites were
most often centred on or near one or more distinctive features in the landscape – linear
earthworks, mounds, stones or trees as well as communication nodes such as fords or
crossroads. In some cases the features so chosen were ancient or prehistoric. Thus the
Guthlaxton Wapentake met at a site close to the Fosse Way and the stone of Guthlac
that gave the wapentake its name may have been a Roman milestone. Ancient or
prehistoric features could have been chosen simply because they were prominent in
the landscape but some at least are likely to have long been places of assembly. In some
cases new mounds may have been specifically constructed – the mound that gave
Secklow Hundred its name is certainly of post-�Roman date.
If certain aspects that made up the hundredal system were well established by the
mid-�tenth century, nevertheless the Hundred Ordinance marks a significant turning
point in the royal oversight of these elements, emphasising the role of royal regulation
in determining their functioning and organisation.
Above the hundred was the shire. Territorial divisions of this name are first
mentioned in the law code of King Ine of Wessex (d. c. 726). Here they represent the
sphere of authority of an ealdorman (probably the same official as the ‘shireman’ who
is also mentioned in the code) and are connected in some way with the administration
of justice. In the later eighth and ninth centuries, ealdormen and shires appear in West
Saxon sources almost exclusively in military contexts, with ealdormen frequently
leading the forces of their shires against the Vikings. References to shires as territorial
and administrative divisions continue in tenth-Â�century law codes. Æthelstan, for
example, decreed that reeves should obtain pledges from their own shires that they
would obey the decrees issued at Grately and elsewhere. The role of the reeve in admin-
istering the oath of a shire here adumbrates developments in the late tenth century
when the role of the ealdorman as head of the shire was largely replaced by a royal
agent, the shire-Â�reeve (whence modern English ‘sheriff ’).
Though meetings under the authority of an ealdorman are referred to in King
Alfred’s law code and ealdormen were apparently fulfilling some judicial functions
already in Ine’s reign, it is only in King Edgar’s reign that there is the first explicit refer-
ence to a shire court presided over by an ealdorman and a bishop. In a code issued at
Andover, Hampshire (III Edgar) in the early 960s, Edgar decreed that the court should
meet twice a year and that the bishop and ealdorman should expound to those present
both ecclesiastical and secular law (presumably, respectively, though this is not stated).
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 309

The date at which Mercia and the Midlands were divided into shires remains much
disputed, with the first references to shires outside ‘greater Wessex’ occurring only in
the final decades of the tenth century. In these regions the shires were based on and
named for particular burhs – Cheshire from Chester, Staffordshire from Stafford, for
example. A notable absence is a shire based on Tamworth, one of the most important
centres in Mercia in the eighth and ninth centuries. Indeed, the boundaries of two
shires run through the town. This apparent slighting of existing power structures may
be evidence that Edward the Elder was responsible for the shiring of Mercia and would
make such one of the means by which he asserted his authority over the former
kingdom. This would also allow the shiring of Mercia to be part of the defensive
arrangements recorded in the Burghal Hidage, a text probably dating from Edward’s
reign. Nevertheless, in the absence of proof, the question remains open, and any date
and context from the beginning to the end of the tenth century remain possible.
Institutions such as the hundred and the shire offered a means through which
kings could rule, but their proper functioning relied on the cooperation and consent
of a network of nobles, royal agents and officials. The power of Anglo-�Saxon govern-
ment rested to a large degree on the coming together of royal power in the centre and
noble power in the localities.
The means by which kings could cultivate the loyalties of the nobility were mani-
fold, but central to them was the court as a source of patronage and legitimacy. Lands,
wealth and office could be bestowed by rulers on loyal followers, and power already
held could be royally sanctioned and acknowledged. Attendances at court and on the
king himself could likewise be sources of significant prestige and were rights that were
carefully guarded by rulers as well as proudly displayed by recipients.
Written sources also emphasise the importance of royal feasts and celebrations as
arenas in which the loyalty of leading nobles could be cultivated and a sense of shared
identity and common purpose inculcated. That the king spent most of his time in the
heartlands of Wessex meant that the nobility from the farthest reaches of the kingdom
had to travel significant distances to take part in such activities. As well as stressing the
authority of the king, such meant that the court became a place where local loyalties

6.15 Reform-type penny of

King Edgar, minted by Oswulf
at Derby
310 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

and identities could be broken down to some degree and where nobles from
throughout the kingdom could meet. Such meetings also provided a venue for status-�
affirming displays, such as the ritualised crown-�wearing first attested in the reign of
King Edgar.
The tenth century also saw the emergence of a number of particularly powerful
noble families, members of which held ealdordoms and other offices across a number
of different reigns and could at times dominate the upper echelons of royal adminis-
tration and government. Chief among these was the family of Æthelstan ‘Half-Â�King’,
whose soubriquet gives an indication of the extent of his power. He was the ealdorman
of East Anglia – though his authority effectively stretched throughout the eastern
Danelaw – between 932 and 957 and was succeeded in this position by his son
Æthelwine (see chapter 7). His own father, Æthelfrith, had been an ealdorman in
southern Mercia in the early tenth century, and for a time in the 940s Æthelstan’s
brothers Eadric and Æthelwold were also ealdormen. Æthelstan’s importance in this
period is underlined by his acting as foster-�father to King Edgar and by his role in
advising kings Edmund and Eadred.
Though Æthelstan’s ealdordom was in the eastern Danelaw, he possessed estates in
Somerset and Devon and was a patron of Glastonbury Abbey, where he ultimately
retired to become a monk. Given his connections with Wessex and the possibility that
he was distantly related to the West Saxon ruling dynasty, Æthelstan may have been
seen by successive kings as a loyal agent in the eastern Danelaw to whom power could
be safely delegated. On the other hand, Æthelstan’s family may already have been
prominent in the eastern Danelaw and so was carefully cultivated by the West Saxon
royal dynasty. Whatever his origins, Æthelstan’s landholdings, like those of other
significant nobles, were scattered throughout large parts of England and so must have
helped to bind together the newly expanded kingdom and may thus reflect deliberate
royal policy.
The tenth century saw, then, the development of a complex and sophisticated
system of governance, law and justice in England. If such a process was ongoing across
the whole of the tenth century, nevertheless there are signs that the reign of Edgar
marked a watershed in royal power and in the growth of the capabilities of the Anglo-�
Saxon state. The system of hundreds was fully formed only by the middle of the tenth
century, and though shires had existed, at least in parts of the kingdom, for a consider-
able time, only from the reign of Edgar onwards is there clear evidence of the func-
tioning of the shire court, both in law codes and in the records of dispute settlement.
The clearest indication of Edgar’s governmental ambitions and capabilities is his
reform of the coinage, late in his reign. These reforms ensured that there was a single,
uniform coinage, of the same design across the whole of the English kingdom. Die
production and distribution were centralised and the numbers of mints in operation
were greatly expanded. Edgar’s successors would introduce new designs at regular inter-
vals – possibly every six years – accompanied by the recall and recoining of the existing
issues in circulation, though such recoinings are unlikely ever to have been comprehen-
sive. Whether Edgar had originally envisaged such periodic recoinages as part of his
reform is unclear. Elements of his coinage reforms can be seen earlier – Æthelstan’s
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 311

‘Grately Code’ legislated for a uniform coinage throughout ‘Greater Wessex’ – but Edgar
was the first ruler to attempt and to achieve uniformity throughout England.
By the end of the reign of King Edgar, Anglo-�Saxon England possessed a sophisti-
cated machinery of rule, capable of significant and, in medieval terms, precocious
administrative feats. Some scholars, most notably James Campbell, have not hesitated
to label late Anglo-�Saxon England a state, even a nation state. Whether such an abstrac-
tion would be meaningful or even comprehensible to an Anglo-�Saxon audience is
unclear. Furthermore, the surviving sources may conspire to overemphasise the abili-
ties and achievements of late Anglo-�Saxon kings. The written record is dominated by
sources generated at the centre of the royal regime or by religious institutions espe-
cially close to the king and his court. Many of the surviving texts set out royal ambition
rather than royal achievement or action. The local and regional diversity or the ad hoc
and informal qualities of legal and governmental arrangements may be obscured by
the normative nature of the sources.
Yet that claims to statehood can even be entertained for late Anglo-�Saxon England
is in itself significant. If the capabilities of kings such as Edgar never quite reached the
heights suggested by the sources, nevertheless it is clear that the tenth century saw
fundamental and far-�reaching changes in the relationship between ruler and ruled.

Reform and the Church

Under the year 964, the ‘A’ version of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle records ‘Edgar
drove the priests in the city [i.e. Winchester] from the Old Minster and from the
New Minster, and from Chertsey and from Milton; and replaced them with monks’.
Later sources describe how Edgar sent one of his agents, Wulfstan of Dalham,
to enforce the expulsion at the Old Minster and that the priests there were stricken
with terror. These were among the more dramatic of the religious changes that
took place in the middle decades of the tenth century – the ‘Benedictine Reforms’ as
modern scholars have labelled them. Reaching their peak in the reign of Edgar, these
reforms sought to replace communities of clerks – that is, members of the clerical
orders – with communities of monks, following the monastic rule attributed to St
Benedict of Nursia.
The central figures of these reforms were Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury
(959–88), Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester (963–84), and Oswald, bishop of Worcester
(c. 961–92) and archbishop of York (c. 971–92). They drew inspiration from
Continental monasteries such as Cluny, Fleury and Gorze, while their reading of texts
such as Bede’s Ecclesiastical History encouraged them to see the early Anglo-Â�Saxon
Church as dominated by monasteries that had since declined almost to the point of
extinction, with religious communities no longer staffed by monks but by clerks
owning private property and even with wives and children. Such houses had, they
believed, fallen under the control of laymen, who appropriated their estates and sapped
their wealth.
The agenda of these reformers dominates texts produced in the later tenth and
eleventh centuries, and religious life in this period is seen most often through this
 312 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

reforming lens. Though Æthelwold in particular wrote works describing and justi-
fying the reforms that had been attempted, in practice much of what is known about
the reforms comes from later writings. Central among these are the earliest biogra-
phies of the three central figures – the Life of Æthelwold by Wulfstan ‘Cantor’, the Life
of Dunstan by a cleric writing on the Continent and known only as ‘B’, and the Life of
Oswald, attributable on stylistic grounds to Byrhtferth of Ramsey.
All three of these works derive from the final decade of the tenth or first decade of
the eleventh centuries, a time when Anglo-�Saxon England was once again under threat
from Viking attacks. By this period, Edgar’s reign was already being seen as a Golden
Age, a moral and spiritual high point from which things had fallen away, a notion that
is particularly fostered in these three texts. Unsurprisingly, the biographies tend to
amplify the achievements of their subjects as well as their significance, and draw an
improbably sharp divide between the pre-�reform and reform periods. However,
assessing the impact on England of the Benedictine Reforms is problematic, as, for
want of evidence, is understanding the nature of religious life away from the institu-
tions controlled by the reformers.
Such is the dominance of reform sources that it is difficult to assess the survival of
any form of monastic life in Anglo-�Saxon England into the tenth century. The impact
of Viking attacks and Scandinavian settlement has been explored above and it seems
likely that the monastic life was already in decline in the late eighth and ninth centuries.
King Alfred established a small number of monasteries, most importantly Athelney
(Somerset), but religious foundations in the late ninth and early tenth centuries seem
to have been predominantly clerical.

6.16 Opening of the Gospel of

Matthew from the Mac Durnan
Gospels. Produced at Armagh
in the late ninth or early tenth
century, this Gospel Book was
owned by King Æthelstan who
gifted it to Christ Church
Canterbury
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 313

Nevertheless, Byrhtferth’s statement that in the 940s there existed no monks or

monasteries in England is clearly an exaggeration – indeed, this is contradicted within
his own text. Not only were some communities still monastic, or at least housed some
monks, but a number of leading Anglo-�Saxon churchmen were emphasising their
status as professed monks. Cenwald, bishop of Worcester (c. 929–58) attests a series of
charters in the late 940s and early 950s as ‘monachus’ (monk) rather than bishop.
Likewise, Oda, archbishop of Canterbury (941–58) is described by Byrhtferth as a
professed monk and Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester (934–51) may have been tonsured,
for his cognomen was ‘the Bald’. The case for early tenth-Â�century monasticism is there-
fore arguably understated.
The mid-�tenth-�century monastic revival and the Benedictine Reforms that it
inspired originated during the reign of King Æthelstan. The king was himself particu-
larly noted for his piety; he was an avid collector of relics and other sacred items. He
also established a significant library, donating some of his books to particular religious
institutions, such as the ninth-�century MacDurnan Gospels gifted to Christ Church
Canterbury. Æthelstan’s court, like that of his grandfather Alfred, drew scholars from
across Britain, Ireland and the Continent. Israel the Grammarian, one of the most
learned figures in western Europe at this date and noted particularly for his facility
with Greek, spent time in Æthelstan’s household, as did a number of Irish and Breton
scholars.
Anglo-�Saxon churchmen, including Bishop Cenwald, are also known to have trav-
elled extensively on the Continent and visited numerous monasteries and religious
houses, particularly in what are now Germany and Switzerland. They would thus be
aware of the key developments in Continental monasticism and, in particular, the
beginnings of a movement to reform religious houses along Benedictine lines. The
monastery at Fleury was emerging as an important centre of this reform movement,
and Archbishop Oda of Canterbury certainly had links with this institution, indeed, he
may even have taken monastic vows there. Oda also had other Continental contacts,
for his name is recorded in the confraternity books of St Gallen and Pfäfers.
A number of texts written by Oda survive and one in particular, the Constitutions
or Chapters, suggests some general concerns with the reform of religious life and
observance. One canon specifically stresses the need for monks to engage in reading
and continual prayer and to remain in the institutions where they first took monastic
vows. Oda also played a role in the drafting of the first of King Edmund’s law codes, a
code that legislated on a number of ecclesiastical matters including clerical celibacy.
His commissioning of a lyrical poem celebrating the translation of the relics of St
Wilfrid to Canterbury c. 948 in addition confirms Oda’s commitment to and commem-
oration of early Northumbrian monasticism.
Though Oda would clearly influence the Benedictine Reform movement in
England – Oswald was his nephew – it would be wrong to see him simply as a proto-Â�
Benedictine Reformer. Though his episcopate featured many elements that would
characterise the later reforms, he seems to have had a broader vision of the process,
without an exclusively monastic focus, and been prepared to work within the existing
religious framework.
314 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

By the 930s and 940s there were, then, several leading churchmen in England who
were professed monks, reform-�orientated, and linked to the Continent. These
churchmen were also significant figures at court; it was probably in the royal house-
hold that Dunstan and Æthelwold first came into contact with the kinds of ideas about
reform and the monastic life that would inform their later activities.
Dunstan’s appointment by King Edmund as abbot of Glastonbury is usually seen as
the starting point of the Benedictine Reforms proper in England, but the reality is
more complex. Dunstan’s connections with Glastonbury went back to his childhood;
his family owned estates in the vicinity of the abbey and he had received his early reli-
gious education there. Indeed, his biographer records that the infant Dunstan had a
vision of the great monastic buildings he would one day construct there.
However, the nature of the community that Dunstan took over at Glastonbury is
unclear, as is how he subsequently transformed it. His biographer records that he set
about managing it according to the precepts of St Benedict but stops well short of
stating that Dunstan reformed the community there or imposed strict observance of
the Benedictine Rule on all inmates. Certainly, Dunstan encouraged monasticism, for
Æthelwold joined the Glastonbury community and was professed as a monk there, but
Dunstan’s activities may have been more in the spirit of Oda’s reforms than later ones.
Such an interpretation may explain why Æthelwold eventually left Glastonbury.
Wulfstan records that during the reign of Eadred, Æthelwold formed the desire to go
abroad to receive further scriptural education and to gain ‘a more perfect grounding in
a monk’s religious life’. At the behest of his mother, Eadgifu, Eadred prevented
Æthelwold’s departure and instead gave him a site at Abingdon, which had formerly
been a monastery but had fallen into decay with its estates passing into secular hands.
There Æthelwold founded – refounded as he saw it – a monastery, staffed by former
inmates of Glastonbury and clergy from London and Winchester, and was ordained its
abbot. Abingdon subsequently received extensive grants of land from King Eadred and
from Eadgifu. Though Æthelwold himself had not been able to travel to the Continent
to study monasticism, in the late 950s he sent Osgar, one of the Abingdon monks, to St
Benedict’s at Fleury in order to learn the Rule that he might teach it to his brethren
when he returned.
Oswald similarly spent time at Fleury, having been sent there by his uncle,
Archbishop Oda, probably in the late 940s or early 950s (perhaps overlapping with
Osgar). Oswald spent a number of years at Fleury, undertaking monastic vows and,
according to Byrhtferth, memorising the settings of the liturgy so that he might teach
them on his return home. Dunstan also had direct contact with reformed monasticism
on the Continent, albeit in less auspicious circumstances than Oswald – he was exiled
from England by King Eadwig in 956. According to his biographer, Dunstan earned
Eadwig’s displeasure when he dragged him away from the embraces of a certain
Ælfgifu, and from her mother, to return him to his coronation feast. This story prob-
ably hides a more prosaic tale of political factionalism – though Eadwig’s marriage to
Ælfgifu was later dissolved by Archbishop Oda on grounds of consanguinity.
Dunstan spent his exile in Flanders at the monastery of St Peter’s at Ghent, which
had recently been reformed along Benedictine lines by Gerhard of Brogne. When
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 315

6.17 Frontispiece to New

Minster refoundation charter:
King Edgar, with the Virgin
Mary and St Peter, presents the
charter to Christ. A lavish and
lengthy document, executed in
the Winchester Style and
written entirely in gold ink, the
charter is testament to royal
investment in the Benedictine
Reforms

Edgar became king of the Mercians and Northumbrians, he summoned Dunstan back
and appointed him bishop of Worcester and then London (the chronology here is
obscure), seemingly to hold the two sees in plurality. By the end of 959, Edgar had
appointed Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury.
The reign of Edgar was the high point of the Benedictine Reform movement, and
there seems little doubt that the king was personally committed to the ideals espoused
by the reformers and so occupies a central place in the texts produced by them.
Alongside Dunstan at Canterbury, Oswald was appointed to the bishopric of Worcester
in 961 and to the archiepiscopal see of York in 971, holding them in plurality, and
Æthelwold was appointed to the bishopric of Winchester in 963. Edgar’s reign
witnessed the establishment of a number of monasteries and the reform of some
existing communities along Benedictine lines. Æthelwold founded or refounded a
 316 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

number of monasteries in East Anglia, namely Medehamstede (Peterborough),

Thorney and Ely, while Oswald established monasteries at Westbury-� on-�
Trym,
Ramsey, as part of his cathedral complex at Worcester, and at Winchcombe
(Gloucestershire). Dunstan’s monastic activities are harder to trace, but post-Â�Conquest
sources record his expelling of clerks from Malmesbury (Wiltshire) and his appoint-
ment of an Abbot Wulfsige to the monastery of St Peter’s in Westminster.
It is clear, however, that the three central figures within the movement had different
ideas about the extent of the reforms and how they should be carried out. With royal
backing, Æthelwold pursued the most vigorous and forceful policy of monastic reform.
In 964 the clerks from the New and Old Minsters at Winchester were forcibly ejected
and replaced with monks from Æthelwold’s monastery at Abingdon. Edgar’s support
for this initiative is underlined by his seeking papal permission for this course of action
in the autumn of 963 and providing, through his agent Wulfstan of Dalham, the neces-
sary force.
6.18 King Edgar, flanked by
Dunstan and Æthelwold in the
Regularis concordia. As with
the New Minster refoundation
charter, this manuscript’s text
and imagery underline the
centrality of the king and royal
power to the Reforms
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 317

Though both the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle and Wulfstan’s biography of Æthelwold

present this expulsion as taking place immediately, at the New Minster, at least, the
process was more drawn out. In 966 a lengthy charter in the name of Edgar, but prob-
ably drawn up by Æthelwold, recorded the refoundation of the New Minster and listed
the privileges granted to it by the king. The long preamble to the charter dwells exten-
sively on the alleged sins of the clerks who had previously occupied the house and the
text also provides a detailed description of what was expected of the monks who now
dwelt there. These features, along with the time gap between the supposed expulsion
of the clerks and the issuing of the refoundation charter, suggest a lengthier and much
more contested process and one that still needed to be justified in 966.
Æthelwold’s somewhat confrontational approach was not adopted by either Oswald
or Dunstan, who both appear to have favoured more gradualist strategies. The process
of monastic reform at Worcester can be traced in some detail, as Oswald took pains to
document how he controlled the landed patrimony of the see. In particular, records of
over seventy leases of land made by Oswald between 963 and 991 have been preserved.
6.19 St John the Evangelist
from the Benedictional of
Æthelwold, one of the most
lavish and accomplished
examples of Winchester Style
manuscript art
 318 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The witness lists to these leases show no dramatic

changes of personnel, such as would have accompa-
nied an expulsion like that at the New Minster, and
although some of the witnesses are described as
monks, clerics were clearly still part of the cathedral
community. Moreover, at least one of these leases is to
a monk, an indication that the ideal of communal
property had not been fully introduced at Worcester.
From the 970s onwards there is, however, an apparent
preference for those who had taken monastic vows to
occupy key positions, such as dean, within the
community. Rather than expelling clerks from the
cathedral and replacing them with monks, Oswald
instead constructed a separate monastic foundation,
St Mary’s, within the cathedral precincts. For
Canterbury, the evidence is less straightforward, but
a gradualist approach by Dunstan seems most likely;
the see was wholly monastic by the early eleventh
century.
The different approaches of Dunstan and Oswald
to the staffing of their sees may be the result of their
direct experiences of the Continental Reform move-
ment. Here, the reorganisation of religious institu-
tions along Benedictine lines did not encompass
cathedrals and episcopal churches but was instead
restricted to monasteries. By contrast, though
Æthelwold had, through Osgar and others, contact
with religious developments on the Continent, he
may have drawn his inspiration more directly from
the Anglo-� Saxon past. A number of documents
written by Æthelwold show a familiarity with Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History, and he may have taken from
6.20 Walrus ivory carving of this text the model of a Church ruled by monk-�bishops (such as Augustine, Aidan or
the baptism of Christ, executed Cuthbert), with sees staffed by monks possessing no personal property.
in the Winchester Style in the
By the mid-�970s there was a significant number of religious institutions following
late tenth or early eleventh
century. Cut down from a a way of life based on the Rule of St Benedict. Yet the Rule could not on its own offer a
larger panel, the carving may complete and comprehensive guide to monastic life, not least because it was originally
originally have formed part of devised for a large, self-�sufficient rural monastery in Italy. As a consequence, the
the cover of a book different reformed houses in England were following slightly divergent ways of life, all
based on the Rule but interpreting and supplementing it in different ways. Such a situ-
ation ran counter to the ideal of uniform observance that underlay the reform move-
ment, and in the early 970s King Edgar summoned a council at Winchester to
promulgate a customary (or ‘consuetudinary’) that would lay out the definitive way of
life to be observed by all English houses.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 319

The text issued by this council, known as the Regularis concordia, was probably
composed by Æthelwold and presented a detailed statement of the aims of the
reformers and their vision for religious life in Anglo-�Saxon England. It begins by
setting out how monasteries had been brought low by neglect and how Edgar sought
to restore them to their former state, by driving out ‘the negligent clerks with their
abominations’. It then explains that members of the council had sought advice from
Continental houses – Fleury and St Peter’s at Ghent are named specifically – and put
together the customary that makes up the bulk of the Regularis concordia.
Though the document makes clear the English Reformers’ debt to Continental
monasticism and, indeed, the Regularis resembles in many respects the earliest
customary from Fleury, the text nevertheless reflects a distinctively Anglo-�Saxon
vision of monastic reform. It places royal authority at the centre of the reform process,
with the king as patron, protector and overseer of monasteries, whilst the queen
fulfilled a similar role for nunneries. Anglo-Â�Saxon texts, including Bede’s letter to
Bishop Ecgberht of York, were drawn on by the author of the Regularis, and such
features as the obligation for monasteries to pray for the king can be paralleled in
earlier English sources, for example in the canons of the 747 council of Clovesho.
Works such as the Regularis concordia presented the Benedictine Reforms as initi-
ating fundamental changes in the nature of religious life in Anglo-�Saxon England, but
it is hard to assess their actual impact. In some respects, the reforms were clearly of
immense significance. The more important of the reformed monasteries would
become the richest religious institutions in late Anglo-�Saxon England and then retain
that status even after the Norman Conquest.
The reforms also led to fundamental changes in the urban centres where a number
of the foundations were based. At Winchester, for example, the necessity of enclosing
the New and Old Minsters and Nunnaminster required the construction of a number
of walls or hedges as well as the diverting of streams to provide monastic water supplies.
By the end of the tenth century, the construction of monastic precincts had effectively
6.21 Cast of a late tenth-
century Winchester Style
sculpture of an angel from St
Lawrence’s Church, Bradford-
on-Avon. One of a pair of such
angels, this was originally
probably part of a larger
Crucifixion scene
 320 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

shut off the south-�east part of Winchester from the laity and a number of secular
dwellings had been demolished to facilitate the enclosures.
In the cultural sphere, the Benedictine Reforms clearly had a long-�lasting and
significant effect. Æthelwold, in particular, promoted the use of the vernacular as a
means of educating those lacking proficiency in Latin, and his school at Winchester
was probably responsible for establishing a standardised form of Old English, with a
specific and restricted vocabulary. Such was the success of Æthelwold’s activities that
the bulk of the surviving Old English literature was produced by disciples of the
Benedictine Reformers and was written in this standard Old English or variants
thereof.
The reform movement also championed a form of Latin known as the Hermeneutic
– that is, glossary-Â�derived – Style. Practitioners of this style employed a self-Â�consciously
6.22 Mid-tenth-century copper erudite and obscure vocabulary, using Greek or Greek-�derived words and coining
alloy censer cover found in
neologisms, alongside a complex and sometimes convoluted syntax and sentence
Canterbury. Inlaid with silver
and niello, this features structure. This ‘Hermeneutic Style’ was to dominate English Latin composition
acanthus leaf decoration and throughout the late tenth and eleventh centuries.
bird and animal figures typical The reformed houses cultivated a particular form of manuscript decoration and
of early Winchester Style
illumination, the so-� called Winchester Style. This drew extensively on earlier
Carolingian exemplars and was characterised by
florid, vegetal and acanthus-�leaf motifs and stylised,
elongated figures, with extensive drapery. The manu-
script now known as St Dunstan’s Classbook contains
some of the earliest examples of this style and its
development can be traced through works such as
the Leofric Missal and the Benedictional of St
Æthelwold – one of the most accomplished examples
of this type. The Winchester Style went on to domi-
nate late Anglo-� Saxon artistic production, with
motifs and decorative elements translated to stone
sculpture, wall paintings and metalwork.
In other respects, though, the impact of the
reforms is hard to discern. Despite Oswald being
archbishop of York, there is only limited evidence for
reforming activity in the north. Though sites such as
Bede’s monastery at Jarrow or Wilfrid’s at Hexham
seem to have possessed an obvious appeal for the
reformers, no attempts were made to re-�establish
monastic life there. Byrhtferth claims that Oswald
restored the ruined abbey at Ripon and translated
the remains of Wilfrid and a number of its other
early abbots to new shrines – no mention is made of
Oda’s earlier removal of Wilfrid’s relics to Canterbury
– but there is no indication that a new monastic
community was established there.
 c o n q u e s t, r e f o r m a n d t h e m a k i n g o f e n g l a n d 321

This lack of reforming activity in the north may be an indication of how tightly the
reforms were bound up with royal power. The reformers needed the backing of Edgar
to make progress, particularly if they wished to expel secular clergy, and his power
may simply have been too tenuous to support such activities in the north. Indeed, the
Benedictine Reforms as a whole seem to have been court-�centred; the leading players
were important members of successive royal regimes, and the most intensive reforming
activities were focused on the city of Winchester.
Important though the Benedictine Reforms undoubtedly were, other processes
underway in the tenth century would eventually prove of greater long-�term signifi-
6.23 Tenth-century reliquary
cance and would ultimately impact upon a far larger segment of society. Both written
cross from Winchester. Behind
and archaeological evidence confirm that the tenth and eleventh centuries were a the walrus ivory carving of
period of extensive church building. Though such activities did include the building or Christ a small recess in the
remodelling of large churches and monasteries, such as Christ Church Canterbury or wood originally housed the relic
– a human finger, probably
Westminster Abbey (see chapter 8), it was the founding of small, local churches by
female. The cross affords
minor nobles and landholders that made up the majority of these undertakings. The precious insight into the lavish
fragmentation of larger estates into small holdings created a class of lesser landowners fittings and furnishings of Late
for whom the foundation and construction of a church on their estate was a key means Anglo-Saxon churches
by which their status could be displayed and confirmed. Such local churches would
eventually form the basis of the medieval parochial
system, and over the course of the tenth and eleventh
centuries these churches increasingly impinged on the
rights and obligations of existing churches, modifying
the ways in which pastoral care was provided. Pre-�Viking
sources make references to a range of payments, dues
and tithes owed by the laity to the Church for the provi-
sion of pastoral care and, as was the case in other areas,
these apparently inchoate and local arrangements were
standardised through royal law codes over the course of
the tenth century.
Until the reign of Edgar there is no clear indication
of to whom or to what institution these dues were to be
paid. Æthelstan, for example, simply decreed that
church dues and payments for the souls of the dead
(probably to be understood as funeral fees) were to be
rendered ‘at the places to which they are legally due’. In
Edgar’s law code issued at Andover, however, tithes are
ordered to be paid ‘to the old churches to which obedi-
ence is due’ unless a nobleman holds an estate by book-
land that has a church on it with a graveyard, in which
case he is to pay a third-�part of his tithes to that church.
If the church does not have a graveyard, the nobleman is
to pay for it from the nine-�tenths of his income that
remain, presumably with the full tithe going to the old
church.
 322 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6.24 St James’ Church,

Selham, West Sussex. A small,
local church of the type that
flourished in the later
Anglo-Saxon period. The nave
and chancel are eleventh-
century, the chapel on the
north side probably
fourteenth-century

By the first decades of the eleventh century, a more complex hierarchy of churches
had developed, with King Æthelred II legislating for chief minsters, smaller minsters,
even smaller minsters and field churches. The ‘old church’ of Edgar’s code, as well as
the chief minsters and smaller minsters of Æthelred’s code, are probably those institu-
tions that had originally been pre-�Viking monasteries tasked with providing pastoral
care to large, extensive ‘parishes’. These ‘mother parishes’ would endure well beyond
the Norman Conquest, retaining some of their former rights and importance, but it is
clear already from Edgar’s code, and perhaps is implied by Æthelstan’s, that newly
established local churches were increasingly meeting the pastoral needs of the laity.
The owners and patrons of these churches, not unreasonably, were seeking to support
them and their clergy by diverting tithes and other dues away from the old churches
and chief minsters to the newer foundations.
As with the system of hundreds and shires that was established by Edgar’s reign,
this newer model of pastoral provision, extended and formalised over time, would
provide the pattern not just for the Middle Ages but also for the early modern and
modern periods. The legacy of the tenth century was a set of surprisingly long-�
enduring institutions that would shape significantly the subsequent development and
history of England. The eleventh century would, however, see the political system of
Anglo-�Saxon England stretched to breaking point, as the return of the Vikings and
internal dispute and division led to the temporary and then permanent eclipse of the
house of Wessex.
 sources and issues 6a

village and open field

nicholas j. higham

Across the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries scholars believed that Anglo-�
Saxon settlers brought with them the habits of living in villages and cultivating land in
open fields – large tracts of arable land without internal divisions which were subject
to rotation, ploughed in long, intermingled strips and managed communally. An early
study, published in 1915, distinguished six regional field types and explained them on
grounds of ethnicity, with ‘Celtic’ town-Â�fields in the north and west at one extreme
contrasting with the ‘Midland System’ in what is now generally termed the ‘central
province’, from Dorset and Hampshire through the East Midlands northwards, which
best exemplified the agricultural practice of Germanic settlers. Here, open fields even-
tually included most of the lands of a township or manor. Laxton (Nottinghamshire)
offers a good example, where the remnants of open fields still operate around a village
occupied from the late Anglo-�Saxon period.
However, recognition of the open field system throughout Britain, both in ‘Celtic’
and ‘Anglo-Â�Saxon’ areas, undermined the assumption that it was linked to Germanic
settlement. The ‘Midland System’ does not correspond well with archaeological
evidence for early Anglo-�Saxon material culture, which is concentrated in the Upper
Thames Valley, East Anglia, Lincolnshire and Kent rather than the ‘central province’.
Scholars have therefore sought alternative explanations of open fields, arguing that
they derive from one or a combination of the following: the sharing of plough-�teams
by peasant farmers (co-� aration); the parcelling out of collectively cleared land
(assarting); the subdivision of peasant farms as a result of partible inheritance; primi-
tive shareholding by villagers enjoying common rights, and/or risk aversion encour-
aging each farmer to spread his arable land across different types of ground. Discussion
long focused on the Anglo-Â�Saxon period, but in the 1960s the ‘Midland System’ was
thought a late stage of development, emerging under the pressure of rising population
and growing shortages of grazing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
In important respects this case was persuasive. Rising population pushed up grain
prices, so encouraged the expansion of cultivation, requiring more ploughs so more
oxen, which in turn required larger herds, so more animal feed, at the same time as
more land was coming under the plough. It is easy to envisage reorganisation as arable
expanded, with close management of meadow and fallow land used for pasture,
 324 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

combined with maximal use of plough teams

to minimise their number. Strict rotation of
the arable was a logical solution to these prob-
lems.
However, the assumption that the adoption
of a more tightly managed open-�field system
was driven by rising population is at odds with
the distribution of population in Domesday
Book, since areas with the highest densities –
Sussex and parts of East Anglia – did not use
the ‘Midland System’. Clearly, an open-Â�field
system could not occur without sufficient
peasant farmers, but population does not seem
to have been the principal driver for its adop-
tion. Indeed, many manors with open fields
were ‘closed’ comparatively early, so the
number of shares was fixed, although subdivi-
sion of shares might still occur. There is also
evidence that suggests an early date: ‘shared’
lands within collectively maintained bounda-
ries occur in Ine’s law code, c. 690, indicating
that some at least of the characteristics of open
fields were already then in operation in Wessex;
6a.1 The division of England increasingly, landscape archaeologists believe that open fields existed at least from the
into three landscape provinces. eighth century onwards.
The central province was
The development of ploughing technology has a bearing on these issues. Although a
characterised in the Middle
Ages by open fields, nucleated heavy plough was available, the standard plough in Roman Britain was probably an ard or
villages and a scarcity of scratch plough pulled by just two oxen. Concentration of the rural population onto light,
woodland; the other two well-�drained sands and gravels in the fifth and sixth centuries meant that cultivation was
provinces had less systematic
focused on easily ploughed land well suited to the ard. By 1066, however, the standard
field systems, more dispersed
settlement and more woodland
plough was the heavy, mould-�board type, capable of turning a furrow and forming ridges.
This plough was used to cultivate a wider variety of soils than the ard, including extensive
clay lands. It could also plough far more land per year and far more than any one peasant
would have needed – 120 acres (48 hectares) is often quoted. In contrast, most Domesday
villeins had less than 60 acres (24 hectares, or 2 virgates) and most bordars and cottars just
an acre or two. To give an example, on the 12 ploughlands of the royal estate of Keyston
(Huntingdonshire), 2 ploughs cultivated the demesne lands of the king while 24 villeins
and 8 bordars had another 12 ploughs, suggesting that these 32 tenants shared approxi-
mately 1,200 acres between them at an average of less than 40 acres.
A switch occurred, therefore, during the Anglo-�Saxon period from a plough suited
to the needs of individual farmers to one best used collaboratively with up to eight
farmers combining their oxen and cultivating more productive, heavier soils. This
switch seems to have occurred not only in areas where large-�scale open fields were
dominant but elsewhere as well. The advantages of the new technology were consider-
 sources and issues: vill age and open field 325

6a.2 Open field still in

cultivation at Laxton
(Nottinghamshire). Large open
fields without internal
divisions but with parallel
ridges (here ploughed out)
were characteristic particularly
of the central province

able: the mould-�board plough could work a bigger area, cultivate heavier land, and do
so with just one ox for every 15 acres of arable. The new arrangements might even
reduce the number of cattle the manor needed, so also the area of pasture and hay
meadows set aside from cultivation, if peasants with less than 30 acres of arable had
hitherto kept their own plough teams.
Adoption of the mould-�board plough therefore enabled communities to cultivate a
higher proportion of the land available and maximise the area under cereals. There
was, however, a need to use it efficiently, establish holdings of the right size, reorganise
farms into strips spread evenly across several fields, and impose a system of crop rota-
tion capable of delivering fallow. The presence on some Domesday manors of far more
ploughs than ploughlands suggests that these economies were not always realised: at
Gunthorpe (Nottinghamshire) land for 6 ploughs supported 4 demesne ploughs and a
further 16 ploughs in the hands of the 47 manorial tenants, so a total of 20 ploughs
where only 6 were needed.
The shift in plough technology had some potential, therefore, to encourage the adop-
tion of open fields and concentrate farmers so as to facilitate cooperation. The great
problem, though, is that the change from one technology to another is not closely dated.
All the ploughshares so far identified come from later Anglo-�Saxon deposits and have
been classified as ards. The impression that adoption of the heavy plough was therefore
late has never satisfied archaeologists, who have recognised both nucleation of settle-
ment and the reorganisation of fields occurring in many areas rather earlier. The recent
identification of a coulter blade, that is, the upright knife used to cut the sod prior to its
being turned by the share and mouldboard, in a seventh-�century context at Lyminge in
Kent, is therefore significant. This indicates that the new technology was available
already in the age of Bede, though ards may certainly have remained in use in some areas
 326 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6a.3 Coulter blade for a heavy

plough from excavations of a
seventh-century monastic site
at Lyminge (Kent)

well into the ninth and tenth centuries. The heavy wheeled plough begins to feature in
manuscript illustrations from the eleventh century, and plough ridges have been identi-
fied beneath late eleventh-�and twelfth-�century structures, as at Hen Domen castle
(Powys), but not under any of the dykes of the early to mid-�Anglo-�Saxon periods.
Open fields and villages are closely linked, and it was long assumed that neither
occurred without the other. Excavations at Wharram Percy (North Yorkshire) from the
1950s onwards revealed that the village did not emerge in a clearly recognisable form
until the twelfth century, but the settlement had a long and complex history prior to
village formation and the building of a church there marks it as a place of local signifi-
cance in the Viking Age. Late settlement nucleation has been confirmed by excavation at
several other northern sites, such as Thrislington (County Durham), but recent work in
Northamptonshire suggests that village formation was already occurring there by the first
half of the ninth century. At this stage some pre-�existing settlements were abandoned and
ploughed over while others expanded; families presumably moved from failing sites to
the more successful ones. Clearly, the pace of change varied. Areas of old woodland,
wetland and heath were resistant to settlement nucleation even in areas such as the East
Midlands where village formation took place comparatively early: recent research on the
Whittlewood area (Northamptonshire) reveals that nucleation began in this old wood-
land region only comparatively late, resulting in a mix of irregular villages, hamlets and
isolated farms becoming established from the later Anglo-�Saxon period onwards.
A geometric layout is a common feature of villages in some areas of England,
encouraging the assumption that they were planned, to an extent at least. Many of
those exhibiting this regularity lie in regions where village formation was compara-
6a.4 The heavy plough in use.
Redrawn from the illustration
for December in an
eleventh-century calendar
 sources and issues: vill age and open field 327

tively late, as the playing-�card-�shaped villages of Appleton-�le-�Moors (North Yorkshire)

or Milburn (Cumbria), neither of which is likely to pre-�date Norman reorganisation of
these areas. Similar developments occurred in the Marcher lordship of Chepstow, for
example, and Pembrokeshire, where English colonists settled in newly laid-�out villages
with small open fields.
By the twelfth century, therefore, regular villages and open fields had become tools
of Anglo-�Norman colonisation, but it is unclear how much earlier they occurred. In
lowland England village streets often have very regular property divisions at right
angles, with back lanes dividing the village tofts from open fields. Such need not,
however, be planned; recent research in Northamptonshire suggests that it may have
resulted from the expansion of settlement onto the ends of open-�field strips, which
encouraged regularity in the layout. Much village development was, however, broadly
contemporary with the ninth-�and tenth-�century revival of towns, where clear external
boundaries, geometric road systems and comparatively standardised tenements were
commonplace, so the thinking underlying the new towns may have influenced village
formation. Emulation was probably equally a factor in the spread of villages, with the
adoption elsewhere of settlement types common in old arable areas. Longer-�distance
transfers of the village as a settlement type also occurred: the monks of Glastonbury
seem to have imported nucleated settlement and open fields to their estates in
Somerset, although irregularities in the layout of even neighbouring villages imply
that much of the detail was left to local communities.
Much of the countryside of late Anglo-�Saxon England was clearly not dominated
by either villages or open fields. For example, Devon, Essex and Cheshire were
characterised by dispersed farms and hamlets, with few if any large open fields, and
many Domesday manors were little more than one large farm. Tom Williamson has

6a.5 Milburn, Cumbria. A

green village of the eleventh-
to twelfth-century village
328 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

argued that the development of open fields was conditioned primarily by environmental
factors. Neither villages nor open fields were well developed in areas with extensive
woodland in the eleventh century, such as the Lower Thames Basin and large parts of the
West Midlands. The ‘central province’ is characterised by the virtual absence of both
woodland place names and Domesday woodland. The basic patterning of the English
landscape was clearly already ancient when Domesday Book was compiled, and pre-�
existing landscapes and social structures certainly influenced the spread of villages and
open fields.
There is, therefore, considerable but not uniform evidence of landscape change in
the mid–late Anglo-Â�Saxon period. In some areas village formation occurred in combi-
nation with the inception of open fields. In the Viking Age numerous large estates
were divided to provide holdings for warriors and small estates were increasingly
being leased out. These resulting manors were often organised in new ways utilising an
open-�field economy. Pressure to produce a greater surplus encouraged the expansion
of arable production and a spread of cultivation onto new lands. Nucleation of settle-
ment was part and parcel of these processes, although not always synchronous, and
was adopted wholeheartedly in some areas, partially in others, but elsewhere barely at
all. Alongside, adoption of the mould-�board plough enabled the spread of cultivation
onto heavier land and encouraged the reorganisation of arable land into long strips
which reduced the number of times the team had to be turned in ploughing a specific
area. In some sense open-�field cultivation had begun by the start of the eighth century
but spread more widely across the later Anglo-�Saxon period, appearing in different
forms and in association with varying settlement patterns. While it is wrong today to
suppose that the late Anglo-�Saxon landscape was uniformly dominated by open fields
and villages, both were important elements of the rural scene and integral to the way
that the countryside worked in many parts of England.
 sources and issues 6b

viking age hoards

martin j. ryan

On the evening of 15th May last, a number of workmen, engaged in repairing the
southern embankment of the river Ribble, near Cuerdale Hall, and about three miles
from Preston, were agreeably surprised by the discovery of a hidden treasure, which
had for many centuries lain inhumed in that delightful and secluded vale, within
three feet of the surface of the pasture, and about thirty yards from the edge of the
river.

So Joseph Kenyon of Preston reported to the Chronicle of the Royal Numismatic

Society in June of 1840 the discovery of a cache of over 8,500 items of silver, including
some 7,500 coins, buried in a lead chest near the banks of the River Ribble in Lancashire.
The Cuerdale Hoard, as it is now known, was deposited early in the tenth century and
represents one of the largest discoveries of precious metals in Britain. Such hoards
have been unearthed from across the whole of the Anglo-�Saxon period, with collec-
tions stretching from the Patching Hoard (West Sussex), dating to the middle of the
fifth century and perhaps buried in response to the threat of Anglo-�Saxon attacks, to
the Sedlescombe Hoard (East Sussex), dating to around 1066 and one of a number of
hoards in Sussex possibly buried in the run-�up to, or in the immediate aftermath of,
the Battle of Hastings.
Despite this broad chronological range, the deposition of hoards peaked at times of
particular upheaval or disruption, such as 1066 or the later ninth to early tenth centu-
ries. In such times some individuals or groups buried their wealth, probably to protect
it from the attentions of raiding bands or invading armies (or, perhaps, to avoid it
being requisitioned to counter the threat posed by such groups). Raiding bands and
armies also in their turn deposited wealth and plunder for safe keeping and to avoid
the need to carry it with them: treasure could be heavy – the Cuerdale Hoard weighs
some 40 kilograms.
In most cases wealth so buried must have been recovered by its owner or owners
sometime after deposition, so the hoards known from the Anglo-�Saxon period prob-
ably represent only a fraction of what was originally committed to the ground. The
Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle even claimed that when the Romans left Britain ‘they collected
all the treasures which were in Britain, and hid some in the ground, so that none could
 330 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

find them afterwards’. Such may have been inspired by

the chance discovery of Roman hoards, and we should
remember that Roman materials continued to be reused
throughout the Anglo-�Saxon period. It may also, however,
indicate that the burying of hoards was considered a
normal strategy in the late ninth century, when this
passage of the Chronicle was probably written, and might
therefore then have been expected to have characterised
the Roman departure from Britain.
One particular cluster of hoards occurs in the early
decades of the tenth century in Northumbria and
northern Mercia – nearly twenty have so far been discov-
ered, with one of the most recent, the Silverdale Hoard
(Lancashire), found in the autumn of 2011. The composi-
tion of these hoards is typical of known Viking hoards
found elsewhere in Britain, Ireland and the Continent;
they represent precious evidence for the movements of
Scandinavians active in northern England during the
momentous but poorly documented period of West
Saxon conquest of central and northern England.
The largest of this group of hoards, that discovered
6b.1 Location of hoards near Cuerdale, has already been noted. Alongside the 7,500 coins, the majority of
mentioned in the text which were minted in England under Viking authority, there was over 35 kilograms of
bullion, in the form of ingots and hack silver, that is jewellery and other items of
precious metal that have been hacked or broken up into smaller pieces, intended either
to be melted down or to have served as bullion. The coins indicate that the hoard was
deposited in the first few years of the tenth century, arguably between c. 905 and 910,
while analysis of the hack silver suggests provenances from the Baltic and Scandinavia
to Scotland and Ireland (both native and Viking), with some material from Anglo-�
Saxon England and Carolingian Francia as well.
The dating of the hoard and its location on one of the main routes of communica-
tion between York and the Irish Sea point to a connection with the Vikings expelled
from Dublin in 902 who were subsequently involved in struggles for the control of
York and seem to have settled areas of the Wirral and Lancashire. The presence of a
large number of apparently freshly minted coins from York in the hoard may suggest
it was assembled in that city and was perhaps intended to pay or to recruit forces for
an attempt to reconquer Dublin.
The Vale of York Hoard, discovered near Harrogate (North Yorkshire) in 2007, has
a composition similar to the Cuerdale Hoard, although it is considerably smaller in
size. Some 617 coins, mostly minted in England, one gold and five silver arm-�rings and
over sixty pieces of hack silver and ingots make up the hoard, along with a silver-�gilt
cup, approximately 9 centimetres high, adorned with roundels, inscribed animals, and
vine-�scroll and acanthus-�leaf decoration, that contained the bulk of the hoard. The cup
was probably produced in the mid-�ninth century in Carolingian Francia and has very
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : v i k i n g a g e h oa r d s 331

6b.2 Items from the Cuerdale

Hoard

close affinities with a cup found as part of the eleventh-�century Halton Moor Hoard
(West Yorkshire), suggesting that such items could be in circulation for centuries.
The coins in the Vale of York Hoard include 106 issued in the name of King
Æthelstan, one of which gives his title as ‘King of All Britain’, a style he adopted c. 927.
Given that this style then became common on his coinage, the presence of only one
coin with such a style suggests the hoard was probably deposited soon after 927.
Another significant coin in the hoard was an anonymous issue of the ‘Sword’ type, a
type minted in the name of a number of Viking rulers in Northumbria and the
Midlands in the early tenth century. Though lacking the name of any ruler, this coin
bore the mint name ‘Rorivascastr’, not otherwise attested but probably to be identified
with Rocester in Staffordshire.
Not all hoards contain coins. The Huxley Hoard, discovered in 2004 near Huxley
in Cheshire, comprises some 20 silver broad-�band arm-�rings, a number with punched
decorations, a twisted silver rod arm-�ring and a single silver ingot, all probably buried
in a lead container. The arm-�rings are of a type found throughout Ireland and Britain
(though here concentrated in north Wales and north-�west England) and although ulti-
mately based on Scandinavian prototypes were probably produced in Ireland. Given
that the broad-�band arm-�rings had been flattened, and were perhaps never fully
finished, and the rod arm-�ring had been twisted, they were presumably included in the
hoard as bullion rather than jewellery to be worn, gifted or exchanged. The absence of
coins makes determining the period of deposition difficult, but the hoard’s location
near the River Gowy, which flows into the Mersey estuary, may point to a connection
 332 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6b.3 Items from the Vale of

York Hoard

with the settlement of Dublin Vikings in north-�west England in the early tenth century.
Whether those who buried the Huxley Hoard had any links with those who buried the
Cuerdale Hoard is unknowable, but the very different composition of the two deposits
may indicate that such a connection is unlikely.
Discovered in 1989, the Flusco Pike Hoard (Cumbria), like the Huxley Hoard,
contained no coinage but comprised the remains of at least five silver brooches, two of
which were ‘thistle-Â�brooches’ and three Irish bossed penannular brooches. To these
items can probably be added two other thistle-�brooches found in the same area in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On stylistic grounds, the hoard can be dated to
the 920s–930s; given the general lack of significant damage to the brooches, it was
probably the burial of intact jewellery rather than bullion. The historical context of the
deposition is unclear but, given the location, it is tempting to link it in some way to the
submissions received by King Æthelstan by the River Eamont, near Penrith, in 927.
These hoards, and others like them, are significant for a number of reasons. Firstly,
and most simply, they offer clear confirmation of the substantial levels of moveable
wealth that could be accrued by individuals and groups, as indicated by the written
sources. One of the colloquies of the eleventh-Â�century monk Ælfric Bata, for example,
includes a book buyer counting out some 360 coins to pay for the book he is purchasing,
while the coins and precious metals bequeathed by King Eadred in his will ran into the
thousands of pounds (by weight). Secondly, the quality and craftsmanship of some of
the pieces included are reminders of the skills and capabilities of goldsmiths and silver-
smiths in the Early Middle Ages. Thirdly, the range of material included in the hoards
provides an indication of the cultural contacts of the Vikings. As well as coins from the
Atlantic Archipelago, the Cuerdale Hoard included coins from the Islamic world, from
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : v i k i n g a g e h oa r d s 333

6b.4 Thistle brooches from

Flusco Pike (Penrith)

Francia and from Byzantium, with a similar range of coins represented in the Vale of
York Hoard.
Fourthly, the hoards shed light on the nature of the economy in the Viking-�
controlled territories in England. The presence of large numbers of coins alongside
ingots, hack silver and jewellery points to a dual economy in which both bullion and
regulated coinage were in use alongside one another, as the frequent discovery of
weights and scales confirms. Likewise, the presence of foreign coins – those produced
outside Northumbria – implies that Viking rulers in the north were less able or less
inclined to control the circulation of coinage than their Anglo-�Saxon counterparts to
the south.
Fifthly, hoards are a vitally important source for numismatists. Most obviously, the
hoards provide a large sample of coinage and a number of rare or unique types is
known only from such contexts – such as the coin minted at Rocester from the Vale of
York Hoard or the unique coin from the Silverdale Hoard in the name of King
Harthacnut, otherwise unknown unless he is the Harthacnut who was the father of
King Guthred mentioned in the tenth-�century History of St Cuthbert. That hoards can
be considered to contain a sample, however imperfect, of coins in circulation together
also offers one important means of establishing a relative chronology of coin produc-
tion. A coin of King Æthelstan, for example, found in hoards alongside coins of his
predecessors King Edward the Elder and King Alfred is likely to be an earlier issue
than a coin of Æthelstan found together with coins of his successors King Edmund and
 334 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

6b.5 The Silverdale Hoard

King Eadred. The high number of coins deposited in hoards likewise facilitates more
complex methods of dating, such as the establishment of die-�linkages between coins.
The obverse and reverse dies used to strike a coin tended to wear out at different rates
and this, coupled with accidental breakages or other damage, meant that dies were not
always replaced in pairs. One die might thus serve as the obverse for two or more
reverse dies, again, allowing for a relative chronology of production to be established.
The Old English poem Beowulf ends with the burial of treasure recovered from a
dragon’s lair. The poet describes the treasure as ‘gold under ground, where it still lies,
useless to men as it ever was’. As should be clear, if hoards from the Anglo-Â�Saxon
period are not quite as eloquent witnesses as the Beowulf poet, they are nevertheless far
from useless to men; indeed, they remain sources of vital importance. Moreover, while
another Beowulf is most unlikely to be discovered, as recent events have shown more
hoards certainly await discovery and each has the potential, in small ways and in large,
to reshape our understanding of the Anglo-�Saxon past.
 chapter 7

The Age of Æthelred

martin j. ryan

It is written and was long ago prophesied, ‘after a thousand years will Satan be
unbound’. A thousand years and more is now gone since Christ was among men in a
human family, and Satan’s bonds are now indeed slipped, and Antichrist’s time is now
close at hand. . . . And people will contend and dispute among themselves. There will
also break out far and wide dispute and damage, envy and enmity and rapine of
robbers, hostility and hunger, burning and bloodshed and distressing disturbances,
disease and death, and many misfortunes.

So, shortly after the year 1000, wrote the homilist and statesman Wulfstan. The
approach of the millennium had given renewed vigour to the eschatological anxieties
that suffused much Christian literature and if the millennium had passed and
gone, nevertheless Wulfstan, like other writers of the time, continued to scrutinise
current events relentlessly for signs of the End of Days. Wulfstan could be forgiven for
thinking he saw them in his own society. Already by this time, the reign of King Edgar
was being written of as the culmination of Anglo-�Saxon kingship, the high point from
which England had fallen, grievously. Edgar’s rule had become, and to some extent
remains, a byword for peace and prosperity, hence his popular name, ‘Edgar the
Peaceable’.
In sharp contrast to his father, Edgar’s youngest son, King Æthelred (c. 968–1016),
appears the archetypal weak king and bad ruler, and his reign the lowest ebb of Anglo-�
Saxon kingship. His soubriquet ‘the Unready’ suggests a king ill-Â�prepared for the diffi-
culties he faced. The origin and real meaning of this nickname, already attested in the
twelfth century, namely ‘Unræd’ – that is ‘ill-Â�counselled’, punning on ‘Æthelred’ or
‘noble counsel’ – softens but does not wholly remove such condemnation.
It is not difficult to see why Æthelred gained such a reputation. His reign began
with regicide, was halted by exile, and ended in invasion by Cnut of Denmark.
Æthelred’s rule appears characterised by violence and treachery and the despotic exer-
cise of royal power, and his failure to deal with the renewed Viking threat to England
has guaranteed his reputation. After decades of apparent absence, the Vikings returned
to England in the 980s and their attacks escalated until the kingdom was overrun and
a Danish king was on the throne. Æthelred’s inability to stem the flood, even the
 336 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7.1 Places mentioned in

chapter 7

methods by which he attempted to do so, drew sharp criticism from contemporaries,

and modern scholarship has until recently been only a little less hostile.
Yet the late tenth and eleventh centuries were far more than simply a period of
political failure and national disaster. Seemingly paradoxically, this was a time of
significant intellectual endeavour and achievement, both in Latin and in Old English.
The period likewise saw significant social mobility, with the boundaries between
different ranks and statuses seemingly more permeable and surmountable. There is
growing evidence for a new class of local, small-�scale landowners, enjoying consider-
able prosperity and affluence. This ‘gentry class’ was undoubtedly much troubled by
the political upheavals that took place in this period, but nevertheless life, and an
increasingly comfortable one for some, still went on.

Edgar, Edward and Æthelred

On 8 July 975, King Edgar died, and he was only in his thirties. The consequences of
Edgar’s early death were far-Â�reaching and dramatic. Around the turn of the millen-
nium, the monk Byrhtferth of Ramsey wrote in his Life of St Oswald of the immediate
aftermath of Edgar’s death:

the commonwealth of the entire realm was shaken: bishops were perplexed, ealdormen
were angry, monks were struck with fear, the people were terrified, and the secular
clerics were made happy, because their time had come. Abbots are now expelled,
 the age of æthelred 337

together with their monks; clerics are brought in together with their wives; and ‘the
last error was worse than the first’.

Byrhtferth went on to name Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia, as one of the chief agita-
tors, turning the minds of the people against the monks and appropriating monastic
lands and income. Dissension spread eastwards through Mercia until it was checked
by the party led by Ealdorman Æthelwine of East Anglia, one of the heroes of the Life
of St Oswald and described therein as ‘so excellent in body and bearing that no one
more distinguished could be imagined’. The Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle records similar
upheavals, with the ‘D’ and ‘E’ versions singling out Ealdorman Ælfhere as a destroyer
of monasteries and one who put monks to flight. Likewise, the Book of Bishop Æthelwold
– a twelfth-Â�century Latin translation of earlier Old English material relating to the
abbey of Ely – repeatedly records how dissension arose after the death of King Edgar
and how the monastery was again and again despoiled of its properties.
This ‘anti-Â�monastic reaction’, as it has been labelled by modern scholars, is a
reminder of how closely dependent the Benedictine Reformers of the tenth century
had been on the power and authority of King Edgar. Yet what occurred after Edgar’s
death was not a hostile reaction to reformed monasticism per se. Monastic reform had
provided a vocabulary with which writers such as Byrhtferth could denigrate oppo-
nents, and one that allowed them to depict events not as a competition for power and
influence between rival factions but as a battle for the very survival of Christianity and
the Church. Despite Byrhtferth’s assertions, Ælfhere was not opposed to monasticism
for he was a benefactor of Abingdon and Glastonbury and, indeed, was buried at the
latter. His actions may have been motivated more by Oswald and the see of Worcester’s
encroachment upon his powers as an ealdorman, and the concomitant challenges to
the long-�entrenched interests of his own family.
Material from the Book of Bishop Æthelwold shows that many used the opportunity
provided by the death of Edgar – and thus Ely’s loss of its most powerful patron – to
reclaim lands acquired by the monastery or to contest transfers of estates. Some litiga-
tion was clearly opportunistic, but other cases suggest genuine grievances about how
the monastery had acquired its lands, with accusations of coercion and underhand
methods being made by a number of litigants. Thus Ælfwold of Mardleybury
(Hertfordshire) attempted to reclaim land at Stretham that he had sold to Bishop
Æthelwold on the grounds that he had been forced into the sale ‘and that violence and
pillage had been inflicted upon him’. Presumably Æthelwold had relied in some way on
the coercive power of the king or his agents to effect the sale and the removal of such
support left him vulnerable. In other cases the death of Edgar seems to have been the
occasion for the reopening of age-�old disputes. The sons of Boga of Hemingford
claimed an estate at Bluntisham (Cambridgeshire) on the grounds that their uncle’s
grandmother had petitioned King Edward the Elder (d. 924) for the land.
Ealdorman Æthelwine appears a much more ambiguous figure in the Book of
Bishop Æthelwold than he does in the Life of St Oswald. Sometimes he is shown acting
in support of Ely and defending its patrimony, at other times he acts against it. Indeed,
Æthelwine was himself accused of laying claim to an estate at Hatfield (Hertfordshire)
 338 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

that had been granted to Ely by King Edgar, and only by giving up land at Hemingford
(Hertfordshire), Wennington and Yelling (both Cambridgeshire) was Ely able to regain
the estate. The situation was clearly more complex than the simple pro-�and anti-�
monastic division set up by Byrhtferth. Æthelwine’s intervention against Ælfhere was
as much about regional rivalries between two leading noble families as it was about the
defence of monasteries and monastic property.
The ‘anti-Â�monastic reaction’, however it is understood, was but one part of more wide-
spread upheavals that accompanied Edgar’s death, disruptions that brought to the surface
7.2 The shrine of St Edward the tensions and rivalries that had been developing during his reign. Dispute about royal
Martyr in the church of the St
succession was one further arena in which these rivalries were played out. In the later
Edward Brotherhood, Brookwood
Cemetery near Woking. The
years of his reign Edgar stressed the legitimacy of his marriage to Ælfthryth, privileging
relics of Edward were recovered the children of that union over his other offspring and marking them out for succession.
by J. Wilson-Claridge during However, Ælfthryth’s elder son, Edmund, died in 971 and her other son, Æthelred, was
excavations at Shaftesbury perhaps eight or nine, possibly younger, when King Edgar himself died. Nevertheless,
Abbey in the 1930s and were
Æthelred’s cause attracted some support: along with his mother Ælfthryth can probably
eventually translated to a
specially founded monastery in be placed the powerful and influential Bishop Æthelwold and Ealdorman Ælfhere.
the former London Necropolis in Æthelred’s older half-Â�brother, Edward, may have appeared a more promising
the 1980s candidate for the throne given his age – perhaps 13 or 14 – at his father’s death. Yet
Byrhtferth claimed in his Life of St Oswald that Edward
struck fear and terror into everyone and ‘hounded them not
only with tongue-Â�lashings, but even with cruel beatings’.
Æthelred, by contrast, ‘seemed more gentle to everyone in
word and deed’. There may also have been doubts about
Edward’s legitimacy. Certainly, by the later eleventh century
stories were circulating that he was the son of a nun of
Wilton who had been seduced by Edgar. Nevertheless, it
was Edward who first gained the throne, a succession prob-
ably owing much to the support of Archbishop Dunstan of
Canterbury and, probably, Ealdorman Æthelwine. Some
concessions were made to Æthelred. A number of estates
said to be ‘lands belonging to kings’ sons’ were granted to
him, these even including lands at Bedwyn (Wiltshire),
Hurstbourne (Hampshire) and Burbage (Wiltshire) that
had been granted by Edgar to Abingdon.
Whatever factions brought him to the throne, Edward’s
reign was short-�lived. He was murdered in circumstances
that remain obscure while visiting Æthelred at the Gap of
Corfe on 18 March 979. Æthelred was the most obvious
beneficiary of Edward’s murder, succeeding to the throne in
the same year, but it is unclear what part, if any, he played in
the regicide. According to Byrhtferth, whose Life of St
Oswald provides the most detailed near-� contemporary
account of events, Edward was dragged from his horse by a
number of Æthelred’s thegns and died in the process. He
 the age of æthelred 339

was then hastily buried. These men may have been motivated by their own interests,
hoping for advancement when Æthelred gained the throne, or may have been encour-
aged in their actions by Æthelred and/or his mother Ælfthryth – the latter was certainly
accused of complicity by later writers. Whatever the causes, the regicide cast a long
shadow over Æthelred’s reign and he remained a source of suspicion. For the compiler
of the ‘Northern Recension’ of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, ‘no worse deed than this
[i.e. Edward’s murder] for the English people was committed since first they came to
Britain’.
The body of Edward, having been reburied at Shaftesbury, was soon the focus of a
cult and he was venerated as a saint and martyr. Æthelred would later legislate for the
observance of the feast of St Edward throughout England and was a patron of
Shaftesbury Abbey, granting it the monastery of Bradford-�on-�Avon and confirming
other possessions. Whether this is evidence against his involvement in his half-�
brother’s murder or was an attempt to neutralise the potentially damaging effects of
Edward’s nascent cult on his own reputation is unclear.

The Reign of Æthelred

The lengthy reign of Æthelred (978–1016) has long been seen as the nadir of Anglo-Â�
Saxon kingship. Generations of writers and scholars, beginning in the eleventh century
itself, characterised the king as weak, ineffective and easily led. The nobility of the
period have likewise been presented as treacherous and disloyal, putting self-�interest
above the safety and security of the kingdom. The verdict of the Victorian scholar
Edward Freeman can stand for countless others: ‘Under Æthelred nothing was done;
or, more truly, throughout his whole reign he left undone those things which he ought
to have done, and he did those things which he ought not to have done.’
It is not difficult to find justification for such judgements. Æthelred’s reign ended
in invasion, with England conquered by Cnut, and this had been preceded by Æthelred’s
exile on the Continent in 1013–14, during which time Cnut’s father, Swein Forkbeard,
ruled England. The ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ versions of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle present
Æthelred’s reign as a depressing descent into passivity, treachery and dissension in the
face of a growing Viking threat. Numerous examples of violence perpetrated in the
name of Æthelred likewise feature in the Chronicle. Charters from the period include
detailed narrative sections describing the histories of the estates being granted, histo-
ries that frequently include unjust seizures and forfeitures and feature a cast of crimi-
nals and traitors.
Over the past generation, the work of scholars such as Simon Keynes or Pauline
Stafford has sought, if not to rescue Æthelred from an ill-Â�deserved reputation, then at
least to understand why such a reputation came about and what this might tell us of
the nature of Anglo-�Saxon kingship in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Central to this
process has been the recognition that the most detailed account of Æthelred’s reign –
that included in the ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ versions of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle – is not a
contemporary, year-�by-�year record of events. Rather, it was produced by a single
author, probably based in London, in the early years of Cnut’s reign. The compiler was
 340 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7.3 The hanging of Pharoah’s

baker from the Old English
Hexateuch, produced at
Canterbury in the early to
mid-eleventh century

thus looking back on Æthelred’s reign with the full knowledge that it would end in
disaster, defeat and conquest. The judgements of the narrative, the selection of infor-
mation, even the connections drawn between different events are all made with this
ultimate end in mind. The account is rarely directly critical of Æthelred himself, but
nevertheless it gives the overriding impression of a king presiding over the descent of
a nation into disaster. The ‘A’ version of the Chronicle, at times a contemporary record
for Æthelred’s reign, offers a different perspective but is far less detailed and thus hard
to use as a counterbalance to the narrative in versions ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’.
It is also clear that the problems Æthelred faced were far from unique to his reign.
Rather, the period was one in which the tensions and compromises inherent in Anglo-�
Saxon royal government were thrown into sharp relief and the fault lines running
 the age of æthelred 341

through society broke to the surface. The reign of Æthelred marks something of a docu-
mentary watershed; far more is known about his rule than about almost any of his
predecessors. Such may be a reflection of the upheavals and disorder of the time –
detailed written records would be a precious source of security, particularly for those
holding estates that had been forfeited by their former owners. Yet the number and the
loquacity of the sources can conspire to magnify the problems of the period and to draw
particular attention to them. The difficulty is determining whether the differences of
Æthelred’s reign were new problems or simply old problems newly documented.
The well-�known case of the crimes of Wulfbald highlights these problems. In 996
Æthelred granted a number of estates in Kent to his mother, Ælfthryth. These estates 7.4 Late tenth-century copper
had formerly belonged to one Wulfbald and had come into Æthelred’s hands through alloy seal matrix bearing the
forfeiture. However, the charter recording the grant paints a picture of royal powerless- inscription ‘SIGILLVM ÆLFRICI’
(‘the seal of Ælfric’). The
ness in the face of repeated wrongdoing. Having twice ignored royal orders to restore
design closely resembles King
goods he had plundered from his stepmother, Wulfbald seized the lands of a kinsman, Æthelred’s ‘First Hand’ type
Brihtmær. He then twice ignored Æthelred’s commands to vacate these lands before a coins and it is tempting to
royal council at London assigned all his property to the king and ‘also placed him at associate the seal with the
prominent Ealdorman Ælfric of
the king’s mercy, whether to live or to die’. Despite these judgments Wulfbald retained
Hampshire, though this is
all his property until he died, and it was only after his death that Æthelred gained ultimately beyond proof
control of the lands that had been forfeit. Even this was resisted – after Wulfbald’s
death, his widow killed a king’s thegn and 15 of his companions at one of the contested
estates, presumably to prevent its seizure.
Yet if Æthelred did face nobles able to resist his authority and to reject repeatedly
his judgments, he was not the first or only Anglo-�Saxon ruler to do so. In the 920s King
Æthelstan had to legislate for noble families so powerful that they could not be brought
to justice for their crimes. If Æthelstan here seems active where Æthelred looks passive,
nevertheless it is unclear how such legislation could have been effective. Æthelred’s
misfortune is that the charters from his reign give colour and detail to the problems
that appear abstract or notional in Æthelstan’s legislation.
If not all of the problems Æthelred faced were unique, neither were the remedies
that he sought. Much has been made of the periodic episodes of violence that mark out
his reign: the blinding of Ælfgar, the son of Ealdorman Ælfric, in 993; the killing of
Ealdorman Ælfhelm and the blinding of his sons Wulfheah and Ufegeat in 1006; the
killing of Sigeferth and Morcar in 1015; and the order to slaughter all Danish men in
England in 1002, the infamous ‘St Brice’s Day Massacre’. Yet even here Æthelred may
not have been so different from his predecessors. For all the administrative efficiency
and capabilities of the late Anglo-Â�Saxon ‘state’, it rested, at least in part, on the ability to
inflict in the name of justice shocking levels of violence and suffering. Even Edgar,
whose reign appears in so many ways the mirror image of Æthelred’s, issued a decree
that thieves should have their eyes put out, their ears, hands and feet cut off, their
nostrils sliced open and, having been scalped as well, should be left in an open field to
be devoured by beasts. The terse accounts of royally directed violence in the Chronicle,
shorn of all context, necessarily look like despotism on Æthelred’s part rather than the
exercise of a brutal but nevertheless licit justice. Violence, even extreme violence, was
but one more tool of governance in the late Anglo-�Saxon period.
342 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Particularly early in his reign, Æthelred was operating within a political system that
was not of his own making. His ability to transform it and his freedom of movement
were restricted by deep-�rooted interests as well as by the inherent limitations of royal
power. Despite the contentious circumstances surrounding Æthelred’s succession,
little change was made to the composition of the court: those who had been in office
during the reigns of Edgar and Edward remained, for the most part, in office. Ælfthryth
is notably prominent in the witness lists of charters from this period and, given
Æthelred’s age at succession, she probably acted as something approaching a regent.
Bishop Æthelwold was also at the centre of Æthelred’s regime and received the earliest
recorded religious patronage of his reign, a grant of land at Long Sutton (Hampshire).
If the prominence of Ælfthryth and Æthelwold reflects the support they gave
Æthelred’s candidacy, others at court must have endorsed the claims of Edward and yet
were not deprived of office, though they may have been marginalised in other ways.
Such reflects the situation that met Æthelred and his party on his accession to the
throne. Those in positions of authority were powerful and well entrenched. Of the
ealdormen surviving from King Edgar’s reign, Æthelwine came from an influential
and powerful noble family, whose interests in East Anglia stretched back generations.
Ealdorman Ælfhere’s lineage was similarly venerable and his family’s power in Mercia
was as long established as Æthelwine’s in East Anglia. Less is known of the family
connections of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth, but he had held the ealdordom of Essex since
956 and had ties by marriage to Ælfhere. Those ealdormen appointed during the brief
reign of Edward are less well documented, but Æthelweard, ealdorman of the western
provinces, was a member of a cadet branch of the royal dynasty, being descended from
King Æthelred I, and had strong ties with the Continent. The ability of Æthelred and
his supporters to remove from office any or all of these men, even assuming they had
wanted to, was severely limited. Likewise, the death of Edward had left Æthelred as the
only credible candidate for the English throne. The former supporters of Edward
would have had little choice but to acquiesce in Æthelred’s succession.
It was in the 980s that Æthelred seems to have fully asserted his independence and
begun to pursue new policies and new alliances. His mother, Ælfthryth, disappears
from the witness lists of his charters, reappearing again only in the 990s. Given that
Ealdorman Ælfhere died in 983 and Bishop Æthelwold in 984, by the second half of
the 980s three of the most powerful figures of Æthelred’s early reign were out of the
picture. Other evidence suggests a new start in this period. The mid-�980s probably saw
the introduction of a new coinage, the so-Â�called ‘Second Hand’ type, and a return to
the centralised production and distribution of dies, although such centralisation did
not last long. It is also likely that Æthelred promulgated his first law code around 985,
probably at a meeting of his councillors at Bromdun, although only traces of this code
now survive.
The period of the late 980s to early 990s was also marked by a number of appro-
priations by Æthelred of the estates of certain churches and monasteries and the subse-
quent granting of these lands to his lay followers. These appropriations are known
from a remarkable series of charters, beginning in 993, in which the king restored
lands so seized to Abingdon, the Old Minster at Winchester and Rochester. These
 the age of æthelred 343

charters describe how the young king had acted unjustly, led astray by the bad advice
of his councillors and others close to him – Ealdorman Ælfric of Hampshire, Bishop
Wulfgar of Ramsbury and the thegn Æthelsige are among those specifically named.
Now, with the wisdom of maturity and better counsel, Æthelred sought to repent and
to rectify his errors publicly.
If Æthelred later had cause to regret his actions in this period or, at least, to explain
his restoration of ecclesiastical lands through the language of penitence, the seizures of
the 980s may have been understood in very different ways at the time. Æthelred is
known to have been in serious dispute with Ælfstan, bishop of Rochester, and, indeed,
ravaged his diocese in 986. Such fundamental ruptures between king and churchman
rather than simple royal or lay avarice may have been the context for other appropria-
tions. Furthermore, Æthelred’s decision to restore certain lands came after some of
those involved had died or fallen from favour – Bishop Wulfgar died around 986,
Æthelsige had been stripped of his office for murder, and Ælfric had been accused of
warning a Viking army of plans to entrap them, though he subsequently held onto his
office. The make-Â�up of Æthelred’s court had also been significantly reorganised in the
990s. Ealdorman Æthelweard and his son Æthelmær were among those who became
increasingly prominent in this period. Others included Ealdorman Ælfhelm of
Northumbria, his brother Wulfric ‘Spot’, now best remembered as the founder of a
monastery at Burton (Staffordshire), and Wulfheah, the son of Ælfhelm. As noted
above, Æthelred’s mother Ælfthryth also reappears in charter witness lists around this
time. A narrative of bad counsel and youthful inexperience may have been a useful
device to explain and to justify fundamental shifts in royal policy and patronage.

The Oncoming Storm

However Æthelred’s actions in the 980s and 990s are to be interpreted, they played out
against a backdrop of increasing Viking activity in England. The Chronicle records the
sacking of Southampton by a naval force in 980, with the ‘C’ version adding the
ravaging of Thanet in the same year and an assault on Cheshire by a ‘northern naval
force’. The pattern of apparently small-Â�scale and localised raiding – albeit sometimes
particularly destructive – continues up to 988. Attacks on the coasts of Cornwall and
Devon, including the sacking of the monastery of St Petroc, occurred in 981, and
Portland was ravaged in 982. Watchet was attacked in 988, with the Chronicle noting
that the thegn Goda was killed ‘and many fell with him’. If this incident is the same as
the ‘savage battle . . . in the west’ recorded in the Life of Oswald, then it resulted in a
victory for the forces of Devon, despite heavy losses.
It is not clear whether the raid on Southampton represented the recommencing of
Viking attacks on England after an extended absence or just the first of such attacks
deemed worthy of record. Certainly, the late eighth and ninth centuries witnessed
numerous Viking raids that were not recorded in narrative sources. The will of King
Eadred (d. 955) included a large sum of money bequeathed to his subjects that they
‘may redeem themselves from famine and a heathen army if they need’, though no
Viking attacks are known from the period. With the possible exception of the raid on
 344 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7.5 Site of the Battle of Maldon

Thanet, it is likely that the attacks of the 980s were undertaken not by raiding parties
from Scandinavia but by Viking groups already based in Britain, Ireland and the
surrounding seas. Certainly, this period saw attacks on Anglesey, Dyfed and
Pembrokeshire from Viking bases on the Isle of Man or the Hebrides.
The Viking attacks escalated dramatically in 991 when a fleet of over ninety ships
ravaged Folkestone, Sandwich and Ipswich before coming to Maldon (Essex) where it
was met by an army led by the now venerable Ealdorman Byrhtnoth. One of the leaders
of this Viking fleet was Olaf Tryggvason, who would become king of Norway in 995.
Another leader may have been Swein Forkbeard, king of Denmark and son of Harald
Bluetooth, for a certain Æthelric of Bocking was subsequently accused of planning to
receive Swein when he arrived in Essex with a fleet, actions that must have taken place
in the early 990s.
The force that faced Byrhtnoth at Maldon was, then, a formidable one and led by
some of the most powerful figures of the period. The Chronicle offers little detail of the
battle that ensued, simply recording that Byrhtnoth was killed and the Vikings won the
field. A poem in Old English, perhaps though not certainly written soon after the
battle, provides more detail and praises the doomed bravery and noble ends of the
Anglo-�Saxon warriors. According to the poem, the Viking fleet was encamped on
Northey Island in the Blackwater Estuary and Byrhtnoth and his warriors held the
tidal causeway. The Vikings asked to be let across in order better to engage the Anglo-�
Saxon forces in battle and Byrhtnoth, ‘because of his pride’, agreed. Despite such judge-
ment, Byrhtnoth may have had little choice but to acquiesce if he wished to engage the
Vikings in open battle. Had they not been able to cross the causeway, the Vikings could
easily have taken to their ships and moved elsewhere, forcing Byrhtnoth into a game of
cat and mouse in which the Vikings would have had the upper hand. Nor was the
battle necessarily the one-�sided affair the Chronicle and the poem suggest. The Life of
Oswald describes numerous Viking casualties and claims that after the battle ‘they
were scarcely able to man their ships’.
Following the defeat at Maldon, the decision was made to pay tribute to the Viking
army and a sum of £10,000 was handed over. Despite this payment, in the following
 the age of æthelred 345

year Æthelred was forced to assemble all English ships at London with the intention of
trapping the still-�active Viking fleet. Beginning a theme that would run through the
whole account of Æthelred’s later years, the ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ versions of the Chronicle
record that through the treachery of Ealdorman Ælfric the Viking fleet was able to
escape the trap and continue its destruction. In 994 Olaf and Swein, leading a force of
some 94 ships, attacked London and then ravaged and burned their way along the
south coast from Essex to Hampshire, before riding inland to continue their destruc-
tion. Æthelred and his counsellors finally sued for peace, providing the army with
provisions and a payment of £16,000. After this agreement, Olaf was baptised – another
well-Â�established strategy for dealing with Viking leaders – and left England promising
never to return.
The payments of £10,000 and £16,000 are the first of a series of such tribute
payments recorded in the ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ versions of the Chronicle. Amounts of £24,000
(1002), £36,000 (1007), £48,000 (1012), £21,000 (1014) and £72,000 plus £10,500 from
the citizens of London (1018, under Cnut) are set out. These figures seem high, aston-
ishingly so when compared with the tax revenues that could be raised by later medi-
eval kings of England. The round numbers and simple arithmetical progression of the
figures for 1002–12 in the Chronicle likewise invite suspicion. Yet the basic accuracy of
the amounts in the Chronicle is confirmed by other sources. The text known as II
Æthelred records the agreement between the king and the Viking forces active in 994
and notes ‘twenty-Â�two thousand pounds in gold and silver were paid from England . . .
for this truce’ – higher than the figure of £16,000 given in the Chronicle. Similarly, King
Harthacnut, son of Cnut, was able to raise £21,099 in 1041 and another £11,048 soon
afterwards as payment for his fleet of ships.
If the Chronicle’s figures are credible, the amounts paid must nevertheless have put
a strain on the resources of England. If the payments of 1012 and 1014 were made
solely in coin, they would have accounted for perhaps 55 per cent of the total Late
Small Cross issue. In practice, payments were probably made in a mixture of coinage
and bullion, but sources still record churches being stripped of precious metals and
other wealth, and churchmen having to sell estates to meet their share of the payment.
Even Æthelred himself had to go to some lengths to raise money: a number of charters
record grants of land made by the king in exchange for bullion to pay the tribute. Not
all the money paid to Viking armies would have left England, but the high numbers of
Anglo-�Saxon coins in Scandinavian hoards of this period suggest a considerable
outflow of wealth.
This payment of tribute to the Vikings – often erroneously labelled ‘Danegeld’ –
has contributed considerably to Æthelred’s poor reputation. Yet it was a strategy that
had long been employed against the Vikings: even Alfred the Great made such
payments. Moreover, tribute was not paid solely to make the Vikings go away. II
Æthelred makes clear that the Viking signatories to the treaty were to defend England
against attacks by other Viking groups, effectively becoming mercenary forces. Such a
policy would continue throughout Æthelred’s reign; indeed, in 1012 he initiated an
annual land tax – the heregeld – to pay for Viking mercenaries. II Æthelred also notes
that earlier payments to the Vikings had been made by Archbishop Sigeric of
346 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Canterbury, Ealdorman Æthelweard and Ealdormen Ælfric in order to secure peace in

their own territories. The payment of tribute was thus a strategy that had widespread
support among Æthelred’s councillors, with local initiatives operating alongside
national ones. The entry for 1011 in the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle even complains not
that a tribute had been paid but that it was not offered to the Viking army in time.
The agreement in 994 brought relief from Viking attacks for a few years, but in 997
they resumed again. An army ravaged Devon, Cornwall and parts of Wales, harrying
the coasts and then moving inland as far as Lydford in Devon. The following years saw
the army moving along the south coast, spending some time on the Isle of Wight in
998, ravaging parts of Kent in 999 before finally heading to Normandy in the summer
of 1000. In 1001 a naval force again attacked England, with battles in Sussex, Dorset,
Somerset and Devon. From this point until 1007, the Viking attacks on England esca-
lated in severity and scope, with only the devastating famine of 1005 briefly driving
Viking armies back to Denmark.
According to the Chronicle, some sporadic resistance was offered to the Vikings.
Ulfcetel of East Anglia was singled out for praise having fought resolutely, though ulti-
mately in vain, against Swein’s forces in 1004. Despite episodes of bravery, the overall
story presented by the Chronicle is of Viking destruction and English inaction, inef-
fectiveness or treachery. Thus in 1003, Ealdorman Ælfric, ‘up to his old tricks’, feigned
sickness when facing the Viking army that had sacked Exeter and so the combined
forces of Wiltshire and Hampshire were scattered. Ulfcetel himself was undone because
the full force of the East Anglian army failed to turn out.
Despite the compellingly gloomy narrative of the Chronicle, Æthelred did take
further steps to counter the Viking threat. Through papal intervention, in late 990 or
early 991 a peace agreement was signed between Æthelred and Duke Richard of
Normandy. One of the terms of this agreement was that Richard was to receive none
of Æthelred’s enemies and it is likely that such was intended to prevent Viking fleets
from sheltering in Normandy. This Norman alliance was further strengthened in 1002,
when Æthelred married Emma, daughter of Duke Richard. Denial of safe havens and
harbours for Viking fleets may also have been behind Æthelred’s ravaging of
Cumberland and the Isle of Man in the year 1000.
Æthelred also shored up English fortifications. Excavations at a number of
burhs, such as Cricklade (Wiltshire), or Christchurch (Dorset), have revealed the
construction of new stone walls fronting the ditched banks that enclose the sites, while
at other burhs, such as Hereford and Wareham (Dorset), walls were constructed on top
of the enclosing banks. Such refortifications are difficult to date closely but it is likely
that this extensive construction programme should be seen as part of Æthelred’s
response to renewed Viking attacks. In addition, a number of mints were transferred
from their existing sites to new, more defensible locations – the so-Â�called ‘emergency
burhs’. The mint at Wilton (Wiltshire) moved to the Iron Age hillfort of Old Sarum,
probably soon after Wilton was sacked by Swein’s forces in 1003. Limited evidence
suggests that the existing Iron Age ramparts were augmented at this time. Sometime
early in the second decade of the eleventh century, the mint at Ilchester (Somerset) was
similarly moved to the hillfort at South Cadbury, where archaeological excavation has
 the age of æthelred 347

7.6 Cissbury Ring, near

Worthing, from the west. This
Iron Age hillfort was one of the
so-called ‘emergency burhs’ of
the later reign of King Æthelred

uncovered extensive refortification of the site in this period. Around the same time, a
new mint was established at Cissbury Ring (West Sussex), another Iron Age hillfort.
This apparently worked in close association with the mint at nearby Chichester rather
than replacing it.
It is in the context of these active measures against the growing Viking threat that one
of the most notorious episodes of Æthelred’s reign – the ‘St Brice’s Day Massacre’ – should
be understood. On 13 November 1002, Æthelred ordered that ‘all the Danish men who
were in England’ were to be slain as he had learned they were plotting his overthrow and
death. Further details are recorded in a charter of 1004 concerning the rebuilding of St
Frideswide’s church in Oxford. Danes are said ‘to have sprung up in this island, sprouting
like cockle amongst wheat’, and so they ‘were to be destroyed by a most just extermina-
tion’. When Æthelred’s orders were being carried out, the Danes in Oxford sought sanc-
tuary in St Frideswide’s; when they could not be forced out, the church was fired.
Æthelred’s orders cannot have been directed at the descendants of the Scandinavian
settlers of the ninth and early tenth centuries, who were by now well integrated into
7.7 Penny of King Æthelred
produced at the Cissbury mint
by the moneyer Ceolnoth
 348 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

English society and could scarcely be presented

as new arrivals. Æthelred must instead have
been targeting recent settlers, including those he
had paid to serve as mercenaries. Certainly, he
had reason to fear the loyalty of such individuals:
in 1001 Pallig, the brother-� in-�
law of Swein,
joined Viking forces attacking Devon, despite
the pledges he had given to Æthelred and the
treasures and lands he had received in return.
Recent excavations have uncovered the likely
remains of some of the victims of the ‘St Brice’s
Day Massacre’. At St Johns College, Oxford, a
mass grave of perhaps 35 individuals – all male,
with the majority in their twenties and thirties
– was discovered in 2008. Most of the skeletons
showed injuries to the back or to the skull,
consistent with being attacked from behind or
while prone; few had wounds typical of battle
injuries. A number of the bodies had also been
burnt before being dumped in the mass grave –
perhaps a consequence of the firing of St
Frideswide’s church. Carbon-Â� dating of the
remains was compatible with a date in the early
eleventh century. In 2009 an excavation at
Ridgeway Hill (Dorset) uncovered a mass grave
of 54 males, all of whom appeared to have been
7.8 Mass burials at St John’s executed in a brutal fashion, with the bodies decapitated and many bearing multiple
College, Oxford, probably of wounds. Isotope analysis of a number of the skeletons pointed to Scandinavian origins
victims of the St Brice’s Day
and carbon-�dating placed the burials in the tenth to eleventh centuries.
Massacre
The ‘St Brice’s Day Massacre’ was undoubtedly brutal in its execution and appears
in the Chronicle as the action of a paranoid ruler, seeing plots and treachery every-
where. Æthelred was also no doubt able to call on the hatred and aggression of an
English population that had by now endured decades of Viking attacks. Yet the
Massacre shows a king who was far from powerless in his own kingdom and far from
impotent in the face of the Viking threat. The location of the Ridgeway Hill burial pit
is also typical of Anglo-�Saxon execution cemeteries, suggesting there was potentially a
judicial dimension to the violence here. Moreover, as the St Frideswide’s charter makes
clear, such violence could be presented as the actions of a just ruler protecting his
people rather than as an episode of capricious and paranoid savagery.

Thorkell, Swein and the Ruin of Æthelred

In August 1009 an ‘immense raiding army’ led by Thorkell – a Dane who had served
under Swein – landed at Sandwich. For the compiler of the account in the Chronicle it
 the age of æthelred 349

was this army that finally broke the Anglo-�Saxon kingdom and paved the way for the
conquest by Swein of Denmark. The treachery and disunity that had thwarted previous
attempts to drive out the Vikings reach a crescendo as the Chronicle sets out a detailed
but at times curiously vague or evasive narrative of the collapse of Æthelred’s regime.
Key moments – the surrender of the north and the Midlands to Swein or the recall of
Æthelred from exile – are left largely unexplained and unexplored. The chief dynamic
of the account is the personalities, the animosities and the character flaws of those
involved, with Ealdorman Eadric the chief villain of the piece. Barely visible beneath
this account is a more complex narrative of political factions, rivalries at court, and
competitions for power between the sons of Æthelred. Though such a narrative can be
only partially reconstructed now, it is clear from Æthelred’s charters that the final
decade of his reign saw fundamental changes in the composition of his court and in
the structure of his regime.
In 1006 Ealdorman Ælfhelm of Northumbria was killed and his sons Wulfheah and
Ufegeat were blinded. Such marked the final, bloody end of the dominance at Æthelred’s
court of the group who had risen to prominence in the 990s. Some members of this
group, such as Æthelweard or Wulfric ‘Spot’, had ceased to attest Æthelred’s charters
some years before, while others, such as Ealdorman Æthelmær, the son of Æthelweard,
disappear around this time. The chief beneficiaries and perhaps architects of this
‘palace revolution’ – to use Simon Keynes’s oft-Â�cited phrase – were the family of Eadric.
They had been present at Æthelred’s court since the 990s at least but became the domi-
nant group in the final years of his reign. Eadric himself was appointed ealdorman of
Mercia in 1007 and by 1011 occupied a position of pre-Â�eminence as Æthelred’s chief
ealdorman. The final collapse of Æthelred’s regime was heavily bound up with the fall-
Â�out of this ‘palace revolution’ and the animosities and rivalries between the factions
involved.
The arrival of Thorkell’s army or a similar threat had evidently been expected by
Æthelred and his advisors. The previous year had seen an unprecedented militarisation
of England as well as the promulgation of a law code aimed at religious and moral
reform. Æthelred had ordered that ships be built throughout the kingdom, with every
310 hides supplying a warship and every eight hides supplying a helmet and corselet.
Despite Æthelred assembling the largest naval force ever seen, the Chronicle could still
gloomily report failure. At the muster, Brihtric, the brother of Ealdorman Eadric,
accused Wulfnoth Cild of unspecified offences and the latter seized 20 ships and
ravaged the coasts of Sussex. Brihtric’s pursuit with another 80 ships ended in disaster.
The ships dispersed and ‘the toil of all the nation thus lightly came to naught’. It was
then that Thorkell’s army arrived at Sandwich and, having been paid tribute by the
people of eastern Kent, ravaged along the south coasts.
In 1010 Thorkell and his army were held up for a time in East Anglia but eventually
reached the Thames Valley and the heartlands of Wessex. For the compiler of the
Chronicle by now all English resistance was at an end: ‘finally there was no leader who
could collect an army but each fled as best he could, and in the end no shire would
even help the next’. In the entry for 1011 the compiler resorted to giving a numbered
list of the regions overrun by the army, complaining that it was only after the Vikings
 350 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7.9 Selection of late tenth- or

eleventh-century Viking
weaponry recovered from
around London Bridge

had done great damage that truces were agreed and tribute paid. Even this did not stop
the violence and destruction. In the autumn, the army besieged Canterbury and,
having got inside the walls through treachery, took prisoner the archbishop of
Canterbury, Ælfheah. For the Chronicle, this was a devastating blow, a sign of just how
bad things now were: ‘there could misery be seen where happiness was often seen
before, in that wretched city from which first came to us Christianity and happiness in
divine and secular things’.
In 1012 a tribute of £48,000 was paid and finally the army dispersed, with Thorkell
committing himself and 45 ships to Æthelred. In a last moment of violence, Archbishop
Ælfheah was murdered. Having got drunk, his captors pelted Ælfheah with bones and
ox heads before one of them killed him with a single blow from the back of an axe.
According to the near-Â�contemporary account of Ælfheah’s murder in the Chronicle of
Thietmar of Merseburg, Thorkell himself tried to prevent the killing, promising gold,
silver and all of his possessions save his ship, but to no avail. Such a murder was shocking
even to a kingdom well used to violence and Ælfheah was soon venerated as a martyr.
The next year, 1013, Swein came again to England with a fleet, sailing first to
Sandwich, then up the Humber and the Trent to Gainsborough (Lincolnshire). Such
marked the beginnings of Swein’s conquest of England. Various motivations have been
sought for his actions – revenge for the ‘St Brice’s Day Massacre’, enmity towards
Thorkell and numerous others – but Swein probably needed no motivation other than
opportunity and capability. England was a rich and prosperous kingdom, capable of
raising vast sums to buy peace and pay off armies even after decades of Viking attacks.
Moreover, the dispersal of Thorkell’s fleet in the previous year would have made
considerable additional manpower available to Swein.
 the age of æthelred 351

Having arrived at Gainsborough, Swein accepted the surrender of Ealdorman

Uhtred and the Northumbrians and subsequently that of the people of Lindsey
(Lincolnshire), the Five Boroughs and all the forces north of Watling Street. Though
these areas had seen some of the most extensive Scandinavian settlement in the ninth
and tenth centuries, it is unlikely Swein was looking to capitalise on any latent ethnic
sympathies. Rather, the areas first captured by Swein were the heartlands of the party
of the late Ealdorman Ælfhelm and the Danish king may have deliberately exploited
hostility to Æthelred arising from the events of 1006. Certainly, it is likely to have been
at this point that Swein’s son, Cnut, married Ælfgifu of Northampton, Ælfhelm’s
daughter. Leaving the hostages he had received with Cnut, Swein moved south, first
unsuccessfully attacking London – where Æthelred and Thorkell were based – and
then receiving at Bath the surrender of the western provinces under Ealdorman
Æthelmær, who had recently come out of retirement. London finally submitted and
Æthelred fled, ultimately to the protection of his brother-Â�in-Â�law, Duke Richard II, in
Normandy.
However, although Swein had achieved his rapid conquest, his reign was short-�
lived: he died on 3 February 1014. The Danish army in England elected Cnut as king
and there is a possibility that Swein may also have nominated him earlier as his heir.
The Anglo-Â�Saxon nobility, however, invited Æthelred back from Normandy and
following negotiations extracted promises from him that he would ‘reform all the
things which they all hated; and all the things that had been said and done against him
should be forgiven’. Though by now Cnut had also secured the support of the men of
Lindsey, he was driven from Gainsborough by Æthelred’s forces and fled by sea.
If Æthelred was restored to the throne, nevertheless his authority quickly evapo-
rated. In 1015 the thegns Sigeferth and Morcar were killed at an assembly at Oxford,
through the treachery of Eadric according to the Chronicle. Æthelred then seized
their property and had Sigeferth’s widow seized and taken to Malmesbury (Wiltshire).
Given that Sigeferth and Morcar were based in the Midlands and the north, these
actions were probably revenge for the surrender of those regions to Swein – an indi-
cation that Æthelred’s promises of the previous year would only extend so far. It
must also be significant that Sigeferth and Morcar had ties to the faction that had
recently fallen from power – the after-Â�effects of the ‘palace revolution’ were still
being felt.
The killing of Sigeferth and Morcar provided the opportunity for Æthelred’s son by
his first wife Ælfgifu, Edmund ‘Ironside’, to make a bid for power in 1015. He married
Sigeferth’s widow and went north, taking control of the estates of the two thegns and
receiving the submission of the Five Boroughs. As with Swein, Edmund seems here to
have been capitalising on the disaffections of the faction that had lost out to Eadric and
his family in 1006. Edmund’s ties to this group were probably well established for his
brother, Æthelstan (d. c. 1014), had had close links with them and, indeed, Morcar
may have been one of his military retainers.
The reasons for Edmund’s rebellion against his father are not known but tensions
within the royal family must have played a part. Edmund’s half-Â�brother Edward, the
son of Æthelred by Emma of Normandy, was approaching his teens by this date and
352 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

already had acted as his father’s representative in the negotiations of 1014. Edward’s
claim to be Æthelred’s heir would have been further strengthened by the status and
connections of Emma and the fact that, unlike Edmund’s mother, she was a conse-
crated queen. Given that Æthelred’s health was already failing, Edmund must have felt
the need for urgency.
By this time, Cnut had returned to England and was ravaging Dorset, Wiltshire and
Somerset – the heartlands of Wessex. With Æthelred lying ill at Cosham (Portsmouth),
Edmund and Ealdorman Eadric raised armies to counter the threat from Cnut.
Eventually, Eadric betrayed Edmund and changed sides, taking with him 40 ships.
Thorkell probably defected at the same time. In 1016, on 23 April, Æthelred died.
Though Edmund for a time offered some resistance to Cnut, after a devastating defeat
at Ashingdon (Essex) in which, according to the Chronicle, ‘all the nobility of England
was . . . destroyed’, he was forced to accept terms and divide the kingdom. Edmund
succeeded to Wessex and the south, Cnut to Mercia and the north. When Edmund
died on 30 November, of causes unknown, Cnut succeeded to the whole kingdom of
England.

Religion, Repentance and the Renewal of Society

An account of the politics of Æthelred’s reign suggests a kingdom descending into
anarchy and chaos, with internal dissension, treachery, disloyalty and cowardice
leading inexorably to invasion and conquest. Such an account, while not inaccurate,
inevitably offers only one perspective on the period. Despite the significant political
problems, the reigns of Æthelred and Cnut were times of intense intellectual activity
and cultural achievement. Such can be seen across all spheres of creativity. Some of the
finest examples of Anglo-Â�Saxon manuscript illumination – such as the Benedictional of
St Æthelwold or the Ramsey Psalter – belong to this period. Innovative and accom-
plished wall paintings and sculptural programmes – such as the Crucifixion at Romsey
Abbey or the Christ in Majesty at Nether Wallop church, both in Hampshire – demon-
strate the skills of Anglo-�Saxon artists across a variety of media. Likewise, the majority
of the surviving Old English poetry, both religious and secular, was written down,
though not necessarily composed, in this period. The Beowulf manuscript is the most
famous example, but the crucially important compilations contained in the Junius
Manuscript, the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book are all products of the late tenth or
early eleventh centuries.
In part, this intellectual and cultural flowering was a product of the Benedictine
Reforms and the ties with Continental scholarship that had been fostered particularly
since the 930s. The immensely learned Abbo of Fleury (c. 945–1004), for example,
spent the years 985 to 987 at the newly founded monastery of Ramsey (Cambridgeshire).
His pupils there included Byrhtferth, whose Life of St Oswald has already been referred
to and was only one of a number of highly accomplished works written by him on
subjects ranging from computistics to hagiography. The Reforms had also enriched
many monasteries, providing them with the resources necessary to sustain large
communities of scholars. At the same time, this second generation of Reformers
 the age of æthelred 353

7.10 Crucifixion or rood on the

outside wall of the west
transept of Romsey Abbey. The
hand of God (‘manus dei’)
descending from the clouds
above Christ’s head has
parallels with tenth- and
eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts

sought to preserve the legacy and to defend the actions of the founders of the move-
ment – Dunstan, Oswald and Æthelwold – through the production of biographies and
other texts.
However, the very disruptions that beset England in this period provoked consid-
erable scholarly enterprise. Churchmen, their patrons and their rulers attempted to
understand the causes of these upheavals and to seek out remedies. This led to an
urgent cultivation of learning, as writers looked to the Bible and Christian literature, to
the Anglo-�Saxon past and to their own behaviour and the events around them, for
insight and guidance. Added to the problems specific to England was the growing
sense of eschatological expectation in the run-�up to the year 1000. Though such expec-
tations were far from universal in western Europe, they formed a significant intellec-
tual current, influential on some Anglo-�Saxon thinkers.
 354 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

The writings of two Anglo-� Saxon churchmen in particular

dominate the intellectual landscape of the late tenth and early
eleventh centuries: Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023) and Ælfric
of Eynsham (d. c. 1010). Both produced an extensive and varied
corpus of writings and, though Wulfstan was the more conspicuously
‘public’ figure of the two, both authors sought through their writings
to identify and to remedy the problems besetting England.
Ælfric was educated at Bishop Æthelwold’s school at Winchester
and he retained ties to that community throughout his life. His status
as an alumnus of an institution at the heart of the Benedictine
Reforms was central to the image of himself which he projected in
his writings and was a key source of his authorial authority. Ælfric is
unlikely to have joined Winchester as a child oblate for he writes of
having once had a teacher who could understand Latin only in part
(‘be dæle’) and could read the Old Testament only in a literal sense,
suggesting Ælfric received his earliest education outside the cloister.
Though Winchester was central to his intellectual development,
Ælfric began writing in earnest only in the later 980s after he was
transferred to the community at Cerne Abbas (Dorset) at the request
of Æthelmær, son of Ealdorman Æthelweard. It was while at Cerne
Abbas that Ælfric produced the bulk of his scholarly output, with
7.11 Walrus ivory carving of works including translations and adaptations of the Bible, an Old English grammar
Christ in Majesty from the first and glossary, pastoral letters setting out the responsibilities of secular clergy, a collec-
few decades of the eleventh
century. Executed in the
tion of the lives of saints venerated by Anglo-�Saxon monks and two collections of
Winchester Style, the carving sermons or homilies following the order of the liturgical year – the crucially important
also shows the influence of Catholic Homilies. In 1005 Ælfric became abbot of the monastery at Eynsham
Carolingian artistic traditions (Oxfordshire). Apparently intended as a place of retirement or temporary retreat, this
and was probably originally
community had been founded by Æthelmær after he had fallen from favour at
painted and gilded – traces of
blue pigment still remain Æthelred’s court. The date of Ælfric’s death is unknown but should probably be placed
around the year 1010.
Ælfric’s two series of Catholic Homilies, produced initially in the period c. 989–c.
995, offer a convenient distillation in Old English of authoritative Christian teachings.
In the first series, Ælfric aimed to provide a complete cycle of homilies for the litur-
gical year, in which the individual preacher’s role was primarily that of a reader. In the
second series, Ælfric envisaged a more active role for the preacher in selecting material
and shaping and adapting the homilies to his own needs and the needs of his audience.
The second series also incorporates more material aimed at the education of the clergy
themselves, with references to canonical injunctions concerning clerical celibacy or
the avoidance of secular business.
The Catholic Homilies presuppose a mixed or changing audience, addressing lay
people, the clergy and even monks at different times. The purpose of the Catholic
Homilies seems to have been to meet the pastoral needs of smaller and less well-�
resourced religious communities. Ælfric’s move from Winchester to Cerne Abbas took
him from the intellectual heart of the Anglo-�Saxon kingdom not to an intellectual
 the age of æthelred 355

backwater per se but to a community of more limited resources and abilities and one
more closely in contact with the small, and sometimes impoverished or underfunded,
religious houses and thegnly churches that provided pastoral care for increasing
numbers of the population. There was an urgent need for such communities to be
provided with the basic intellectual resources that would allow them to fulfil their
pastoral obligations.
If the primary purpose of the Catholic Homilies was as preaching tools, Ælfric may
also have intended them to be suitable for private, personal reading and meditation by
clerics and monks and literate members of the lay community. If so, there would be a
connection here with his Lives of the Saints. In the preface to this work, Ælfric records
that not only have Æthelweard and Æthelmær often read his works in Old English but
that they have now asked him to provide a translation of the Lives of the saints vener-
ated in the monastic liturgy. Such may suggest that Ælfric’s lay patrons were actively
embracing aspects of monastic piety and religious observance alongside more tradi-
tional forms of lay religiosity. Other laymen also requested works from Ælfric, such as
the Old English summary and abridgement of the Bible written for Sigeweard of
Asthall or the letter concerning clerical celibacy written to Sigefyrth. Ælfric’s learning
and opinions were clearly much sought after by a religiously engaged and literate lay
nobility.
Concern for pastoral care and for the religious needs of the laity was a vital part of
Ælfric’s engagement with his own society, but his engagement with contemporary
issues went beyond this. Particularly in the later years of life, and especially after his
move to Eynsham, Ælfric referred both implicitly and explicitly to the political diffi-
culties facing England and to remedies that were required. His homily on the Prayer of
Moses, for example, explicitly contrasted the current situation – disease, starvation and
invasion by a heathen people – with the peace and prosperity that had formerly existed
in times when monastic life was respected and the people were vigilant. Through the
example of Judas Maccabeus, Ælfric reminded his readers of the need to keep their
word and to fight against the enemy. God would reward with victory those who were
faithful and steadfast in their resistance. Ælfric even engaged with royal policy. The
text known as Wyrdwriteras provided biblical and historical exemplars for rulers who
had successfully delegated military matters to their noblemen – Ælfric uses the term
‘ealdormen’. Given the repeated treachery and failings of ealdormen recorded in the
Chronicle, such a policy presumably required some defence. Ælfric may also have
offered criticism, albeit veiled, of some royal actions. His discussion of the penance
performed by the fourth-� century Emperor Theodosius following a massacre at
Thessalonica may have contained implicit judgement on the morality of the ‘St Brice’s
Day Massacre’.
Little is known of the career of Wulfstan outside of his clerical appointments.
He was made bishop of London in 996, archbishop of York in 1002 and at the same
time bishop of Worcester, holding the archiepiscopacy until his death in 1023 and the
episcopacy of Worcester until at least 1016 and probably for some time afterwards.
Wulfstan’s earliest writings were homilies, both in Old English and in Latin, but it was
as the author of a series of law codes issued in the names of Æthelred and Cnut, as well
356 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

as treatises on status and the right order of society, that Wulfstan made his mark on
eleventh-�century society.
Wulfstan’s vision of society as explored in his writings, together with the public
pronouncements he made in the name of the kings he served, have influenced in
highly significant ways modern understanding of the reigns of Æthelred and Cnut. For
a long time, such influence was to the detriment of the reputation of Æthelred and his
court. The law codes produced by Wulfstan were long seen as one more sign of a
fundamental national malaise, indicative of a general failure to adopt appropriate
responses in the face of the Viking threat – an attempt to chase off the Vikings with
‘pious moans’, as Eric John acerbically put it.
Yet such is to misunderstand the thought processes of the tenth and eleventh centu-
ries and to apply anachronistic categories and definitions to the evidence. The law
codes associated with Wulfstan do certainly contain elements that read like pious
exhortations or homilies rather than law as it might be understood in a modern
context. Yet this is precisely because the boundaries between homily and law were, if
not meaningless in the tenth and eleventh centuries, then at least difficult to draw
precisely. Both genres were concerned with establishing order and harmony in society,
and for writers like Wulfstan, law was a continuum, embracing the decrees of God and
the decrees of the king. Such was not just because the king was the Lord’s anointed but
also because a just king would follow the precepts of God and the teachings of the
Church. The harmony that flowed from a well-�ordered society would further the
promotion of Christianity and ensure the stability of the monarch. Nor were there
clear distinctions between liturgical ceremonies such as royal consecrations – where
the king pledged to uphold justice, to support the Church and to obey the word of God
– and the promulgation of royal law, which could also be understood as a series of
public undertakings and commitments by the king about the nature of his rule.
Within such a vision of society, the Vikings appeared less the causes of the upheavals
and disruptions plaguing England and more the symptoms of fundamental and deep-�
seated problems. In a sense, the works of Wulfstan are part of the same tradition as
those of Alcuin of York and Alfred the Great on the Viking threat in the eighth and
ninth centuries – indeed, Wulfstan is known to have studied closely the writings of
Alcuin on the Vikings. Such sensibilities were sharpened and refined by the eschato-
logical tensions surrounding the turning of the year 1000. The earliest writings of
Wulfstan are shot through with millennial anxiety and with fears about the approaching
reign of Antichrist and the times of tribulation that are to come. Wulfstan’s early homi-
lies, belonging to the end of the tenth century, note that some of the signs of the coming
of Antichrist have already been seen in England and stress the need for men to prepare
their minds and souls better to withstand the approaching tribulations.
As the millennial anxieties declined after the year 1000, Wulfstan carried over the
sense of the urgent need for action that such fears had provoked into a programme for
the reform of Christian society. Such was intended not so much to prepare society for
the unavoidable trials that were to come at the end of days as to strengthen it and shore
it up against disorder and dissension. The Vikings feature more prominently in
Wulfstan’s later writings, but they are most often a reflection or a consequence of the
 the age of æthelred 357

problems that beset the English – their sins, their moral cowardice, their debauchery
– not the actual cause of these problems.
Wulfstan’s thinking exerted a direct and profound influence on royal discourse.
The laws promulgated in Æthelred’s name at Enham (Hampshire) in 1008 – now
surviving in a series of different versions and languages – were the first royal code for
which Wulfstan was in large parts responsible. The Enham decrees are among
the most homiletic of Wulfstan’s codes, offering general principles about what should
be done – ‘men of every order are each to submit willingly to that duty which
befits them both in religious and in secular concerns’ – rather than specific and
detailed legislation. The intentions were to bring order and harmony to society, to
ensure that justice was done and illegal practices abolished. The peace and harmony
meant to result from these decrees were not a means to avoid conflict – to chase off the
Vikings – but were a way to ensure success in that conflict. As such, these measures
should be placed alongside Æthelred’s ship-Â�building programme of the same year,
designed as preparation for the arrival of Thorkell’s army or for a threat of similar
magnitude.
When Thorkell’s army did arrive in 1009, Wulfstan was again responsible for the
production of a law code – now known as VII Æthelred. This decreed three days of
national fasting, general penance and the giving of alms. Even slaves were to be freed
from work to attend Mass during this period. This code has to be seen not as the last
desperate measures of a regime that had been overrun but as the amplification and
extension of what had been attempted at Enham, given greater urgency and force by
the particular circumstances. Moreover, the remedies set out by the law code were
long-�established responses to Viking attacks and to other calamities and would have
been understood as such by contemporaries. Indeed, Æthelred’s repentance in the
990s for his youthful misdeeds may have been intended as a programme of public,
royal penance aimed at stemming the growing Viking menace. The continuation of
such attacks and the crisis of 1009 called for an escalation in response and for the insti-
gation of a national programme of penance.
The ideals of such an endeavour may have been embodied in a new coinage, the
‘Agnus Dei’ pennies. On these coins, the royal portrait was replaced by the Agnus Dei
(the Lamb of God) – perhaps intended here as a symbol of peace – while the reverse
featured a bird with wings outspread, either the dove of peace or a symbol of the Holy

7.12 ‘Agnus Dei’-type penny of

King Æthelred, produced by the
moneyer Blacaman at Derby
 358 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Spirit. Only a small number of these coins has

been found, suggesting they were a special issue
rather than general currency.
The best-Â�known of Wulfstan’s works and one
of the few that specifically names him as the
author is the Sermon of the Wolf to the English.
This was probably first delivered in 1014 and now
survives in three versions of differing length. The
order of these versions remains unclear but it
seems likely that the shortest version is the earliest
and that Wulfstan returned to the sermon on a
number of occasions, adding to it and editing it as
the situation changed and his thinking developed.
For a sermon delivered during, and probably
again in the aftermath of, Æthelred’s exile at the
hands of Swein, the virtual absence of references
to the Vikings is striking. Instead, the sermon
concentrates on the sins committed by the English
– despoiling churches, oppressing the poor,
denying rights and justice and, greatest of all,
treachery to one’s lord, under which heading
Wulfstan places the murder of King Edward and
the driving into exile of Æthelred. Such sins had
resulted in numerous disasters and calamities:
ruination at the hands of robbers – possibly the
Vikings are meant here – famine, the failure of
crops, disease, pestilence and oppressive taxation.
The longest version of the sermon closes with
a reference to Gildas and his account of how the
sins of the Britons ‘angered God so excessively
7.13 Opening of the earliest that finally he allowed the army of the English to conquer their land and to destroy the
manuscript of the Sermon of host of the Britons entirely’. This offered a dire historical precedent for the worst that
the Wolf to the English. The could happen if the English did not repent of their sins and reform their ways. It was,
Latin rubric includes the date
of course, exactly what did happen in 1016. Yet Wulfstan’s vision of the ordering of
1014 and the manuscript
features a number of Christian society and the obligations of Christian kingship was embraced by Cnut, and
annotations, possibly in the law codes produced in his reign represent the summation of Wulfstan’s homiletic
Wulfstan’s own hand and legislative activity. Cnut’s codes of 1020, drafted by Wulfstan, were the last royal
law codes issued in the Anglo-�Saxon period and would subsequently be copied and
studied intensely after the Norman Conquest.

The Reign of Cnut

The events of 1066 loom large in the English historical consciousness in a way that the
events of 1016 do not. Cnut’s conquest is very much the forgotten conquest of the elev-
 the age of æthelred 359

enth century. This relative neglect is partly a product of the paucity of the surviving
sources. The Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, so loquacious for the reign of Æthelred, particu-
larly its final years, has far less to say about the reign of Cnut. Though charters were
issued in Cnut’s name, only 36 are now extant, and this figure includes numerous
forgeries. Moreover, charters are absent for particularly crucial periods of Cnut’s reign,
most notably the late 1020s to early 1030s. To the charters can be added an additional
eight writs – much shorter documents written in Old English – and three law codes,
along with two letters written to the people of England in Cnut’s name.
Other narrative sources can round out the picture, but such texts bring with them
their own particular interpretative difficulties. The most significant of these texts is the
so-�called Encomium Emmae Reginae. Despite the title, this source is less a poem in
praise of Queen Emma and more an encomium on the reign of Cnut and his son
Harthacnut. Commissioned by Emma, the widow of Æthelred and subsequently wife of
Cnut, the Encomium was written by a Flemish monk in the 1040s, and though it is a
vital source for the events of the eleventh century it is curiously evasive and reticent at
times – Emma’s marriage to Æthelred is not mentioned, for example. Such surely
reflects the complex political situations Emma herself was forced to negotiate throughout
her life and the changes of allegiance these shifting circumstances necessitated.
Far more than the exiguous source material, it is the continuity between Cnut’s reign
and those of his predecessors that explains why his conquest is so little remembered.
Compared to the upheavals that were a consequence of the Norman Conquest, the

7.14 Opening pages of the

Encomium Emmae Reginae.
Queen Emma receives the
manuscript of the poem (left)
 360 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

transition between Æthelred, Edmund and Cnut

seems far less dramatic. Changes did take place across
a range of areas, but under the influence of figures like
Archbishop Wulfstan, Cnut sought to rule England in
the style of an English king, presenting himself explic-
itly as the restorer of the order and justice that had
existed during the reign of Edgar.
Though post-�Conquest sources would stress that
Cnut gained the kingship of the entirety of England
under the terms of his agreement with Edmund
Ironside and with the consent of the Anglo-�Saxon
nobility, Cnut’s earliest actions suggest an uneasy
ruler, uncertain of his position. In 1017 Cnut divided
England into four parts, assigning East Anglia to
Thorkell, Mercia to Eadric, and Northumbria to Eric
– a Norwegian who had played a central role in the
campaigns that led to Cnut’s conquest. Cnut kept
Wessex for himself. This division of power was
presumably intended to cement the loyalty of three of
the most powerful figures in the kingdom, all of
whom were potential rivals to Cnut or, particularly in
Eadric’s case, possible foci of resistance. How long
such an arrangement lasted is unclear. At any rate,
Eadric was killed in the same year, in a purge that also
saw the deaths of Northman, son of Ealdorman
Leofwine, Æthelweard, son of Ealdorman Æthelmær,
and Brihtric, son of Ælfheah of Devonshire.
Alongside members of the Anglo-�Saxon nobility,
Æthelred’s sons and grandsons also remained a threat
to Cnut’s rule. Eadwig, the son of Æthelred by his first
7.15 King Cnut and Queen consort Ælfgifu of York, was driven into exile in 1017 and probably killed soon after-
Ælfgifu in the New Minster wards, while Edward and Alfred, Æthelred’s sons by Emma, went into exile in
Liber Vitae. An angel crowns
Cnut while pointing to God,
Normandy. Edmund Ironside’s sons, Edward and Edmund, were likewise exiled to the
indicating Divine approval of Continent, ending up eventually in Hungary having escaped attempts by Cnut to have
Cnut’s kingship. Cnut’s them murdered.
appearance is reminiscent, It was also in 1017 that Cnut married Æthelred’s widow, Emma. The Chronicle
probably deliberately so, of
simply records Cnut ordering her ‘to be fetched as his wife’, while the Encomium
manuscript depictions of King
Edgar presents a suitable bride for Cnut being sought far and wide until Emma, ‘a famous
queen’, was found in Normandy. Such a marriage would have furthered Cnut’s legiti-
macy as a ruler, as well as countering the danger of Norman support for Emma’s sons
by Æthelred. Emma’s role in all this is difficult to determine. The Encomium presents
her as refusing marriage to Cnut ‘unless he would affirm to her by oath, that he would
never set up the son of any wife other than herself to rule after him’ and praises her
prudency in looking to secure the legacy of future sons. Such may suggest Emma was
 the age of æthelred 361

aware of her value to Cnut and drove a hard bargain. Certainly, she appears as a figure
of considerable power and authority in Cnut’s reign, with post-Â�Conquest sources even
claiming she acted as a regent during Cnut’s absence from England. On the other hand,
the Encomiast’s words may speak more to the struggles between Emma’s son
Harthacnut and his half-Â�brother Harold Harefoot after Cnut’s death than to the
circumstances of 1017.
The various events of 1017 look to have left Cnut more secure on his throne and in
1018, having collected a vast tribute of some £82,500, he finally disbanded his army,
keeping only 40 ships. In the same year, the Chronicle notes that ‘the Danes and the
English reached an agreement at Oxford’. The text of this agreement or a law code
promulgated in its aftermath survives. The work of Archbishop Wulfstan, this text
draws extensively on earlier Anglo-�Saxon legislation and notes that all have pledged to
observe and uphold the laws of King Edgar. This was not simply presenting Cnut’s
kingship as the continuation of existing practices. Rather it was connecting Cnut’s rule
directly with the reign of Edgar, a time by then seen as a Golden Age of Anglo-�Saxon
kingship. Further deliberations were promised by the code and the result of these may
inform the two law codes promulgated in the early 1020s, codes that both bear the
imprint of Archbishop Wulfstan.
If legal texts stress continuity, nevertheless there were significant changes in royal
administration and governance during Cnut’s rule. Most notable is a lack of continuity
in personnel from Æthelred’s reign to Cnut’s. Unsurprisingly, at the beginning of his
reign, Cnut advanced Scandinavians to positions of authority. Up to the late 1020s,
Cnut’s ealdormen – or earls, as they were now increasingly known – were almost
exclusively Scandinavian. Many, such as Eric or Ulfr, were related to Cnut by marriage
and most had presumably played a part in Cnut’s conquest of England. A few Anglo-Â�
Saxon ealdormen did hold onto their power, albeit mostly briefly. Only Leofwine,
ealdorman of the Hwicce since the 990s, retained his position into the mid-�1020s and
this despite the killing of his son, Northman, in 1017.
By the early 1030s, this situation had dramatically altered. The final years of Cnut’s
reign saw the pre-�eminence of Anglo-�Saxon earls. Most significant among these was
Earl Godwine, whose rise to prominence began in Cnut’s reign and whose son Harold
would eventually be crowned king of England. Leofwine’s son Leofric also rose rapidly
in this period and his family would subsequently rival Godwine’s in power and influ-
ence. The combined effect of the reigns of Æthelred and Cnut was thus to end the
power of the old, long-Â�established Anglo-Â�Saxon aristocracy. It was the ‘new men’ and
their families, principally raised up under Cnut, who would dominate the final decades
of Anglo-�Saxon England.
Lower down the scale, Scandinavians likewise dominated the ranks of thegns and
ministri, though significant numbers of Anglo-�Saxons also held such office. Despite
the presence of these Anglo-�Saxon thegns it is, again, the lack of continuity that is most
striking. Very few can be shown to have survived from Æthelred’s reign and such
continuity as there is was restricted largely to two particular groups or factions. One
centred on Odda of Gloucestershire, whose career stretched from the reign of Æthelred
to that of Edward the Confessor. The other was that of the family and associates of
 362 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Ælfgar ‘Mæw’, also based in the south west. Again, the power of this group persisted
through the reigns of Æthelred to Edward the Confessor. The survival, indeed, the
flourishing of these two groups under Cnut cannot now be easily explained, though
presumably they were being rewarded for having transferred their loyalty to Cnut early
in his campaigns of conquest. That both groups had links with the faction that fell
from power in the final decade of Æthelred’s reign may also be of significance.
Though there were significant changes in the make-�up of the aristocracy, there is
far less evidence for the expropriation of land or for the redistribution of estates –
particularly in comparison with the Norman Conquest. Such may be partly explained
by Cnut’s use of money and treasure – the vast tribute of 1018 – to reward his followers
rather than grants of land. Certain areas did, however, see significant settlement of
Scandinavians under Cnut and some concomitant changes in land ownership.
Settlement seems to have been particularly extensive in the West Midlands. The bishop
of Worcester, Lyfing, famously addressed ‘all the thegns in Worcestershire, both
English and Danish’ in a charter of c. 1042, and similar salutations were used in other
documents from the region. Expropriations of land by Earl Hakon, both from the
monks of Worcester and from laymen in the diocese, are recorded in the late eleventh-�
century document known as Hemming’s Cartulary – though such seizures seem to
have been on a more limited scale than Hemming’s account suggests.
Certain of Cnut’s Scandinavian followers are known to have had extensive land-
holdings in England. The thegn Tofi, for example, held lands in Berkshire, Hertfordshire,

7.16 Rectangular grave slab

from St Paul’s London, with
Scandinavian Ringerike-style
decoration. The Old Norse runic
inscription records that Ginna
and Toki set up the stone
 the age of æthelred 363

Somerset, Surrey and Essex, and founded or refounded a church at Waltham (Essex),
giving to it a stone crucifix said to have been discovered on his estate at Montacute
(Somerset). Other followers seem to have been of more local importance but
still controlled significant estates in their region, such as Orc, known to have owned
a number of estates in Dorset which he subsequently used to endow the monastery
at Abbotsbury. Urban areas also saw settlement. A naval garrison, for example,
was stationed at Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, the members of which
seem to have played an important role in the governance and administration of
London.
The nature and structure of Cnut’s regime in England were shaped also by his
extensive interests in Scandinavia. Much of his reign was spent consolidating his
control over the kingdom of Denmark and expanding his power elsewhere in the
region, particularly Norway. Cnut was in Denmark in the winter and spring of 1019–
20, probably to secure the throne after the death of his brother Harald, and he returned
to Denmark again in 1023 and campaigned repeatedly in Scandinavia in the late 1020s.
Cnut also had to deal with the powerful Holy Roman Emperors whose territory
bordered Denmark. Cnut’s presence in Rome in 1027 when Emperor Conrad II was
crowned is unlikely to have been coincidental, although Cnut also used the trip to
negotiate the protection of English pilgrims and merchants travelling to the Continent.
The Continental campaigns of Cnut offered an obvious route of advancement for
his followers. Godwine, for example, is known to have gained Cnut’s particular favour
as a result of his service during one of the king’s campaigns in Denmark, probably that
of 1023. Cnut’s repeated absences from England also forced him to rely heavily on a
small number of individuals to protect his interests. Thorkell probably acted as regent
during Cnut’s time in Denmark in 1019–20, and Godwine is likely to have fulfilled a
similar role later in Cnut’s reign. Even with such regents, Cnut’s absences threatened
the stability of his rule in England. Some kind of revolt took place in 1019–20, for on
his return to England Cnut outlawed Ealdorman Æthelweard and Eadwig, ‘king of the
ceorls’ – about whom nothing else is known unless he was the son of Æthelred of the
same name. Thorkell may have been implicated in some way for he was outlawed by
Cnut the following year, although the two were reconciled in 1023.
The aspect of Cnut’s rule that made the greatest impact on the sources was, however,
his religious benefaction. Cnut appears in the sources as a particularly generous bene-
factor, even for a king, and as a ruler of particular personal piety. The Encomium
Emmae Reginae, for example, describes the lavish gifts he bestowed on the monastery
of St Omer in France and how he approached the altar there kissing the pavement,
beating his breast and weeping. The New Minster, Winchester, received a vast cross of
gold and silver, containing numerous relics, and other churches and monasteries were
similarly enriched.
If Cnut’s religious benefaction was lavish, it was not indiscriminate. Christ Church
Canterbury and the communities at Winchester, for example, were particularly
prominent beneficiaries, while the bishopric of London was one of the notable losers.
Not only is Cnut known to have expropriated at least one of its estates – that at
Southminster – but he directed his favour and patronage to the neighbouring
 364 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

community at Westminster, bestowing on it a number of important relics. Cnut’s

treatment of the bishopric of London presumably reflects the support that the city and
its bishop had offered to Æthelred and, subsequently, to Edmund. The naval garrison
at Southwark may be a further indication of Cnut’s uncertainty about the loyalty of
London.
Such concerns may be one of the reasons Cnut chose to translate the remains of the
martyred Archbishop Ælfheah from London to Canterbury in 1023. The cult of an
archbishop murdered by Vikings would form an obvious focus of resistance to Cnut’s
rule, and this removal not only transferred the body from a city whose loyalty Cnut
may have questioned but, by patronising the cult himself, Cnut could potentially also
neutralise its damaging connotations. Similar reasons may lie behind Cnut’s patronage
of the cult of St Edmund, the East Anglian king killed by Vikings in the 860s. The cult
of Edward the Martyr was likewise particularly promoted by Cnut, though whether
this was to blacken the name of Æthelred – for Æthelred may have been implicated in
the murder – or to stress continuity with him – Æthelred was a patron of Edward’s cult
– is not clear.
Cnut’s death on 12 November 1035 precipitated a struggle for the English throne
between two of his sons, Harthacnut and Harold Harefoot. The former was supported
by his mother Emma, as well as by Godwine, while the latter was supported by his
mother Ælfgifu of Northampton and Earl Leofric. Eventually, at a meeting in Oxford,
the kingdom was divided between the two brothers, with Harthacnut ruling the south
and Harold the north. Such an agreement was, however, reached in Harthacnut’s
absence – he had not returned from Denmark where he was establishing his power as
king. Harthacnut’s continued absence in the years following meant Harold became de
facto king of the whole of England and Emma fled to Bruges. It was only on Harold’s

7.17 St Mary’s Church,

Breamore. The layout and
much of the surviving fabric of
the church are late
Anglo-Saxon. The porch
features a low-relief crucifixion
scene, while an archway in the
nave bears the Old English
inscription ‘HER SǷUTELAÐ
SEO GECǷYDRÆDNES ÐE’,
‘Here is manifested the
covenant to you’ (or perhaps
‘Here is manifested the
covenant which…’)
 the age of æthelred 365

death in 1040 that Harthacnut was able to claim the English throne – among his first
actions was to have Harold’s body dug up and thrown into the marshes.

Wealth, Social Mobility and the Rise of the ‘Gentry’

The renewed Viking attacks that culminated in Cnut’s conquest were but the most
obvious sign of a world that had descended into disorder and sin. Archbishop Wulfstan
could discern many others. The social order was coming apart, the boundaries between
different ranks and statuses were becoming blurred and difficult to distinguish:

Once it used to be that people and rights went by dignities, and councillors of the
people were then entitled to honour, each according to his rank, whether noble or
ceorl, retainer or lord.

The text from which this lament comes – Gethynctho or Concerning the Dignities and
Laws of the People – is part of a series of works exploring rank and status that were
assembled, edited and extended by Wulfstan. It goes on to set out how a ceorl used to
attain the status and rights of a thegn if he had five hides of land, a bell-�house, church,
kitchen, gate-Â�house (‘burhgeat’) and an office at the king’s court. A trader was similarly
entitled to the rights of a thegn if he undertook three sea crossings at his own expense,
while a lengthier list stipulated the requirements for a thegn to achieve the status of an
earl. Another text in this collection, Northleoda laga or the Laws of the Northern People,
similarly notes that a ceorl who possessed five hides of land was to have the status of a
thegn but ‘even if he prospers so that he possesses a helmet and a coat of mail and a
gold-Â�plated sword, if he has not the land, he is a ceorl all the same’.

7.18 Luxuria tempts warriors

to abandon their weapons and
give themselves over to
pleasure and indulgence. From
a late-tenth-century
manuscript of Prudentius’
Pyschomachia, a poem
describing the battle between
the virtues and vices
 366 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Wulfstan’s compilation on status was a reaction to an increasing social mobility in

late Anglo-�Saxon England and to a growing tendency for those lower down the social
hierarchy to emulate the lifestyles and mores of their supposed social betters. Such was
accompanied by a growth in conspicuous consumption and display, with the powerful
and socially ambitious expressing their status more and more through ostentatious
clothing and feasting. Indeed, it was in the tenth and eleventh centuries that the Old
English word ‘rice’ came to mean not simply ‘powerful’, as it had done, but also some-
thing closer to ‘rich’ – power and wealth were becoming the same thing. What Wulfstan
was seeking to do was to restore a putative former social order, to ensure that only
certain routes to advancement were open. His enterprise was as much historical as it
was legal.
Though the late tenth and eleventh centuries saw the rise to pre-�eminence of a new
‘super rich’ – particularly the families of Godwine and Leofwine – it was the emergence
and growth of a class of lesser, local landowners – a gentry class – that particularly
marked out this period. Of the approximately five thousand individuals listed in
Domesday Book as owning land in 1066, perhaps only one hundred held lands more
extensive than 40 hides and very few held lands throughout the kingdom. The economic
base of this emerging gentry class can be explored in some detail through landscape
archaeology and the excavation of settlements, along with the written record.
The later Anglo-�Saxon period saw the development of new types of estates and
landholdings and the formation of new settlement types. In the early and middle
Anglo-�Saxon periods, estates were large and comprised sometimes widely dispersed

7.19 The Hurbuck Hoard. A

late ninth- or tenth-century
collection of agricultural and
woodworking tools, plus a
sword and seax
 the age of æthelred 367

7.20 Development of the

estate of Shapwick in the later
Anglo-Saxon period.
Fragmentation of the larger
estates (above); process of
settlement nucleation at
eventual village of Shapwick
(below)

holdings, with resources drawn from a wide area of the landscape – the so-Â�called
‘multiple estate’ model. Though such estates continued into the later Anglo-Â�Saxon
period in certain areas – the north in particular – from the tenth century onwards, and
possibly earlier, many of these estates were broken up, with smaller, discrete holdings
being carved out of them. In some cases these new holdings were named after their
owners, as with Woolstone (Berkshire) named for the thegn Wulfric (‘Wulfricestun’)
or East Garston (Berkshire) named for Esgar (‘Esgareston’). The break-Â�up of the
multiple estates was frequently accompanied by nucleation, with dispersed farmsteads
abandoned and settlement concentrated into new villages, often with regularly laid-
�out plots, separated by ditches, and the establishment of open fields.
The best understood example of these processes in action is the manor at Shapwick
in Somerset. This had been given to Glastonbury in the eighth century as part of a
larger 60-�hide grant that also included what was to become the manor of Wilton. In
the second half of the tenth century, Shapwick was divided up into six separate estates,
of around 5 hides each, that became the villages of Woolavington, Cossington, Chilton
Polden, Edington, Catcott and Shapwick. The division seems to have been carefully
planned and designed to ensure that each of these smaller units had access to water,
pasture and the other necessary natural resources. At the same time, numerous
scattered settlements were abandoned and new nucleated villages established. In what
 368 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

was to become the village of Shapwick itself, earlier settlements strung out along the
higher ground were succeeded by a single village, aligned roughly north–south, to the
west of the pre-�existing church. Two open fields were established to the east and the
west of the new village, and much of the woodland to the north was cleared to provide
meadows and pasture.
Excavations and surveying in the region of Raunds in Northamptonshire uncov-
ered evidence for similar developments in the landscape. In the later ninth to tenth
centuries, settlements and farmsteads dispersed along the slopes of the Nene Valley
was established and occupation shifted to the sites of the later medieval villages and
hamlets. Around the middle of the tenth century at Furnells a grid of rectangular plots
was established around the pre-�existing enclosed farm or seigneurial complex. These
plots look to have been carefully laid out using a regular system of measurement, with
widths of 4 and 8 rods and lengths of 10 and 20 rods (approximately 20, 40, 50 and 100
metres respectively) producing half-�acre plots.
The reasons for the fragmentation of the larger multiples estates are not fully
understood. The tenth century certainly had an active land market but whether this
was a catalyst or a consequence of change is unclear. The Church may have been one
of the driving forces of reorganisation – Glastonbury Abbey was presumably behind
the division of the Shapwick estate and the subsequent settlement nucleation.
Landscape reorganisation in the aftermath of the West Saxon conquest of Scandinavian
territory is another possibility. The developments at Furnells would fit roughly into
this chronology, with the laying out of regular, enclosed plots taking place after West
Saxon gains in the mid-�920s. Whatever the causes, the pooling of labour, resources
7.21 Layout of plots at
Furnells
 the age of æthelred 369

7.22 Sundial, St Andrew’s

Church, Bishopstone, Sussex,
probably from ninth to
mid-tenth century. The
inscription reads ‘EADRIC’, or
possibly ‘EADRIG’, presumably
the patron for whom the
sundial was produced

and expertise that would have been a consequence of these developments would have
facilitated an intensification of agricultural production and an increase in efficiency.
As has been seen, Wulfstan’s tract Gethynctho provides an indication of what the
lordly residences of such estates would have looked like, with their complex of build-
ings and defensive structures. If such description was likely idealised, nevertheless a
number of sites have been excavated that closely resemble it. The lordly complex at
Goltho in Lincolnshire has already been discussed and it increased significantly in
size in the early eleventh century, suggesting either a change in ownership or an
improvement in the owner’s status. Similar complexes have been found at Portchester
and Faccombe Netherton (both Hampshire) and at Furnells (Northamptonshire).
At Bishopstone (Sussex), a courtyard range with an aisled hall also included a
cellared wooden tower, which may have acted as a granary or strong-�room and also
invites comparisons with the bell house of Gethynctho. It is not clear whether the
complex at Bishopstone was secular or ecclesiastical; it was certainly owned by the
bishopric of Selsey (hence the place name) and the buildings were just to the north
of what is now St Andrew’s church, parts of which were constructed in the ninth
or tenth century. On the other hand, the complex may have been built to house a
reeve or other official appointed by the bishopric to manage their interests in
Bishopstone.
The gate-�house (burh-�geat) of Gethynctho has proved harder to identify in the
material record. One possibility is that a number of surviving late Anglo-�Saxon towers
could have carried out such a role. At Earls Barton (Northamptonshire), the church
tower dates to the later tenth century and in addition to religious functions it could
have acted as a defensible entry point into an enclosed complex. A similar function is
possible for what is now the west tower of St Michael’s Northgate in Oxford.
 370 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7.23 West tower of St Michael

Northgate, Oxford

Churches, as were required of the socially ambitious ceorl of Gethynctho, have been
identified on a number of sites and the tenth and eleventh centuries were, in general,
periods of intensive church-�building. At some point after 950, a small church was built
to the east of the lordly complex at Furnells. The graveyard of this church served the
whole of the village but a number of the graves were marked by stone grave-Â�covers –
one also originally had a free-Â�standing cross – and were presumably the burials
of the lordly proprietor and his family. Other examples of such churches include
those at Goltho (Lincolnshire), Faccombe Netherton (Hampshire) and Sulgrave
(Northamptonshire); it is possible that the stone tower at Portchester fulfilled a similar
role as it was the focus of a number of burials.
 the age of æthelred 371

Alongside these changes in landscape and settlement, written sources from later
Anglo-�Saxon England also show a concern for the proper and efficient management of
rural estates. Texts set out the roles, duties and obligations of different classes of
workers and the qualities that should be looked for in estate managers and other offi-
cials. Some texts, such as that known as Gerefa (The Reeve), seem to be less practical
guides and more literary productions. The Reeve includes rhyme and alliteration and
seems in places simply to be lists of technical vocabulary. Likewise, despite setting out
what are claimed to be the appropriate times and seasons for the different agricultural
activities, there are numerous omissions and the activities seem to have been selected
for stylistic rather than practical reasons. The influence on the text of Classical authors
such as Cato and Columella further points to a classroom setting rather than an agri-
cultural one.
Some texts were, however, intended as practical documents. A number of estate
surveys survive from the later Anglo-�Saxon period, such as those for Tidenham
(Gloucestershire) and Hurstbourne Priors (Hampshire) or that now known as the
Rectitudines singularum personarum, perhaps connected with the abbey of Bath. These
record the dues owed by the tenants of the estate and the labour services they must
carry out. The ceorls at Hurstbourne, for example, paid 40 pence, three sesters of bread
wheat and six mittan of ale at the autumn equinox. They were also expected to plough
and sow 3 acres, mow half an acre of meadow and make a rick, and supply and stack 4
fothers of wood and 16 poles of fencing, as well as to undertake such weekly work as
they were bidden (though they did get midwinter, Easter and Rogationtide off). Such
texts suggest attempts to record and to regularise disparate practices, presumably to
increase the ease and efficiency of estate management. Standardisation could, however,
only go so far. The Rectitudines singularum personarum noted that specific customs
varied from estate to estate and that these long-�established practices should continue
to be respected.
For Wulfstan, it was the ownership of land and the holding of royal office that were
the only legitimate route to social betterment. Unsurprisingly, his treatises on status
have little to say about the other, improper ways in which individuals attempted social
advancement. Yet, as the Laws of the Northern People reject the idea that material
possessions alone – gold-Â�plated swords and coats of mail – were sufficient for advance-
ment, such must have been the way many attempted to improve their station in life.
Certainly, the theme of ostentatious display runs through much evidence from later
Anglo-�Saxon England.
Clothing offered one key way in which status could be displayed or claimed.
Norman commentators writing after the Conquest were particularly struck by the
finery of Anglo-�Saxon dress and the wealth invested in costume. There are frequent
references in the written sources to cloaks and other items of clothing made of silk, and
a small number of silk items have been recovered archaeologically. In other cases,
wealth and status were demonstrated through decoration and adornment. Manuscript
illustrations show cuffs, hems and trimmings apparently embroidered or brocaded,
sometimes with what looks like gold or silver thread. The reputation of English needle-
work – the opus Anglicanum of the later Middle Ages – was already well established in
 372 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

the later Anglo-�Saxon period, with Continental commentators noting not just the
quality of the work but the amount of it and how extensively it was employed. Such was
the investment in dress that clothing could act as a form of moveable wealth. In her
will, Wulfwaru, a landowner in Somerset in the late tenth century, left to her daughter
a headband worth 30 mancuses and to four of her servants a golden headband worth
20 mancuses. Presumably, the latter could be divided up or the gold braid extracted.
Though the most expensive materials and the most extravagant styles would have
been restricted to the very richest, in particular the king and queen, those lower down
the social scale sought to emulate as best they could the fashions of the very wealthy.
Even minor nobles could, through the finery of their clothing and jewellery, appear to
be of much higher status. The best-�known example is the thegn Gospatric who was
able to trick thieves in Italy into thinking that he was Earl Tostig partly because of the
clothes he was wearing.
Though dress had been a marker of wealth and status throughout the Anglo-�Saxon
period, there is evidence that elite clothing was becoming more elaborate and costly
in the eleventh century. Manuscript illustrations, for example, suggest female
fashion in this period embraced longer sleeves, with extended cuffs and the
pleating and bunching of material. At the same time, male dress was changing, with
Byzantine-�inspired long robes and gowns being increasingly adopted by the elite. Such
clothing was first depicted in the image of King Edgar in the Regularis concordia in the
later tenth century, with eleventh-�century manuscripts suggesting such outfits were
subsequently adopted by royal courtiers and officials.
Feasting was another way in which status and wealth could be displayed, both in
terms of the quantities eaten – Norman writers commented particularly on the size of
English portions – and the types of food consumed. Archaeological evidence indicates
a growing divide between the types of food eaten by the powerful and wealthy and
those eaten by those lower down the social scale. Whales and porpoises, for example,
were particularly prized by the elite, and in the west of England herring was likewise
7.24 The month of October
from an eleventh-century
highly valued. Written sources show that lords laid claim to any rare and valuable fish
calendar. A nobleman hunts caught in the weirs of their tenants. Thus at Tidenham, the lord could claim every
with a falcon other fish caught in the weirs on the estate as well as any sturgeon, porpoise, herring
 the age of æthelred 373

or sea fish – Tidenham is close to the Severn Estuary. The lord could also expect to be
informed if anyone sold fish for money on the estate. Deer and other game, especially
fowl, were also a prominent part of late Anglo-�Saxon aristocratic diets, not least
because hunting and hawking were noble pastimes.
If the upheavals and instability of the later tenth and eleventh centuries caused
significant problems for Anglo-�Saxon England, nevertheless it was a period in which
many prospered, enjoying better and more comfortable lives than individuals of their
status had hitherto known. Violence and warfare must have undermined feelings of
security and stability, yet England, for all its problems, remained a wealthy kingdom
and one in which it was possible to thrive and to seek social betterment. Such would
reach its apogee, and Anglo-�Saxon England its perigee, in 1066, when Harold, son of
Cnut’s ‘new man’ Godwine, gained the English throne.
 sources and issues 7a

eoforwic/jorvik/york

nicholas j. higham

From about 700 onwards, York emerged as the most important centre in northern
England. The diocese began in the 620s, ceased abruptly in 633, but was then refounded
in the 660s and upgraded as an archdiocese covering all Northumbria in 735. It was
significant to the kings as well, the site of their only mint and by far the most important
port in eastern Northumbria.
Eighth-�century York extended across three sites. The Roman legionary fortress
housed the archdiocesan church (though as yet unlocated), the bishop’s residence and,
probably, a royal palace. Secondly, there was activity in the old Roman colonia facing
the fortress across the River Ouse, around Holy Trinity/Agia Sophia and along the
waterfront – a monastery seems a real possibility. Thirdly, on the east bank of the River
Foss over a kilometre from the medieval minster, excavation of 46–54 Fishergate
revealed a wic – Eoforwic.
The size of Eoforwic is uncertain. Comparison with trading sites at London,
Hamwic, Ipswich, Dorestad, Quentovic and Ribe would suggest an area of 30–60
hectares, but excavation around the Barbican found little trace, implying that it was
either smaller than these or tightly concentrated along the river; York was at the
northern extremity of trade centred on the Channel, which could account for a smaller
size. This was, however, an integral part of Anglian York, established in all probability
under royal and/or archdiocesan authority. Goods from overseas arrived here and both
exports and exchange were managed. Imported pottery came from present-� day
northern France, Belgium and Rhineland Germany – Mayen ware, for example, accom-
panied basalt from the Rhineland-�Palatinate, used for the manufacture of quernstones.
Ipswich Ware and Ipswich-�type wares also arrived up the east coast. Three Frisian
coins substantiate Alcuin’s reference to Frisian traders at York c. 800. Manufacturing
waste indicates the production of glass vessels either here or elsewhere in York, along-
side metalworking, woodworking, bone and antler comb-�making, leather-�working and
textile production. Pottery was manufactured nearby in two distinct traditions, of
which sand-�tempered wares were the more abundant; shell-�tempered wares were only
present in small quantities and finds peter out for the ninth century. Compared with
Hamwic, the pottery range is limited, but the proportion derived from overseas is
higher, suggesting that locally manufactured wares were in short supply.
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : e o f o rw i c / j o rv i k / yo r k 375

7a.1 Viking Age York. Note the

division into three sectors
focused on the old Roman
legionary fortress, location of
the minster, the extra-mural
area around the Foss and the
old Roman colonia west of the
Ouse

After shifting fortunes across the earlier ninth century, Fishergate was abandoned
quite suddenly in the 860s or 870s: the latest coin find was a West Saxon silver penny
of 858–66. This coincides with the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle account of the Danish occu-
pation, when the ‘great raiding-Â�army’ seized then successfully defended the fortress
against the Northumbrians in 866, and then Healfdene ‘divided up the land of
Northumbria’ in 876, making himself the ruler of the north. In this time of crisis,
46–54 Fishergate was abandoned and the commercial centre relocated on a low spur of
land between the Foss, the Ouse and the fortress. This re-�siting differs from that at
Winchester or London, where trade and manufacturing actually shifted within the
Roman walls. Here continuing commitment to extramural settlement suggests real
confidence in the new Viking kingdom.
Excavations in several locations, but most famously at 16–22 Coppergate, have
revealed much about the development of York from the late ninth century onwards,
when it emerged as the largest settlement in England north of the Wash. Roman
sequences at Coppergate ended with a fourth-�century cemetery. Thereafter the area
was deserted until the ninth century, when an eighth-�century Anglian helmet was
buried alongside various other artefacts in a wood-Â�lined pit – probably a shallow well.
It is tempting to view this in the context of the disastrous attack on York by
Northumbrian forces late in 866, but this is only one possible interpretation. More
organised use of the site followed soon after. ‘The Viking Dig’ revealed the first appear-
ance of post/stake and wattle alignments in the later ninth century, following which
the road that became Coppergate was laid out. In the period 930/5–Â�c. 975, four tene-
 376 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7a.2 Viking Age Coppergate.

Early tenth-century wattle-built
structures

ments were established fronting Coppergate with buildings constructed with posts
in-�filled with wattle. These were then replaced c. 975-�early/mid-�eleventh century by
new cellar-�type, plank-�built structures erected within the same boundaries in a double
row along the street frontage.
The Coppergate excavation revealed a congested urban complex in which different
tradesmen worked cheek by jowl. The street name derives from cup manufacturing.
Ironworking was present on a commercial scale, with techniques ranging from simple
welding and hammering through to steeling and decorative work. Large numbers of
knives were found, alongside small bells and tools associated with agriculture, and
7a.3 Bone combs from
Coppergate. Bone was worked
on site to make an array of
domestic items
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : e o f o rw i c / j o rv i k / yo r k 377

metal-�, leather-�, textile-�and wood-�working. Glass-�working was also present and finds
of coin dies either indicate coining here or a metalworker recycling dies from elsewhere
in York. In all some forty thousand finds came from the excavations and Coppergate
yielded rich ‘waterlogged’ deposits which preserved exceptional quantities of organic
material, allowing an unusual range of activities to come under the microscope.
York’s trade was at its height in the late ninth and early tenth centuries but remained
vigorous, with Scandinavian connections dominant, right up to the Norman Conquest.
Evidence of trade with the Scandinavian world includes hones of Norwegian schist,
Norwegian and/or Shetland soapstone and clubmoss (used for dyeing) from southern
Scandinavia, as well as amber, most of which probably derived from the Baltic. It is
tempting to see the site as a Scandinavian colony dependent on the new Viking king-
ship and drawing on a mixed Danish, Norwegian and Hiberno-�Norse heritage, but
there are signs too of a local ‘native’ presence continuing. For example, two different
styles of shoe manufacture may reflect two different markets, with incoming
Scandinavians and local Northumbrians each preferring the style of footwear with
which they were familiar. There were similarly two styles of knife-�sheath manufac-
tured. Trades that were traditionally male seem to have been more affected by
Scandinavian traditions than those that were ‘female’, suggesting that male incomers
may have formed a larger sector of the market than did female. This is best evidenced
in cloth manufacturing, which was traditionally women’s work.
Evidence relating to textile production was widespread at Coppergate, reflecting
both domestic output and more commercial levels of production. Wool, flax, hemp,
silk and gold thread were all identified, with silk particularly well represented in
comparison with other sites by 22 examples of woven fragments as opposed to 32 of
wool. Mid-�tenth-�century Coppergate yielded evidence of wool-�combing, spinning,
weaving, dyeing, needlework, flax production and laundering, suggesting that the
whole gamut of production was present. Silk, of course, was imported and this more
7a.4 Excavated shoes from
Coppergate
 378 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7a.5 Wide variety of beads

from Coppergate

expensive textile seems to have been used primarily for small items, particularly head-
dresses and ribbons. Prior to the Viking Age silk barely occurs in northern England
and was clearly a highly exotic import. However, the Viking expansion into Russia and
down to the Black Sea opened up trade with Byzantium, which was both a producer of
silk itself and the western end of the Silk Road to China. It is in this context that the
amount of silk reaching York expanded, but it remained an expensive textile. Wool and
linen cloth were manufactured in much larger quantities, including what may have
been local copies of Scandinavian textiles. Most of the Coppergate cloth does, however,
belong to northern Anglian cloth-�making traditions and should be seen as the work of
indigenous Northumbrians aiming at a local market. Only a small minority of the
textiles found are likely to have been imports and these were the finer cloths brought
in from Frisia and the Rhineland, including linen featuring a honeycomb weave. By
the early tenth century, the finishing of cloth on site with teasels and shears had ended,
and dyeing was no longer practised by the later eleventh century, when the arrival of
the treadle loom initiated major changes in textile manufacture, speeding up the
process considerably and encouraging the shift from female workers to the male ones
of the post-�Conquest period.
Large quantities of bone indicate that cattle were the predominant food animal,
perhaps due to the nature of the grazing in the Vale of York, followed rather distantly
by sheep and pigs. Pigs, fowl and geese were probably all kept in the town, but the
scarcity of goats suggest that milk and cheese came from the surrounding countryside.
Hunted game was rare, although the proportion of wild birds (and pigs) rose in the late
tenth century. That said, domestic fowl and geese remained the dominant bird species
throughout and eggs were consumed widely. Animals seem to have been butchered
close by and this may be one reason why such a range of meat cuts was present. Fish
were important, particularly eels and herring but also other sea fish and shellfish.
Large amounts of flour-�based foods were consumed, mostly derived from wheat and
rye, while fruit-�stones demonstrate the popularity of the plum family and a few fig and
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : e o f o rw i c / j o rv i k / yo r k 379

grape seeds suggest some imports. Bees were probably kept, judging from the large
numbers found dead.
Living conditions clearly left much to be desired, though by the standards of the
day they were probably quite good. The identification of numerous parasites suggests
that the inhabitants were lousy and flea-�ridden, and excrement lay on the ground.
Chickens and pigs were kept close by humans and probably played their part in the
waste-�recycling process.
Similarly rich organic deposits were sampled at 6–8 Pavement and 5–7 Coppergate,
the former yielding a complete human coprolite (fossilised excrement) which revealed
several parasitic worms. Querns and grindstones, locks and keys, wooden vessels,
fragments of one or more soapstone bowls and items of personal wear all imply a
domestic setting, while masses of leather offcuts and tools such as awls and a shoe-�last
indicate leather-�working at a commercial level.
Trading and small-�scale manufacturing occupied a great swathe of Viking Age
York. Large-�scale excavations between the fortress and the River Foss centred on
Hungate are currently exploring another part of Viking Age York. Here activity is
present from the early tenth century and timber-�lined cellars indicative of two-�storey
houses and warehouses some 3 metres below modern street level belong to the mid–
late tenth century, comparable to the structures found at Coppergate. Ship timbers that
had originated in southern England had been recycled in one building. Although it is
at this stage too early to comment fully, finds again imply a vibrant commercial and
industrial centre integral to well-�used trade routes to other regions of western Europe
and even the Islamic world. Numerous cesspits, access ways and regular tenement
boundaries suggest a well-�organised townscape. While we must await detailed publi-
cation of this new excavation and the archaeological riches being exposed, it is already
clear that it will take our understanding of Viking Age York to new levels.
The old colonia also saw considerable occupation in the Viking Age. The main axis
from the fortress was via Micklegate – the ‘great street’, around which a distorted grid
of roads ignored the Roman layout, with Anglo-�Scandinavian names implying pre-�
Conquest foundation (as Skeldergate, Lounlithgate, Littlegate). Excavations at 58–59
Skeldergate revealed a structure of the late ninth/early tenth centuries built on rubble-�
filled trench foundations, suggesting that the waterfront was occupied by traders. Five
of the nine medieval churches or chapels here are demonstrably pre-� Conquest,
including Clementhorpe Nunnery outside the walls. Research at St Mary Bishophill
Junior has revealed eighth/ninth-�century stone carving, but it also flourished in the
Viking Age: among a group of burials to the north of the church, one was coin-�dated
905–30, and a new tower was constructed in the third quarter of the eleventh century
from reused masonry, mostly Roman but including fragments of Anglian and Anglo-�
Scandinavian sculpture.
New church construction was also occurring east of the River Ouse. St Helen-�on-�
the-�Walls, for example, was built as a single-�cell, near-�square church in the later tenth
century, subsequently enlarged with a rectangular chancel. The cemetery revealed
more than one thousand graves, dating from the tenth century to the sixteenth.
Excavation at 1–5 Aldwark revealed reoccupation in the eleventh century. However,
 380 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7a.6 Excavation underway at

Hungate. A massively-built
timber-lined cellar deep
beneath current ground level
implies a two-storey house,
comparable to late tenth-
century examples found at
Coppergate.

the main cemetery on this side of York remained the minster’s, with graves so far dated
850–950.
Viking Age York was exceptionally large by the standard of English towns, with a
population numbered in many thousands and with great wealth, but alongside social
deprivation and poverty. How should we explain the exceptional rise of Viking York as
a manufacturing and commercial settlement? Anglian York lay on the periphery of a
trading network centred on the Channel. The Viking Age created a different orbit,
centred on Scandinavia but encompassing Ireland, Scotland and the Atlantic as well as
the great eastern European river valleys and the eastern Mediterranean. York served as
a hub of Viking trade routes in the west. One consequence of successive Viking occu-
pations by armies rich with plunder was the revival of the Northumbrian currency.
The Vikings minted silver coins in considerable quantities, as the Cuerdale Hoard
indicates. The new elite probably treated the walled city as a quasi-�capital. Kings, arch-
bishops and their retinues, and an inflow of taxes and renders from the Viking
kingdom, capitalised the markets and attracted imports, encouraging trade and manu-
facturing. Even after the English conquest in the mid-�tenth century, rule of the north
centred on York, and earls Siward and Tostig maintained grand establishments and
their treasuries there in the eleventh century. York, then, should be viewed both as a
centre of manufacturing and commerce and also as a focus of government and elite
consumption at the core of a vibrant Viking kingdom, then a vast earldom within the
polyfocal kingdom of late Anglo-�Saxon England.
 sources and issues 7b

beowulf

martin j. ryan

Listen! We have heard of the glory

Of the kings of the Spear-�Danes in days gone by.
How those princes performed great deeds.

At the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century a manuscript was compiled
containing a Life of Christopher, a saint believed by medieval churchmen to have had
the head of a dog; a description of the marvellous inhabitants of far-�off lands, known as
the Wonders of the East; a letter supposedly from Alexander the Great to his tutor
Aristotle detailing the wonders of India; and a poem of around 3,100 lines recounting a
heroic warrior’s struggles against various monsters and his death at the hands (claws?)
of a dragon. After surviving various vicissitudes, including being severely singed in a
fire in the eighteenth century, this compilation now forms part of British Library Cotton
Vitellius A. xv and must rank as one of the most studied manuscripts of the Anglo-�
Saxon period. The reason for this scholarly attention is the poem that was the final text
of the original compilation. The poem survives only in this manuscript and although
originally untitled is now known as Beowulf, undoubtedly the most famous poem in
Old English and one of the most famous texts from the Middle Ages as a whole.
Set in Scandinavia in the later fifth century – though the poem locates the events
no more precisely chronologically than ‘in days gone by’ or ‘in days of yore’ (‘in
geārdagum’) – it tells the story of a man called Beowulf, a Geat from what is now
southern Sweden. He travels with a band of warriors to Denmark to the court of King
Hrothgar whose mighty hall, Heorot, is plagued by a monster called Grendel, ‘a grim
monster, a wanderer in the borderlands, who held the moors, the fen and the fastness’
who comes at night to kill those sleeping in the hall. Beowulf defeats Grendel in hand-�
to-Â�hand combat, gripping hold of his arm and refusing to let go until ‘the loathsome
creature was wracked with pain, a great wound appeared on his shoulder. Sinews
snapped, joints burst’.
Having torn off his own arm to escape, Grendel returned to his lair at the bottom
of a mere: ‘doomed to die, in misery he laid down his life, his heathen soul, in his
fenland refuge hell claimed him. The rejoicing of Hrothgar and his court is short-�lived.
The next night another monster – Grendel’s mother – comes to the hall to seek venge-
 382 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

7b 1 Probable locations of
places and peoples in Beowulf

ance and drags off one of Hrothgar’s most beloved warriors, Æschere. In the morning,
Beowulf tracks Grendel’s mother back to the mere and dives to the bottom to kill her.
In the ensuing fight, the sword Beowulf is using is unable to wound Grendel’s mother
– ‘the battle light would not bite’ – and he is only able to defeat and kill her by using a
sword – ‘an ancient sword, strong edged, the work of giants’ – which, conveniently, he
finds nearby.
Having received gifts and great praise from Hrothgar, Beowulf and his warriors
return home to their own king in Geatland. The action of the poem then jumps
forward some fifty years. Beowulf is now ruler of the Geats, ‘a wise king, a guardian of
his land’, and his own land is being terrorised by a monster, ‘the burning thing, the
barrow-Â�seeker, the hostile dragon, night-flying, flame enfolded’. Beowulf and a band of
his warriors track the dragon to its lair and Beowulf pledges to defeat the dragon alone.
When one of his warriors, Wiglaf, sees that the dragon is killing Beowulf, he tries to
rally his fellow warriors to support their lord – ‘ “I remember the time, as we drank
mead in the hall, that we pledged to our lord, our ring-�giver, that we would repay him
.â•‹.â•‹. when such need as this arose” ’ – but they refuse. Wiglaf goes alone to aid Beowulf
and the dragon is killed, though Beowulf has been mortally wounded.
The final scene of the poem is the funeral of Beowulf, who is cremated and then
buried beneath a mound on a headland as his people lament his passing and praise his
accomplishments: ‘They praised his courage, his mighty deeds, extolled his virtue.
And it is fitting that a man should honour in words his beloved lord, when he is led
forth from his body’.
A summary such as this one does scant justice to the complexity, the subtlety and,
indeed, the beauty of the poem: it is a masterpiece. The poem is allusive and evocative.
Woven into the narrative are references to other stories, other characters and events,
poems are recited and lengthy speeches made. Future happenings are hinted at –
Heorot will be destroyed by fire, Geatland will be invaded and conquered after
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : b e ow u l f 383

7b.2 The opening of Beowulf

Beowulf ’s death. Time shifts constantly backwards and forwards, as the histories of
men, monsters, and even swords are traced by the poem. Key events are skilfully struc-
tured and described. When Grendel, striding ‘from the moors under the misty fells’,
approaches Heorot, where Beowulf lies in wait, the action shifts from Heorot to
Grendel, to Heorot again, and back to Grendel until he stands at the doors of the hall.
When Grendel enters the hall and devours a sleeping warrior, there is silence with no
crunching of bones and no cries of terror, but when Beowulf seizes Grendel this silence
is broken by the din of battle and Grendel’s own strange cry, ‘the song of the defeated,
God’s foe, hell’s captive, lamenting his pain’. During this passage the poet uses the same
384 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

language of both Grendel and Beowulf, as if it is difficult to distinguish one from the
other in the chaos of the fight or hinting, perhaps, that there is something monstrous
about Beowulf, too.
The question, then, is what to do with Beowulf? The most satisfying answer, at least
aesthetically, is simply to enjoy it. The literary scholar Kenneth Sisam is reported to
have said, ‘In a place far away from libraries, I have often read Beowulf for pleasure.’ Yet
Beowulf, like any cultural artefact, must in some way reflect the society that produced
it, and the text has been pored over as much by historians and archaeologists as by
students of poetry and literature. Determining what light Beowulf might be able to
shed on Anglo-�Saxon society is, however, problematic for a number of reasons.
Firstly, and perhaps most crucially, the date, and thus the context of the composi-
tion of the poem, is much disputed. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
there was a belief that Beowulf dated back at least to the pre-�Conversion period and
probably to before the Anglo-�Saxon settlement in Britain itself. The twilight of the
Roman Empire in the west was a Heroic Age in northern Europe, and the memory of
the deeds of these great men, and occasionally women, was preserved in poems, recited
and sung in lordly halls throughout the Germanic world. With the coming of
Christianity a few of these poems were written down, though their ecclesiastical
scribes added a veneer of religiosity that disguised the ultimately pagan origin of such
texts. Beowulf was thus a precious testament to this distant past, and the task of the
scholar was to uncover the ‘original’ version of the poem, to free the text as it survives
from the Christian accretions that mask its true nature and import.
Such approaches have rightly fallen away, but the sense that Beowulf is considerably
older than the manuscript that records it still persists, particularly among historians
and archaeologists. There are numerous reasons for thinking the original composition
to be considerably earlier than the surviving manuscript, but the most frequently cited
relate to the subject matter and the themes of the poem. A text that sings the praises of
the Danes is unlikely to have been composed after the Scandinavian raids on Anglo-�
Saxon England in the ninth century, and the values and ideals espoused by the poem
would seem to fit better the pre-�Viking period than the later tenth or eleventh centu-
ries. Moreover, aspects of the poem, such as the funeral of Scyld Shefing at the begin-
ning of the text or that of Beowulf at the end of it, seem to echo Anglo-�Saxon burial
practices of the later sixth and seventh centuries, as uncovered at sites such as Sutton
Hoo. Though probably much added to and revised over time, the original composition
of Beowulf might thus be dated to before the later ninth century. Given the apparently
secular subject matter of the poem, Beowulf may, therefore, provide a precious window
onto the culture and ideals of the pre-�Viking Anglo-�Saxon warrior aristocracy.
On the other hand, a significant number of authors, most notably Kevin S. Kiernan,
have placed the composition of Beowulf at not much before the date of the surviving
manuscript. Seemingly earlier features of the text, both in terms of vocabulary and subject
matter, are deliberate poetic devices; Beowulf is archaising rather than archaic. A poem
about the glorious deeds of Scandinavian warriors might not, moreover, be unexpected
from an ecclesiastical scriptorium in this period. Church ateliers in the tenth century
produced works of art, particularly sculptures, incorporating elements from Scandinavian
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : b e ow u l f 385

mythology for secular patrons who were, or believed themselves to be, of Viking descent.
Beowulf might be one more example of this kind of cultural production.
The problem of the date of Beowulf permits no easy solution and there are other
significant puzzles around interpretation. Not least among these is the question of the
overall meaning or message of the poem. Beowulf seems to be an eloquent evocation
and celebration of the Anglo-�Saxon heroic ideal. The poem describes a world in which
fame and renown are won through great deeds and the best that a man can hope for in
this life is to be remembered as a hero after his death. Bravery and loyalty, unto death
if necessary, are the greatest of virtues, and a heroic and loyal warrior will receive rich
rewards from his lord. So central was this lord–Â�retainer bond to Anglo-Â�Saxon society
that not only did it inform much secular poetry but also elements of the story of
Christianity, such as the spreading of the Gospel by the evangelists, which were recast
and retold in the form of heroic poetry.
Yet Beowulf undercuts the very ideals that it seems to set out. Violence begets
violence and descends into a cycle of vengeance and terror that its participants cannot

7b.3 The Wonders of the East,

including blemmye and
centaur
386 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

control, let alone hope to stop. The fame Beowulf has won is meaningless; in the end
Geatland will be overrun and Beowulf ’s people scattered. Indeed, rather than seeing
the poem as reflecting the ideals of the English aristocracy, with Beowulf himself as an
Anglo-�Saxon warrior in fifth-�century Scandinavian garb, the poet may be describing
an alien and confusing world, with Beowulf as strange and unfamiliar as the monsters
he defeats.
Another central problem is the religious tone of the poem. It describes a pagan people
and yet the scribe, if not the original poet, must have been a member of the Church.
Moreover, though characters in the poem sometimes worship idols and are buried with
what seem to be pagan ceremonies, they nevertheless show knowledge of the Old
Testament, particularly the Book of Genesis, and frequently invoke a singular, seemingly
monotheistic, god. Are the biblical elements Christian additions or glosses – Grendel, for
example, is described as being of the kin of Cain – or was the poet largely ignorant of
paganism and pagan practices, understanding that his characters were non-�Christian but
having little knowledge of what such peoples were like aside from the example of Israelites
in the Old Testament? What would a Christian author or audience have made of the
characters in the poem? Could any useful, moral lessons be learnt from a pagan hero or
was Beowulf ultimately bound for hell and his life to be seen as at best a warning?
Some Anglo-�Saxon churchmen certainly questioned the place of secular poetry in
a Christian context, with Alcuin of York famously asking Bishop Unwona of Leicester
‘What has Ingeld to do with Christ?’ – Ingeld being a character featured in a number
of heroic poems, including Beowulf. Yet such condemnations, of course, imply that
heroic poetry was being read, recited and presumably enjoyed in ecclesiastical contexts.
Nor should it be assumed that such pleasures were illicit. Numerous commentators
have detected an overall Christian message in Beowulf despite its pagan heroes. Some
scholars, such as Allen Cabaniss, have even read Beowulf, or episodes therein, as an
allegory of the life of Christ. Alcuin evoked a narrow house with no room for long-�
dead pagan kings when he asked his question about Ingeld, but other churchmen may
have preferred the many mansions of John 14: 2.
The continuing debates and controversies about almost every facet of Beowulf are
a testament to the complexities of the poem. Beowulf seems to have the potential to
shed light on nearly all aspects of Anglo-�Saxon society and culture, but its meaning
and significance are difficult to pin down. It is perhaps this very elusiveness that is the
ultimate message of Beowulf; it is a reminder that the values and attitudes of Anglo-�
Saxon society were no more simple and monolithic than those of modern societies.
 chapter 8

The Transformation of Anglo-

Saxon England
nicholas j. higham
While drinking at a wedding celebrated by the families of two of his courtiers, King
Harthacnut had a seizure, probably a stroke, from which he never recovered. His death
on 8 June 1042 brought to an end the line of direct descendants of Cnut (d. 1035), clearing
the way to the throne for Edward ‘the Confessor’ as he is usually known, Harthacnut’s
older maternal half-Â�brother and King Æthelred’s eldest son by his second marriage.
Thus began one of the least likely reigns of any Anglo-�Saxon king and the last
considered legitimate by all commentators, for Edward’s death in January 1066 sparked
dynastic crisis and the Norman Conquest of England. Ever since, that Conquest has
overshadowed his kingship. Norman writers looked to him to validate William’s candi-
dacy, claiming that Edward had nominated William his heir. Later generations looked
back to Edward’s reign as a golden era and made the king a saint. Edward himself may
actually have promulgated aspects of his saintly reputation while in exile, when it had
some potential to further his candidacy as king. He was eventually canonised in 1161.
National prejudices have since clouded discussion of the period. Hostility to ‘the
Norman Yoke’ characterised reactions in nineteenth-Â�century England, when antipathy
towards both France and Catholicism was high. Commentators portrayed a legitimate
and consensual Anglo-�Saxon state tragically overthrown by post-�Conquest tyranny,
and Harold II was revered as the English patriot heroically resisting invasion.
Alongside, Edward was a foolish but saintly weakling and his reign a contest between
the loyal Godwinesons and the king’s Norman favourites. This nationalistic, ‘Germanist’
interpretation fell away from the 1890s onwards, as anti-�French sentiment declined
and Britain and France moved towards alliance against Germany.
The nature of the evidence, however, leaves considerable room for debate: accounts
written by the Norman victors dominate near-�contemporary narratives and are to a
reasonable degree mutually consistent; in important respects, however, they were
designed to disguise the poverty of William’s claim to the English throne. Their story
differs from that in versions ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, which cover
parts at least of Edward’s reign. In turn, the Chronicle versions differ one from another.
Version ‘C’, once thought to have been written at Abingdon (Oxfordshire), is now
thought to be Mercian and connected with Earl Leofric’s family; Version ‘E’ was written
in the south, probably at Canterbury and predominantly from the perspective of
 388 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.1 Places named in chapter 8

Opposite:
8.2 Simplified genealogies of
the English and Danish royal
families and Norman dukes,
tenth–twelfth centuries
t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 389
 390 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.3 Atlantic Europe in the mid-

eleventh century

Godwine and his sons, while ‘D’ is a later work probably made at Worcester, which seems
to have used a northern chronicle connected with Archbishop Ealdred of York (d. 1069).
Nor are these Chronicle accounts always consistent with the evidence offered by a
work commissioned by Queen Edith (Edward’s wife), The Life of King Edward, prob-
ably in the mid-�1060s but then much extended after the Battle of Hastings. The Life is
a work of two halves, therefore; it opens with a broadly chronological sketch of
Edward’s life which is friendly to Edith’s family, Earl Godwine and his sons, but then
closes with dire prophecies of calamity voiced by Edward which were written after the
deaths of all Edith’s brothers in the autumn of 1066.
An alternative take on the crisis is offered by the Bayeux Tapestry, which although
designed and embroidered for a Norman patron was arguably of Kentish workman-
ship. This hints at alternative perspectives. Finally, yet another viewpoint is offered by
Scandinavian saga literature which was written down in the thirteenth century and
tells us something of how these events were remembered by the Vikings.
All these works are either biased or propagandist, none more so than the Norman
texts. Given the differences of detail and of inclusion, what actually occurred is often
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 391

unclear, leading to as many accounts as there are historians, even down to the basic
sequence of events. It is often far easier to establish what particular individuals wanted
on record than what actually occurred.
That said, the period enjoys far greater written sources than any earlier. When
Edward came to the throne his mother had just commissioned a eulogy; his reign ends
with a Life of the old king written for his wife. Never before in Anglo-�Saxon England
were women so active in commissioning such works. Sources otherwise include about
one hundred Old English royal writs from Edward’s reign and 67 charters issued in
Edward’s name (although only 22 of these are certainly genuine), but these documents
are dwarfed in scale by Domesday Book, commissioned by William, which looks back
from 1086 to the close of Edward’s reign in 1066. This near-Â�complete national survey
exposes the scale of individual landholdings at the close of Anglo-�Saxon England and
their transfer to new holders. Taken together with other sources of information, we are
looking at a quantitative and qualitative revolution in data, which distinguishes the
study of Conquest-�period England from preceding eras.
Amidst these riches, a broadly chronological approach is offered here. It covers
Edward’s 24 years as king, then Harold’s brief reign and the crisis of 1066, and finally
assesses the impact of Norman government on England.

King Edward: 1042–1066

Edward was born in or before 1005, the eldest son of King Æthelred by his second wife,
Emma of Normandy. His childhood was overshadowed by Viking raiding and his family
fled England for the second time in 1016 to escape the Danish conquest: Edward spent
about 24 years in exile in Normandy (1016/17–1040/1), despite his mother’s marriage to
Cnut (king of England 1016–35) in 1017. Edward received recognition as king and
considerable assistance from his maternal cousin, Duke Robert the Magnificent (1027–
35), but the duke died on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, leaving the duchy of Normandy
in chaos during the minority of his bastard son, William, born in 1027/8. William’s very
survival was in doubt until the Battle of Val-Â�ès-Â�Dunes in 1047, won by King Henry of
France on his behalf, and William did not gain full control of his duchy for several more
years. William of Jumièges reported that Edward sailed to Southampton with 40 ships
when Cnut died but withdrew in the face of English opposition; his brother Alfred
entered England independently but was taken by Earl Godwine and murdered by the
agents of Harold I. The years 1035 to 1036 were therefore a disaster from Edward’s
perspective. Although the Life of King Edward stresses Edward’s hereditary right to the
throne as his father’s heir, it was as Harthacnut’s half-Â�brother and at his invitation that
Edward returned to England in 1041. His mother, Emma, commissioned the Encomium
from an author at St Omer, probably while in exile in Flanders in 1040. This centres on
her marriage to Cnut but presents a harmonious picture of her two surviving sons. In
1042 Edward was the only royal candidate in England, leaving his closest rival,
Harthacnut’s cousin Swein Estrithson, to fight the Norwegians for Denmark.
On his return, Edward was virtually unknown, middle-�aged yet inexperienced and
without following or estates. He brought with him a small band of Norman friends and
392 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 393

he and his household were probably French-�speaking. Concern that Edward might Opposite
8.4 The earldoms under
seek revenge on the new men promoted by Cnut, and particularly those responsible
Edward: (a) 1043–51,
for his brother’s murder, was probably widespread. His candidacy cannot therefore expansion of territorial power
have met with much enthusiasm within the Anglo-�Danish political establishment, of the Godwine family; (b)
centred as it was on the bishops and three great earls appointed by Cnut: the Viking 1051–2, new organisation
Siward in Northumbria, Leofric in the Midlands, and Cnut’s closest ally, Godwine, in following exile of Godwines;
(c) early 1060s, Godwine
Wessex. All had recently supported other candidates to the English throne and over-
family authority across bulk of
looked Edward’s claims, as indeed had Emma, his own mother. Godwine was impli- England; (d) at Edward’s
cated in Alfred’s death and had married into the Danish royal line, making him uncle death. Following Tostig’s exile
by marriage to Swein Estrithson. The beginning of Edward’s reign was characterised the English earldoms were
almost entirely divided
by political horse-�trading, therefore, with the king accommodating the existing polit-
between Harold and his
ical establishment in return for recognition. His coronation occurred on Easter Day brothers in the south and
1043, and he became head of a very different and far more Scandinavian political elite Harold’s two young
than had existed when his father was on the throne. brothers-in-law Edwin and
Edward paid a high price for Godwine’s support: the earl probably gained Kent at Morcar in the Midlands and
north
this stage; Edward promoted his eldest son Swein to an earldom on the southern Welsh
March in 1043, his second son, Harold, to East Anglia, and his wife’s nephew Beorn
(the brother of Swein Estrithson) to the south-�east Midlands. Then in January 1045
Edward married Godwine’s daughter Edith. Swein Godwineson’s promotion in the
March was a response to the power of the Welsh king, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, but it
was Leofric’s brother Eadwine who had been killed in a clash with the Welsh, and the
new earldom was in part at least at Leofric’s expense. The new appointments clearly
favoured Godwine and upset the balance of power between the great families.
Godwine’s accord with the king wore thin, however. In 1047 Swein Godwineson
abducted the abbess of Leominster (Herefordshire) and then fled into exile. The Life of
King Edward suggests that the king of the Danes, by which the author meant Swein
Estrithson, commended himself to Edward at the beginning of his reign, hopeful
perhaps for aid against the Norwegians. In 1048, though, Godwine failed to persuade
the king to support Swein’s efforts to stave off Norwegian conquest, and he lost
Denmark to Harald Hardrada, Magnus of Norway’s uncle and successor and the
greatest Viking warrior of the age. This was a significant setback for Godwine.
Swein Godwineson abducted and murdered his cousin Earl Beorn, the brother of
Swein Estrithson. This clearly signals the end of Godwine’s alliance with his wife’s
nephew. At the same time, Godwine was firming up connections with Flanders, where
he had by 1051 contracted a marriage for his third son, Tostig, with Judith, Count
Baldwin’s half-Â�sister. Edward seems to have opposed this connection, allying himself
instead with Emperor Henry III and mobilising his fleet against Baldwin in 1049. There
were issues, therefore, between Edward and his in-�laws extending to foreign affairs.
In addition, by the end of the 1040s Edith’s failure to produce an heir was pressing
and all parties were probably reviewing their options. That Godwine was severing his
connections with Cnut’s nephews may suggest that he was already envisaging his own
family laying claim to the throne. At the same time the king may have been thinking of
remarrying in the hope of siring a son. Edward’s court was largely populated by his
Continental friends. He promoted Lotharingian or Norman clerics to several bishoprics
 394 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

and made provision for perhaps two dozen laymen, mostly Norman or northern
French, among whom the most important by far was his nephew Ralph, appointed earl
in the south-Â�east Midlands after Beorn’s death. Robert of Jumièges was made bishop of
London in 1044 then promoted to Canterbury in 1051, despite Godwine’s opposition.
At the same time Edward was pursuing a low-�key strategy of establishing loyal allies in
Marcher lordships, with Richard fitz Scrob constructing Richard’s Castle near Tenbury
Wells (Herefordshire), several coastal estates granted to Norman abbeys and the clerk
Osbern fitz Osbern established at Bosham (Sussex). Only three castles are known for
England before 1066, all associated with Edward’s Norman friends. These were
unpopular, but Edward courted wider popularity by disbanding the royal fleet, which
had long been a drain on English taxes. He also seems to have reinstated Earl Swein:
the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle clearly implies that he retained his earldom in 1052, so the
king had perhaps attempted to placate Godwine in 1050.
Relations between Edward and Godwine reached crisis point in 1051. Robert’s
appointment to Canterbury may have been the key; he returned to England from Rome
with the pallium in this year fired by his contact with the newly reformed and energised
papacy. The Life of King Edward blamed his influence with the king for the worsening
situation, but the final breakdown came when Count Eustace of Boulogne, Edward’s
brother-Â�in-Â�law, clashed with the men of Dover in Godwine’s earldom. Eustace may have
expected to take command of a new castle there; whether or not, Godwine refused to
punish the townspeople and he and his family were manoeuvred into an armed confron-
tation. Earls Leofric, Ralph and Siward supported Edward and forced his opponents
into exile, the majority seeking shelter with Count Baldwin in Flanders while Harold
and Leofwine fled to Ireland. With his in-�laws expelled, Edward sent Edith to a nunnery,
a strategy often used by Anglo-�Saxon kings to rid themselves of unwanted wives.
8.5 Silver coin of Edward the The short period September 1051–September 1052 provides an opportunity to see
Confessor. On the obverse, a what Edward had in mind. His coinage had been traditional across the 1040s but at
regally diademed bust of the
king with sceptre; on the
this point new designs sport a bust and sceptre, with PACX (‘peace’) on the reverse,
reverse, a long cross voided signalling the need to calm nerves. Earl Leofric was rewarded: his son Ælfgar received
with a circle in the centre and Harold’s earldom of East Anglia and Leofric’s own authority now perhaps extended
a crescent ending each limb; into Oxfordshire. Earl Siward probably had authority over Huntingdonshire. Elsewhere
PACX occurs in the angles
Edward advanced new men: Domesday Book records that the Norman Osbern
Pentecost gained Burghill (Herefordshire), suggesting that he was given authority over
parts at least of Swein’s earldom, and Odda, Edward’s distant kinsman, was promoted
as earl in the south �west.
Only the ‘D’ version of the Chronicle records a visit by William, Duke of Normandy,
to Edward in 1051:

Then soon Earl William came from beyond the sea with a great troop of Frenchmen,
and the king received him and as many of his companions as suited him, and let him
go again.

The silence of Norman commentators regarding such a visit invites extreme caution,
but this remains a possibility. William of Jumièges tells a different story, that Edward
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 395

‘sent Robert archbishop of Canterbury to the duke to nominate him as the heir to the
kingdom which God had given him.’ Robert is likely to have passed through Normandy
to and from Rome, so this meeting is credible. Members of Godwine’s family ended up
in Normandy as hostages and this is the likeliest time for that to have happened.
Edward presumably anticipated Godwine’s attempt to return with Flemish help, allied
to Harold with Irish-�Norse backing. With William now established in Normandy, the
duke was potentially a valuable ally and Edward certainly owed debts to his family.
Edward was also surely determined to exclude Scandinavian claimants to the English
throne. The new hostility of the French king towards his recent ally, William, is diffi-
cult to explain without reference to England. Edward may, therefore, have favoured
William as his successor and told him so. However, discrepancies in the sources make
it impossible to be sure exactly what Edward had in mind and it must be stressed that
the succession was not entirely in his gift. No English account makes any reference to
William’s nomination at this stage.
Whatever occurred, Edward emerges from these events as a king who knew his
own mind and was moulding events to his will. The opportunity was brief, however.
Godwine and Harold united their forces in the summer of 1052 and, despite efforts to
repulse them, were able to recruit ships and raise an army in Sussex and Kent. Edward’s
supporters were less resolute than previously and at London the two sides agreed peace
terms which restored Godwine and his family to all that they had lost. According to
the ‘C’ version of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle:

They outlawed all the Frenchmen who earlier promoted illegality and passed unjust
judgements and counselled bad counsel in this country, except for as many as
they decided that the king liked to have about him, who were faithful to him and all
his people. And Bishop Robert and Bishop William and Bishop Ulf escaped
with difficulty with the Frenchmen who were with them, and thus came away across
the sea.

The Anglo-Â�Danish political establishment closed ranks against most of Edward’s

Norman associates, with Leofric and Siward ultimately preferring Godwine to
Archbishop Robert. Edward bowed to the inevitable, took back his wife Edith and
abandoned his plans for the succession, whatever those were. Swein Godwineson’s
death on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the autumn of 1052 did, however, remove
the most violent member of the Godwine family.
Their reinstatement gave Godwine and Harold collectively earldoms stretching
from Cornwall to Norfolk. When united, their influence and resources outweighed
those of any other group. Odda’s command was reduced to part of the south-Â�west
Midlands and Leofric retained only the north-�west Midlands. The deaths of Godwine
in 1053, Siward in 1055, Odda in 1056 and then Leofric and Ralph in 1057 provided
new opportunities for Edward to rebalance the earldoms. Instead, he appointed Harold
to Wessex and gave other commands to his brothers Tostig (Northumbria, 1056),
Gyrth (East Anglia, by 1059) and Leofwine (south-�east Midlands, by 1059), advancing
the Godwinesons to authority over some 80 per cent of England. Ælfgar’s opposition
 396 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.6 Lands held by Earl Harold

in 1066, according to
Domesday Book. While clearly
concentrated within the
expanded earldoms of Wessex
and the south-west Midlands,
and particularly Sussex whence
the family originated, they also
include estates in East Anglia,
where he ceased to be earl in
April 1053, and others in the
Midlands and even
Northumbria where he had
never exercised authority

led to his outlawery in 1055 then again in 1058, though he forced his way back each
time with Welsh and Norse support. Edward allowed Godwine’s sons extraordinary
influence in the mid-�1050s; the shift from the position he adopted in 1051 is difficult
to explain other than by assuming that he felt powerless to prevent it.
The earldoms provide the best key to the power struggles of the period, since they
carried with them formal oversight of justice, local government and the power to raise
military forces. Late Anglo-�Saxon kings granted a substantial proportion of what had
originally been royal estates to sustain regional government. Such estates were generally
held only so long as the individual remained earl, injecting a degree of insecurity into
their tenure. In most shires, the earl would have been one of the greatest landholders and
a natural focus for the free community, so many would have commended themselves to
him. Earls naturally built up local patronage to entrench their power. Despite the
frequency with which earldoms were reorganised and/or redistributed, there was a
growing tendency for hereditary tenure, with four generations of Leofric’s family control-
ling the north-�west Midlands and Godwine followed by Harold in Wessex. In Northumbria
and the north-�west Midlands we should think in terms of regional governments, linked
to the royal court primarily through the earls themselves and the local bishops but in
practice often acting independently. Three incidents illustrate this: the clearest is Ælfgar’s
Viking mercenaries arriving at Chester for payment in 1055 following their participation
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 397

in an invasion of Herefordshire from Wales, defeating the king’s nephew Earl Ralph and
burning Hereford; the others are the undated external marriage alliances made by
Godwine and Leofric, with Flanders and Gwynedd respectively. Leofric and Siward both
held territories into which Edward never ventured and in some parts of which, such as
Cheshire, he had no lands, all having been granted generations earlier to the earls.
In 1066 the landed wealth of the Godwinesons collectively was not much less than that
of the king. Much rests on the value of such assets as the ‘farm of one night’, which was
owed by some estates as maintenance to the households of senior figures, often the king’s.
However, between 1055 and 1065, Tostig’s lands as earl of Northumbria should be factored
in, boosting the Godwinesons’ total significantly, and it is hard to say where we should
place Queen Edith’s lands in these calculations. Even if we accept that Edward was margin-
ally richer than the principal family from which his earls had been appointed, the margin
was narrow and considerable powers had been ceded. Domesday Book demonstrates that
not all estates were given up when an earl was deprived. Harold and Tostig acquired vast
estates throughout England even outside their own commands. Harold, for example, held
land valued at £52 in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Conisbrough in the West Riding
valued at 32s yet had never been earl nor is likely to have inherited land in either.
The succession remained an issue. In the mid-�1050s, efforts were made to bring
Edmund Ironside’s son to England from Hungary: Edward the Exile reached England
with his wife, son Edgar and daughters in 1057 but died on arrival and was buried at St
Paul’s, London. This left Edgar, aged about five, as Edward’s closest blood relative. That
he was placed in the care of Queen Edith and termed ætheling in the Book of Life of
New Minster, Winchester, alongside Edward and Edith’s names, suggests recognition
as a potential successor. However, there is no evidence that Edgar attended court and
the king made no provision for his young kinsman, despite his being about 14 by 1066.
Rather, by the late 1050s the king seems to have withdrawn from active politics. It was
Harold and Tostig who in 1063 invaded Wales and destroyed King Gruffudd, probably
taking advantage of the death of Earl Ælfgar, Gruffudd’s father-Â�in-Â�law, c. 1062/3.
Edward spent his energies in hunting and in his great building project at Westminster
Abbey. Otherwise he left the running of the country to the Godwinesons.

1066
The crisis that broke finally in 1066 developed across the two preceding years. Although
the event is not mentioned by any version of the Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle, Norman
sources portray Harold travelling to the Continent about 1064, sailing from Bosham
on the Sussex coast. The Life of King Edward refers to Harold’s involvement in French
politics without mentioning this particular journey, but the Bayeux Tapestry makes
this the starting point for the struggle for the English Crown.
Assuming that the story has some substance, why Harold made the journey is
unclear. He may have been attempting to gain the release of relatives who were hostages
at William of Normandy’s court, in which case he was intentionally visiting the duke.
Alternatively Harold may have been seeking to contact William’s rivals in the hope that
they might prevent the duke intervening in England at Edward’s death. The old ally of
 398 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.7 Natural harbour at

Bosham, West Sussex, from
which Harold was said to have
sailed to France. The church
with its tower was built in the
second half of the eleventh
century, quite possibly under
the patronage of Harold and
his father

Harold’s family, Baldwin V of Flanders, controlled land only a short distance from his
landing point, though Baldwin was by now allied by marriage to William. Harold was,
however, captured by the Count of Ponthieu and then ‘rescued’ by William, who
prevailed upon him to swear him an oath and receive arms, becoming his man.
Norman commentators presented this as rendering Harold’s claim to the throne
invalid, allowing them to portray him as a perjurer when he accepted the throne.
8.8 Harold’s oath on relics Several also suggested that Harold was betrothed to one of William’s daughters, implying
depicted on the Bayeux
that a marriage alliance was negotiated, but they fail to agree on which daughter.
Tapestry. Here located at
Bayeux but placed at Had Harold been the victor at Hastings these stories would have been forgotten:
Bonneville-sur-Touques by clearly their propaganda value far outweighed their influence over events, but they do
William of Poitiers suggest attempts to negotiate a settlement between Harold and William which ulti-
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 399

mately foundered on the unwillingness of both to forego the English Crown. That the
Bayeux Tapestry designer portrayed Edward as stern towards Harold on his return and
depicted the body language of the earl as apologetic undermines any suggestion that
Edward had sent Harold to confirm William as his successor, but it is otherwise diffi-
cult to interpret the scene.
The northern revolt of autumn 1065 was of more immediate relevance to the
succession. Tostig had been earl for ten years, bringing comparative peace to the
Scottish frontier, and had been Harold’s partner in the Welsh campaign of 1063. He
was a powerful figure with military experience and there are signs that he was close to
both Edith and Edward. According to Simeon of Durham, Edith had the northern
leader Gospatric murdered on Tostig’s behalf in December 1064, and Tostig killed two
other Northumbrian nobles at York. The earl was also said by the rebels to have
demanded excessive taxes and to have manipulated justice. While he was with the king
in Dorset, the Northumbrians rebelled, sacking Tostig’s headquarters at York. The
northerners demanded not independence from England but their own choice as earl,
inviting Earl Edwin of Mercia’s young brother, Morcar, to take on the role, so ensuring
Mercian and Welsh support. Their combined forces ravaged parts of the East Midlands
where Tostig had land, causing considerable damage in Northamptonshire. Harold
negotiated with the rebels, receiving some credit in the Chronicle for his attempts but
less so in the Life of King Edward, which suggested that Harold was complicit in the
uprising. Given the local context, this accusation may go too far, but he likely did
steer the outcome to his own advantage, as Tostig believed. Despite wishing to fight,
Edward had to acquiesce in the appointment of Morcar and allow Tostig to go into
exile in Flanders.
8.9 An angry King Edward,
At some point between 1063 and 1066, Harold married Edwin and Morcar’s sister, seated, receives an abject and
the widowed Ealdgyth, thereby allying himself with the only other English family of apologetic Harold on his return
real consequence. Late in 1065 he rid himself of a brother who might have held him from Normandy
 400 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

back from the throne, giving his command to his new in-�laws instead. Here we see
Harold strengthening his candidacy for the throne. The shift in the attitude of Leofric’s
grandsons is manifest in the enthusiasm for Harold shown in 1066 by the ‘C’ version
of the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, which was normally hostile to Godwine’s family:

However, the wise man [Edward] committed the kingdom

To a distinguished man, Harold himself,
A princely earl, who at all times
Loyally obeyed his superior
In words and deeds, neglecting nothing
Of which the nation’s king was in need.

The Life of King Edward, however, claims that Edward attempted to raise forces to
oppose the northerners, his frustration leading to the illness from which he died in
January 1066. The king’s inability to act without Harold is clear; by this stage it was the
premier earl who wielded the greater power. Although several accounts are somewhat
guarded, on his deathbed Edward does seem to have nominated Harold as successor,
or at least placed the kingdom under his protection. Edward was buried at the hastily
consecrated abbey of Westminster on 6 January and Harold’s coronation followed on
the same day, in the same church.
Harold II was king for less than ten months. Given that he was not himself
descended through the male line from previous English kings, his elevation represents
a change of dynasty. However, Harold was the old king’s brother-Â�in-Â�law and senior
earl, so in many respects the obvious candidate. We should recall that Edward had
succeeded not his English father but his Danish/Norman half-�brother, to whom
Harold too was related through his mother. He was clearly an accomplished politician
with experience of war. He had an imposing physical presence and brothers and sons
capable of ensuring the succession, so was in important ways well qualified. He seems
to have been widely supported within England, with nobody standing by Edgar
ætheling, the only king-Â�worthy figure descended from the old English line. Prompt
coronation gave Harold the advantages of being a consecrated king and public recog-
8.10 The king in majesty, nition of his claim. Excepting only Waltheof ’s small command in the East Midlands,
crowned and with sceptre.
the earls were either his brothers or brothers-�in-�law and he himself brought to the
Silver coin of Harold II minted
at Wallingford by the moneyer kingship the massive resources in land and men of an earldom stretching from
Burewine Cornwall to Sussex and Herefordshire to the Isle of Wight, so placing the Crown on a
completely new footing. The new king had far greater direct power than had Edward
since 1052 so was less dependent on his earls.
Harold rapidly took control of royal government; he was issuing writs, though only
one survives confirming the privileges of the Lotharingian Bishop Giso of Wells. New
silver pennies carrying Harold’s portrait were struck throughout England, with Edward’s
engraver at London still responsible for the dies. The design chosen was unusual:
Edward’s final issue had him facing right, bearded and helmeted, a sceptre before his
face. Harold’s kept the sceptre and beard, though the beard made him look much
younger than Edward and more stylish, and he adopted a youthful profile facing left
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 401

and adorned with a crown rather than a helmet. The crown and the PACX motif suggest
efforts to calm nerves over the succession and emphasise Harold’s legitimacy as king.
William also saw himself as Edward’s successor, even though he was no more a
descendant of English kings than was Harold. The duke now dominated north-�west
France, both the King of France and the Count of Anjou having died in recent years
leaving minors as heirs. Harold held an army and navy in readiness on the south coast
across the summer, but only Tostig arrived with a small force and he was driven off
from the south and then from Lindsey (Lincolnshire) and finally fled north to King
Malcolm of Scotland. Precisely what Tostig was attempting is unclear, whether he only
sought reinstatement or was contesting Harold’s kingship. Whichever it was, he did
not have the resources necessary to fight either his brother or Edwin and Morcar.
In Normandy, William organised a major shipbuilding programme. His need to
transport cavalry mounts in large numbers was something new and the Bayeux
Tapestry shows his preparations. William of Poitiers wrote an account of William’s
deeds modelled in part on Caesar’s Gallic Wars. He reported wide-Â�scale Norman scep-
ticism, although this was perhaps a rhetorical device to underline William’s personal
responsibility for his triumph. The duke successfully petitioned the papacy for support,
which encouraged wider French participation in his enterprise, the fighting strength of
Normandy alone being too small. Even so, the duke’s armada was something which he
was only likely to be able to stage once. The fleet assembled at the mouth of the Dives
in Lower Normandy. There may have been an abortive attempt to make the crossing,
but William of Poitiers reported merely that the fleet was blown by westerly winds to
St Valery, at the mouth of the Somme, where it then awaited a favourable wind. Having
run out of provisions, Harold disbanded his forces on the south coast on 8 September.
Harald Hardrada of Norway also had designs on England, so he gathered a great fleet
and set out. Hardrada’s claim was flimsy but his reputation and ability to deploy large
forces made his challenge very real. Without allies on the east side of the Channel, he
took the island route via Orkney. Tostig joined Hardrada in Scotland, providing a much
needed English ally. They raided the Northumbrian coast then entered the Humber and
the Ouse, coming ashore at Riccal (North Yorkshire) probably on 16 September.
Harold mobilised and marched north in haste. In his absence Edwin and Morcar
fought the Vikings at Gate Fulford outside the southern walls of York, but were defeated
with heavy losses on 20 September, leaving the city to make terms. Harold reached
Tadcaster (North Yorkshire) on 24 September, by which time Hardrada had with-
drawn to Stamford Bridge (Yorkshire, East Riding). Harold led his army through York
and on to Stamford Bridge on Monday 25 September, where he destroyed the
Norwegians. Both Tostig and Hardrada were slain and most of their forces perished,
24 ships sufficing to transport the survivors home.
Stamford Bridge was the greatest victory won by an English king against Viking
opponents, certainly since Æthelstan’s success at Brunanburh in 937. His triumph
entirely vindicated the choice of Harold Godwineson as king, conferring upon him the
cloak of divine approval. It also, however, drew Harold away from the south of England.
In Harold’s absence the Norman fleet crossed the Channel to Sussex during the night
of 26 September without fear that their horse-�laden vessels might be attacked at sea.
 402 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.11 Castle motte at Hastings.

The core at least was probably
constructed in the autumn of
1066

William arrived initially at Pevensey, where he constructed a castle within the old
Roman Saxon Shore Fort, then quickly moved to Hastings, where he again built a
castle. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts his forces firing houses in the neighbourhood and
they seized supplies at least as far east as Romney. News of the Norman arrival reached
Harold within a few days and William, in turn, learned the result of Stamford Bridge
from Edward’s old Norman courtier, Robert fitz Wimarc. Harold marched south. He
did not delay to call out as large an army as he might, instead forcing the pace as had
proved so successful at Stamford Bridge. He confronted the invader some 10 kilometres
8.12 Senlac Hill. Visible
beyond the wood, a low ridge
on top of which the English
army was drawn up. William
later constructed Battle Abbey
there
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 403

north of Hastings on Senlac Hill – the site later occupied by Battle Abbey – on
14 October. In a hard-�fought battle between armies probably of approximately equal
strength, the Anglo-�Saxons were eventually overthrown and Harold and his two
brothers killed, though whether or not Harold was slain by an arrow in the eye, as
often assumed, is far from certain. The defeat became a rout.
William’s success at Hastings has been put down to several different factors. In
retrospect it is tempting to see Harold as overly impetuous in not waiting for reinforce-
ments. However, following Stamford Bridge and with William ravaging lands held by
Harold’s family for generations, it is easy to see why he felt haste was paramount. One
could argue that the battle showed the advantages of Frankish styles of warfare, with
archers supporting cavalry, over English heavy infantry, yet throughout the day the
English shield wall also showed its value. Then again it has been suggested that William
displayed superior generalship on the day, but since all the extended reports were
written by his apologists this is hardly surprising. The battle might have gone either
way; the crucial factor was surely the death of Harold, following those of Gyrth and
Leofwine, which left the Anglo-�Saxons leaderless.
The defeated survivors withdrew to London, where Archbishop Ealdred of York
was joined by Edwin and Morcar in throwing their weight behind the claims of Edgar
ætheling. William moved east to Dover, which he garrisoned, then Canterbury, which
8.13 Battle Abbey. The site of
the high altar within the
demolished church,
traditionally the spot where
Harold was slain
404 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

surrendered to him. In November, although suffering from dysentery, William

marched west, beating back an Anglo-�Saxon sally from Southwark and firing the
suburb, then crossed the Thames at Wallingford and ravaged the countryside west of
London. Despite the large numbers of soldiers available to them, Edgar’s party lost
their nerve, surrendering to William at Berkhamsted (Berkshire). William was
crowned by Archbishop Ealdred at Westminster on Christmas Day 1066.
William of Poitiers’s defence of his claim to the throne reveals just how weak was the
kinship between himself and Edward, the son of the duke’s great-Â�aunt, so his first cousin
once removed. William’s candidacy was without support from any significant political
faction in England and was pressed home primarily through conquest, bringing to an
end a year of political and military drama and crisis on a scale unprecedented in Western
Europe since Visigothic Spain fell to the Arabs and Berbers in 711. That William was
crowned while his guards sacked and fired the suburbs west of London sets the tone.

King William
William saw his coronation as the start of his reign, a novelty given the normal assump-
tion of power by Anglo-Â�Saxon kings months – even years – earlier than their corona-
tion. In this respect Harold’s rapid enthronement may provide the precedent William
was following. Certainly, it brought him much needed legitimacy and initially he acted
with a view to reconcile the English to his rule, leaving those who had not fought
against him at Hastings in possession of their lands. Cnut had murdered several key
members of the English political classes at the start of his reign; William did not.
Instead, he accepted the submission of the leading thegns of Mercia, led by Edwin and
Morcar, then presided over a similar event at Pevensey.
There was a price, though: William levied fines for confirmation of tenure, which
caused some to contract debts that would cause them to lose their estates. At the same
time lands held by the Godwinesons and their followers were confiscated and
re-�granted. Normans already in England, like Robert of Rhuddlan, and some English
members of Edward’s household did well, but the vast bulk of these estates went to
incomers. In March 1067 the king took Edgar, Edwin, Morcar and other English
leaders to Normandy, as virtual hostages by one report. In William’s absence, England
was ruled by his half-�brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux and newly appointed earl of Kent,
and William fitz Osbern, earl of Hereford. Both were accused by the English of forcing
the marriages of English heiresses to Continental knights; they also levied a heavy geld
and pushed forward castle-�building. In the south-�west Marches for example, Ewias
Harold, Chepstow, Clifford, Monmouth and Wigmore were all thrown up at this date,
as the earl of Hereford pushed into what had until recently been Welsh territory.
The king granted consolidated estates along the Channel to Continental associates,
who built castles at Hastings, Arundel, Lewes and Bramber (all Sussex), and Tonbridge
in West Kent. In an atmosphere of growing distrust, a series of local disturbances broke
out: Eadric the Wild raised the northern Welsh Marches and Exeter closed its gates,
apparently in collusion with Harold’s sons and in expectation of a rising. William
retook Exeter and built Rougemont Castle to overawe the town. An attack from Ireland
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 405

8.14 Stone keep of Rougemont

Castle, Exeter. Built by William
to overawe the city following
revolt, inclusion of windows
comparable to those in
contemporary insular church
towers suggest the employment
of Anglo-Saxon masons

by Harold’s sons on Devon’s north coast was driven off. Castles were constructed as
foci for new consolidated estates granted to Normans, for example at Totnes (Devon).
Numerous English thegns were losing their lands through debt, arbitrary eviction
or legal process, and a trickle of establishment figures took refuge in flight, such as
Mærleswein, who was a significant figure in the East Midlands and the south west
(assuming these estates were held by the same individual). Edwin and Morcar fled
from court following the coronation of Matilda as queen in May 1068. William may
have reneged on an offer to Edwin of his daughter in marriage, but a new earldom at
Shrewsbury for Roger of Montgomery, within the heartland of their family’s influence,
was clearly an issue. A Mercian rebellion was beginning, but William marched north,
building castles at Warwick, Nottingham, York, Lincoln, Huntingdon and Cambridge,
and nipped it in the bud.
406 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

William made Robert de Commines earl of Northumbria but he was killed at

Durham in January 1069 and the whole of the north rose in revolt. The rebellion
embraced the house of Bamburgh and their kinsman Edgar ætheling. Yorkshire thegns
were incensed at the oppression carried out by William Malet, the newly appointed
sheriff, and the revolt also included Earl Waltheof of the south-�east Midlands and such
Anglo-�Saxon nobles as Siward Barn, whose lands were centred on Nottinghamshire,
Derbyshire and Warwickshire. William’s rapid march north and the building of a
second castle at York did not end the matter, and rebellion rekindled later in the year
with the backing of a Danish fleet. The Northumbrians took control of York, killing
William’s appointees and overthrowing their castles, but the whole city burnt.
Archbishop Ealdred died there in 1069 and with him ended any chance of reconciliation.
William put down the rebellion with extraordinary violence across the winter.
There have been efforts to reinterpret the so-Â�called ‘Harrying of the North’ as less
brutal than hitherto imagined, but refugees were reported begging as far south as
Evesham (Worcestershire). Domesday Book reveals that in 1086 manors without value
or even inhabitants were numerous in the north and the north-�west Midlands. William
now began to reorganise Northumbria and northern Mercia into great lordships and
grant them to his henchmen. The Breton Count Alan’s fief focused on Richmond
(North Yorkshire) comprised 199 manors in the eastern Pennines; Pontefract went to
Ibert de Lacy and Chester to Earl Hugh Lupus, while William also built the Castle of
the Peak in Derbyshire.
It was probably the northern revolt that convinced William to remove the English
from all positions of power. In 1070 he replaced several bishops, including Stigand as
archbishop of Canterbury with Lanfranc, an elderly native of Pavia (northern Italy) who
had long been an enthusiastic reformer and close ally. By 1087, when William died,
there was only one English bishop left, Wulfstan at Worcester, plus Bishop Giso, the
elderly Lotharingian who had been appointed by King Edward to Wells. At the same
time, English landholders in the Midlands and the north were stripped of their lands.
Resistance to William did not cease immediately, but the end was in sight. The
Danish fleet overwintered in the Humber and was reinforced in 1070, but with
Northumbria devastated it moved south to East Anglia. Hereward was leading resist-
ance at Ely but the Danes merely raided then returned home. Edwin and Morcar
escaped from court in 1071 but were too late to join the northern revolt. Edwin was
quickly slain. Morcar joined Hereward ‘the Wake’, but was captured and imprisoned
for the remainder of the reign.
By 1072 William felt sufficiently free of English unrest to campaign in Scotland,
where Malcolm had married Edgar’s sister, Margaret. At Abernethy, King Malcolm
did homage and agreed no longer to support the dissidents: Edgar and Gospatric
of Bamburgh fled to Flanders and William appointed Waltheof, who as Earl Siward’s
son was related to Gospatric, as earl of Bamburgh. But Waltheof was implicated in
the so-Â�called ‘revolt of the three earls’ in 1076 and was executed for his part
despite having betrayed the plot to Lanfranc. In his place William made Bishop
Walcher of Durham earl of Northumberland, but he was caught up in a blood feud
and murdered.
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 407

8.15 Distribution of estates

described as ‘waste’ in
Domesday Book, 1086.
Concentration in southern
Northumbria and north-west
Mercia suggests this was
largely the result of Norman
devastation to put down the
northern revolt of 1069/70,
although individual instances
may have had several different
causes

That was not the last opposition to William, however, since the Danish King Cnut,
Swein’s son and successor, formed a marriage alliance in 1085 with Flanders with the
intention of attacking England. The expected invasion fleet did not sail in 1085,
however, and the king was murdered on 10 July 1086 immediately prior to departure.
But this grand venture demonstrates just how insecure William’s conquest was in his
lifetime. It was with that threat in mind that William commissioned Domesday Book,
set in train at the council meeting held at Gloucester at Christmas 1085. After the
folios were delivered to him at an extraordinary meeting the following August at Old
Sarum, William left England for the last time to fight his overlord, the king of France.
The absence of serious rivals in northern France in the late 1060s was a major
factor enabling William’s invasion of England. Had Edward died before 1062 or after
408 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

1072 then William would have had far greater difficulties leaving Normandy and may
not have attempted it. From 1072 onwards, his overlord, the Capetian King Philip I,
took every opportunity to reduce William’s influence, campaigning in Brittany and the
Vexin against him, periodically supporting such rivals for the English throne as Edgar
ætheling and allying with Flanders and Denmark. Dividing England from Normandy
was clearly his overriding objective. William was successful against him in 1087 but
the campaign proved his last. Aged about 60 and by now grossly overweight, he injured
himself riding his warhorse. Fatally wounded, he was carried back to Rouen where he
died on 9 September 1087 at the Priory of St Gervais and was buried at Caen. The
funeral was cut short by the foul smell emanating from the corpse which the monks
had inadvertently punctured as they strove to force it into a stone coffin that was now
too small. His macabre end illustrates the dramatic shift that had occurred, for here
was a king of England dying and being buried outside Britain for the first time.
When William died he left four sons, three of whom contested his inheritance. The
eldest, Robert, took Normandy, but it was the old king’s namesake, William ‘Rufus’, who
seized England, leaving the youngest, Henry, just a few castles. Edgar ætheling had
survived to this date but there was no interest in his candidacy and his friendship with
Robert made his position in England problematic. Eventually, Henry emerged as king of
England, through the violent death of William in the New Forest in 1100, then as duke
of Normandy through battle against his eldest brother in 1106. As king, one of Henry’s
first acts was to marry Edith, daughter of Malcom of Scotland and Edgar’s niece, thus
reconciling his English subjects to his rule and establishing a union capable of producing
an heir to unite both claims; hostility to the marriage among his Norman barons was to
an extent dispelled by Edith’s adoption of the Norman-Â�French name, Matilda.

Conquest England
Late Anglo-�Saxon England was, by the standards of the day, effectively governed, pros-
perous and comparatively peaceful. Political unification had led to a system of govern-
ment which connected centre and locality via a network of defended centres (burhs)
and courts operating at the level of the shire and its subdivisions. These were overseen
by earls, bishops and sheriffs, all in some sense royal appointees. Kings and their close
associates also had local agents managing their estates and collecting revenues, forming
a service aristocracy. The ability to legislate for the nation, to raise armies and land tax,
central regulation of the coinage and the near-�exclusion of foreign coins all speak of
effective government. Powerful arguments have been made in recent years in favour of
a strong and centralised late Anglo-�Saxon state. Indeed, when compared to France,
Ireland, Wales, Scotland or Spain the case is overwhelming.
That said, two conquests by external armies imply that the late English state was less
robust than appearances might suggest, but at the same time a great prize. Additionally,
its government’s effectiveness may have been overemphasised, with local power still
largely vested in great aristocratic families. Relations between centre and locality, the
country’s vulnerability to foreign intervention and its overall value have to be foci of
our discussion when reviewing the Norman Conquest. Another is the extent to which
 e dwa r d ‘ t h e c o n f e s s o r ’, t h e g o d w i n e s o n s a n d w i l l i a m 409

we should view that Conquest as a decisive event not just in terms of the English elite,
virtually all of whom were killed or displaced, but also as regards the wider population,
the economy, popular culture and social structures. The Conquest clearly involved
what modern journalese terms ‘regime change’, but did it have less drastic implications
for grass-�roots England than for the major players who were swept aside?
In many senses, of course, changes resulting from the Conquest were profound. In
1040, English, albeit with regional dialects, was the dominant language, from the king
to his ploughman. Admittedly, Old Scandinavian survived in parts of the north, where
Viking names were very common, and there were some Welsh and Cornish speakers
in western England. Old Norse did make a substantial impact, giving us perhaps two
thousand words of modern English, but it altered Old English rather than replaced it.
Elements within Edward’s court may have been French speaking, but otherwise English
prevailed and Harold’s succession confirmed it as the language of elite discourse,
though he may well also have been fluent in Old Norse given his mother’s Danish
origins. A written version of English, known now as Standard Old English, was used by
clerics and monks, alongside Latin. More works survive from later Anglo-�Saxon England
in Latin than in Old English, but even so the written remains are impressive. Edward’s
surviving charters, for example, were set down in approximately equal numbers in
English and Latin, with boundary clauses almost always in the vernacular.
All this was to change within a few years: the Northamptonshire geld rolls of the
1070s were still in English but thereafter there was a shift. Norman French replaced
English as the language of elite discourse, while William’s agents increasingly used
Latin for governmental purposes. England became a trilingual society within which
language marked deep political, social and cultural divides. The ‘E’ version of the
Anglo-�S axon Chronicle, the last to be kept up, abandoned Standard Old English
after 1132 in favour of local dialect, which in turn gave out in 1154, when the
Chronicle ends.
Within two generations of the Conquest, Standard Old English was dead, there-
fore, while the spoken language mutated into Middle English across the twelfth
century. This involved not just the collapse of a codified written vernacular in favour
of regional dialects but also an uptake of French vocabulary which has made English
one of the richest languages in Europe, with numerous alternative words from each of
the parent languages (as Old English/Old Norse ‘knight’ and ‘warrior’, from Old French
gūerreior). Telling is the emphasis on English names for animals but French for meat,
as ‘cow’ versus ‘beef ’ (bœuf) and ‘sheep’ versus ‘mutton’ (mouton), reflecting English
producers but French consumers. At the same time replacement of grammatical inflec-
tion with prepositions occurred, stimulated in part by contact with Scandinavian
languages but visible primarily in a post-�Conquest context.
We should not doubt the degree of change in elite society. Only a handful of the
holders of substantial estates in 1066, or their immediate heirs, still held them in 1086.
Mid-�twentieth-�century scholars identified just Thorkell of Warwick and Colswein of
Lincoln as holding significant estates, to which more recent study has added Edward
of Salisbury and Gospatric, son of Arnkell. A few men with English names, such as
Alfred of Malmesbury, occur in 1086 but not 1066, but even with such additions the
410 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

number of English landholders remains very low. The Norman court was predomi-
nantly immigrant in composition and French speaking, as were elite households
throughout the land.
Taking the Leicestershire folios of Domesday Book as an example, the only English
names occurring among 44 landholders in 1086 are the almsman, Godwine the Priest,
whose holding was paltry, and two widows – countesses Godiva and Ælfeva. All others
were incomers. Clearly there was a much higher survival rate among elite women than
men and many of the next generation’s aristocrats were born of English women and
learnt English at home, but the changes were nevertheless profound. Among the elite,
by 1100, Norman and French personal names had virtually swept away the Old English
and Old Norse which had predominated in 1065.
In many shires a small proportion of named 1066 holders appear in 1086 with
much reduced holdings and as tenants of Norman lords, so as subtenants. Other
unnamed tenants in 1086 may have been the named freeholders of 1066 or their heirs
but in that case they had suffered even greater loss of status, while some unnamed free
tenants in 1066 had probably joined the ranks of the manorial peasantry by 1086.
However, the majority of 1066 holders are simply untraceable. In 1086 the king held
approximately 20 per cent of the land of England and the Church another 25 per cent.
Of the remainder, incoming secular lords held some 50 per cent, leaving a mere 5 per
cent or less in the hands of English landholders.
Alongside the shift from English to Norman tenure, there were major changes in the
balance of elite society. The upper tier of late Anglo-�Saxon landholders centred on the
king and queen, the wealthier bishops and religious houses and the earls, but there were
also numerous thegns with estates in excess of 50 hides. Some of these were wealthy
men with large landholdings, such as Edric of Laxfield, with extensive estates in Norfolk
and Suffolk. Most of the more substantial were king’s thegns, owing service to no one
except the king. Others had commended themselves to another lord but the choice was
generally their own to make, irrespective of whether or not they held land of another.
In contrast, tenure of land and commendation were closely linked under the Norman
king and land-�tenure was far more tightly structured, with William at the apex of a
landholding system of a type which had not existed either in England or Normandy
before 1066. This was perhaps the most fundamental structural change consequent on
William’s seizure of the throne, applied not just to incomers but also to existing holders,
be they clerical or lay. Fewer than 150 lay tenants-�in-�chief held substantial estates from
William and others held lands of and owed service to these new barons.
There was massive shrinkage, therefore, in the ranks of landholders immediately
below the king. The great Anglo-�Saxon earldoms were likewise dissolved, with indi-
viduals holding the title of earl now linked with specific shires rather than whole
regions (much as ealdormen in ninth-�century Wessex), and the title was largely
honorary. The earl’s duties in most respects passed to sheriffs whose actions frequently
attracted complaints. The result was a far narrower hierarchy. The king sat at the apex
of a society characterised by duties defined in terms of military service and other
feudal obligations, which flowed upwards from subtenant to king via a comparatively
small number of intermediaries.
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 411

Anglo-�Saxon thegns and others holding bookland (land which had been granted
by charter into private ownership) had long owed military service to the Crown, but
the frequent military crises of William’s reign led to these obligations being institu-
tionalised at inflated levels. Religious houses and others fulfilled their quotas by
granting lands in return for military service. For many churches and monasteries, the
difficulties were exacerbated by the losses which they suffered as incomers took over
the portion of their lands that had previously been leased to Anglo-�Saxon thegns.
Efforts to defend and regain such estates encouraged a new emphasis on pre-�Conquest
land documentation. This in turn led to the forging of charters where existing docu-
mentation was found wanting and generally encouraged a renewed interest in the
English past, which led to the histories of Eadmer at Canterbury and William of
Malmesbury.
Royal grants of lands to lay supporters took several different forms. A minority
received adjacent estates forming a compact block, normally for strategic purposes
and mostly on the edges of England, as in Sussex, the north or the Welsh Marches.
Others were granted all the lands held by one or more Anglo-�Saxon landholder, so that
the spread depended on previous patterns. In most cases, however, the process was less
tidy and there often seems little logic to the bundles of manors and other assets held by
a particular individual in 1086. William intentionally rewarded supporters in different
regions but rarely gave individuals predominance in any particular locality. This led to
a bundling of estates.
Clearly there was also confusion regarding the tenure of some manors, with
conflicting claims. On occasion William had inadvertently granted the same land to
different recipients, but more often land had been acquired through coercion by
powerful incomers, often including sheriffs. The forcible marriage of an heiress was
just one means of securing property. It should also be remembered that numerous
transactions which are undocumented or at best only partially documented may sepa-
rate information relating to 1066 and 1086. In some areas, the process of the granting
out of land by tenants-�in-�chief was still very much in process in 1086. Occasionally the
claims of the dispossessed occur in Domesday Book, but Domesday juries were highly
susceptible to pressure and few wrongs were righted. Only very rarely did English
plaintiffs have their grievances heard, given that the courts were dominated by the
incomers who had taken over their lands. To deter the waylaying and murder of
Frenchmen, William’s regime introduced a novel fine, murdrum, which was imposed
on any community where a French corpse was found.
The Conquest also resulted in wholesale appointments of incomers to senior reli-
gious positions, and in this it contrasts with Cnut’s practice of appointing Englishmen
to the Church. By William’s death, numerous senior positions in the monasteries had
gone to Frenchmen, although most monks and parish priests were still natives. Another
outcome was the transfer of English resources to continental abbeys. The granting of
estates to Norman houses had begun under Edward, with gifts of substantial lands in
Sussex to Fécamp Abbey, for instance, but this escalated post-Â�1066, as numerous newly
rich landholders made gifts to abbeys ‘back home’, and looked to them to provide
clergy for their new estates. This continued for some decades: Roger of Poitou, for
 412 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.16 Jumièges Abbey, by the

Seine in Normandy. Construction
began just prior to Edward’s
departure for England, under
the supervision of that Robert of
Jumièges whom he made
archbishop of Canterbury. The
abbey was arguably the
inspiration for the king’s own
new work at Westminster, which
would have looked similar

example, granted the parish church of Lancaster to the Norman abbey of Sées in 1094,
along with a further nine churches in Lancashire.
There was also profound change as regards the weight of governmental demands.
While Edward had shown a reluctance to levy land tax, William demanded ever more
and heavier gelds. The new regime had not only to pay significant numbers of troops
after the 1066 campaign but also raised mercenaries thereafter. William encountered
far more challenging circumstances than Edward, both in terms of internal disaffec-
tion and overseas commitments, so his government was far more expensive.
William clearly wished to be considered Edward’s legitimate heir, governing in
traditional ways. However, his regime instituted a revolution in terms of who held land
and how. Behind the rhetoric, the Normans had imposed an alien regime on an
unwilling people by force, rewriting the immediate past as they did so and constructing
a racially structured state in which the minority treated the majority with contempt.
The Conquest was not just about the transfer of power, it was also about marking that
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 413

transfer, for there was nothing self-Â�effacing about the Norman incomers. A new ‘colo-
nial’ architecture differentiates William’s reign. This is visible primarily in two areas,
churches and castles.
Virtually every major church in England was rebuilt in the late eleventh century,
leaving intact very few front-�rank Anglo-�Saxon buildings. Of course, there are hints of
this pre-Â� Conquest in Edward’s rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the new
Romanesque style. His close associate, Robert of Jumièges, was instrumental in
rebuilding Nôtre-Â�Dame at Jumièges and this was probably the trigger for Edward’s
initiative. Indeed, he may even have employed a mason from there. Before 1066,
though, in England the new architecture was confined to this one site, and Westminster
Abbey survived because Edward’s tomb was of too much value to the new regime for
it to be disturbed.
Elsewhere church rebuilding spread across England, with wholesale replacement of
Anglo-�Saxon cathedrals and abbeys, as well as of more local churches. The new struc-
tures were generally much larger. At Canterbury, however, the cathedral had already
been rebuilt following its destruction in 1011, and here Lanfranc’s replacement was
not so very different in size from the late Anglo-�Saxon church which burnt down in
December 1067. Of England’s great churches, Durham Cathedral is today the most
complete survival of early Norman church-�building, but the cathedrals of Ely and
Winchester also retain much early Norman work.
Not only were numerous Anglo-�Saxon churches replaced by the new elite but a
critical light was shed on their traditions as well. Local minster churches often retained
in their dedications a memory of their founders or early champions. Since the tenth
century, the reformed monasteries had been replacing such cults with more universal
8.17 Canterbury Cathedral
Reconstruction of the late
Anglo-Saxon cathedral
following destruction of the
earlier building in 1011
 414 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.18 Canterbury Cathedral.

Reconstruction of the new
Norman cathedral built after
destruction by fire of the
previous church in 1067

8.19 Development of a thegnly

residence at Goltho
(Lincolnshire): (a) modest farm
within field ditches, c. 800–50;
(b) more substantial ‘hall’ type
building, c. 850–950, with
possible kitchen to east and
weaving sheds to north of
courtyard; (c) basic plan
through second half of tenth
century, but hall and kitchen
expanded; (d) eleventh-century
settlement surrounded by a
defensive ditch and bank and
with a far more massive hall, its
timber uprights capable of
supporting an upper storey.
Construction of a Norman motte
later eclipsed the site
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 415

saints. In the late eleventh century the influx of Continental clerics and monks further
accelerated this process. They repressed local cults of obscure saints whose deeds were
not properly authenticated, and rededicated their new churches. The result was a
dramatic loss of collective memories, leaving just a few remaining, as St Bertolin
(Beorhthelm) at Stafford and various sites in the north-�west Midlands, St Eadburh at
Pershore, and St Pega at Peakirk.
Castles were also archetypal monuments to Norman colonialism, providing elite
residences with an inbuilt military capability not hitherto common in England. Some
late Anglo-� Saxon thegnly residences, such as those excavated at Portchester
(Hampshire), Goltho (Lincolnshire) and Sulgrave (Northamptonshire), boasted a
defensive capability, with a substantial bank and ditch around residential buildings,
but none really matched the Norman castle and many remained undefended. Hitherto
most defences had been communal and urban, providing a strongpoint for the whole
community. Castles provided private rather than public security, featuring ring-�works,
mottes or even stone keeps.
William’s campaigning earth and timber castles at Pevensey and Hastings mark the
inception of a phase of castle-�building which then spread across England and on into
Wales, Scotland and ultimately Ireland. New Norman, Breton or French landholders
constructed mottes and/or ring-�works as the foci for their estates, as Robert did at
Rhuddlan for his new barony in North Wales. William himself used castles to impose
his rule at important centres: three castles were built on the edges of London – the
White Tower (later known as the Tower of London), Baynard’s Castle and Montfichet
Castle, two in York and at least one in most other major towns, often causing the
destruction of existing housing. At Canterbury, a motte called the Dane John (from

8.20 The great earthen motte

at Rhuddlan. The caput of a
major group of estates in North
Wales held by Robert of
Rhuddlan variously of the king
and his kinsman, Hugh of
Avranches, earl of Chester. By
1086 Robert and the earl had
founded a new borough nearby;
the site had earlier been an
Anglo-Saxon burh then King
Gruffudd’s palace
 416 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.21 The Dane John

(foreground). An early Norman
motte built immediately inside
the walls of Canterbury, it was
replaced later in William’s
reign by a stone keep, visible
at Worthgate (to the left)

Norman French donjon) was thrown up immediately inside the walls in 1066, then a
stone keep was built at Worthgate later in the reign, dispossessing townsfolk and
destroying 32 houses. The abbot of St Augustine’s was compensated with 14 properties
in the town.
While it has become fashionable in recent years to think of medieval castles under-
pinning elite status with symbolic power, there can be no doubting their role as a prac-
tical weapon of colonisation in the Norman period and they were seen as such by
Anglo-Â�Saxon commentators. As the author of the ‘E’ version of the Anglo-Â�Saxon
Chronicle put it when recording William’s death:

He had castles built and wretched men oppressed. The king was so very stark and
seized from his subject men many a mark of gold, and many more hundreds of
pounds of silver that he took by weight and with great injustice from his land’s nation
with little need.

The castle was, therefore, a major weapon in the arsenal of the Norman elite. Castle
walls secured their households and treasuries while prisons and towers served to
overawe a conquered land. Many, like Pilsbury Castle, are undocumented, so it is not
even clear whether they were constructed in the context of the Conquest or later in the
troubles of Stephen’s reign (1135–54). Extensive excavations at Hen Domen
(Montgomeryshire) have demonstrated that a timber castle was capable of providing
comparatively sophisticated accommodation for a family of the highest status, in this
case that of the earls of Shrewsbury, who commissioned its construction.
We might reasonably conclude from this that the impact of the Normans was both
extraordinarily deep and long-�lasting. However, if we shift our attention away from the
elite, the Conquest becomes somewhat less visible. New church-�building was not
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 417

8.22 Pilsbury Castle, near

Hartington (Derbyshire),
overlooking the river Dore. The
motte and twin baileys were
built by the de Ferrers family to
protect their local estates
against insurgents or other
Norman lords. Whether the
castle is a late eleventh-
century castle or mid-twelfth
century is unclear

entirely a product of the Conquest, for both the replacement of old churches with new
stone structures and the proliferation of manorial churches with parishes carved out of
those of the old minsters were underway already in later Anglo-�Saxon England, as
across much of contemporary Europe. Some of this was, of course, sponsored by the
elite, such as the church of St Mary at Stow (Lincolnshire) and Coventry Abbey
(Warwickshire), both commissioned by Earl Leofric and his wife Godiva, or Tovi the
Proud’s development of Waltham Abbey (Essex), where he relocated a black cross
recently found on his estates. Often we do not know who commissioned new work, but
8.23 Hen Domen
(Montgomeryshire). A late
eleventh-century timber motte
and bailey castle constructed
by the earls of Shrewsbury and
the most extensively excavated
Norman example of its type. At
the apex of the motte are
post-holes for a defensive
timber structure
 418 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8.24 The late Anglo-Saxon

tower of the church of St
Mary’s, Sompting (West
Sussex). The ‘Rhenish helm’
style of the roof and
Romanesque architectural
details suggest that the upper
parts predate the Conquest by
only a generation or so

numerous parish churches in such areas as coastal Sussex retain elements of late
Anglo-�Saxon fabric (as at Selham), with the occasional survival of virtually complete
examples, at Sompting for example. New churches were increasingly constructed
alongside elite residences in the countryside and that was probably the origin of Earls
Barton church (Northamptonshire), which is adjacent to extensive earthworks of a
defensive, high-�status complex.
Domesday Book records numerous churches in parts of East Anglia by 1066,
suggesting that manorial parishes had proliferated there; poor recording may mask
densities elsewhere. Small, one-�village parishes became commonplace across the south
and east of England, even while parishes in the outer edges of England often remained
very extensive. Although the earliest stonework in many parish churches is Norman
and the network of England’s parish churches continued to evolve into the early thir-
teenth century and beyond, the impetus had clearly begun before 1066.
Estimates of England’s population in the eleventh century have risen from the
1.2–1.5 million proposed in the mid-Â� twentieth century to 2–2.5 million today,
following a re-�evaluation of Domesday Book. To put this in perspective, the recent
estimates approximate to those for England and Wales around 1500. Norman
immigration had little impact on the total, numbering only perhaps some twenty
thousand, so barely 1 per cent of the overall population, and far more English were
t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 419

8.25 West tower of All Saints

Church, Earls Barton.
Constructed in the later tenth
century, this is one of the best
preserved Anglo-Saxon tower
churches. Immediately behind
the church are massive
Conquest-period earthworks,
remains of a manorial complex
held by Earl Waltheof and his
wife Judith, William’s niece.
Pairing of a high-status
residence with a manorial
church was commonplace in
later Anglo-Saxon England
420 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

either killed or expelled. The English population remained very much ‘English’ in
genetic terms, therefore, despite the Conquest.
Eleventh-�century England was predominantly rural, with perhaps 90 per cent of
the population engaged in farming. Very few incomers became farmers. Over a third
of the Domesday population was classified as (villeins villani), with small family farms
subject to the manorial court, and other large categories were all sections of the rural
workforce – bordars (literally, men who ate at the lords table), cottars (cottagers, often
with a few acres) and slaves. None of these are likely to have been immigrants from
France. Settlement nucleation was well underway pre-�1066 and was not dependent on
the Conquest, although incoming Norman lords probably introduced it to new areas.
In most places rural settlements were not much affected by the Conquest beyond
increased demands for rent, services and produce, and the incorporation of new castles
into some villages.
There was considerable continuity too in methods of agriculture. The Domesday
Inquest assumed use of the heavy plough throughout Anglo-�Saxon England, capable
of cultivating around 120 acres (49 hectares) each year. Difficulties of interpreting
Domesday Book make it impossible to provide a firm estimate of the total area under
the plough, but there were over 70,000 plough teams at work in 28 Domesday shires
(excluding Middlesex and the northern counties). It seems reasonably safe to assume
an arable area roughly comparable to the 3.1 million hectares under the plough in
1914, although the distribution was radically different. The countryside was hit hard
for a generation in parts of northern England due to the ‘Harrying of the North’ by
which William suppressed the Northumbrian rebellion of 1069/70; to a lesser extent
other regions suffered similarly, particularly northern and north-�western Mercia, but
elsewhere expansion of ploughing at the expense of pasture, woodland and heath
probably continued across the Conquest period little affected by the politics of the age.
Although most of the population lived off food they produced themselves, eleventh-�
century England had an increasingly monetised economy with a proportion of agri-
cultural production going to markets. Most of those which we can identify were in
towns. Domesday York, for example, had a meat market and larger towns generally
had several specialised markets. Local markets are problematic at this period, becoming
far more recognisable as borough charters proliferated in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, but such place name
Â� elements as ‘port’ (‘market’, as Stockport, Bridport, and
see ‘Hugh of the port’ in Domesday Dartford) imply their presence. Archaeological
evidence sometimes suggests that the layout of a later medieval town may pre-�date
1066, as at Barton-�on-�Humber, for example, where Domesday Book records a market
and ferry. A key indicator is the presence of burgesses – individuals holding by the
burgage tenure characteristic of a town: over one hundred places had burgesses in
Domesday Book, although some, such as Penwortham (Lancashire), had only a handful.
Particular concentrations of small towns occur in Domesday Wiltshire (as Calne
and Malmesbury), Somerset (as Bruton and Frome), and around the south-�east
seaways (as Fordwich, Hythe). Other market centres are somewhat speculative: King’s
Lynn (Norfolk), for example, although not formally founded until 1090, may already
have been operative in William’s reign. Given that most medieval markets were not in
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 421

8.26 Towns identified in

Domesday Book

the larger towns, it seems likely that we are missing numerous examples, even despite
the limitation of trade to burhs in the tenth century. Some new towns were founded
between 1066 and 1086, for example at Rye (East Sussex), where the abbot of Fécamp
established a town and harbour, but again this may have merely formalised an existing
market. Sites on the south coast received an impetus from new cross-�Channel interests
whereas markets that depended on trade with Scandinavia experienced a recession.
In most areas the larger towns were the shire boroughs, where mints were
concentrated, administration centred and the more important defences maintained,
although some others, such as Thetford (Norfolk), with its long-�sustained mint and
943 burgesses in 1066, were also sizeable. A handful of Domesday towns were clearly
exceptional: in 1066 York had 1,418 houses as well as those held of the archbishop, so
probably some eight thousand residents; Lincoln, Norwich and Oxford were not much
smaller, but all four suffered population reduction by 1086, in York’s case dramatically.
422 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

London was clearly by far the largest late Anglo-�Saxon town but its omission from
Domesday Book makes it difficult to assess. Archaeological finds of the period are
mainly limited to the Roman walled area, plus Southwark on the southern side of the
river, which had expanded down Borough High Street. Southwark, though, was fired
by the Normans in 1066. The waterfront between London Bridge and Billingsgate was
regularly rebuilt and has produced quantities of imported pottery from the mid-�
eleventh century onwards, suggesting a vibrant community with strong links to the
Continent as well as coastal England, exporting wool, cloth and lead.
In Edward’s reign all England’s mints received their dies from London, and its mint
was by far the most productive. Edward’s development of Westminster reflects the
expansion of London’s suburbs; the foundation of several new priories around the City
followed in the Norman period. Whether London’s experience of the Norman
Conquest was negative even in the short term is unclear: the literary evidence for
burning and looting is to an extent contradicted by the demolition of the riverside wall
in the late eleventh century which implies expansion, suggesting that any downturn
was short-�lived.
Most towns, even shire towns, were far smaller and many had shrinking popula-
tions during William’s reign: Stafford had only 179 dwellings in 1086 of which 41 were
unoccupied and/or derelict, suggesting a loss since 1066 in excess of 20 per cent. There
is some evidence of castle-Â�building but Stafford’s castle was eventually resited at some
distance from the town. Many of the houses here were attached to rural estates: for
example, 13 were linked with Robert of Stafford’s nearby manor of Bradley, so prob-
ably included his lodgings and others for his men. Such towns had highly fluctuating
populations, rising when the shire court, fair, market or some major social event was
in progress, then dropping away.
Many even of the shire towns embraced farming alongside more ‘urban’ activities:
at Derby, 41 burgesses cultivated 8 ploughlands in 1086; the 243 burgesses of 1066 had
declined to 140 by then, so almost 30 per cent of the townsfolk were farming. Its
10 mills suggest that the town was also a focus for producing flour. At Colchester
(Essex), a detailed list of the king’s burgesses in 1086 entered into Little Domesday
Book reveals that many held a few acres of land, so were both tradesmen and small-�
scale farmers. At Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) bakers, brewers, tailors, washers,
shoemakers, robemakers, cooks, porters and bursars are all noted. Numerous build-
ings in England’s southern towns had tiled roofs and there were large-Â�scale ceramics
industries in the immediate vicinity of some, as at Canterbury. Bone, ivory, metal and
textile-�working were commonplace; some towns offered specialised marketing of local
products (as salt at Droitwich in Worcestershire and Middlewich in Cheshire). Some
burgesses were clearly literate, and written records played an increasing role in
commerce, estate management and government.
Despite the reduced numbers of inhabitants, towns owed greater revenues in 1086
than they had in 1066: Hertford, for example, paid £7 10s in 1066 but £20 in 1086.
Many towns both lost population and faced greater demands after the Conquest,
suggesting that incomes declined noticeably. Much the same can be said of great
swathes of the countryside, where values were reckoned to have increased between
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 423

1066 and 1086 despite static or declining assets. Assuming these figures were based on
lordly income, landholders were necessarily exacting a higher share of the yield than
in the past. To take a few examples, the 36 estates of Count Alan in Norfolk for which
we have 1066 and 1086 values show an overall rise of around 40 per cent (£96 17s to
£133 19s), with increases recorded in 16 instances and falls in just 5. Some of these
rises are extreme, as at Costessey, for example, where the valuation rose from £20 to
£45 and Ingham from £2 to £9.
Warwickshire was a shire where between 1066 and 1086 warfare is not recorded.
Taking the estates held of the king by Earl Roger, Earl Aubrey and the Count of Meulan
as a sample, the 68 estates where the calculation can be made were valued on average
around 30 per cent higher in 1086 than 1066. If we break this down there is some vari-
ability, with Earl Roger’s showing only a 14 per cent rise (£28 to £32 10s) while Earl
Aubrey’s lands, which were being farmed short term while in the king’s hands, show a
77 per cent increase (£9 5s to £16 5s 4d). The much larger holdings of the Count of
Meulan rose in value closer to the overall average of 30 per cent. Lords were, therefore,
exacting an increased share of the proceeds of farming compared to 1066, most
markedly when they had only temporary control of the land, a process we might liken
to asset stripping.
If we look at the estates of Thorkell of Warwick, a comparable overall increase in
values is present, but it is noticeable that his estates were generally far poorer than
those of the incomers, valued at a mere 34s each on average compared to Roger’s 72s,
Aubrey’s 65s and the Count of Meulan’s 67s. Many of Thorkell’s tenants were incomers
and most of his more profitable manors were sublet to the new aristocracy. He had
been unable to protect his pre-�existing Anglo-�Saxon tenants, therefore, even supposing
he had wished to.

Conclusion
There are considerable continuities to set beside the discontinuities of the Conquest
period which we need to bear in mind as we review the political history. Overall, the
impact was less likely to be personal and more likely to be financial the further down
the social scale we look, with numerous hitherto prosperous families driven into
poverty. At whatever level of society, however, the Conquest was a major watershed. By
the twelfth century, even the peasantry were abandoning Anglo-�Saxon naming habits
and calling many of their sons William, Henry and Robert, their daughters Matilda,
Emma and Eleanor, although this was delayed somewhat in parts of the north, where
Scandinavian personal names still remained in use.
Its extraordinary success meant that the story of the Norman Conquest was told on
William’s terms and it is Norman accounts that underpin attempts to write a history of
1066 and its immediate aftermath. By the time of Domesday Book, Harold’s reign had
been virtually erased from the record and William was presenting himself as Edward’s
heir. A generation further on, Harold had become little more than a symbol of misrule.
Writing in 1127 at Saint-Â�Évroul, the Anglo-Â�Norman Orderic Vitalis remarked of 1066:
424 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

In England there was great disorder after the death of King Edward, when the perjured
Harold, son of Godwin, who was not of royal stock, seized the kingdom by force
and fraud.

Had the Battle of Hastings turned out differently then chroniclers may have referred to
William in similar terms, with as much justification. That said, although there were
frequent divisions within the English establishment, it is worth stressing that from the
close of 1066 onwards William always had some English support and never faced a truly
national rebellion. The northern revolt was by far the most dangerous but it was unsup-
ported in southern England. The backing of several ecclesiasts appointed during
Edward’s reign was unwavering: these naturally included men like the Lotharingian
Giso, bishop of Wells, the Norman William, bishop of London, and Baldwin, abbot of
Bury St Edmunds, but they also included such Englishmen as Bishop Wulfstan and
Archbishop Ealdred. Numerous thegns also stood by William and he still counted on
Anglo-�Saxon contingents in the latter part of his reign when fighting in Normandy.
Indeed, when William was unhorsed and struck down in a melee against his rebellious
son Robert a few days after Christmas 1078, it was an English thegn, Toki, son of Wigot,
who shielded him at the cost of his own life. The rebellions which William did confront
were generally ill-�focused and poorly led. His victory at Hastings gave William an aura
of invincibility which discouraged insular opponents from confronting him. It has often
been suggested that his use of heavy cavalry and archers was crucial, bringing new
dimensions to English warfare which had to that point been comparatively traditional
in style. That the great expansion of Norman power into England and southern Europe
coincided with the adoption of both castles and heavy cavalry is pertinent. Normans
had established control of southern Italy by 1066; four years later Sicily fell as well. The
energy of William himself, his determination and his self-�belief also played their part in
his victory, although much the same might have been said of either Harold Godwineson
or Harald Hardrada had they won.
Most Norman landholders in 1086 were named for their places of origin on the
Continent (as Berengar de Tosny, Hugh de Grandmesnil), but a few were identified via
places in England (as Robert de Romney, Roger de Westerham) and this would spread
as the insular Norman elite increasingly saw themselves and were viewed by others as
‘English’ Normans or the ‘Norman’ English, as distinct from ‘Norman’ Normans and
the ‘English’ English. There can be no doubting that the England which emerged into
the twelfth century was a markedly different place to that which had existed in 1065,
with a new elite, a new architecture, new cultural conventions and usage and a different
style of warfare. For centuries to come, overseas commitments would shape royal
policy. Indeed, the English state over which Edward the Confessor had ruled would
not finally re-�emerge divested of Continental territory until Queen Mary lost Calais in
1558, and even then the acquisition of Wales seriously weakens the comparison.
At the last we should acknowledge that the late Anglo-�Saxon state was part of a
world which was fast disappearing. Cnut’s conglomerate Viking Empire strung out
along the Atlantic coastline of northern Europe disintegrated even before his death
through infighting, regional particularism and the problems of maintaining the neces-
 t h e t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f a n g l o - s a xo n e n g l a n d 425

sary contact between its several parts. Edward’s reign was played out against a back-
drop of ambitious Viking and Anglo-�Scandinavian warlords whom only good fortune
kept away from England’s shores. His own sympathies were always with Normandy,
and it was arguably his preferred candidate, though not necessarily the candidate to
whom he ultimately lent his support, who eventually prevailed.
Anglo-�Saxon England may not have died on the field of Hastings but it certainly
changed radically over the following few years. William crushed his northern oppo-
nents, dispossessed others who had turned against him, progressively ceased patron-
ising or employing Anglo-�Saxons and turned instead to French-�speaking incomers.
The Anglo-�Saxon elite was variously destroyed, driven abroad or slain, with groups
dispersing to Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and the Continent, often to join Viking
forces. A substantial fleet made up of English and Danes reached the eastern
Mediterranean in 1088, many taking service in the imperial Varangian Guard at
Byzantium and fighting the Normans in Sicily. In Atlantic Europe, the Viking Age was
ending and Scandinavian influence in England was in steep decline.
In the late eleventh century, the new Norman aristocracy of England pushed
forward into Wales, with Scotland and Ireland also in their sights. The Norman
Conquest should be remembered as the most brutal land grab in English history and
the changes that it brought about serve as a fitting point at which to close this new
introduction to Anglo-�Saxon England.
Yet despite the traumas of the Norman Conquest, much of the Anglo-�Saxon world
survived. Anglo-�Norman and Latin became the languages of the royal court, of justice

8.27 Circular walrus-ivory seal

die with projecting handle. On
the face (right) God the Father
and Son sit enthroned over a
prostrate human figure, the
damaged symbol of the Holy
Ghost above. Within the
circular frame a bearded man
holds a sword in his right
hand, with the inscription ‘THE
SEAL OF GODWIN THE THEGN’.
On the reverse (left) a woman
seated on a cushion holds a
book with the secondary
inscription ‘THE SEAL OF
GODGYTHA A NUN GIVEN TO
GOD’; she may be his relative.
Found at Wallingford and made
around 1040, the seal
demonstrates the workmanship
and wide-ranging contacts of
eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon
craftsmen
426 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

and administration, and of learning and culture, but nevertheless English continued to
be spoken as a mother tongue by the majority of the population. By the end of the
fourteenth century, English – Middle English – had reasserted itself as the dominant
vernacular literary language, sidelining the hitherto pre-�eminent Anglo-�Norman.
Now in the twenty-�first century, English in its many forms and dialects is one of the
great global languages and the vernacular of the Internet.
The English kingdom which forms such a central part of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland was brought into existence by Anglo-�Saxon kings
over the tenth and eleventh centuries. If little of the governmental apparatus of the late
Anglo-Â�Saxon ‘state’ survived long after the Conquest, nevertheless the basic structures
of England owe much to the Anglo-Â�Saxon past. England’s counties and shires, its
parishes and dioceses, its main administrative towns and many of its historic ports are
in origin or development Anglo-�Saxon. The agrarian landscape that emerged across
the Middle and Late Saxon periods dominated England for much of the medieval and
early modern periods, only finally giving way in the Enclosure Acts of the modern era.
It is not just the fabric of Anglo-�Saxon England that has continued to exert an
influence – so too has the idea of the Anglo-Â�Saxons. In contexts as diverse as the
Reformation and the American Revolutionary Wars, the Anglo-�Saxon past has served
as a justification and template for change. At the height of Britain’s imperial power in
the nineteenth century, many commentators attributed its greatness to its Anglo-�
Saxon inheritance and these roots were celebrated and embraced enthusiastically. The
revival of Anglo-Â�Saxon personal names – as Alfred, Edgar, Ethel, Edwina – illustrates
the point. Through to the twentieth century, the English, together with many of the
other English-�speaking peoples, saw themselves as a part of a wider Germanic world.
While the two world wars of the twentieth century weakened and devalued this
perceived common bond, the story of England’s origins via migration from Germanic
homelands in the fifth and sixth centuries still retains some traction.
Origins are tricky things. Historical debts that seem self-�evident to one generation
are rejected and repudiated by the next. Yet it is clear that the Anglo-�Saxons do still
matter. For whether we know it or not their shadow still lies long over England itself,
and, too, over the whole English-�speaking world. We tread where those ancestors trod,
in a world which still bears the imprint of their decisions, their deeds, their wants and
their needs.
 sources and issues 8a

the bayeux tapestry

nicholas j. higham

The Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned and produced only a few years after the Battle
of Hastings. It offers a unique and visually arresting account of the Norman Conquest.
Whenever we call to mind the persons of Edward, Harold or William, the Tapestry
images dominate, inevitably. Who commissioned it, though, why it was made, and
where, are all debated.
So who did commission it? For a long time Queen Matilda was the prime suspect
but that theory now has virtually no support. A recent suggestion was that Edward’s
widow Edith was responsible, but by far the strongest candidate has long been William’s
half-�brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent. He is the only figure named more
than once other than King Edward (3 times), Harold (20), Count Guy (6), William 8a.1 Bishop Odo (far left) on
horseback wields a mace in the
(18) and Count Conan (2). He appears in at least three scenes, invariably with his midst of battle, rallying the
influence and power emphasised, and the Tapestry tells a version of the Conquest very young Norman cavalry in
close to the Norman narrative accounts but stages the oath-Â�taking at Bayeux, Odo’s support of Duke William (visor
see, rather than at Bonneville, as the narratives suggest. raised) at a moment of crisis
 428 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8a.2 An unarmed Harold in the Whoever commissioned it, the Tapestry had a designer of genius and numerous
presence of Duke William, craftsmen or women working under close supervision. Although some have argued
seated, with armed men in the
that it was undertaken in Normandy, the majority favour manufacture in south-�east
background. The naked figure
beneath serves as a warning England, most probably at Canterbury where the church libraries contained manu-
that Harold’s speech is not to script illustrations to which the design seems indebted. Odo was earl of Kent.
be trusted What is it? Strictly speaking this is not a tapestry at all, but an embroidery stitched
on a long strip made up of sections of bleached linen sewn together. Late Anglo-�Saxon
England had great expertise in embroidery and this is its finest product, made
probably by English needlewomen. The strip is around 50 centimetres wide and, at
70.34 metres long, is by far the largest work of its kind from the period, although it is
unclear whether or not it was exceptional then. Eleventh-�century art is predominantly
on religious themes, but this is a work of contemporary history. Though it is not clear
whether it had been there since the late eleventh century, the Tapestry was one of the
treasures of Bayeux Cathedral by the early fifteenth. Later in that century it was exhib-
ited annually in the nave. Today it is on permanent display in the city in a specially
constructed exhibition centre.
It has often been suggested that the Tapestry was commissioned to grace the new
cathedral which Odo consecrated in 1077. However, the theme seems improbable for
such a purpose. An alternative is that it was designed for a square room, so perhaps for
the banqueting hall of a castle. If so, then images of Harold’s feast at Bosham confront
across the room the feast at Hastings presided over by Odo, while the others have
Harold’s oath at Bayeux opposite the image of Odo on a stallion at full gallop.
The narrative is made up of panels each depicting a particular scene or event. How
many there were is unclear since the final sections of the Tapestry are lost. The story
currently closes as the English flee from the battlefield following Harold’s death but
probably originally continued to William’s coronation, on Christmas Day 1066. Panels
are separated by buildings and trees with interlaced foliage, or simply by abrupt scene
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e bay e u x ta p e s t ry 429

changes. In some parts there is such fluidity that adjacent elements of the story flow
together and are difficult to section off, so the division into panels is not always clear.
The emphasis on human interactions within settings which are barely sketched in and
often stereotypical has some parallels with modern cartoons.
The audience gains most from the Tapestry when accompanied by a commentary.
A running text in Latin along the top provides some guidance and identifies some
individuals, but many contemporary viewers may well have been illiterate. The skeletal
nature of the text may imply that it was intended as a prompt for a guide to offer a
much fuller explanation.
The main panels account for about 60 per cent of the total height of the Tapestry,
with the remainder taken up by running borders at top and bottom. These are used for
a variety of small-�scale figures: most are animals, either real or mythical, apparently
included as decoration. However, the borders also provide a commentary on parts of
the main story which can be judgemental.
Harold is the principal victim of this process. The main panels and commentary treat 8a.3 Harold seated in majesty,
him comparatively well, recognising his status at key points. The marginalia tell a crowned and with orb and
different story: the two wolves licking their paws beneath Harold’s feasting at Bosham, sceptre, with lay representatives
for example, associate him with their cunning; a series of rural scenes – ploughing, offering a sword. The
commentary reads ‘HAROLD
sowing, harrowing, hunting birds with slingshot and hunting with hounds – accompany
KING OF THE ENGLISH’.
the to and fro of messengers regarding transfer of Harold from Guy’s custody to William’s, Archbishop Stigand’s presence
but beneath the figure of Harold as he actually meets William is a nude man using an threatens the event’s legitimacy.
adze. The next panel continues the same theme, with a squatting nude male. Numerous In the next scene (right)
references to Aesop’s fables inject warnings which undermine the apparently honour- courtiers are alarmed by the
sight of Halley’s comet,
able Harold presented in the main panels. While the Tapestry is generally viewed as a harbinger of calamity. Below,
commentary on the Norman Conquest, its focus is better described as the rise and fall dogs, their tongues extended,
of Harold Godwineson, who appears in the very first panel, whose trip to France is undermine the scene
 430 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8a.4 Harold hears news of the covered in some detail, and whose brief kingship and subsequent death are the main
comet, visible above, and takes story. Harold was not, the marginalia are telling us, quite the noble figure that he seemed.
counsel. The phantom fleet in
the lower border suggests the
The story divides loosely into four main sections, sometimes separated by just one or
threat from Normandy is the two scenes. First is Harold’s journey to and from the Continent. This visit was widely
subject of their discussion. reported in Norman texts and served as the basis for the Conqueror’s case against him.
Harold’s twisted body reflects The detail offered is exceptional. Following a cordial meeting with Edward, Harold and
his illegitimacy
his companions ride to Bosham and take ship across the Channel, caste anchor and wade
ashore. There Harold is captured by men of Guy of Ponthieu, taken to him at Beaurain
but then surrendered to Duke William, whom he accompanies on campaign against
Conan of Brittany. Harold distinguishes himself at the crossing of the River Couesnon,
and at the close William gives him arms in a ceremony that implies vassalage, following
which Harold swears an oath to the duke on holy relics before returning to England.
The precise nature of this oath is not recorded, but the audience was expected to
share the view that these acts undermined Harold’s claim on the kingship. The Tapestry
displays exceptional interest in this story, which accounts for over a third of the
surviving length. Care was taken to frame it effectively: a scene centred on the old king
opens the sequence and it closes with the seated Edward berating an obsequious
Harold. That no other events prior to Edward’s death were included emphasises just
how important this story was in legitimising the Conquest.
Edward’s death and Harold’s coronation follow. The death is told in reverse order,
the first panel depicting the funeral cortege followed by the second in which two
scenes are superimposed, the upper depicting the dying king addressing ‘his faithful
followers’, the lower his body being prepared for burial while a clergyman prays.
Harold is offered the crown and then enthroned and crowned, an orb and sceptre in
hand, with laymen proffering the sword of state and Archbishop Stigand enrobed on
his left. Stigand’s presence undermines the legitimacy of the event, given that his eleva-
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : t h e bay e u x ta p e s t ry 431

tion to the archbishopric was considered uncanonical. Halley’s Comet then appears, to
the consternation of the English, a portent of terrible things to come.
This warning, in the upper border, confirms what the audience already know, that
divine retribution will fall on Harold through God’s agent, William. Here the second
main sequence begins: Harold, crowned and seated on his throne, is seen in whispered
consultation with an armed retainer, bending uncomfortably to his right: a fleet in the
lower margin suggests the subject under discussion. His contorted figure symbolises
the illegitimacy of the king’s position. An English messenger then brings news to
William and a tonsured figure beside him (almost certainly Odo). They begin building
and equipping an invasion fleet. Trees are cut down, timbers worked and ships built
and equipped, men ride down to the ships and embark, and the fleet sails to Pevensey.
The main theme is preparation, pushed through resolutely. This sequence is much
shorter than the first, at less than 20 per cent of the surviving tapestry, but is notable as
much for what is omitted as for what is included; neither the long delay on the French
coast nor the Norwegian invasion is mentioned. The appearance of phantom ships in
the lower margin opens this sequence. It closes with the beaching of the Norman fleet
on the Sussex coast; the fears of the crooked king, Harold, have become reality.
The third section opens with the Norman cavalry riding out from Pevensey and
closes with their departure from Hastings, once again on horseback, for battle. This is
the prequel to battle: much space is taken up by the preparation and consumption of
food and the building of Hastings Castle, but the Normans are also ravaging the coun-
tryside, burning and looting, much as the narratives suggest. Harold is absent from
this sequence, though there is news of him. William is the focal figure but shares this
role with Odo: ‘the bishop’ blesses food and drink as the feast begins and the man
beside him obligingly points to the words above the next panel, ‘ODO: EPS:’ (‘Bishop
Odo’); we see him seated on William’s right in discussion with the duke, with Robert,
William’s other half-Â�brother, unregarded on the duke’s left; ‘HERE IS WADARD’
appears over the figure of a mounted Norman in full armour, who is probably Odo’s
tenant of the same name. Odo serves, therefore, as an agent of God, preparing for what
is to come and legitimising William’s candidacy. At only 10 per cent of the surviving
Tapestry, this is the shortest section.
The final section centres on the battle of Hastings; at over a third of the surviving
length, this is the longest. It opens with William receiving his horse and leading his
troops out of Hastings and closes with the flight of the English from the field, pursued
by mounted Normans (where the damaged Tapestry now ends). Above the marching
army, the figure of a naked lewd man reappears, yet this time the naked female is not
resistant but is inviting him into her arms. Again, this is best read as a comment on
Harold; the moustache proclaims the man to be English. William heads the column to
speak to Vital, who may be equated with one of Odo’s Domesday tenants in Kent,
bringing news of Harold’s approach. Behind the duke rides a second figure with a
mace (or similar) rather than a spear, who, like William, exceptionally has mail
leggings: this is probably Odo.
The armies locate each other, William makes a speech, then the two forces come
together, most of the space being given over to the Norman cavalry, with a scattering
 432 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8a.5 An English soldier pulls

out an arrow from his eye
beneath the name ‘HAROLD
REX’ traditionally taken to
represent the death of King
Harold. An eye-witness
account, however, has him
hewn down by several
Normans, William included, so
this figure may be merely one
of his bodyguard and the fallen
soldier on the right is Harold

of archers. The lower border now begins to fill with the dead and dying, with broken
weapons and dismembered bodies. The battle is condensed and simplified, though the
deaths of Leofwine and Gyrth are recorded. Bishop Odo plays a vital role rallying the
Norman youths at a moment of crisis, as William bares his head to demonstrate that
he has not been slain, so the two half-�brothers once again share the scene. The lower
border is given over to archers as the assault is launched in which Harold is killed, then
gives way to naked bodies being stripped of their armour. The English who flee in the
last, truncated scene are neither armoured nor armed, so probably non-�combatants
from the English camp. Neither William nor Odo appears in these final scenes but of
course either or both presumably reappeared in later ones.
The Bayeux Tapestry is a unique document, therefore, which sheds light not just on
the politics of the day but also on many aspects of visual culture. It opens windows on
such things as castle-�building, military preparation, tools, shipbuilding, clothing and
the depiction of elite status. It is, however, far from realistic: buildings and trees, in
particular, are contrived and stereotypical representation is used, for example to distin-
guish English from Normans and in portraying horses, which closely reflect the status
of their riders. Some of the internal conventions weaken as the scenes progress,
suggesting that time pressures caused the embroiderers to streamline some aspects.
At the last, though, it must be remembered that this extraordinary work of art was a
piece of propaganda, designed to tell the story of the passage of the Crown from Edward
to William in ways that lay blame squarely on Harold’s shoulders. It is, therefore, a partial
story, told at several levels simultaneously. Harold is the victim of this work, being
presented as an outwardly heroic but inwardly flawed character whose failings brought
divine retribution upon his countrymen. Of course, William is ultimately the victor but
his success is often shared with Odo. If he habitually interpreted the Tapestry for guests,
Odo would have had no difficulty depicting himself as one of its heroes.
 sources and issues 8b

domesday book

nicholas j. higham

Domesday Book is unique: written with sharpened goose quills in heavily abbreviated
Latin on parchment (sheepskin), at around 2 million words it is the oldest public
record in Europe on anything like this scale. It lists manorial assets at over 13,000
different named places spread across 34 English shires; it provides oversight of
England’s land tenure not just for 1086 but also ‘when King Edward was alive’ (at the
start of 1066) and for some shires when the current holder obtained the manor
(although inclusion of this data is very variable).
The shires provide the principal internal divisions, serving rather like chapters in a
book. Each shire is structured internally by reference to land held of the king by partic-
ular tenants-�in-�chief. Within each such lordship estates are subdivided by the hundred
(or equivalent) in which they lie, often in a repeating sequence. The structure reflects,
therefore, both land tenure and the organs of local government and justice. Most shires
8b.1 Domesday Book. The five
Domesday texts in their modern
binding, with Great Domesday
Book open at the back and
Little Domesday Book at the
front
 434 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

begin with a record of the shire town (or towns), followed by a

listing of holdings: these occur in order of seniority, with the
king’s estates followed by those of senior churchmen, rich abbeys
and churches, then those of secular lords in approximate order of
status. The Northamptonshire folios, for example, open with an
account of Northampton, then the king’s estates followed by those
of four bishops, ten abbeys or churches and a few lesser clerics,
then some 43 secular lords, headed by the king’s half-Â�brother and
ending with the king’s thanes, the last of whom was Oslac, who
held just [East] Farndon.
Domesday Book is not the original name of this great work but
one which it acquired from its use in law as a record of land tenure
of last resort. Otherwise it was known as the Book of Winchester,
the Description of England, the King’s Book and the Book of the
Treasury. Nor was it a single volume, though that may have been
the original intention. Little Domesday Book comprises Essex,
Norfolk and Suffolk. Great Domesday Book covers the rest of
England, excluding only northern areas outside the direct control
of the English king and London and Winchester, for which entries
were never inserted.
Great Domesday Book was almost certainly the intended
outcome and the first volume written. It was in the more
condensed style, with a greater burden placed on the clerks
responsible – it has often been asserted that a single scribe wrote
the whole but there may have been several with very similar
hands. Two stages of preparation have been identified. First the
primary data were collected and verified, shire by shire, by teams
of royal agents appointed to probably seven regional circuits, the
8b.2 Opening page of Great geography of which suggests they were influenced to some extent by the late pre-�
Domesday Book for Conquest earldoms. Then a synthesis was made, probably circuit by circuit: if abbre-
Northamptonshire (folio 219a). viation had not already occurred, then it was introduced at this point, though
A list of landholders in
differences between shires and even individual hundreds remained. Finally the data
descending order of
importance follows a brief
were collected and integrated into the master work.
description of the shire town The south-�eastern and south-�western circuits make up the first ten shires, working
east–west, but thereafter the circuits were not retained, the scribes instead organising
their material in east to west transepts, Middlesex to Herefordshire and Cambridgeshire
to Shropshire. They then abandoned this ordering principle in turn in favour of a
west–east organisation of the northern shires, from Cheshire across the northern
Midlands, then Yorkshire and finally Lincolnshire. Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk were not
included; instead the preparatory materials were copied into a separate volume, called
Little Domesday Book, without final editing and abbreviation, so retaining much addi-
tional information, regarding livestock for example. In this sense, Little Domesday
Book is closer to the materials from which Great Domesday Book was compiled. A
comparable survivor from this stage is provided by the Exon Book, covering the south
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : d o m e s day b o o k 435

west, preserved at Exeter Cathedral. The process seems to have been completed in
1086, when the colophon (closing statement) of Little Domesday Book was written:

IN THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND AND EIGHTY SIX FROM THE INCARNATION
OF THE LORD AND IN THE TWENTIETH OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM THIS
SURVEY WAS MADE NOT ONLY FOR THESE THREE COUNTIES BUT ALSO
FOR THE OTHERS.

The obituary of William offered by the Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle, ‘E’ version, written by
an Old English speaker with experience of William’s court, clearly refers to the
Domesday Survey as complete by his death in 1087, ‘all set down in his record’.
What precisely is Domesday Book, why was it made and in what context? While
the document itself is comparatively easy to understand, there is much regarding its
purpose which is not. The Inquest was clearly commissioned in a time of crisis. The ‘E’
version of the Chronicle reported that invasion from Denmark was imminent in 1085.
In expectation, William brought to England ‘a larger raiding-Â�army of cavalry and foot
soldiers from France and Brittany than has ever sought out this land before, such that

8b.3 Probable Domesday

Inquest Circuits (I–VI) and
eventual ordering of shires in
Great Domesday Book (1–31)
and Little Domesday Book
(32–4)
436 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

men wondered how this land could feed all that force’. The Viking fleet never actually
sailed, so William released some of these mercenaries but he retained many. At
midwinter, King William was at Gloucester where he

had great thought and very deep conversation with his Council about this land, how it
was occupied, or with which men. Then he sent out his men all over England into every
shire to ascertain how many hundreds of hides there were in the shire, or what land and
livestock the king himself had in the land, or what dues he ought to have in a twelve-�
month from the shire. Also he had it written down how much land his archbishops had,
and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots and his earls, and – though I tell it at too great
length – what or how much each man had who was occupying land in England, in land
or livestock, and how much money it was worth. He had it audited so very thoroughly
that there was not a single hide, not a yard of land, not even (it is shameful to say –
though it seemed to him no shame to do it) one ox, one cow, one pig that was omitted,
that was not set down in his record. And afterwards all the records were brought to him.

Agents went into the shires armed with a standardised list of questions, a copy of which
has survived at Ely, asking:

The name of the place. Who held it, before 1066, and now?
How many hides? How many ploughs, both those in lordship and the men’s?
How many villeins, cottagers and slaves, how many free men and sokemen [that is,
men under the jurisdiction of another]?
How much woodland, meadow and pasture? How many mills and fishponds?
How much has been added or taken away? What the total value was and is?
How much each free man or sokeman had or has? All threefold, before 1066, when
King William granted it, and now; and if more can be had than at present.

William’s commissioners took evidence on oath ‘from the sheriff, from all the barons
and their Frenchmen, and from the whole hundred, the priests, the reeves and six
villeins from each vill’, which was then verified by local witnesses. In total, some sixty
thousand testimonies were taken.
Domesday Book’s retention in the Exchequer, the political context in which the
Inquest was instigated and the primacy within each entry of geld information, all
encouraged early commentators to interpret Domesday Book as a geld book. Its value
to tax collectors has since been questioned because the information is organised by
tenants-�in-�chief within the shire, rather than by taxpayers or manors listed according
to proximity. That said, if tenants-�in-�chief were held responsible for the taxation owed
by their tenants to each shire court, then Domesday Book would have been an effective
instrument of taxation. Given the amount of additional information, however, other
explanations are needed, for Domesday Book is not just a geld book.
Another explanation has focused on the feudal organisation of Domesday Book,
seeing it as a means by which William gained legitimacy as Edward’s heir, airbrushing
Harold II from the record. But again, this fails to account for the detail offered.
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : d o m e s day b o o k 437

Domesday Book necessarily had more complex purposes. It was a composite tool of
government, providing William with information regarding important dues, a
coherent account of the tenure and value of estates and the means of managing vacan-
cies and wardships. It brought together notices of disputes relating to tenure, offered
an opportunity to resolve those, and a clear statement of geld liability, manor by manor,
across the estates held by an individual or institution.
The speed and ease of compilation imply that the principal landholders also bene-
fited, perhaps through the recording of their tenure. There was probably far more
documentation available at the shire court and on individual estates than now survives,
which provided the basis. The ‘if more can be had than at present’ at the close of the
questions implies that William’s need for resources was a major driver: both 1086 and
1087 saw poor harvests, so the provisioning of mercenaries was an issue. The oath of
allegiance taken by William in August 1087 of his tenants, and even their tenants,
before returning to the Continent suggests the settlement of deep divisions. Domesday
Book was clearly an important part of this process.
It has been suggested that Domesday Book was compiled as a new database for the
geld, revenues from which had probably fallen across the eleventh century, but to see
ploughlands as the basis of a new assessment seems counter-�intuitive; they were never
used for this purpose and they do seem to just measure arable land, as the term
suggests. The emphasis on agricultural production implies that foodstuffs were an
issue. Though information regarding numerous towns was included, it is probably
significant that no questions on the subject occur in the original list, placing the
emphasis on the countryside.
Today Domesday Book provides us with invaluable data. It is Domesday informa-
tion regarding land tenure which underpins histories of the Crown, the greater nobility,
the gentry, the shire and baronies, and allows us an unprecedented understanding of
the relationship between social and economic power. The data have been mapped in
some detail, providing the distribution of ploughs, ploughlands, woodland, pasture,
meadow and mills, as well as regional differences in the status of sections of the popu-
lation. Free men and sokemen were concentrated in the old Danelaw, villeins in the
‘central province’ and slaves predominantly in western Britain, where they were agri-
cultural labourers on the lords’ demesnes.
Differences between the two volumes and some of these regional variations are
best illustrated by examples. Starting with Little Domesday Book, an entry from the
Chelmsford hundred section of the barony of Ranulph Peverel in the Essex folios (75b)
reads as follows:

Thorold holds Cice [St Osyth] from Ranulph, which Siward held as a manor for 2 and
a half hides.
Then and later 9 villeins, now 6. Then and later 12 bordars, now 11. Always
7 slaves. Then and later 4 ploughs in lordship, now 3. Then and later 7 ploughs of the
men, now 5. Woodland for 800 pigs, 4 acres of meadow. Pasture for 200 sheep, always
1 mill. Then 6 cobs, 50 cattle, 300 sheep, 40 pigs, 6 beehives. Now 4 cobs, 4 cattle, 68
sheep, 37 pigs, 18 goats. Then and later £9, now £8.
 438 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

8b.4 Little Domesday Book

entry for Cice (St Osyth), Essex

Unlike many manors in Great Domesday Book, this deals with three points in time:
1066, when Thorold received the estate, and the present. There is much information
about livestock, which tallies with the Chronicle’s comment but not the questions listed
in the Inquisition of Ely. Clearly the estate had deteriorated since Ranulph was granted
it, though revenues remained high, suggesting his take represented a higher propor-
tion of the output than his predecessor had enjoyed.
Compare this with an entry from Great Domesday Book, from the estates of
Goisfrid [Geoffrey] Alselin in southern Nottinghamshire. Here Scandinavian termi-
nology was dominant, settlement was more nucleated and open fields more extensive:

In Laxintune [Laxton] Toki had 3 carucates of land to the geld.

Land for 6 plougths. There Walter the man of Goisfrid Alselin has 1 plough[,] and
22 villeins and 7 bordars have 5 ploughs. And [there are] 5 slaves and 1 female slave
and 40 acres of meadow. Wood pasture 1 league long and a half wide. Time of King
Edward value £9, now £6. The Jurisdiction of this Manor:
In Schidrinctune [Kirton] 2 bovates of land to the geld. Land for 4 oxen. 3 sokemen
have 1 plough .â•‹.â•‹. [several other outlying assets follow]

8b.5 Laxton (Nottinghamshire),

an ‘L’-shaped village at the
heart of the central province in
the Danelaw
 s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s : d o m e s day b o o k 439

Goisfrid was a major tenant-�in-�chief in the Midlands and this was the first named of
his six manors in Nottinghamshire, but it was sublet to Walter, whose sole manor this
was in the shire and who was therefore probably resident here. Although it is not
mentioned so perhaps was not yet built in 1086, a substantial motte and bailey castle
lies to the north of the village. This description has only two dates for information,
1066 and 1086, and data concerning livestock are omitted. Although both these
manors probably had churches, recording was poor in both shires and neither is
mentioned.
Bosham in Sussex offers a very different type of manor, on an altogether different
scale:

King William holds Bosham in lordship.

Earl Godwin held [it] and then there were 56 and a half [hides] and it paid geld for 38
hides and now similarly. Land for [.â•‹.â•‹.]
In lordship there are 6 ploughs and 39 villeins with 50 bordars who have 19 ploughs.
There [is] a church and 17 slaves and 8 mills at £4 less 30d. There are 2 fisheries
bringing in 8s 10d.
Wood for 6 pigs.
To this manor [were attached] 11 enclosures in Chichester which paid 7s 4d in 1066.
Now the bishop has 10 of them from the king and 1 is now in the manor. The whole
manor in King Edward’s day and after was valued at £40. Now similarly £40. However 8b.6 Great Domesday Book
it renders £50 assayed and weighed, which is valued at £65. entry for the king’s manor of
From this manor Engelhere has 2 hides from the king and he has 1 plough and Bosham, Sussex

1 bordar.
 440 t h e a n g l o - s a xo n wo r l d

Opposite This was the first recorded of the king’s manors in Sussex and its appearance on the
Anglo-Saxon cross, churchyard Bayeux Tapestry implies considerable importance. It is common for urban property
of St Lawrence’s, Eyam, 2011
to be attached to an important rural manor. Again, there was strong upward pressure
on rents.
These three manors of varying scale and located in different parts of England offer
insights into the complexities attending any effort to generalise on the basis of
Domesday data across England. Clearly, the terms used and practices adopted are
more consistent regionally than nationally. Despite such differences, however,
Domesday Book was a great achievement, demonstrating the extraordinary capacities
of the early Norman state. It remains today the foundational work of English adminis-
trative history.
d o m e s day b o o k : s o u r c e s a n d i s s u e s 441
This page intentionally left blank
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Cleary, The Ending of Roman Britain (London, 1989); N. History and Archaeology ad 367–634 (Harmondsworth,
J. Higham, Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1971); J. Morris, The Age of Arthur (London, 1973), and
1992); K. Dark, Civitas to Kingdom: British Political C. Gidlow, The Reign of Arthur (Stroud, 2004). Opposed
Continuity 300–800 (Leicester, 1994), and Britain and the are D. Dumville, ‘Sub-Roman Britain: History and
End of the Roman Empire (Stroud, 2000); M. E. Jones, The Legend’, History, 62 (1977), 173–92, and ‘The Historical
End of Roman Britain (New York, 1996); C. A. Snyder, An Value of the Historia Brittonum’, Arthurian Literature, 6
Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons ad 400–600 (1986), 1–26; O. Padel, ‘The Nature of Arthur’, Cambrian
(University Park, PA, 1998); N. Faulkner, The Decline and Medieval Celtic Studies, 27 (1994), 1–31; N. J. Higham,
Fall of Roman Britain (Stroud, 2000); T. Charles-Edwards King Arthur: Myth-Making and History (London, 2002),
ed., After Rome (Oxford, 2003); R. White, Britannia and T. Green, Concepts of Arthur (Stroud, 2007). Recent
Prima: Britain’s Last Roman Province (Stroud, 2007), and scholarly collections of essays include R. Bromwich et al.,
S. Laycock, Britannia: The Failed State (Stroud, 2008). For eds, The Arthur of the Welsh (Cardiff, 1991); H. Fulton,
late Roman Britain’s defences, see D. J. Breeze and B. ed., A Companion to Arthurian Literature (Oxford, 2009),
Dobson, Hadrian’s Wall, 4th edn (London, 2000); A. and S. Echard, ed., The Arthur of Medieval Latin
Pearson, The Roman Shore Forts. Coastal Defences of Literature (Cardiff, 2011).
Southern Britain (Stroud, 2002). For the north, see T.
Wilmot and P. Wilson, eds, The Late Roman Transition in
the North: Papers from the Roman Archaeology Chapter 2
Conference, Durham 1999 (Oxford, 2000). For the final For Tacitus, see H. Mattingly, trans., Tacitus on Britain
events, see J. F. Drinkwater, ‘The Usurpers Constantine III and Germany (Harmondsworth, 1948). For Bede, see J.
(407–411) and Jovinus (411–413)’, Britannia, 29 (1998), McClure and R. Collins, Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of
269–98; M. Kulikowski, ‘Barbarians in Gaul, Usurpers in the English People (Oxford, 1994). For early literary
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For late Roman towns, see A. Rogers, Late Roman in Bede and the Chronicle’, A.S.E., 12 (1983), 1–41; B.
Towns in Britain: Rethinking Change and Decline Yorke, ‘Fact or Fiction? The Written Evidence for the
(Cambridge, 2011). For the Hoxne Hoard, see P. S. W. Fifth and Sixth Centuries ad’, A.S.S.A.H., 6 (1995), 45–50,
Guest, The Late Roman Gold and Silver Coins from the and eadem, ‘The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: The
Hoxne Treasure (London, 2005). For Germanus, see Contribution of the Written Sources’, A.S.S.A.H., 10
F. R. Hoare, The Western Fathers (London, 1954), (1999), 25–9.
283–320; A. A. Barrett, ‘Saint Germanus and the British For archaeological approaches, see H. Hamerow,
Missions’, Britannia, 40 (2010), 197–217. For Patrick, see ‘The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms’, in P. J. Fouracre,
A. B. E. Hood, St Patrick: His Writings and Muirchu’s Life ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History I, c. 500–c. 700
(London, 1978); D. R. Howlett, The Book of Letters of Saint (Cambridge, 2005), 263–88. For burials, the indispensable
Patrick the Bishop (Blackrock, Dublin, 1994), and D. guide is S. Lucy, The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death (Stroud,
Dumville, ed., Saint Patrick a.d. 493–1993 (Woodbridge, 2000), but see also S. Lucy and A. Reynolds, eds, Burial in
1993). Early Medieval England and Wales (London, 2002), and
M. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1992).
For cemetery archaeology, see J. N. L. Myres,
Sources and Issues 1a
Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England
See M. Winterbottom’s edition and translation, Gildas:
(Oxford, 1969) and The English Settlements (Oxford,
The Ruin of Britain and Other Works (London, 1978).
1986); V. I. Evison, The Fifth-Century Invasions South of
Then M. Lapidge and D. Dumville, eds, Gildas: New
the Thames (London, 1965); S. C. Hawkes, ‘Anglo-Saxon
Approaches (Woodbridge, 1984); N. J. Higham, The
Kent c. 425–725’, in P. Leach, ed., Archaeology in Kent to
English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century
ad 1500 (London, 1982), 64–78; J. Hines, The
(Manchester, 1994); D. Dumville, ‘Post-Colonial Gildas: A
Scandinavian Character of Anglian England in the
First Essay’, Quaestio Insularis, 7 (2006), 1–21; K. George,
pre-Viking Period (Oxford, 1984), and idem, ‘Philology,
Gildas’s De Excidio Britonum and the Early British Church
Archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum’, in
(Woodbridge, 2009); L. Larpi, Prolegomena to a New
A. Bammesberger and A. Wollmann, eds, Britain
Edition of Gildas Sapiens ‘De Excidio Britaniae’
400–600: Language and History (Heidelberg, 1990),
(Florence, 2012).
17–36.
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For the quoit-brooch style, see S. Suzuki, The Quoit For the scale of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, see
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at Great Chesterford, Essex (York, 1994); J. R. Timby, The Ancient Peoples’, European Journal of Archaeology, 3
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(Oxford, 1996); V. I. Evison and P. Hill, Two Anglo-Saxon and C. Roberts, ‘Investigating Population Movement by
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Cemetery on Mill Hill, Deal, Kent (London, 1997); S. J. G. Müldner, J. A. Evans and A. Lamb, ‘Oxygen and
Lucy, The Early Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of East Yorkshire: strontium isotope evidence for mobility in Roman
An Analysis and Reinterpretation (Oxford, 1998); G. Winchester’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 36 (2009),
Drinkall and M. Foreman, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at 2,816–25; S. Marzinzik, ‘Ringlemere in Reference to Early
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T. Malim and J. Hines, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Edix and A. Reynolds, eds Studies in Early Anglo-Saxon Art
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‘Interrupting the Pots’: The Excavation of Cleatham D. A. Weiss, M. Richards, M. G. Thomas, N. Bradman
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49–98; H. Hamerow, Excavations at Mucking, Vol. 2, The Sources and Issues 2a

Anglo-Saxon Settlement (London, 1993), and Early C. Hills, The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North
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Grubenhaus in Anglo-Saxon England (Yedingham, 2004). Part III: Catalogue of Inhumations (Gressenhall, 1984); C.
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(Edinburgh, 1953); K. Cameron, ‘Eccles in English Cremations (Gressenhall, 1987); J. I. McKinley, The
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Gelling, Signposts to the Past, 3rd edn (Chichester, 1997), Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part
and ‘Why Aren’t We Speaking Welsh?’, A.S.S.A.H, 6 (1993), VII: The Iron Age, Roman and Early Saxon Settlement
51–6; A. Wollmann, ‘Early Latin Loan-words in Old (Gressenhall, 1995); K. Penn and B. Brugmann, with
English’, A.S.E., 22 (1993), 1–26; R. Coates and A. Breeze, Karen Høilund Nielsen, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Burial:
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Britain and Ireland (Nottingham, 2007); N. J. Higham, ed.,
Britons in Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2007). For
Sources and Issues 2b
Language and society, see D. H. Green, Language and
The Prittlewell Prince: The Discovery of a Rich Anglo-
History in the Early Germanic World (Cambridge, 1998).
Saxon Burial in Essex, Museum of London Archaeological
For regional studies, see B. Eagles, ‘Anglo-Saxon
Service (London, 2004); S. Tyler, ‘The Anglo-Saxon
Presence and Culture in Wiltshire c. ad 450–c. 675’, in
Cemetery at Prittlewell, Essex: An Analysis of the Grave
P. Ellis, ed., Roman Wiltshire and After: Papers in Honour
Goods’, Essex Archaeology and History, 19 (1988), 91–116.
of Ken Annable (Devizes, 2001), 199–233; S. Draper,
Landscape, Settlement and Society in Roman and Early
Medieval Wiltshire (Oxford, 2006); D. Rudling, ed., The
Chapter 3
Archaeology of Sussex to ad 2000 (King’s Lynn, 2003);
For Bede, see J. McClure and R. Collins, eds, Bede: The
J. T. Baker, Cultural Transition in the Chilterns and Essex
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1994).
Region, 350 ad to 650 ad (Hatfield, 2006); M. Dawson,
For burial archaeology, see S. Lucy, The Anglo-Saxon
Archaeology in the Bedford Region (Oxford, 2004); B.
Way of Death (Stroud, 2000); H. Geake, The Use of
Eagles, ‘The Archaeological Evidence for Settlement in
Grave-Goods in Conversion-Period England, c. 600–c. 850
the Fifth to Seventh Centuries ad’, in M. Aston and C.
(Oxford, 1997); N. Stoodley, The Spindle and the Spear:
Lewis, eds, The Medieval Landscape of Wessex (Oxford,
A Critical Enquiry into the Construction and Meaning of
1994), 13–32, and ‘Britons and Saxons on the Eastern
Gender in the Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Rite (Oxford,
Boundary of the Civitas Durotrigum’, Britannia, 35 (2004),
1999); S. Lucy and A. Reynolds, eds, Burial in Early
234–40; K. Leahy, The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Lindsey
Medieval England and Wales (London, 2002), and H.
(Stroud, 2007); T. Green, ‘The British Kingdom of
Williams, Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain
Lindsey’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 56 (2008),
(Cambridge, 2006). For specific cemeteries, see chapter 2
1–44, and Britons and Anglo-Saxons in Lincolnshire: ad
or Lucy, above, but for St Peter’s Tip, Broadstairs,
400–650 (Lincoln, 2012). For the underlying cultural
see A. C. Hogarth, ‘Structural Features in Anglo-Saxon
geography, see T. Williamson, ‘The Environmental
Graves’, Archaeological Journal, 130 (1973), 104–19.
Contexts of Anglo-Saxon Settlement’, in N. J. Higham and
For ‘princely burial’, see R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The
M. J. Ryan, eds, Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon
Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, 3 vols (London, 1975–83);
England (Woodbridge, 2010), 133–56. For the formation
A. C. Evans, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (London, 1986);
of an Anglo-Saxon people, see J. Hines, ‘The Becoming of
M. Carver, The Age of Sutton Hoo (Woodbridge, 1992)
the English: Identity, Material Culture and Language in
and Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (London, 1998),
Early Anglo-Saxon England’, in A.S.S.A.H., 7 (1994),
and W. Filmer-Sankey and T. Pestell, Snape Anglo-Saxon
49–59; P. Wormald, ‘Bede, the Bretwaldas and the Origins
Cemetery: Excavations and Surveys 1824–1992
of the Gens Anglorum’, in P. Wormald et al., eds, Ideal
(Ipswich, 2001);
and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society
For ‘princely settlements’, see B. Hope-Taylor,
(Oxford, 1983), 99–129. For processes of anglicisation, see
Yeavering: An Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria
A. Woolf, ‘The Britons: From Romans to Barbarians’, in
(London, 1977); M. Millett with S. James, ‘Excavations at
H. W. Goetz, J. Jarnintt and W. Pohl, eds, Regna and
Cowdery’s Down, Basingstoke, Hants.’, Archaeological
Gentes (Leiden, 2003), 345–80. For parallels with the
Journal, 140 (1983), 151–279; J. Hinchcliffe, ‘An Early
Balkans, see P. Fouracre, ‘Britain, Ireland and Europe,
Medieval Settlement at Cowage Farm, Foxley, near
c. 500–c. 750’, in P. Stafford (ed.) A Companion to the
Malmesbury’, Archaeological Journal, 143 (1986), 240–59;
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B. J. Philp, The Discovery and Excavation of Anglo-Saxon M. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism (London, 1992);
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of Anglo-Saxon Overlordship’, A.S.S.A.H., 2 (1981), Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons, c. 597–700:
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the Bretwaldas’, Speculum, 66 (1991), 1–26. N. J. Higham, The Convert Kings: Power and Religious
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 b i b l i o g r a p h y 449

Sources and Issues 3a Women in Mercia, Eighth to Early Tenth Centuries’, in

S. DeGregorio, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Bede M. Brown and C. A. Farr, eds, Mercia, 35–49.
(Cambridge, 2010), contains essays on Bede’s writings, For Offa’s involvement in Kent, see N. Brooks, The
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usefully arranged by genre and subject. Important essay in D. Hill and M. Worthington, Offa’s Dyke: History and
collections include S. DeGregorio, ed., Innovation and Guide (Stroud, 2003); for a critique of the ‘truncated’
Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede Dyke see I. Bapty, ‘The Final Word on Offa’s Dyke?’, A
(Morgantown, 2006); S. Lebecq et al., eds, Bède le review of Offa’s Dyke: History and Guide at www.cpat.org.
Vénérable entre Tradition et Postérité (Villeneuve d’Ascq, uk/offa/offrev.htm. For Offa’s Continental connections,
2004), with essays in both French and English; L. A. J. R. see J. Nelson, ‘Carolingian Contacts’, in M. Brown and C.
Houwen and A. A. Macdonald, eds, Beda Venerabilis: A. Farr, eds, Mercia, 126–43, and J. Story, Carolingian
Historian, Monk and Northumbrian (Groningen, 1996); Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian
R. T. Farrell, ed., Bede and Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, Francia, c. 750–870 (Aldershot, 2003). The letters from
1978); and G. Bonner, ed., Famulus Christi (London, Charlemagne to Offa are translated in H. Loyn and J.
1976). The annual Jarrow Lectures, on subjects relating to Percival, The Reign of Charlemagne (London, 1975). For
Bede and his world, are published individually; those Cynethryth, see Stafford, ‘Political Women in Mercia’; for
from 1958–93 are collected in M. Lapidge, ed., Bede and Offa’s coinage see R. Naismith, Money and Power in
His World, 2 vols (Aldershot, 1994). The most accessible Anglo-Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms,
translation of the Ecclesiastical History is in J. McClure 757–865 (Cambridge, 2012), and also the entries on
and R. Collins, Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the coinage below. The nature of Cenwulf ’s hegemony over
English People (Oxford, 1994), which also includes a Kent is explored in S. Keynes, ‘The Control of Kent in the
number of other texts. There are numerous studies of the Ninth Century’, E.M.E., 2 (1993), 111–31, and Brooks,
Ecclesiastical History: see W. Goffart, The Narrators of Early History. For Essex, see B. Yorke, ‘The Kingdom of
Barbarian History (Princeton, NJ, 1988); J. M. Wallace- the East Saxons’, A.S.E., 14 (1985), 1–36.
Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: For trading and ‘productive sites’, see chapter 3, above.
A Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1988); and N. J. In addition, for Lundenwic see, for example, L. Blackmore,
Higham, (Re-) Reading Bede: The Ecclesiastical History ‘The Origins and Growth of Lundenwic, a Mart of Many
in Context (London, 2006). Nations’, in B Hårdh and L. Larsson, eds, Central Places in
the Migration and Merovingian Periods (Stockholm,
2002), 273–301, J. R. Maddicott, ‘London and Droitwich,
Sources and Issues 3b
c. 650–750: Trade, Industry and the Rise of Mercia’, A.S.E.,
This hoard, discovered only in 2009, has not yet been
34 (2005), 7–58, and G. Malcolm, D. Bowsher and R.
sufficiently studied for there to be much literature.
Cowie, Middle Saxon London: Excavations at the Royal
See the beautifully illustrated booklet by K. Leahy and
Opera House, 1989–99 (London, 2003). For the high-
R. Bland, The Staffordshire Hoard (London, 2009), and
status site at Whitehall, see R. Cowie and L. Blackmore,
S. Dean, D. Hooke and A. Jones, ‘The “Staffordshire
Early and Middle Saxon Rural Settlement in the London
Hoard”: The Fieldwork’, Antiquaries Journal, 90
Region (London, 2008). For Sandtun, see M. Gardiner,
(2010), 139–52.
‘Continental Trade and Non-Urban Ports in Middle
Anglo-Saxon England: Excavations at Sandtun, West
Chapter 4 Hythe, Kent’, Archaeological Journal, 158 (2001), 161–290.
For William of Malmesbury’s thoughts on Offa, see R. A. For toll exemptions, see S. Kelly, ‘Trading Privileges from
B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Eighth-Century England’, E.M.E., 1 (1992), 3–23, and for
William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum, 2 vols trading more generally, N. Middleton, ‘Early Medieval
(Oxford, 1998–9). For the Mercian Supremacy, see F. M. Port Customs, Tolls and Controls on Foreign Trade’,
Stenton, ‘The Supremacy of the Mercian Kings’, E.H.R., 33 E.M.E., 13 (2005), 313–58. For ‘productive sites’ see
(1918), 433–52, and Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn G. Davies, ‘Early Medieval “Rural Centres” and West
(Oxford, 1971); M. Brown and C. Farr, eds, Mercia: An Norfolk: A Growing Picture of Diversity, Complexity
Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (London, 2001); D. Hill and Changing Lifestyles’, M.A., 54 (2010), 89–122.
and M. Worthington, eds, Æthelbald and Offa: Two For rural settlements and the landscape, see R. Faith,
Eighth-Century Kings of Mercia (Oxford, 2005). Other The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship
useful surveys include D. Kirby, The Earliest English (London, 1997); H. Hamerow, Early Medieval Settlements:
Kings, rev. edn (London, 2000), and B. Yorke, Kings and The Archaeology of Rural Communities in North-West
Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1990). Europe, 400–900 (Oxford, 2002); J. Moreland, ‘The
Boniface’s letter to Æthelbald is translated in E. Significance of Production in Eighth-Century England’, in
Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface (New York, 1940). I. Hansen and C. Wickham, eds, The Long Eight Century:
See also N. Brooks, ‘The Development of Military Production, Distribution and Demand (Leiden, 2000),
Obligations in Eighth- and Ninth-Century England’, in 69–104; A. Reynolds, ‘Boundaries and Settlements in
P. Clemoes and K. Hughes, eds, England before the Conquest Later Sixth- to Eleventh-Century England’, A.S.S.A.H., 12
(Cambridge, 1971), 69–84, and P. Stafford, ‘Political (2003), 97–139, and S. Rippon, ‘Landscape Change
 450 bibliography

During the “Long Eighth Century” in Southern England’, Church, 735–870: From Archbishop Ecgberht to
in N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan, eds, Landscape Archbishop Ceolnoth’, Journal of the British Archaeological
Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2010), Association, 146 (1993), 29–66, idem, Architecture, Liturgy
39–64. For marine resources see, for example, P. Murphy, and Romanitas at All Saints’ Church, Brixworth (Leicester,
‘The Landscape and Economy of the Anglo-Saxon Coast: 2011). For Cædmon’s hymn see, for example, D. P.
New Archaeological Evidence’, in Higham and Ryan, eds, O’Donnell, Cædmon’s Hymn: A Multi-Media Study,
Landscape Archaeology, 211–21. Edition and Archive (Cambridge, 2005).
In addition to the items under chapter 3, above, see for For pastoral care and lay religiosity, see Blair, The
the coinage M. M. Archibald, ‘Beonna and Alberht: Coinage Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, and the essays in Blair and
and Historical Context’, in Hill and Worthington, eds, Sharpe, Pastoral Care. The role of monasteries in the
Æthelbald and Offa 123–132, 1–74; D. Chick, ‘The Coinage provision of pastoral care is debated by J. Blair, ‘Debate:
of Offa in the Light of Recent Discoveries’, in Hill and Ecclesiastical Organization and Pastoral Care in Anglo-
Worthington, eds, Æthelbald and Offa, 111–22; idem, The Saxon England’, E.M.E., 4 (1995), 193–212, and E.
Coinage of Offa and His Contemporaries (London, 2010), Cambridge and D. Rollason, ‘The Pastoral Organization
1–33; Naismith, Money and Power, and idem, ‘Kings, Crisis of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Review of the “Minster
and Coinage Reforms in the Mid-Eighth Century’, E.M.E., Hypothesis”â•‹’, E.M.E., 4 (1995), 87–104. For Alcuin’s
20 (2012), 291–332, and G. Williams, ‘Mercian Coinage and letters, see S. Allott, Alcuin of York (York, 1974).
Authority’, in Brown and Farr, eds, Mercia, 210–28.
For the ‘common burdens’, see R. Abels, Lordship and
Sources and Issues 4a
Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, CA,
The key sources are translated in C. Talbot, The Anglo-
1988); Brooks, ‘The Development of Military Obligations’,
Saxon Missionaries in Germany (London, 1954), and E.
G. Williams, ‘Military Institutions and Royal Power’, in
Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface (New York, 1940).
Brown and Farr, eds, Mercia, 295–309, and idem, ‘Military
R. McKitterick, ‘Eighth-Century Foundations’, in R.
Obligations and Mercian Supremacy in the Eighth
McKitterick, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, II,
Century’, in Hill and Worthington, eds, Æthelbald and
c. 700–c. 900 (Cambridge, 1995), 681–94, introduces the
Offa, 103–10. For Abbess Eangyth, see B. Yorke, Nunneries
religious and intellectual currents of this period. W.
and the Anglo-Saxon Royal Houses (London, 2003).
Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century
For the pre-Viking Church, see J. Blair, The Church in
(Oxford, 1946), is the classic study. Other insightful
Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), supplemented with S.
contributions include R. McKitterick, Anglo-Saxon
Foot, Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c. 600–900
Missionaries in Germany (Leicester, 1990); J. Palmer,
(Cambridge, 2006). For use of the term ‘minster’, see
Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690–900 (Turnhout,
S. Foot, ‘Anglo-Saxon Minsters: A Review of the
2009), and I. Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the
Terminology’, in J. Blair and R. Sharpe, eds, Pastoral Care
Evangelisation of Europe 400–1050 (Harlow, 2001).
before the Parish (Leicester, 1992), 212–25. Bede’s letter to
D. Bullough, Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation (Leiden,
Ecgberht is translated in J. M. McClure and R. Collins,
2002), is heavy-going but comprehensive and authoritative.
Bede: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
(Oxford, 1994). The councils of Clovesho and Chelsea as
well as the Dialogue of Ecgberht and the report of the papal Sources and Issues 4b
legates can be found in J. Johnson, A Collection of the Laws C. Loveluck and D. Atkinson, The Early Medieval
and Canons of the Church of England, 2 vols, new edn Settlement Remains from Flixborough, Lincolnshire: The
(London, 1850). For the issue of secularisation and disputes Occupation Sequence, c. ad 600–1000 (Oxford, 2007);
between Mercian kings and archbishops of Canterbury, see D. H. Evans and C. Loveluck, eds, Life and Economy at
Blair, Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, and Brooks, Early Early Medieval Flixborough, c. ad 600–1000: The Artefact
History. For the councils themselves, see C. Cubitt, Evidence (Oxford, 2007); K. Dobney, D. Jaques, J. Barrett
Anglo-Saxon Church Councils, c.650–c.850 (London, 1995), and C. Johnstone, Farmers, Monks and Aristocrats: The
and S. Keynes, The Councils of Clofesho (Leicester, 1994). Environmental Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Flixborough
The fate of female houses is explored by S. Foot, Veiled (Oxford, 2007); C. Loveluck, Rural Settlement, Lifestyles and
Women: The Disappearance of Nuns from Anglo-Saxon Social Change in the Later First Millennium ad: Anglo-
England, 2 vols (Aldershot, 2000), and Yorke, Nunneries. Saxon Flixborough in its Wider Context (Oxford, 2007).
For Worcester, see P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature For a critique, see J. Blair, ‘Flixborough Revisited’,
in Western England, 600–800 (Cambridge, 1990). A.S.S.A.H., 17 (2011), 101–7.
For the ‘Tiberius Style’ see, for example, by M. Brown,
‘Mercian Manuscripts? The “Tiberius” Group and Its
Historical Context’, in Brown and Farr, eds, Mercia, Chapter 5
278–90. For Mercian sculpture, see the essays by Hawkes Ealhburg’s charter is translated in F. Harmer, Select
and Jewell in Brown and Farr, eds, Mercia; R. N. Bailey, English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth
The Meaning of Mercian Sculpture (Leicester, 1988); R. Centuries (Cambridge, 1914), and her family is
Cramp, ‘Schools of Mercian Sculpture’, in A. Dornier, ed., reconstructed in N. Brooks, The Early History of the
Mercian Studies (Leicester, 1977), 191–231. For Church at Canterbury: Christ Church from 597–1066
Brixworth, R. Gem, ‘Architecture of the Anglo-Saxon (Leicester, 1984).
 b i b l i o g r a p h y 451

Alcuin’s letters are translated in S. Allott, Alcuin of West Saxon Charters of King Æthelwulf and His Sons’,
York (York, 1974). For Viking activity, see C. Downham, E.H.R., 109 (1994), 1,109–49. For the ‘Sunday Letter’, see
‘Vikings in England’, in S. Brink and N. Price, eds, The D. Whitelock, ‘Bishop Ecgred, Pehtred and Niall’, in
Viking World (London, 2008), 341–9, and S. Keynes, ‘The D. Whitelock, R. McKitterick and D. Dumville, eds,
Vikings in England, c. 790–1016’, in P. Sawyer, ed., The Ireland in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1982),
Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (Oxford, 1997), 47–68. For Lupus, see J. Story, Carolingian Connections:
48–82. For Peter Sawyer’s thinking on the nature of the Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–870
Vikings, see his The Age of the Vikings, 2nd edn (London, (Aldershot, 2003), and for church-building, see R. Gem,
1971). N. Brooks, ‘England in the Ninth Century: The ‘Architecture of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 735–870: From
Crucible of Defeat’, T.R.H.S., 5th series, 29 (1979), 1–20, Archbishop Ecgberht to Archbishop Ceolnoth’, Journal of
critiques some of Sawyer’s ideas and explores many of the the British Archaeological Association, 146 (1993), 29–66.
themes of this chapter. For discussion of the term ‘Viking’, For the Vikings and monasticism, see J. Blair, The Church
and much else, see C. Downham, Viking Kings of Britain in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), and D. Hadley,
and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to a.d. 1014 (Edinburgh, The Vikings in England: Settlement, Society and Culture
2007). Reasons for Scandinavian expansion are explored (Manchester, 2006); for Peterborough, see S. Kelly,
by J. Barrett, ‘What Caused the Viking Age?’, Antiquity, 82 Charters of Peterborough Abbey (Oxford, 2009).
(2007), 671–85. The movements and campaigns of the Great Army
Mercian overlordship in Kent is explored in S. are explored in detail by R. Abels, Alfred the Great: War,
Keynes, ‘The Control of Kent in the Ninth Century’, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (London,
E.M.E., 2 (1993), 111–31, see also idem, ‘Mercia and 1998), and Hadley, Vikings in England. For Repton, see
Wessex in the Ninth Century’, in M. Brown and C. Farr, M. Biddle and B. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Repton and the
eds, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe Vikings’, Antiquity, 66 (1992), 36–51.
(London, 2001), 310–28. For the lack of landed resources, The literature on King Alfred is vast. Important
P. Wormald, ‘The Ninth Century’, in J. Campbell, ed., The studies include Abels, Alfred, A. J. Frantzen, King Alfred
Anglo-Saxons (London, 1982), 132–57. For the expansion (Boston, MA, 1986), Pratt, Political Thought, and P.
of Wessex, see B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages Wormald, ‘Living with Alfred’, Haskins Society Journal, 15
(London, 1995), and for the ‘Bretwalda’ see, for example, (2004), 1–39. Many aspects of Alfred’s life and reign are
S. Keynes, ‘Rædwald the Bretwalda’, in C. B. Kendall and explored in the essays in T. Reuter, ed., Alfred the Great
P. S. Wells, eds, Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of (Aldershot, 2003). For Alfred’s subsequent reputation, see
Sutton Hoo (Minneapolis, MN, 1992), 103–23. Eardwulf ’s S. Keynes, ‘The Cult of King Alfred the Great’, A.S.E., 28
exile is discussed in J. Nelson, ‘England and the Continent (1999), 225–356, and J. Parker, England’s Darling: The
in the Ninth Century: I, Ends and Beginnings’, T.R.H.S., Victorian Cult of Alfred the Great (Manchester, 2007).
6th series, 12 (2002), 1–21, and Northumbria’s involve- In addition: key sources for Alfred’s reign are
ment with northern Britain by A. Woolf, From Pictland to translated in S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great:
Alba: Scotland, 789–1070 (Edinburgh, 2007). For differing Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources
structures of governance in Wessex and Mercia, see (London, 1983). Alfred’s authorship, or otherwise, of texts
Keynes, ‘Mercia and Wessex’ and D. Pratt, The Political is explored by M. Godden, ‘Did King Alfred Write
Thought of King Alfred the Great (Cambridge, 2007). Anything?’, Medium Aevum, 76 (2007), 1–23, and D.
For the material evidence, see D. Hinton, Gold, Gilt, Pratt, ‘Problems of Authorship and Audience in the
Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval England, Writings of King Alfred the Great’, in P. Wormald and J.
new edn (Oxford, 2005). For coinage, additional to the Nelson, eds, Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World
entries under chapter 4, above, see E. J. Pirie, ‘Contrasts (Cambridge, 2007), 162–91. For Alfredian ‘propaganda’,
and Continuity within the Coinage of Northumbria’, in B. see R. H. C. Davies, ‘Alfred the Great: Propaganda and
Cook and G. Williams, eds, Coinage and History in the Truth’, History, 56 (1971), 169–82. For Æthelwulf ’s
North Sea World c. 500–1250 (Leiden, 2006), 211–39. For marriage to Judith, see M. J. Enright, ‘Charles the Bald
the emporia see chapters 3 and 4 above; for the Continental and Aethelwulf of Wessex: The Alliance of 856 and
context, see M. Costambeys, M. Innes and S. MacLean, Strategies of Royal Succession’, Journal of Medieval
The Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2011). See also J. D. History, 5 (1979), 291–302. For Alfred’s journey to Rome,
Richards, ‘Cottam: An Anglo-Scandinavian Settlement on see S. Keynes, ‘Anglo-Saxon Entries in the “Liber Vitae” of
the Yorkshire Wolds’, Archaeological Journal, 156 (1999), Brescia’, in J. Roberts, J. L. Nelson and M. Godden, eds,
1–111, J. D. Richards, and J. Naylor, ‘A “Productive Site” at Alfred the Wise (Cambridge, 1997), 99–119.
Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire: Salt, Communication For illness and spirituality, see P. Kershaw, ‘Illness,
and Trade in Anglo-Saxon England’, in S. Worrel, ed., A Power and Prayer in Asser’s Life of King Alfred’, E.M.E.,
Decade of Discovery (Oxford, 2010), 193–200, and G. 10 (2001), 201–24, J. L. Nelson, ‘Monks, Secular Men and
Beresford, Goltho: The Development of an Early Medieval Masculinity, c. 900’, in D. Hadley, ed., Masculinity in
Manor, c. 850–1150 (London, 1987). The evidence from Medieval Europe (Harlow, 1999), 121–42, D. Pratt, ‘The
Canterbury is explored by Brooks, Early History, and for Illnesses of King Alfred the Great’, A.S.E., 30 (2001),
Winchester see Sources and Issues 5b, below. 39–90, and M. Wood, ‘Alfred the Great: The Case of the
For manuscripts, see M. Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Fenland Forger’, in idem, In Search of England (London,
Library (Oxford, 2006), and for scriptoria see Brooks, 1999), 125–48. For Asser’s Life as a forgery, see A. Smyth,
Early History. For West Saxon charters see S. Keynes, ‘The King Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1995), and for a response
 452 bibliography

S. Keynes, ‘On the Authenticity of Asser’s Life of King overview, see J. Haslam, Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern
Alfred’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 47 (1996), 529–51. England (Chichester, 1984); P. Ottaway, Archaeology in
Relations between Wessex and Mercia are explored in British Towns (London, 1992); D. M. Palliser, ed., The
S. Keynes, ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, and M. Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. I, 600–1540
Blackburn, ‘The London Mint in the Reign of Alfred’, (Cambridge, 2000).
both in M. Blackburn and D. Dumville, eds, Kings, For Hamwic, see A. D. Morton, ed., Excavations at
Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage of Southern Hamwic, vol. 1 (London, 1992), and P. Andrews, ed.,
England in the Ninth Century (Woodbridge, 1998). For Excavations at Hamwic, vol. 2 (York, 1997). For Hereford,
London, J. Clark, ‘King Alfred’s London and London’s see R. Shoesmith, Hereford City Excavations, vol. 2
King Alfred’, London Archaeologist, 9 (1999), 35–8, and (London, 1982), and A. Thomas and A. Boucher, eds,
J. Haslam, ‘King Alfred, Mercia and London, 874–86: A Hereford City Excavations, Volume 4: Further Sites and
Reassessment’, A.S.S.A.H., 17 (2011), 120–46. For English Evolving Interpretations (Almeley, 2002); for Winchester
identity, see S. Foot, ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English see M. Biddle, ed., Winchester in the Early Middle Ages
Identity before the Norman Conquest’, T.R.H.S., 6th (Oxford, 1976). For the Burghal Hidage, see D. H. Hill
series, 6 (1996), 25–49; for a critique, see, G. Molyneaux, and A. R. Rumble, eds, The Defence of Wessex: The
‘The Old English Bede: English Ideology or Christian Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications
Instruction?’, E.H.R., 124 (2009), 1,289–1,323. (Manchester, 1996); for later developments, see D. Hill,
For military reforms, see R. Abels, Lordship and ‘Athelstan’s Urban Reforms’, in A.S.S.A.H., 11 (2000),
Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, 173–85. The case for ninth-century Mercian boroughs is
CA, 1988), G. Halsall, Warfare and Society in the made by S. Bassett, ‘The Middle and Late Anglo-Saxon
Barbarian West, 450–900 (London, 2003), and, more Defences of Western Mercian Towns’, A.S.S.A.H., 15
generally, R. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars: Sources and (2008), 180–239, and for a long process of development of
Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age the West Saxon burhs by J. Baker and S. Brookes, ‘From
(Woodbridge, 2010). For the burhs see Sources and Issues Frontier to Border: The Evolution of Northern West
5b, below. For literacy and reform see, for example, S. Saxon Territorial Delineation in the Ninth and Tenth
Kelly, ‘Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word’, in Centuries’, A.S.S.A.H., 17 (2011), 109–23.
R. McKitterick, ed., The Uses of Literacy in Early
Mediaeval Society (Cambridge, 1990), 36–62. For Alfred’s
laws, P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred Chapter 6
to the Twelfth Century. Volume 1: Legislation and Its Limits For Scandinavian settlement in England, see D. Hadley,
(Oxford, 2001). For artistic production in Alfred’s reign, The Vikings in England: Settlement, Society and Culture
see D. A. Hinton, The Alfred Jewel and Other Late (Manchester, 2006); J. D. Richards, Viking Age England
Anglo-Saxon Decorated Metalwork (Oxford, 2008). (Stroud, 2004); J. Graham-Campbell, R. Hall, J. Jesch and
D. Parsons, eds, Vikings and the Danelaw (Oxford, 2001),
and D. Hadley and J. D. Richards, eds, Cultures in Contact:
Sources and Issues 5a
Scandinavian Settlement in England in the Ninth and
J. Stodnick, ‘Second-Rate Stories? Changing Approaches
Tenth Centuries (Turnhout, 2000).
to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, Literature Compass, 3
For Scandinavians in the north-west, see F. Edmonds,
(2006), 1,253–65, provides a stimulating survey of
‘History and Names’, in J. Graham-Campbell and R.
approaches to the Chronicle, with a useful bibliography.
Philpott, eds, The Huxley Hoard: Scandinavian Settlement
The most recent complete translation is M. J. Swanton,
in the North West (Liverpool, 2009), 3–12, and N. J.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London, 1996). S. Keynes,
Higham, ‘Viking Age Settlement in the North-Western
‘Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, in R.
Countryside: Lifting the Veil?’, in J. Hines, A. Lane and
Gameson, ed. The Cambridge History of the Book in
M. Redknap, eds, Land, Sea and Home: Settlement in
Britain: Volume 1, c. 600–1100, (Cambridge, 2011),
the Viking Period (London, 2004), 297–311. For York,
537–52, offers the ideal starting point. Recent important
see Sources and Issues 7a, below; for the Midlands, see
studies include N. Brooks, ‘Why Is the Anglo-Saxon
R. Hall, ‘The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw: A Review
Chronicle about Kings?’, A.S.E., 39 (2010), 43–70; S.
of Present Knowledge’, A.S.E., 18 (1989), 149–206.
Baxter, ‘MS C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the
The History of St Cuthbert is translated in T. Johnson
Politics of Mid-Eleventh-Century England’, E.H.R., 122
South, Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (Cambridge,
(2007), 1,189–227; P. Stafford, ‘“The Annals of Æthelflæd”:
2002).
Annals, History and Politics in Tenth-Century England’, in
For the place name evidence, see L. Abrams and D. N.
J. Barrow and A. Wareham, eds, Myth, Rulership, Church
Parsons, ‘Place-Names and the History of Scandinavian
and Charters (Aldershot, 2008), 101–16; and eadem, ‘The
Settlement in England’, in Hines, Lane and Redknap, eds,
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: Identity and the Making of
Land, Sea and Home, 379–431; K. Cameron, Place-Name
England’, Haskins Society Journal, 19 (2007), 28–50.
Evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Invasion and Scandinavian
Settlements: Eight Studies (Nottingham, 1975), and G.
Sources and Issues 5b Fellows-Jensen, The Vikings and Their Victims: The Verdict
There is a vast amount written on early medieval towns, of the Names (London, 1995). For Amounderness see R.
of which only a small fraction can be named here. For an Watson, ‘Viking Age Amounderness: A Reconsideration’,
 b i b l i o g r a p h y 453

in N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan, eds, Place-Names, in P. Clemoes, ed., The Anglo-Saxons (London, 1959),
Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape (Woodbridge, 70–88.
2011), 125–42. For interactions between Anglo-Saxon kings and
R. N. Bailey, Viking Age Sculpture in Northern England Scottish and Welsh rulers, see H. Loyn, ‘Wales and
(London, 1980), offers a detailed overview of the England in the Tenth Century: The Context of the
evidence. For hogbacks, see J. Lang, ‘The Hogback: A Æthelstan Charters’, in his Society and Peoples (London,
Viking Colonial Monument’, A.S.S.A.H., 3 (1984), 83–174. 1992), 173–99, and G. Molyneaux, ‘Why Were Some
The sculpture is catalogued, discussed and illustrated in Tenth-Century English Kings Presented as Rulers of
the relevant volumes of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Britain?’, T.R.H.S., 6th series, 21 (2011), 59–91. For
Sculpture (Oxford, 1984–). For rural settlement, see Continental connections see the essays by Foot and
D. Coggins, ‘Simy Folds: Twenty Years On’, in Hines, Lane Ortenberg in D. Rollason, C. Leyser and H. Williams, eds,
and Redknap, eds, Land, Sea and Home, 326–34, and England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in
J. D. Richards, ‘The Anglo-Saxon and Anglo- Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876–1947) (Turnhout,
Scandinavian Evidence’, in P. Stamper and R. Croft, eds, 2011), and K. Leyser, ‘The Ottonians and Wessex’, in his
Wharram: A Study of Settlement in the Yorkshire Wolds. Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The
VIII: The South Manor Area (York, 2000), 195–200. For Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries (London, 1994),
burial, see D. Hadley, ‘Burial Practices in Northern 73–104. For Edgar and Chester, see J. Barrow, ‘Chester’s
England in the Later Anglo-Saxon Period’, in S. Lucy and Earliest Regatta? Edgar’s Dee-Rowing Re-Visited’, E.M.E.,
A. Reynolds, eds, Burial in Early Medieval England and 10 (2001), 81–93.
Wales (London, 2002), 209–28, eadem, ‘Warriors, Heroes For law codes see P. Wormald, The Making of English
and Companions: Negotiating Masculinity in Viking-Age Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume 1:
England’, A.S.S.A.H., 15 (2008), 270–84, and J. D. Legislation and Its Limits (Oxford, 2001); C. Cubitt, ‘“As
Richards, ‘The Case of the Missing Vikings: Scandinavian the Lawbook Teaches”: Reeves, Lawbooks and Urban Life
Burial in the Danelaw’, in Lucy and Reynolds, eds, Burial, in the Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven
156–70. For archaeogenetics and other scientific data, see Sleepers’, E.H.R., 124 (2009), 1,021–49; S. Keynes, ‘Royal
P. Budd et al., ‘Investigating Population Movement by Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon
Stable Isotope Analysis: A Report from Britain’, Antiquity, England’, in R. McKitterick, ed., The Uses of Literacy in
78 (2004), 127–41, C. Capelli et al., ‘A Y Chromosome Early Mediaeval Europe (Cambridge, 1990), 226–57, and
Census of the British Isles’, Current Biology, 13 (2003), D. Pratt, ‘Written Law and the Communication of
979–84, S. Harding, M. Jobling and T. King, Viking DNA: Authority in Tenth-Century England’, in Rollason, Leyser
The Wirral and West Lancashire Project (Nottingham, and Williams, eds, England and the Continent, 331–50.
2010), and S. S. Mastana and R. J. Sokol, ‘Genetic For the specific examples from Æthelstan’s law explored
Variation in the East Midlands’, Annals of Human Biology, in this chapter, see Foot, Æthelstan. The codes themselves
25 (1998), 43–68. are translated in F. L. Attenborough, The Laws of the
The politics of the tenth century are now best Earliest English Kings (Cambridge, 1922), and A. J.
approached via three books: S. Foot, Æthelstan: The First Robertson, The Laws of the Kings of England from
King of England (London, 2011), N. J. Higham and D. Edmund to Henry I, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1925).
Hill, eds, Edward the Elder, 899–924 (London, 2001), and Governance and administration are explored by J.
D. Scragg, ed., Edgar: King of the English, 959–975 Campbell in a series of important essays collected in his
(Woodbridge, 2008). Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986) and The
For Æthelflæd, see P. Stafford, ‘Political Women in Anglo-Saxon State (London, 2000). See also H. Loyn, ‘The
Mercia, Eighth to Early Tenth Centuries’, in M. Brown King and the Structure of Society in Late Anglo-Saxon
and C. Farr, eds, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in England’ and ‘The Hundred in England in the Tenth and
Europe (London, 2001), 35–49, eadem, ‘â•‹“The Annals of Early Eleventh Centuries’, both in his Society and Peoples,
Æthelflæd”: Annals, History and Politics in Tenth- and Molyneaux, ‘Tenth-Century English Kings’. For
Century England’, in J. Barrow and A. Wareham, eds, meeting sites, see A. Pantos, ‘The Location and Form of
Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters (Aldershot, 2008), Anglo-Saxon Assembly Places: Some “Moot Points”â•‹’, in
101–16. For Brunanburh, see S. Foot, ‘Where English A. Pantos and S. Semple, eds, Assembly Places and
Becomes British: Rethinking Contexts for Brunanburh’, in Practices in Medieval Europe (Dublin, 2004), 155–80, and
Barrow and Wareham, eds, Myth, Rulership, Church and for a sample of the long history of some moot sites, see A.
Charters, 127–44, and M. Livingstone, ed., The Battle of Meaney, ‘Pagan English Sanctuaries, Place-Names and
Brunanburh: A Casebook (Exeter, 2011). For relationships Hundred Meeting Places’, A.S.S.A.H., 8 (1997), 29–42. For
between Wessex and the north, see C. Downham, ‘The feasting and itinerant kingship, see L. Roach, ‘Hosting the
Chronology of the Last Scandinavian Kings of York’, King: Hospitality and the Royal Iter in Tenth-Century
Northern History, 40 (2003), 25–51; D. Rollason, ‘St England’, Journal of Medieval History, 37 (2011), 34–46.
Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, For the late Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, see C. Hart,
Corpus Christi College MS 183’, in G. Bonner, D. ‘Athelstan “Half King” and His Family’, A.S.E., 2 (1973),
Rollason and C. Stancliffe, eds, St Cuthbert: His Cult 115–44, and A. Williams, ‘Princeps Merciorum gentis: The
and His Community (Woodbridge, 1989), 413–24, and Family, Career and Connections of Ælfhere, Ealdorman
D. Whitelock, ‘The Dealings of the Kings of England of Mercia, 956–83’, A.S.E., 10 (1981), 143–72. More
with Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Century’, generally see S. Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and
 454 bibliography

Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007); (Oxford, 2005), which also discusses the development of
R. Fleming, Kings and Lords in Conquest England new models of pastoral care in the late Anglo-Saxon
(Cambridge, 1991), and A. Williams, The World before period. On this subject see also the essays in J. Blair, ed.,
Domesday: The English Aristocracy, 871–1066 (London, Minsters and Parish Churches: The Local Church in
2008). Transition, 950–1200 (Oxford, 1998), and F. Tinti,
C. E. Blunt, B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. S. S. Lyon, ed., Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England
Coinage in Tenth-Century England: From Edward the (Woodbridge, 2005).
Elder to Edgar’s Reform (Oxford, 1989), is the most
comprehensive guide. For Æthelstan’s coinage, see M.
Sources and Issues 6a
Blackburn, ‘Mints, Burhs and the Grately Code, Cap. 14.2’,
For an overview, see S. Rippon, Beyond the Medieval
in D. Hill and A. Rumble, eds, The Defence of Wessex
Village: The Diversification of Landscape Character in
(Manchester, 1996), 160–75. For the maximalist view
Southern Britain (Oxford, 2008); H. Hamerow, Rural
of Edgar’s reforms, see R. H. M. Dolley, ‘Roger of
Settlements and Society in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford,
Wendover’s Date for Eadgar’s Coinage Reform’, British
2012). Key works include C. Lewis, P. Mitchell-Fox and C.
Numismatic Journal, 49 (1979), 1–11, and for reservations
Dyer, Village, Hamlet and Field: Changing Medieval
see I. Stewart, ‘Coinage and Recoinage after Edgar’s
Settlements in Central England (Manchester, 1997); B. K.
Reforms’, in K. Jonsson, ed., Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon
Roberts and S. Wrathmell, An Atlas of Rural Settlement in
Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildebrand (Stockholm,
England (London, 2000); T. Williamson, Shaping Medieval
1990), 455–85.
Landscapes: Settlement, Society, Environment
For discussion of the meaning and suitability of the
(Macclesfield, 2004). For village formation, see J. G.
term ‘State’, see S. Baxter, ‘The Limits of the Late Anglo-
Hurst, ed., Wharram: A Study of Settlement on the
Saxon State’, in W. Pohl, ed., Der frühmittelalterliche Staat
Yorkshire Wolds. Volume 1. Domestic Settlement, 1: Areas
– europäische Perspektiven (Vienna, 2009), 503–14, and
10 and 6 (Leeds, 1979); B. K. Roberts, The
the essays by Foot and Wormald in L. Scales and O.
Making of the English Village (Harlow, 1987);
Zimmer, eds, Power and Nation in European History
R. Jones and M. Page, Medieval Villages in an
(Cambridge, 2005).
English Landscape: Beginnings and Ends
The lives of the three central figures of the
(Macclesfield, 2006).
Benedictine Reforms are translated in M. Lapidge,
Discussion of open fields begins with H. Gray, English
Byrhtferth of Ramsey: The Lives of St Oswald and St
Field Systems (Cambridge, MA, 1915); then on to C. S.
Ecgwine (Oxford, 2008); M. Winterbottom and M.
Orwin and C. S. Orwin, The Open Fields (Oxford, 1938);
Lapidge, Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St Æthelwold
J. Thirsk, ‘The Origins of the Common fields’, Past and
(Oxford, 1991), and M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge,
Present, 33 (1966), 142–7; T. Rowley, ed., The Origins of
The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford, 2011). For a
Open-Field Agriculture (London, 1981); R. Dodgshon,
translation of the New Minster refoundation charter and
The Origins of British Field Systems: An Interpretation
a discussion of the topography of Winchester, see A.
(London, 1980); T. Brown and G. Foard, ‘The Saxon
Rumble, Property and Piety in Early Medieval Winchester
Landscape: A Regional Perspective’, in P. Everson and T.
(Oxford, 2002); for the Regularis Concordia, see T.
Williamson, eds, The Archaeology of Landscape: Studies
Symons, The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns
Presented to Christopher Taylor (Manchester, 1998),
of the English Nation (London, 1953). Each of the three
67–94. Now, see N. J. Higham and M. J. Ryan, eds,
central figures is the subject of a volume of studies; these
Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England
form the ideal introduction to the Reforms: N. Brooks
(Woodbridge, 2010). For the plough, see G. Astill and L.
and C. Cubitt, eds, Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence
Langdon, eds, Medieval Farming and Technology: The
(Leicester, 1996); N. Ramsay, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-
Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe
Brown, eds, St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult
(Leiden, 1997); P. J. Fowler, Farming in the First
(Woodbridge, 1992), and B. Yorke, ed., Bishop Æthelwold:
Millennium ad (Cambridge, 2002).
His Career and Influence (Woodbridge, 1988). These
volumes are usefully reviewed by C. Cubitt, ‘Review
Article: The Tenth-Century Benedictine Reform in Sources and Issues 6b
England’, E.M.E., 6 (1997), 77–94. For the Hermeneutic For a useful overview see J. Graham-Campbell, ‘The
Style, see M. Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature, 900–1066 Northern Hoards from Cuerdale to Bossall/Flaxton’, in
(London, 1993), and for Standard Old English see, for N. J. Higham and D. Hill, eds, Edward the Elder, 899–924
example, M. Gretsch, Winchester Vocabulary and (London, 2001), 212–29. For the individual hoards:
Standard Old English (Manchester, 2001). The Winchester J. Graham-Campbell, ed., Viking Treasures from the
Style is discussed in M. Brown, Manuscripts from the North-West: The Cuerdale Hoard in its Context (Liverpool,
Anglo-Saxon Age (London, 2007), and L. Webster, 1992), G. Williams and B. Ager, The Vale of York Hoard
Anglo-Saxon Art (London, 2012). For the wider context, (London, 2010), J. Graham-Campbell and R. Philpott,
see R. Gameson, The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon eds, The Huxley Hoard: Scandinavian Settlement in the
Church (Oxford, 1995). North West (Liverpool, 2009), for Flusco-Pike/Penrith see
The significance of the Benedictine Reforms is Graham-Campbell, ‘Northern Hoards’. The Silverdale
assessed by J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society Hoard has not yet been fully published.
 b i b l i o g r a p h y 455

Chapter 7 Diplomas in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England’,

For Millennial thought, see M. Godden, ‘Apocalypse and E.M.E., 19 (2011), 182–203.
Invasion in Late Anglo-Saxon England’ in M. Godden, D. For the return of the Vikings, see the general studies
Gray and T. Hoad, eds, From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle listed under chapter 5 above. See also D. Scragg, ed., The
English (Oxford, 1994), 130–62, idem, ‘The Millennium, Battle of Maldon, ad 991 (Oxford, 1991), and J. Cooper,
Time, and History for the Anglo-Saxons’ in R. Landes, A. ed., The Battle of Maldon: Fiction and Fact (London,
Gow and D. C. Van Meter, eds, The Apocalyptic Year 1000 1993). For the levels of tribute, see the debate between J.
(Oxford, 2003), 155–80. The translation at the head of Gillingham and M. K. Lawson in the E.H.R.; M. K.
this chapter is taken from P. Wormald, The Making of Lawson, ‘Danegeld and Heregeld Once More’, E.H.R., 105
English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume 1: (1990), 951–61, summarises the debates and references
Legislation and Its Limits (Oxford, 2001). the other articles. For the scale of the coinage, see M.
For the ‘Anti-monastic reaction’, see S. Jayakumar, Allen, ‘The Volume of the English Currency, c. 973–1158’,
‘Reform and Retribution: The “Anti-Monastic Reaction” in B. Cook and G. Williams, eds, Coinage and History in
in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’, in S. Baxter, C. E. the North Sea World (Leiden, 2006), 487–523. For a
Karkov, J. L. Nelson and D. Pelteret, eds, Early Medieval translation of II Æthelred see A. J. Robertson, The Laws of
Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald (Farnham, 2009), the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, 2 vols
337–52. The Life of Oswald is translated in M. Lapidge, (Cambridge, 1925).
Byrhtferth of Ramsey: The Lives of St Oswald and St J. Haslam, ‘The Early Development of Late Saxon
Ecgwine (Oxford, 2008); there is no translation of the Christchurch, Dorset, and the Burghal Hidage’, M.A., 53
Book of Bishop Æthelwold but it was incorporated into the (2009), 95–118, surveys later Anglo-Saxon defences,
Liber Eliensis, see J. Fairweather, Liber Eliensis: A History although questioning the attribution of such works to
of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh to the Twelfth Centuries Æthelred. For the traditional approach, see D. Hill,
(Woodbridge, 2005); for discussion, see A. Kennedy, ‘Law ‘Trends in the Development of Towns during the Reign of
and Litigation in the Libellus Æthelwoldi episcopi’, A.S.E., Ethelred II’, in idem, ed., Ethelred the Unready, 213–26;
24 (1995), 131–83. For the cult of King Edward, in this also includes information on the ‘emergency burhs’.
addition to the studies of Æthelred, below, see C. Cubitt, In addition, see R. H. M. Dolley, ‘Three Late Anglo-Saxon
‘Sites and Sanctity: Revisiting the Cults of Murdered and Notes’, British Numismatic Journal, 28 (1955–7), 88–105,
Martyred Anglo-Saxon Royal Saints’, E.M.E., 9 (2000), and idem and F. Elmore Jones, ‘The Mints “Æt
53–83; C. E. Fell, Edward, King and Martyr (Leeds, 1971); Gothabyrig” and “Æt Sith(m)estebyrig”â•‹’, British
S. J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England Numismatic Journal, 28 (1955–7), 270–82. For discussion
(Cambridge, 1988), and D. Rollason, ‘The Cult of of fortifications, see R. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars: Sources and
Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age
A.S.E., 11 (1982), 1–22. (Woodbridge, 2010). The Ridgeway Hill and St John’s
For Æthelred the fundamental study is S. Keynes, The College burial pits have not yet been fully published; for
Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’, 978–1016: A initial discussion of the Oxford evidence, see A. M.
Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge, Pollard et al., ‘â•‹“Sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat”:
1980); R. Lavelle, Aethelred II: King of the English The St Brice’s Day Massacre and the Isotopic Analysis of
978–1016, rev. edn (London, 2008), and A. Williams, Human Bones from St John’s College, Oxford’, Oxford
Æthelred the Unready: The Ill-Counselled King (London, Journal of Archaeology, 31 (2012), 83–102.
2003), offer useful and complementary introductions. S. For the ending of the tenth-century aristocracy, see S.
Keynes, ‘Re-Reading King Æthelred the Unready’ in D. Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late
Bates, J. Crick and S. Hamilton, eds, Writing Medieval Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007), and R. Fleming,
Biography (Woodbridge, 2006), 77–97, is a masterful Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge, 1991).
survey. D. Hill, ed., Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the For the impact of this on Swein’s and Cnut’s conquests,
Millenary Conference (Oxford, 1978), likewise contains see C. Insley, ‘Politics, Conflict and Kinship in Early
important material, particularly the papers by Keynes, Eleventh-Century Mercia’, Midland History, 25 (2000),
Stafford and Wormald. For the violence of Æthelred’s 28–42. For conflict between Æthelred’s sons, see P.
reign, see S. Keynes, ‘Crime and Punishment in the Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social
Reign of King Æthelred the Unready’, in I. Wood and History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries
N. Lunds, eds, People and Places in Northern Europe (London, 1989), and idem, Queen Emma and Queen
(Woodbridge, 1991), 67–81. For Æthelred’s appropria- Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century
tions of land, see P. Stafford, ‘Political Ideas in Late England (Oxford, 2001). For the martyrdom of Ælfheah,
Tenth-Century England: Charters as Evidence’ in P. N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church at Canterbury:
Stafford, J. L. Nelson and J. Martindale, eds, Law, Laity Christ Church from 597–1066 (Leicester, 1984).
and Solidarities (Manchester, 2001), 68–82; for Æthelred’s The literature on Wulfstan and, particularly, Ælfric, is
repentance, C. Cubitt, ‘The Politics of Remorse: Penance extensive. For Ælfric the best starting point is H.
and Royal Piety in the Reign of Æthelred the Unready’, Magennis and M. Swan, eds, A Companion to Ælfric
Historical Research, 85 (2012), 179–92; more generally, L. (Leiden, 2009), with the essay by Hill offering an excellent
Roach, ‘Public Rites and Public Wrongs: Ritual Aspects of introduction. For the composition of the Catholic
 456 bibliography

Homilies, see M. Godden, ‘The Development of Aelfric’s and Present, 104 (1984), 3–30; F. M. Stenton, ‘The
Second Series of Catholic Homilies’, English Studies, 54 Thriving of the Anglo-Saxon Ceorl’, in Preparatory to
(1973), 209–16, and for Ælfric’s monasteries M. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1970),
‘Ælfric’s Schooldays’, in E. Treharne and S. Rosser, eds, 383–93, and A. Williams, The World Before Domesday:
Early Medieval English Texts and Interpretations (Tempe, The English Aristocracy, 871–1066 (London, 2008).
AZ, 2002), 301–9; K. Barker, ed., The Cerne Abbas For Shapwick, see M. D. Costen, The Origins of
Millenary Lectures (Cerne Abbas, 1988), and C. A. Jones, Somerset (Manchester, 1992); C. M. Gerrard and M.
Ælfric’s Letter to the Monks of Eynsham (Cambridge, Aston, eds, The Shapwick Project, Somerset (London,
1998). For Wulfstan, start with M. Townend, ed., 1997), and, for the wider context, F. Pryor, The Making of
Wulfstan: Archbishop of York (Turnhout, 2004). For the British Landscape (London, 2010). For Raunds, see
Ælfric’s and Wulfstan’s engagement with their society, see M. Audouy and A. Chapman, Raunds: The Origin and
also M. Clayton, ‘Of Mice and Men: Ælfric’s Second Growth of a Midland Village ad 450–1500: Excavations
Homily for the Feast of a Confessor’, Leeds Studies in in North Raunds, Northamptonshire 1977–87 (Oxford,
English, n.s., 24 (1993), 1–26; Godden, ‘Apocalypse and 2009).
Invasion’; S. Keynes, ‘An Abbot, an Archbishop, and the For thegnly residences, see A. Williams, ‘A Bell-House
Viking Raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, A.S.E., 36 (2007), and a Burh-geat: Lordly Residences in England before the
151–220; M. K. Lawson, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan and the Norman Conquest’, in R. Liddiard, ed., Anglo-Norman
Homiletic Elements in the Laws of Æthelred II and Cnut’, Castles (Woodbridge, 2003), 23–40, and G. Beresford,
E.H.R., 107 (1992), 565–86, and J. Wilcox, ‘Ælfric in Goltho: The Development of an Early Medieval Manor, c.
Dorset and the Landscape of Pastoral Care’ in F. Tinti, ed., 850–1150 (London, 1987); B. Cunliffe, Excavations at
Pastoral Care in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, Portchester Castle: Volume II, Saxon (London, 1975); J.
2005), 52–62, Wormald, The Making of English Law. Fairbrother, Faccombe Netherton: Excavations of a Saxon
For Cnut, see M. K. Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in and Medieval Manorial Complex, 2 vols (London, 1990),
England in the Early Eleventh Century (London, 1993); T. and G. Thomas, The Later Anglo-Saxon Settlement at
Bolton, The Empire of Cnut the Great: Conquest and Bishopstone: A Downland Manor in the Making (London,
Consolidation of Power in Northern Europe in the Early 2010). For the church at Furnells, see A. Boddington,
Eleventh Century (Leiden, 2009), and A. R. Rumble, ed., Raunds, Furnells, the Anglo-Saxon Church and
The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway Churchyard (London, 1996), and for the complex at
(London, 1994). For Emma, see Stafford, Queen Emma Sulgrave, B. K. Davison, ‘Excavations at Sulgrave,
and Queen Edith, and for the Encomium, see A. Campbell, Northamptonshire’, Archaeological Journal, 134 (1977),
ed., Encomium Emmae Reginae, reprinted with a new 105–14. For The Reeve and similar texts, see P. D. A.
introduction (Cambridge, 1998). For changes to the Harvey, ‘Rectitudines Singularum Personarum and Gerefa’,
Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, see also K. Mack, ‘Changing E.H.R., 108 (1993), 1–22, and M. Gardner, ‘Implements
Thegns: Cnut’s Conquest and the English Aristocracy’, and Utensils in Gerefa and the Organisation of Segneurial
Albion, 16 (1984), 375–87; for Godwin and Leofric, see F. Farmsteads in the High Middle Ages’, M.A., 50 (2006),
Barlow, The Godwins (Harlow, 2002); Baxter, Earls of 260–70. For translations, see M. Swanton, trans.,
Mercia; Fleming, Lordship and Conquest; C. Insley, Anglo-Saxon Prose, new edn (London, 1995), and for
‘Where Did All the Charters Go? Anglo-Saxon Charters estate surveys A. J. Robertson, ed. and trans., Anglo-Saxon
and the New Politics of the Eleventh Century’, Anglo- Charters (Cambridge, 1939). For clothing, see G.
Norman Studies, 24 (2002), 109–28, and E. Mason, The Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, rev. edn
House of Godwin (London, 2004). For Scandinavian (Woodbridge, 2004), and C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art:
settlement, see P. Nightingale, ‘The Origin of the Court of A New Perspective (Manchester, 1982); for silk, specifi-
Husting and Danish Influence on London’s Development cally, R. Fleming, ‘Acquiring, Flaunting and Destroying
as a Capital City’, E.H.R., 102 (1987), 559–78, and A. Silk in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, E.M.E., 15 (2007),
Williams, ‘“Cockles amongst the wheat”: Danes and 127–58. For a useful introduction to the later Anglo-
English in the Western Midlands in the First Half of the Saxon diet, see N. Sykes, ‘Woods and the Wild’, in H.
Eleventh Century’, Midland History, 11 (1986), 1–22. Hamerow, D. A. Hinton, and S. Crawford, eds, The Oxford
For social changes in the later Anglo-Saxon period, Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Oxford, 2011),
see R. Fleming, ‘The New Wealth, the New Rich and the 327–45.
New Political Style in Late Anglo-Saxon England’,
Anglo-Norman Studies, 23 (2001), 1–22. The main sources Sources and Issues 7a
are translated in D. Whitelock, English Historical For an oversight, see R. Hall, ed., Viking Age York and the
Documents, I: c. 500–1042, 2nd edn (London, 1979). For North (London, 1978), The Viking Dig (London, 1984)
the meaning of ‘rice’, see M. Godden, ‘Money, Power and and Viking Age York (London, 1994); for the detail, see
Morality in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, A.S.E., 19 (1990), The Archaeology of York, Anglo-Scandinavian York,
41–65; for social mobility and the rise of the gentry J. published in fascicules by The Council of British
Gillingham, ‘Thegns and Knights in Eleventh-Century Archaeology. Otherwise, see D. Rollason, Northumbria,
England: Who Was Then the Gentleman?’, T.R.H.S., 6th 500–1100: The Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom
series, 5 (1995), 129–53, W. G. Runciman, ‘Accelerating (Cambridge, 2003), and R. A. Hall et al., Aspects of
Social Mobility: The Case of Anglo-Saxon England’, Past Anglo-Scandinavian York (York, 2004).
 b i b l i o g r a p h y 457

Sources and Issues 7b 1994). For warfare, see M. Strickland, Anglo-Norman

The literature is, as might be expected, vast. One of the Warfare (Woodbridge, 1992), and S. Morillo, The Battle of
most evocative translations is S. Heaney, trans., Beowulf: Hastings: Sources and Interpretations (Woodbridge, 1996);
A New Verse Translation (London, 1999); the Norton for the north the best study remains W. E. Kapelle, The
Critical Edition of this translation, ed. D. Donoghue Norman Conquest of the North: The Region and its
(New York, 2002), also includes important scholarly Transformation, 1000–1135 (London, 1979). ‘Waste’ in
studies on the poem. There are many other very good Domesday Book is mapped by H. C. Darby, Domesday
translations available, for details see the chapter by England (Cambridge, 1977), 232–59; for whether most
Osborn in A Beowulf Handbook (below). R. D. Fulk, should be ascribed to Norman activity, see D. Palliser,
trans., The Beowulf Manuscript (Cambridge, MA, 2010), ‘Domesday Book and the Harrying of the North’,
uniquely translates Beowulf and the four other works Northern History, 29 (1993), 1–23.
from the original manuscript; some of the insights that For the literary sources, see D. C. Douglas and G. W.
might be gained from reading the poem in its manuscript Greenaway, eds, English Historical Documents, vol. II,
context are explored by A. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: 1042–1189 (London, 1953). For the Anglo-Saxon
Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript Chronicle, see S. Baxter, ‘MS C of the Anglo-Saxon
(Cambridge, 1995). For key issues and debates see R. E. Chronicle and the Politics of Mid-Eleventh-Century
Bjork and J. D. Niles, eds, A Beowulf Handbook (Lincoln, England’, E.H.R., 122 (2007), 1,189–227. For other
NE, 1996), and A. Orchard, A Critical Companion to sources, see A. Campbell, ed., Encomium Emmae Reginae,
Beowulf (Cambridge, 2003). A number of important reprinted with a new introduction (Cambridge, 1998); F.
studies are usefully reprinted in L. E. Nicholson, ed., An Barlow, ed., The Life of King Edward Who Rests at
Anthology of Beowulf Critcism (Notre Dame, IN, 1971); Westminster, 2nd edn (London, 1992); D. W. Rollason,
R. D. Fulk, ed., Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical ed., Simeon of Durham, Libellus de Exordio atque Procursu
Anthology (Bloomington, IN, 1991); and P. S. Baker, ed., Istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, Ecclesie: Tract on the Origins
Beowulf: Basic Readings (London, 1994). and Progress of this the Church of Durham (Oxford, 2000).
The Norman sources are collected in R. A. Brown, The
Norman Conquest (London, 1984); see also M. Chibnall,
Chapter 8 ed., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols
An excellent new collection on Edward the Confessor is (Oxford, 1968–80); R. H. C. Davis and M. Chibnall, eds,
R. Mortimer, ed., Edward the Confessor: The Man and the The ‘Gesta Guillelmi’ of William of Poitiers (Oxford, 1998),
Legend (Woodbridge, 2009); see particularly the essay by and F. Barlow, ed., The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of
S. Baxter. The first major history of the period was that of Guy, Bishop of Amiens (Oxford, 1999).
E. A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of For the principal leaders, see F. Barlow, Edward the
England, 6 vols (Oxford, 1867); F. M. Stenton, Anglo- Confessor (London, 1970); I. Walker, Harold: The Last
Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1971), offers a balanced Anglo-Saxon King (Stroud, 1997); P. Stafford, Queen
view but see also D. C. Douglas, William the Conqueror Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in
(Berkeley, CA, 1964). The ‘Norman’ case for the Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997); D. Bates,
succession was argued by E. John: ‘Edward the Confessor William the Conqueror (Stroud, 2001); G. R. Owen-
and the Norman Succession’, E.H.R., 94 (1979), 241–67, in Crocker, ed., King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry
‘The End of Anglo-Saxon England’, in J. Campbell, ed., (Woodbridge, 2005). For the aristocracy, see R. Fleming,
The Anglo-Saxons (London, 1982), 214–39, and Kings and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge, 1991);
Reassessing Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1996). A. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest
G. Garnett offers an opposing view: Conquered England: (Woodbridge, 1995) and The World before Domesday: The
Kingship, Succession and Tenure, 1066–1166 (Oxford, English Aristocracy, 900–1066 (London, 2008); F. Barlow,
2007) and The Norman Conquest: A Very Short The Godwins (Harlow, 2002); E. Mason, The House of
Introduction (Oxford, 2009). For wider discussion, see Godwine (London, 2004), and S. Baxter, The Earls of
M. Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest Mercia (Oxford, 2007). For Edward’s Normans, see C. P.
(Manchester, 1999). Lewis, ‘The French in England before the Norman
For the political narrative, see B. Golding, Conquest Conquest’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 17 (1994),
and Colonisation: The Normans in Britain, 1066–1100 123–44.
(Basingstoke, 1994); N. J. Higham, The Death of Anglo- Studies of early castles include R. A. Brown, English
Saxon England (Stroud, 1997), and The Norman Conquest Castles, 3rd edn (London, 1976); D. J. Cathcart King, The
(Stroud, 1998), and/or R. Huscroft, The Norman Castle in England and Wales: An Interpretative History
Conquest: A New Introduction (Harlow, 2009). For a more (London, 1988), and P. Barker and R. Higham, Timber
structural approach, see J. Campbell, Essays in Anglo- Castles (London, 1992). A reappraisal of the castle was
Saxon History (London, 1986); F. Barlow, The Feudal offered by C. L. H. Coulson, Castles in Medieval Society
Kingdom of England 1042–1216, 4th edn (Harlow, 1988), (Oxford, 2003), and R. Liddiard, Castles in Context:
and C. Hicks, ed., England in the Eleventh Century Power, Symbolism and Landscape, 1066 to 1500
(Stamford, 1992). For Normandy, see D. Bates, Normandy (Macclesfield, 2005), but see C. Platt, ‘Revisionism in
before 1066 (London, 1982), and D. Bates and A. Curry, Castle Studies: A Caution’, M.A., 51 (2007), 83–102. For
eds, England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (London, churches, see H. M. Taylor and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon
 458 bibliography

Architecture, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1965–78); E. Fernie, The Battle Conference, 1 (1979), 1–34; D. M. Wilson,
Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1983); J. Blair, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1985); G. R. Owen-
ed., Minster and Parish Churches: The Local Church in Crocker, ed., King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry
Transition (Oxford, 1988), 21–30. For patronage, see E. (Woodbridge, 2005). For the later history of the Tapestry,
Cownie, Religious Patronage in Anglo-Norman England see C. Hicks, The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a
(Woodbridge, 1998); more generally, see H. Mayr- Masterpiece (London, 2006). For recent discussion, see
Harting, Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, M. J. Lewis, The Real World of the Bayeux Tapestry
1066–1272 (Harlow, 2011). For the archaeology of later (Stroud, 2008).
Anglo-Saxon England, see J. D. Richards, Viking Age
England (London, 1994), and A. Reynolds, Later
Sources and Issues 8b
Anglo-Saxon England: Life and Landscape (Stroud, 1999).
Domesday Book was edited by A. Farley (London, 1783);
For high-status sites, see particularly G. Beresford, Goltho:
this then formed the basis for translation, shire by shire
The Development of an Early Medieval Manor c. 850–1150
under the editorship of John Morris for Phillimore
(London, 1987). A magisterial overview of Domesday
(London and Chichester) in the 1980s. A photographic
England is Darby, Domesday England. For the broader
facsimile was produced in the late 1980s, again shire by
landscape, see G. J. White, The Medieval English
shire, by Alecto Historical Editions, prefaced by
Landscape 1000–1540 (London, 2012). For Conquest-
Domesday Book Studies, ed. A. Williams and R. W. H.
period towns, see J. Schofield and A. Vince, Medieval
Erskine (London, 1987): see particularly H. Loyn, ‘A
Towns (London, 1994); D. Palliser, ed., The Cambridge
General Introduction to Domesday Book’, 1–24.
Urban History of Britain, I, 600–1540 (Cambridge, 2000),
For varying interpretations, see J. H. Round, Feudal
and see chapter 7 above.
England (Cambridge, 1895); F. W. Maitland, Domesday
Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897); A. Ballard, The
Sources and Issues 8a Domesday Inquest (London, 1906); V. H. Galbraith, The
For a high-quality photographic reproduction, see Making of Domesday Book (Oxford, 1961) and Domesday
M. Parisse, La Tapisserie de Bayeux (Paris, 1983); Book: Its Place in Administrative History (Oxford,
L. Musset, La Tapisserie de Bayeux (Bayeux, 1989); 1974); R. W. Finn, Domesday Book: A Guide (London,
W. Grape, The Bayeux Tapestry: Monument to a Norman 1973). Two collections of essays celebrated the 900th
Triumph (Munich, 1994), M. Rud, trans. C. Ejlers, The anniversary: P. H. Sawyer, ed., Domesday Book: A
Bayeux Tapestry and the Battle of Hastings 1066, 5th edn Reassessment (London, 1985), and J. C. Holt, ed.,
(Copenhagen, 2004); M. K. Foys, Bayeux Tapestry, Digital Domesday Studies (Woodbridge, 1987); see also E. M.
Edition (2003), or D. M. Wilson, The Bayeux Tapestry: Hallam, Domesday Book through Nine Centuries (New
The Complete Tapestry in Colour (London, 2004). N. York, 1986); D. Roffe, Domesday: The Inquest and the
Brooks and the late H. E. Walker, ‘The Authority and Book (Oxford, 2000) and Decoding Domesday
Interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Proceedings of the (Woodbridge, 2007).
 INDEX

Abbo of Fleury 352 Æthelburh, abbess 159

Abbotsbury 363 Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great 266, 275, 278,
Abernethy 406 297, 298–301
Abingdon 257, 275, 314, 316, 337, 338, 342, 387 Annals of 275, 298–301: see also Mercian Register
Acton Scott 17 Æthelfrith, ealdorman 310
Adamnan, bishop 63 Æthelfrith, king of Bernicians 136, 142, 144
Aedan, king of Scots 63 Æthelheard, archb. of Canterbury 192, 209
Ælfflæd, daughter of King Offa 187 Æthelmær, ealdorman 343, 349, 351, 354, 355, 360
Ælfgar, earl 394–7 Æthelmod 232, 244
Ælfgar ‘Mæw’ 361–2 Æthelred, ealdorman 266, 278, 281, 297, 298
Ælfgifu of Northampton 351, 364 Æthelred II, king of England 274, 276, 322, 335, 338–52,
Ælfheah, archb. of Canterbury 350 359, 360, 362, 364, 387, 391
Cult of 350, 364 Charters of 349
Ælfheah, bishop 313 Coinage of 342
Ælfhelm, ealdorman 341, 343, 349, 351 Exile of 339, 358
Ælfhere, ealdorman 337, 338, 342 Laws of 322, 342, 344, 345, 349, 355
Ælfric Bata 332 Reputation of 339–40
Ælfric, ealdorman 341, 343, 345, 346 Ship-Â�building of 349, 357
Ælfric of Eynsham 354–5 Æthelred, king of Mercians 182, 183
Catholic Homilies 354–5 Æthelred, king of Northumbrians 187
Lives of the Saints 355 Æthelred, king of West Saxons 243, 245, 264–6,
Wyrdwriteras 355 296, 342
Ælfstan, bishop 343 Æthelred Mucel, King Alfred’s father-Â�in-Â�law 240, 243
Ælfthryth, wife of King Edgar 305, 338–9, 341, Æthelric of Bocking 344
342–3 Æthelstan, ‘Half-Â�King’ 310
Ælfwald, king of East Angles 183 Æthelstan, king of England 8, 10, 243, 274, 276, 281,
Ælfweard, king of West Saxons 10, 301 282, 284, 296, 301–3, 305, 306, 308, 313, 321,
Ælfwine, king of Deirans 143 331–3, 341, 401
Ælfwold of Mardleybury 337 Laws of, 306–8, 321
Ælfwynn, daughter of Æthelflæd 301 Æthelstan, prince 177, 351
Ælla, king of Northumbrians 260 Æthelstan, son of King Æthelwulf 258
Ælle, king of South Saxons 72, 142 Æthelthryth, abbess 171
Aesop’s Fables 429 Æthelweard I, ealdorman 271, 298, 342, 343, 346, 349, 355
Æthelbald, king of Mercians 180, 182, 183–6, 187, 190, Chronicle of 271, 298
191, 202–3, 209, 249 Æthelweard II, ealdorman 363
Æthelbald, king of West Saxons 243, 251, 258, 264 Æthelweard, son of Æthelmær 360
Æthelberht, king of East Angles 187 Æthelwine, ealdorman 337, 338, 342
Æthelberht I, king of Kent 124, 126, 137, 142, 143, 148, Æthelwold, bishop 311, 312, 314–16, 342, 353, 354: see
153–5, 157–9, 163, 269 also Benedictional of Æthelwold, Book of St
Laws of 145, 157, 163 Æthelwold, Regularis Concordia, Wulfstan ‘Cantor’
Æthelberht II, king of Kent 201 Æthelwold, ealdorman 310
Æthelberht, king of West Saxons 243, 245, 264 Æthelwold, prince 265, 296–7
 460 index

Æthelwulf, ealdorman 242 Apartheid 90, 110

Æthelwulf, king of West Saxons 240–1, 243–5, 252, 255, Apple Down 81
258, 264–6 Appleton-Â�le-Â�Moors 327
Aëtius, Roman general 51, 59, 61, 73, 76, 104 Aquinas, St Thomas 167
Agilbert, bishop 155 Archaeogenetics 89–91, 105, 108, 285, 294–6: see also
‘Agnus Dei’ pennies 357–8 genetics
Agriculture 22, 30, 108, 181, 199–200, 250, 253, 267–9, Archers 403, 424, 431
271, 323–8, 367–9, 378–9, 420, 422, 429, 437 Arles, Council of 40–1
Aidan, bishop 153, 171, 318 Armorica 29, 36, 87: see also Brittany
Alban, St 40, 43, 46, 156 Arosæte 139
Albinus, abbot 153 Art 161, 168, 212, 253, 285, 352, 384, 427–32
Alcuin 166, 182, 191, 204, 212, 216, 217, 221, 224, 236, Arthur, legendary king 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 63–9
238, 252, 257, 268, 356, 374, 386 Arundel 404
Aldfrith, k of Northumbrians 160 Ashburton 17
Aldhelm, bishop 160–1 Asser, bishop 187, 188, 251, 255, 262, 264, 265, 267–9,
Aldwulf, papal legate 242, 249 271, 272
Alfredian Chronicle 272: see Anglo-�Saxon Chronicle Life of Alfred 272, 278
Alfred of Malmesbury 409 Athelney 261, 262, 278, 284, 312
Alfred, son of Æthelred II 360, 391, 393 Atrebates 29
Alfred the Great 7, 8, 15–16, 167, 182, 234, 235, 240, 243, Aubrey, earl 423
245, 251–2, 255–7, 261–71, 272, 274, 279, 281, 284, Augustine, St, of Canterbury 20, 75, 126, 153–7, 160,
296, 312, 313, 333, 345: see also Asser 166, 318
Aims of 266–7 Augustine, St, of Hippo, Soliloquies 262
As author 262–4 Avon, river 187
Educational reforms of 268–9
Health of 265 Badbury Rings 297
Kingship of 266–7 Badon, Mount, siege of 59, 60, 66, 68, 75
Lawcode of 269–71, 306, 308 Bakewell 301
Military reforms of 267–8, 278 Baldock 44, 47–9
Religiosity of 265 Baldwin V, count of Flanders 393, 394, 398
Will of, 264–5 Baltic 236, 330, 377
Youth of 264–6 Bamberg Casket 290
‘Alleluia’ victory 75 Bamburgh 137, 141, 277, 303, 406
Alton 87 ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ 36, 41
Ambrosius Aurelianus 65, 73, 75 Bardney 183, 298
Amounderness 289 Barham 147
Andover 308, 321 Barking 159, 160
Angles (Angili) 4, 8, 73, 77, 85, 126, 142, 156, 164 Barrows 77, 81, 94, 120, 128–35, 382
Anglesey 37, 90, 344 Barton Court Farm 91
Anglian material culture 7, 129, 147, 178 Barton-�on-�Humber 420
Anglo-Â�Saxon Chronicle 12, 13, 71–2, 167, 181, 235, 236, Basingas 136
239–41, 243, 258, 260–2, 265–6, 268, 271–6, 278, Bassett, Steven 139
287, 290, 297, 299–304, 309, 311, 317, 329, 330, 337, Bath 27, 28, 29, 39, 46, 99, 305, 351, 371
339–40, 343–6, 348–9, 351, 355, 359, 361, 375, 387, Bawsey 147
390, 394, 397, 399, 400, 409, 416, 435, 438: see also Bayeux 427–8
Mercian Register Bayeux Tapestry 177, 390, 397, 399, 402, 427–32
‘Northern Recension’ of 275, 339 Baynard’s Castle 415
Anglo-Â�Saxon England 1–4, 6, 8, 9, 11–13, 14, 20, 104, 111, Bealdred, sub-Â�king of Kent 241
151, 155, 330 Bede 5, 8, 12, 13, 20, 46, 51, 59, 71, 72–5, 93, 99, 100, 102,
Kingdom of 7, 8, 266, 284, 297–311, 426 109, 110, 124, 126, 136, 137, 140–5, 147, 149, 150,
Structure of 305–11 153–7, 160–1, 163, 166–72, 179, 181–4, 203, 204,
Anglo-�Saxonism 14 206, 212, 213, 215, 221, 241, 252, 285, 311, 318, 320,
Anglo-Â�Saxon Language 2, 95–103; see also Old English 328
Anglo-Â�Saxons 1, 5–9, 12–15, 53, 109, 111, 126, 127, 156 Biblical Commentaries 169–71
Relevance of 1–19 Ecclesiastical History 8, 12, 13, 20, 59, 73–5, 93, 124,
Anglo-�Saxon Settlement 15, 19, 57, 75, 91 136, 137, 140, 142, 145, 153, 156, 157, 161, 166, 167,
Anjou 401 171, 179, 181, 183, 221, 275, 285, 311, 318
Antler-�working 246, 282, 374 Greater Chronicle 73, 75, 126
Antonine Wall 22, 54, 58, 188 History of the Abbots 167
 i n d e x 461

‘Lesser Chronicle’ 73 Bosham 155, 394, 397, 428, 429, 430, 439–40
Letter to Ecgberht 171, 319 Bowker, Alfred 15
Life of Cuthbert 161, 171 Brabourne 232, 233
The Reckoning of Time 149 Bracteates 86, 149
Bedfont 99 Bradford-�on-�Avon 165, 339
Bedford 209, 299 Bradley 422
Bedfordshire 4, 299 Bramber 404
Belgae 29 Brancaster 36
Belgium 29, 91, 131, 374 Brandon 198
Benedict Biscop 153, 160, 168 Bran’s Ditch 53
Benedictine Reforms 284–5, 311–22, 335–7, 352–4: see Breedon on the Hill 212, 240
also Benedict, St; Rule of St Benedict Bremen 220
Benedictional of St Æthelwold 320, 352 Bretons 29, 97, 313, 415
Benedict, St, of Nursia 285, 311, 314: see also Benedictine Bridges 20, 144, 202, 251, 256
Reforms; Rule of St Benedict Bridport 283, 420
Beningas 139 Brihtric, brother of Eadric Streona 349
Benty Grange 135 Brihtric, son of Ælfheah of Devonshire 360
Beonna, king of East Angles 200 Bristol 33
Beorn, earl 393–4 Britain 1, 4, 6–9, 12, 14–16, 41, 57–9, 70, 73, 75, 76, 87,
Beornred, king of Mercians 186 243, 257, 259, 276, 294, 305, 313, 330, 331, 344, 408
Beornwulf, king of Mercians 210, 240, 241 Kingship of 183, 241, 267, 305, 331
Beorhtric, king of West Saxons 187, 192, 235 Britons 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 42, 51, 53, 57–62, 65, 70, 73–5, 79,
Beowulf 103, 122, 177, 334, 352, 381–6 87, 89, 99, 104, 105, 109–11, 126, 128, 142, 156, 164,
Berhtwulf, king of Mercians 240, 249, 250 241, 276, 296, 358: see also Welsh
Berinsfield 88 Brittany 12, 29, 87, 408, 435: see also Armorica, Bretons
Berkhamsted 404 Brittonic 29–30, 65, 70, 95–7, 99, 110: see also Celtic,
Berkshire 53, 185, 186, 242, 283, 362 Cornish, Welsh
Bernicia 9, 143, 144 Brompton 290
Bernicians (Bernicii) 138, 144, 155 Brooches 45, 77, 84–5, 94, 108, 114, 118, 128, 131, 176,
Bertha, queen of Kent 148, 155 292, 293, 332
Beverley 158 Bromdun 342
Bewcastle 161 Broomfield 133
Bidford-�on-�Avon 150, 248 Bruges 364
Billingford 49, 112 Brunanburh 276, 303, 304, 401
Billingham 253 Bruton 420
Binchester 55 Brycheiniog 267
Birdoswald 36, 55 Buckingham 279
Birds 150, 174: see also Falconry Buckinghamshire 4
Birinus, bishop 154 Burbage 338
Birmingham Museum 5, 173, 174 Burghal Hideage 268, 278–9, 309
Bishopsbourne 232 Burghill 394
Bishopstone 369 Burgred, king of Mercians 240, 249, 250, 261, 266
Black Earth 47 Burhs 234, 268, 278–83, 287, 299–301, 346, 408, 421
Blackwater, river 112, 200 Burial, Anglo-Â�Saxon 127–35, 150, 226–7, 384: see also
Blair, John 214 cemeteries, cremation, inhumation
Bloodmoor Hill 130 Burial chambers 120–5, 131–5
Bluntisham 337 Burial, Scandinavian 255, 261, 292–3
Blythingas 139 Burnett 135
Bodmin 283 Burton on Trent 343
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy 262 Burwell 129
Bokerley Dyke 52 Bury St Edmunds 260, 422
Bone-Â�working 195, 246, 277, 282, 374, 422 Byrhtferth of Ramsey 312–14, 320, 336–8, 352
Boniface, archb. of Mainz 161, 182, 185–6, 201–2, 206–7, Life of St Oswald 312, 336–8, 343, 344, 352
218–24 Byrhtnoth, ealdorman 342, 344
Bookland 159, 321, 411: see also charters Byzantium 132, 147, 333, 372, 378, 425: see also Roman
Book of Nunnaminster 212 Empire, Eastern
Book of St Æthelwold 337–8
Bordars 420, 437–9 Cabaniss, Allen 386
Borre-Â�style decoration 292–3 Cædmon, poet 213
 462 index

Caedwalla, king of West Saxons 141, 143, 159 Cerdic, king of West Saxons 72, 143
Caen 408 Chad, bishop 143
Caerleon 23, 35–6 Chalton Down 199
Caerwent 46 Channel 9, 21, 70, 104, 105, 249, 281, 305, 430
Caesar, Julius 21, 275, 401 Charibert, king of Franks 148
Calais 145, 424 Charlemagne, king of Franks 166, 186, 188–90, 192,
Calne 420 197–8, 200, 209, 212, 224, 236, 242, 249, 264
Cambridge 299, 405 Charles Martel 219, 223
Cambridgeshire 33, 52, 54, 297, 405, 434 Charles the Bald, king of Franks 264
Campbell, James 311 Charles the Younger, king of Franks 189
Campsey 99 Charnwood Forest 144
Cannington 88 Charters 100, 152, 159, 181, 183, 187, 192, 193, 196, 204,
Cannock 178 206, 239–41, 244, 246, 251–2, 255, 256, 261, 262,
Canterbury 3, 8, 46, 75, 99, 124, 128, 137, 153, 154, 155, 277, 278, 297–9, 305, 313, 339, 342, 348, 359, 362,
158, 159, 169, 192, 193, 201, 206, 207, 209, 212, 391, 411, 420: see also bookland
250–3, 256–8, 275, 278, 282, 313, 318, 320, 350, 364, Chedworth 30
387, 403, 413, 415–16, 422, 428 Chelsea 186, 200, 204, 209, 210
Christ Church 209, 233, 250, 252, 313, 321, 363 Chepstow 327, 404
Dane John 415–16 Chertsey 159, 311
St Augustine’s Abbey 12, 232, 233, 275, 416 Cheshire 4, 25, 99, 286, 294, 309, 327, 343, 397, 434
St Martin’s 155 Chester 23, 35, 46, 61, 281, 282, 305, 309, 406
Worthgate 416 Chester-�le-�Street 160, 257, 287
Carhampton 258 Chichester 138, 278, 347, 439
Carisbrook 147, 248 Chieftains 102–3
Carlisle 24, 36 Childeberht, king of Franks 155
Carne Abbas 354 Chilperic, king of Franks 131, 148
Carn Gafallt 67 Chilternsæte 139
Carolingians 166, 187, 189, 190, 219, 223, 236, 265, 270, Chilton Polden 367
305, 320, 330 China 147, 378
Cassiodorus 252 Chippenham 261, 278
Castledyke South 84 Christchurch 297, 346
Castles 394, 402, 404–6, 415–16, 422, 424, 431, 432, 439 Christianisation 203–17
at London 415 Christianity,
Catcott 367 Anglo-Â�Saxon 123–7, 148, 153–64, 183, 187, 203–17,
Catholme 92, 94 218–24, 245, 250–3, 257, 265, 266, 270, 350, 352–8
Catterick 28, 55, 63 Anglo-�Scandinavian 290
Cattle 227, 229, 231, 378, 437 in Gaul 49, 104, 106
Cavalry 403, 424, 431–2, 435 in Roman Britain 39–40, 47–9, 55, 62, 111
Caxton, William 69 Christian kingship 153–65, 183, 187, 189–91, 268–70
Ceawlin, king of West Saxons 142 Church-Â�building 321–2, 370
Cedd, bishop 143 Church councils/synods 158, 204, 206–7, 209, 210, 252,
Celtic 29–30, 55, 70, 96, 99, 100, 102, 110, 111, 143, 212, 270, 319
323: see also Brittonic, Cornish, Welsh Churches 158, 159, 168, 196, 213–17, 253, 257, 285, 293,
Celtic La Tène 212 345, 355, 358, 365, 369–70, 374, 413–15, 417–19,
Cemeteries, Anglo-Â�Saxon 45, 78–87, 112–19, 120–5, 434, 439: see also by name
127–35: see also burial, cremation, inhumation Church Preen 17
British 47–9, 76 Church schools 159–60
Romano-Â�British 28, 41–9, 76, 79 Church, Anglo-Â�Saxon 159–72, 183, 185, 190, 200, 201,
Viking 260–1, 292 203–13, 216, 218–24, 236, 251–8, 311–22, 335–7,
Central province 323, 328, 437, 438 356, 368, 411–12
Cenwulf, king of Mercians 181, 191–3, 208–10, 239, 240, Cirencester 28
242, 249 Bath Gate 28
Ceolfrith, abbot 160, 167, 168 Cissbury Ring 347
Ceolnoth, archb. of Canterbury 244 Cleatham 44, 81
Ceolred, king of Mercia 182, 183 Clifford 404
Ceolwulf, king of Mercia 239, 240 Climate 22, 108
Ceolwulf II, king of Mercia 261, 266, 297 Cloisonné metalwork 174–5
Ceolwulf, king of Northumbrians 171 Cloth 145, 147, 198, 228, 282, 377, 378, 422: see also
Ceorls 108–9, 111, 144, 365 textiles, wool
 i n d e x 463

Clothar II, king of Franks 155 Costessey 423

Clothing 85, 121, 198, 366, 371–2, 379, 432 Cottam 248
Clodius Albinus 27 County Durham 291
Clovesho 204, 206–8, 213, 215, 319 Court, royal 263, 309–11, 313, 393, 410
Clovis, king of Franks 106 Coventry Abbey 417
Cluny 311 Cowdery’s Down 135–6
Cnut, k of England and Denmark 10, 275, 276, 335, 339, Cowlam 248
345, 351, 352, 358–64, 387, 391, 393, 424 Craven 138
Charters of 359 Criodantreow 241
Laws of 355, 358, 359, 361 Cremation, Anglo-Â�Saxon 78, 79, 81–3, 112–19, 163, 382:
Cnut, king of Denmark 406–7 see also burial, cemeteries
Coddenham 147 Scandinavian 292
Codex Amiatinus 160, 168 Cricklade 346
Coenred, king of Mercians 182, 183 Crondall hoard 145
Coifi 150 Crowland 183
Coinage, Anglo-�Saxon 126, 145, 163, 177, 187, 194, 198, Croydon 193
200, 201, 227, 230, 240–1, 245–6, 248, 282, 287, 298, Cuerdale hoard 329, 330, 332, 380
300, 306, 310, 329–34, 342, 345, 357–8, 374–5, 377, Cult of saints 216, 413–14: see also by name of saint
380, 394, 408: see also numismatics; pennies; stycas Cumberland 9, 346
Frankish 121, 133 Cumbria 9, 33, 99, 156, 161
Roman 25, 38–9, 41–2, 46, 50–1 Cumwhitton 292
Viking 329–34 Cunningham 9
Coke, Sir Edward 14 Curse tablets 29
Colchester 25, 27, 28, 299, 422 Cuthbert, abbot 167, 212
Coldingham 160, 255 Cuthbert, archb. of Canterbury 185, 206
Coleraine Hoard 50 Cuthbert, St, bishop 158, 160, 171, 287
Colombanus, St 59 Community of 257–8, 287, 303
Colswein of Lincoln 409 Life of 161, 171
Combs 147, 374 Tomb of 216
Combs Ditch 52 Cuthred, king of Kent 192, 240
Comitatenses 38 Cuthred, king of West Saxons 185
Common burdens 203 Cwenthryth, abbess 193, 210
Common Law, English 14, 16 Cynegils, king of West Saxons 157
Compensation: see wergild Cynethryth, wife of King Offa 191, 209
Conan, count of Brittany 427, 430 Cynewulf, king of West Saxons 186, 187, 209
Congham 248
Conisbrough 397 Dál Riata 63–4, 164, 243
Constantin I, king of Scots 303 Danegeld 345
Constantine I, emperor 38, 41, 105 Danelaw 278, 284, 286, 287, 291, 293, 296, 305, 307, 310,
Constantine III, emperor 41, 43, 51, 54, 58 437, 438
Constantius of Lyon 43, 75, 76 Danes 235, 286, 297, 299, 301, 304, 341, 347, 361, 362,
Continent 7, 9, 25, 59, 62, 106–7, 111, 119, 121, 145, 148, 375, 377, 384, 393, 406, 409, 425
158, 161, 166, 168, 212, 213, 218–24, 240, 242, 258, Daniel, bishop 161, 220, 276
268, 313–14, 330, 342, 352, 360, 363, 372, 422, 425, Dante 167
430, 437: see also by individual country Dartford 420
Continental missionaries 218–24: see also missionaries, Davies, Ralph 263
and by name Deben, river 141
Conversion, Anglo-Â�Saxon 126, 130, 148, 149, 151–64, Decalogue 270
166, 203 Deerhurst 253
Cookham 209 Dee, river 9, 305
Coptic bowls 120, 132 De Excidio Britanniae: see Gildas
Corbridge 20, 24 Deganwy 239
Corfe, Gap of 338 Deira 111
Cornish language 29, 97: see also Brittonic, Celtic, Welsh Deirans (Deiri) 102, 138, 144, 150
Cornish people 9, 241 Demetia: see Dyfed
Cornwall 9, 12, 25, 53, 69, 99, 138, 234, 241, 283, 343, 346, Denmark 16, 77, 93, 116, 149, 292, 294, 296, 344, 346,
395, 400 363, 364, 381, 391, 406, 408, 435
Cornwell, Bernard 6 Derby 281, 287, 299, 422
Cossington 367 Derbyshire 294, 299, 406
 464 index

Derwent valley 95, 138 Ealdormen 178, 243–4, 308, 310, 337, 349, 355, 361, 410
Deserted Medieval Villages 225–6 Ealdred, archb. of York 275, 390, 403, 404, 406, 424
Deusdedit, archb. of Canterbury 160 Ealdred of Bamburgh 303
Devil’s Ditch (Cambridgeshire) 53 Ealdred, husband of Ealhburg 232
Devil’s Ditch (Norfolk) 53 Ealdwulf, king of East Angles 161
Devil’s Dyke 151 Ealhburg, Kentish noblewoman 232–3, 244, 258
Devon 52, 138, 156, 222, 234, 241, 244, 310, 327, 343, Ealhhere, ealdorman 232–3, 258
346, 348 Ealhstan, bishop 241
Diocletian, emperor 34, 38, 58 Ealhswith, wife of King Alfred 240
Dives, river 401 Ealhhun, bishop 249
DNA 89–91, 294–6 Eamont, river 303, 332
Dolaucothi 25 Eanbald, archb. of York 242
Domesday Book 100, 280, 288, 324, 325, 328, 366, 391, Eangyth, abbess 201, 203
394, 397, 406, 407, 410, 411, 418, 420–1, 433–40 Eanred, king of Northumbrians 242–3, 245
Domesday Survey 435 Earconwald, bishop 158–9
Don, river 236 Eardwulf, king of Northumbrians 242, 249
Doon Hill 137 Earldoms 392–7, 410
Dorchester (Dorset) 28, 76, 244, 283: see also Poundbury Earls 120–5, 138, 139, 158, 161
Dorchester-Â�on-Â�Thames 3, 78 Earls Barton 369, 418–19
Dore 241, 242, 243 East Angles 74, 137–41, 144, 146, 155, 164, 183,
Dorestad 219, 249, 374 240, 259
Dorset 29, 61, 152, 156, 235, 244, 283, 323, 346, 352, East Anglia 40, 50, 90, 116, 141, 147, 155, 178, 185, 187,
363, 399 192, 195, 198, 200, 201, 234, 235, 239, 240, 246, 256,
Douglas, James 77 260, 262, 277, 297–9, 310, 323, 342, 349, 360, 393,
Dover 36, 99, 135, 136, 144, 394, 403 394, 406, 418
Buckland 81, 84 East Farndon 434
Dragons 66, 236, 334, 381–2 East Garston 367
Drapers’ Garden Hoard 49 East Heslerton 95
Dress 85, 130, 163, 226, 293, 372, 379: see also clothing East Midlands 234, 256, 277, 294, 298, 299, 323, 326,
Droitwich 25, 422 399, 400
Dublin 282, 286, 291, 303, 330, 332 East Saxons 74, 120–5, 138, 139, 155, 158, 161, 164,
Dumbarton Rock 104 185, 187
Dunbar 137, 243, 277 Eaton-�by-�Tarporley 31
Dunstable 46 Ebbsfleet 71, 200
Dunstan, St, archb. of Canterbury 311, 314–16, 317, 318, Eccles place names 156
338, 353 Ecgberht, archb. of York 171, 206, 212, 213, 319
Classbook of 320 Dialogue 215
Life of 312 Ecgberht, client king of Northumbrians 260
Durham 3, 257–8, 406, 413 Ecgberht II, king of Kent 209
Durham Gospels 160 Ecgberht, king of West Saxons 65, 187, 192, 239–44, 264
Dyfed 63, 68, 103, 267, 344 Ecgberht, St 221
Dykes 52–4: see also Offa’s Dyke Ecgfrith, king of Mercians 189–92
Ecgfrith, king of Northumbrians 143, 153, 158, 168
Eadberht, king of Northumbrians 185, 200, 206 Ecgred, bishop 252, 253
Eadberht II, king of Kent 197 Echternach 219, 221, 222
Eadberht ‘Præn’, king of Kent 192 Echternach Gospels 160, 218
Eadfrith, bishop 160 Edgar, king of England 10, 275, 285, 304, 305, 307,
Eadmer of Canterbury 411 310–12, 316, 317, 335, 336, 341–2, 360, 372, 378
Eadred, king of England 304, 310, 314, 332, 334 Coronation of 305
Will of 343 Laws of 308, 310, 321, 361
Eadric, king of Kent 196 Reform of coinage by 310
Eadric Streona, ealdorman 304, 349, 351, 352, 360 Support for Benedictine Reform 316–19, 321
Eadric the Wild 404 Edgar the ætheling 397, 400, 403–6, 408
Eadwald, king of East Angles 192 Edinburgh 63, 104, 137, 277
Eadwig, king of England 10, 304, 314 Edington, Battle of 262, 265, 266
Eadwig, ‘king of the ceorls’ 363 Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor 390, 394–5, 397,
Eadwig, son of Æthelred II 360 399, 427
Eadwulf of Bamburgh 301 Life of King Edward, commissioned by 390, 391, 393,
Ealdgyth, wife of Harold II 399 394, 397, 399, 400
 i n d e x 465

Edith, queen 408: see also Matilda Exon Domesday 434

Edmund Ironside 10, 177, 351–2, 360, 364, 397 Exports 22, 145, 147, 186, 212, 231, 375
Sons of 360 Eynsham 354–5
Edmund, king of England 10, 274, 276, 303, 304, 307, 310,
314, 333 Faccombe Netherton 369, 370
Lawcode of 313 Faeroes 236
Edmund, St, king of East Angles 260 Falconry 227, 230, 373
Cult of 364 Fausett, Reverend Bryan 77, 131
Edric of Laxfield 410 Faversham 176
Edward of Salisbury 409 Feasting 372–3
Edward the Confessor 11, 281, 351, 360, 362, 387–400, Fécamp Abbey 411, 421
411–13, 424, 427, 430, 432, 433, 436, 438, 439: see Felix, Life of St Guthlac 183
also Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor Felix, bishop 160
Charters of 409 Felix, secretary to King Æthelwulf 252
Coinage of 394 Fenrir 290
Edward the Elder 265, 274, 278, 282, 296–301, 308, Fens 80, 139
333, 337 Ferrières 252
Conquests of 298–301 Feud 102, 108, 144, 406
Edward the Exile 360, 397 Fife 9, 141
Edward the Martyr 338–9, 342 ‘Final Phase’ burials 129, 130, 163
Cult of 339, 364 Finglesham 128, 232
Edwin, earl 399, 401, 403–6 Firth of Forth 9
Edwin, king of Northumbrians 93, 136, 143, 144, 153–5, Fish 174, 181, 196, 200, 280, 372–3, 378, 436, 439
157, 158 Fishbourne 31
Eildon Hill 104 Fishguard 4
Elmet 81, 111, 138 Five Boroughs 276, 287, 303–4, 351
Ely 337, 338, 406, 413, 436, 438 Flanders 281, 314, 391, 393, 394, 397, 399, 406–8
Emma of Normandy 346, 351, 352, 359, 360–1, 364, Flax 377–8
391, 393 Fleam Dyke 53
Emporia 144, 146–7, 163, 182–3, 193, 194, 196, 219, 234, Fleury 311, 313–14, 319
237, 246–50, 277: see also wics Flixborough 147, 198, 225–31, 292
Encomium Emmae Reginae 359, 360, 363, 391 Flusco Pike Hoard 332
England 1, 2, 4–5, 8–10, 17, 19, 90–1, 241, 243, 262, 284, Folkestone 344
305, 311, 312, 408, 410, 426 Foot, Sarah 206
English, History of the 1, 4, 5, 12, 71 Fordwich 144, 196, 197, 420
Language 1, 2, 4, 8, 95–103, 409–10, 426: see also Forthred, abbot 206
Anglo-�Saxon, Old English Fortingall 17
Kingship of the 8, 10, 11, 243, 266–7, 303, 360 Fosse Way 308
Settlement of the 71–5, 77, 87, 105 Foss, river 374
English Mercia 261, 266, 296, 297 Foxley 135, 136
Englishness 4–9, 109–10, 128, 164–5, 178, 424 France 29, 70, 89, 147, 226, 249, 268, 281, 363, 374, 387,
Enham 357 401, 407, 435
Eoforwic 374–5: see also Jorvik, York Francia 128, 131, 135, 143, 145, 147, 154–6, 163, 164, 166,
Eohric, ?king of East Anglia 297 186, 197, 221, 236, 258–9, 282, 330, 333, 429
Eormenric, king of Kent 143 Franks 41, 86, 103, 104, 106, 128, 142, 204
Eric Bloodaxe 304 Franks Casket 151
Eric, earl 360, 361 Freeman, Edward 339
Esmonde Cleary, Simon 42 Freia, goddess 149
Essex 7, 52, 80, 146, 153, 182, 191, 234, 241, 243, 245, 297, French language 409–10, 416, 425: see also Norman
299, 327, 342, 344, 345, 363, 434, 437 French
Estate management 371 Frenchmen 411, 415, 436
Ethnicity 110, 156, 219, 221, 222, 285–96, 304 Friesland 90
Eusebius of Caesarea 170, 172 Frilford 79
Eustace, count of Boulogne 394 Frisia 89, 145, 219, 220, 222, 223, 378
Evesham 406 Frisians (Frissones) 8, 142, 164, 221, 222, 374
Ewias Harold 404 Frome 420
Exchequer 436 Frome, river 283
Exeter 222, 306, 307, 346, 404, 435 Fulco, archb. of Rheims 252
Exeter Book, poems in 352 Fulda 220, 222–3
 466 index

Fulham 262 Goltho 249, 369, 370, 415

Fullofaudes 38 Goodmanham 152
Funerals 81, 382, 384 Gorze 311
Furnells 368–70 Gosbeck 28
Fursa, St 155 Gosforth Cross 290
Fürstengrab 132 Gospatric of Bamburgh 399, 406
Fyn 82 Gospatric, son of Arnkell 409
Gospatric, thegn 372
Gaelic 98 Goths 35, 103
Gaimar, Geoffrey 271 Gowy, river 331
Gaini 243 ‘Grately Code’ 282, 306–8, 311
Gainsborough 350–1 Graveney boat 281
Galford 241 Great Chesterford 79
Gallic Chronicle of 452 59, 76, 104 ‘Great Heathen Army’ 233, 243, 258–62, 272, 275
Gallo-Â�Romans 86, 104–6 ‘Great Summer Army’ 258
Galloway 9, 156 Green, John Richard 71
Gamber, river 67 Greenland 236
Gate Fulford, Battle of 401 Gregory I, the Great, pope 8, 59, 73, 75, 145, 152, 153,
Gaul 27, 29, 36, 41, 49, 51, 60, 70, 73, 76, 104–8, 111, 124, 155, 156, 166, 171, 262: see also Whitby
142, 155, 160 Cult of 153
Gaulish 98 Dialogues 269
Geatland 382, 386 Pastoral Care 262, 267
Geats 381–6 Gregory of Tours 148
Geld 404, 412, 436–9 Grendel 381–4, 386
Genealogies, royal 63, 143 Grimbald of St Bertin 268
Genetics 284, 294–6: see also Archaeogenetics ‘Grimston Hybrids’ 287, 289
Gentry 336 365–71 Grubenhäuser 91–5: see also sunken-Â�featured buildings
Geoffrey of Monmouth 12, 13, 63, 69 Gruffudd ap Llywelyn 393, 397
History of the Kings of Britain 12, 13, 69 Guildford 283
George of Ostia 190 Guilds 250, 280, 307, 308
Gerefa 371 Gumley, Council at 202–3
Gerhard of Brogne 314 Gunthorpe 325
Germanic society 34–5, 102–3 Guthfrith, Danish king of York 287
German language 97 Guthfrith, Hiberno-�Norse leader 302
Germans 70, 87, 221, 323 Guthlac, St 183
Germanus, St 43, 49, 51, 55, 65, 73, 75, 76 stone of 308
Germany 77, 78, 82, 86, 89–91, 93, 103, 106, 108, 116, Guthlaxton 308
132, 149, 177, 281, 282, 305, 313, 374, 387 Guthred, Viking king of York 287, 333
Gewisse 72, 139: see also West Saxons Guthrum, Viking king of East Anglia 262, 267
Ghent 314, 319 Guy, count of Ponthieu 427, 429, 430
Giant’s Grave 53 Gwent 267
Giant’s Hedge 53 Gwynedd 33, 60, 65, 68, 192, 397
Gildas 8, 43, 46, 51, 54, 56, 57–62, 65, 66, 72, 73, 75, 104, Gyrth, earl 395, 403, 432
105, 107, 109, 156, 358
Gildas-�de-�Rhus, St, monastery of 60 Hadrian, abbot 153, 160
Giso, bishop 400, 406, 424 Hadrian, emperor 26
Glass 46, 82, 115, 123–4, 132, 195, 226, 228, 277, 374, 377 Hadrian I, pope 209
Glastonbury 13, 60, 310, 314, 327, 337, 367, 368 Hadrian’s Wall 20, 22–3, 27, 36, 38, 41, 58, 188
Gloucester 25, 266, 298, 407, 436 Hakon, earl 362
Gloucestershire 188 Halls 91–5, 112, 130, 136–7, 226–31, 369, 381: see also
Glywysing 267 post-�hole buildings
Godiva, Lady 410, 417 Halton Moor Hoard 331
Godwine, earl 276, 361, 363, 364, 366, 373, 390–7, 400, 439 Hammerwich 178
Godwine the priest 410 Hampshire 29, 53, 77, 85, 262, 281, 323, 345, 346
Godwinesons 387, 395–7, 404 Hamwic 146, 247, 249, 251, 277, 281, 374
Gododdin, The 63 Hanging bowls 108, 120, 123, 128, 148
Goisfrid (Geoffrey) Alselin 438–9 Harald Bluetooth 344
Gold 25, 49, 50–1, 145, 148, 163, 173–8, 198, 277, 281, Harald, Cnut’s brother, king of Danes 363
330, 334, 363, 365, 371, 377, 416 Harald Hardrada, king of Norwegians 393, 401, 424
 i n d e x 467

Harold I, Harefoot, king of England 10, 361, 364–5, 391 Hingston Down 258
Harold II, Godwineson, king of England 1, 4, 373, 361, Hinton St Mary 40
387, 391, 393–404, 423, 424, 427–32, 436 History of the Britons 65–9, 100
Coinage of 404–5 History of St Cuthbert 287, 333
Sons of 404–5 Hlothere, king of Kent 196
Visit to Normandy 397–9, 400–3 Hoards 5–6, 35, 40, 49–51, 103, 145, 148, 173–8, 329–34,
Harrison, Frederic 16 345, 380
Harrogate 330 Hodgkin, R. H. 126
Harrow-�on-�the-�Hill 150, 152 Hodoeporicon 224
Harrying of the North 406, 420 Hogbacks 290
Harthacnut, king of England 10, 345, 359, 361, 364–5, Holstein 82, 294
387, 391 Holwick Fell 291
Harthacnut, Viking king 333 Holy Land 224, 391, 395
Hartness 236 Honorius, archb. of Canterbury 154
Harvey, Richard 6, 13 Honorius, emperor 41, 42, 105
Hastings 100, 402–4, 415, 428, 431 Honorius, pope 154
Hastings, Battle of 1, 4, 5, 329, 390, 398, 403, 404, 424, Horsa, legendary Anglo-�Saxon leader 14, 74, 82
425, 427 Horses 82, 113, 150, 277
Hatfield 337, 403 Housesteads 36, 55
Hawking: see Falconry Hoxne hoard 50
Headda Stone 212, 290 Hrothgar, king of Danes 381–2
Heahberht, king of Kent 200 Hugh de Grandmesnil 424
Healfdene, Viking leader 287, 375 Hugh Lupus, earl 406, 415
Hearg place names 150–1 Hull 33
Heath Wood, Ingleby 261, 292 Humber, river 7, 9, 22, 139, 158, 183, 184, 198, 246, 299,
Hebrides 344 350, 401, 406
Helmets 133–5, 174, 365, 375 Wetlands of 80
Hemingford 338 Hundred Ordinance 307–8
Hemming’s Cartulary 362 Hundreds 3, 307–10, 322, 433–4, 436: see also wapentakes
Hen Domen 326, 416 Meeting places of 308
Hengest, early Anglo-Â�Saxon leader 14, 71–2, 74, 82, 143 Huneberc of Heidenheim 224
Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor 393 Hungary 360, 397
Henry I, king of England 280, 408 Huns 34, 35
Henry I, king of France 391 Hunting 227, 230, 373, 429
Henry II, king of England 275 Huntingdon 299, 405
Henry VIII, king of England 13, 69 Huntingdonshire 394
Henry of Huntingdon 12, 167, 271 Hurstbourne 338, 371
Heorot 381–3 Huxley Hoard 331–2
Herbert, Terry 173 Hwicce 139, 158, 182, 184, 187, 203, 361
Hereford 4, 277, 346, 397 Hygeberht, archb. of Lichfield 190, 209
Herefordshire 4, 397, 400, 434 Hythe 420
Heregeld 345: see also Geld, Taxation Hywel, king of Welsh 301
Hereric, Deiran prince 143
Hermeneutic Style 320 Ibert de Lacy 406
Herpès 145 Iceland 150, 236
Herrings 372 Ickham 46
Hertford 283, 299, 422 Icknield Way 260
Hertfordshire 80, 99, 362 Iclingas 143
Hesse 222, 224 Ida, king of Bernicians 143
Hexham 20, 161, 320 Idle, river 144
Heybridge 28 Idwal, king of Gwynedd 301
Hiberno-�Norse 286, 377 Ilchester 346
Hiberno-�Saxon Style 212 Illtud, St 60
Hicce 139 Imperium 141–2: see also ‘Overkingship’
Hide 109, 111, 436–9 Imports 26, 33, 46, 86, 118, 123, 128, 145, 147, 195, 197,
Hild, St, abbess 171, 213 198, 212, 226, 228, 231, 375, 377–80
Hill, David 188, 279 Incense 147, 167
Hillforts, reoccupation of 54–5, 346–7 India 147, 175, 380
Hills, Catherine 112 Ine, king of West Saxons 110, 183, 201, 262, 269, 308, 324
 468 index

Ingeld 386 Keyston 324

Ingham 423 Kiernan, Kevin S. 384
Inhumation 78–9, 112–19, 120–5, 127–35, 163, 226–7, Kincardine 303
292–3: see also burial, cemeteries Kingdoms, origins of 137–44
Inkberrow 210 Kingsbury 200
Iona 153, 164 Kingship 103, 124, 126, 137–44, 152–3, 156–8, 164, 183,
Ipswich 146, 152, 181, 193–6, 201, 248, 277, 344, 374 189, 190, 196, 382
‘Ipswich ware’ pottery 147, 195, 246, 248, 374 King’s Lynn 420
Ireland 22, 37, 43, 59, 62, 64, 76, 103, 104, 160, 189, 212, Kingston Brooch 131
221, 236, 258, 259, 286, 294, 299, 302, 303, 313, 330, Kingston-�upon-�Thames 301
331, 344, 380, 394, 404, 415, 425 Kinship 102, 108, 110–11
Irish 9, 37, 38, 64, 73, 103, 204, 313 Kintyre 64
Missionaries 154, 218 Krefeld-�Gellep 131
Irish Sea 9, 76, 103, 286 Kyle 9
Isidore of Seville 167
‘Ismere Diploma’ 183 Lancashire 33, 47, 81, 89, 156, 286, 289, 412
Isotopes 88–9, 104, 295–6, 348 Lancaster 37, 412
Israel the Grammarian 313 Landscape Archaeology/History 16, 108, 366–9
Issendorf 115 Land tenure 108, 144, 159, 171, 200, 203, 365–7, 434
Italy 41, 70, 164, 204, 318, 372, 424 Lanfranc, archb. of Canterbury 406, 413
Itchen, river 251, 277 Langton 31
Ithamar, bishop 160 Language of Roman Britain 29–30, 55
Iustus, bishop 154 Lankhills, Winchester 28, 47, 81, 89
Ivarr, Viking leader 259 Latin 29–30, 43, 55, 70, 95–100, 102, 104, 108, 110, 157,
Ivory 115, 422 215, 251–3, 256, 262, 268, 271, 275, 320, 336, 337,
354, 355, 409, 425, 429, 433
Jænberht, archb. of Canterbury 209 Law codes 11, 108, 110, 111, 145, 157, 163, 182, 196, 201,
James II, king of England 4 215, 262, 269–70, 282, 299, 306–8, 310, 313, 321,
James, Deacon 154 324, 342, 345, 349, 355–7, 358, 359, 361, 365
Jarman, A. O. H. 63 Laxton 323, 438–9
Jarrow 20, 153, 160, 167–8, 320 Lead 25, 29, 228–9, 277, 422
Jefferson, Thomas 14 Leahy, Kevin 226
Jerome, St 252 Leather-�working 25, 194, 281, 277, 281, 374, 377, 379
Jewellery 24, 79, 84, 94, 120, 128, 147, 163, 177, 246, 292, Lea, river 234, 262, 299
293, 372: see also brooches Lechlade, Butler’s Field 130
John, archcantor 168 Leeds, Edward 129
John, bishop 158 Leicester 28, 287, 299, 303
John, Eric 356 Leicestershire 99, 144, 410
John of Fordun 243 Leo III, pope 192, 209, 242
John, the Old Saxon 268 Leo IV, pope 265–6
Jorvik 100, 374–80: see also York, Viking-Â�Age Leoba, abbess 219–20
Joseph of Arimathea 13 Leofric, earl 276, 361, 364, 387, 393–7, 400, 417
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald 264 Leofric Missal 320
Judith of Flanders 393 Leofwine, ealdorman 360, 361, 366
Jumièges 413 Leofwine, Godwineson, earl 394, 395, 403, 432
Junius Manuscript 352 Leominster 393
Justice 306–8 Lérins 168
Jutes 4, 7, 8, 73–4, 77, 85, 86, 149, 164 Lewes 404
Jutland 116 Life in the United Kingdom 4–5
Life of Willibald and Winibald: see Hodoeporicon
Kent 7, 36, 53, 72–5, 77, 111, 123–4, 126, 128, 131, 137, Lincoln 25, 28, 40, 99, 128, 138, 156, 231, 281, 287, 299,
141, 143–9, 153–5, 163, 164, 178, 181, 185, 187, 192, 405, 421
193, 195, 201, 203, 208–10, 232–4, 240, 241, 243–5, Lincolnshire 33, 52, 225, 246, 290, 323, 434
249, 256, 258, 279, 281, 283, 306, 323, 341, 346, 349, Lindisfarne 66, 153, 216, 235–6, 238, 252, 257
393, 395, 404 Lindisfarne Gospels 160, 212
Kenneth II, king of Scotland 304 Lindsey 40, 111, 138, 139, 351, 401
Kenneth, king of Dál Riata (Kenneth I of Scotland) 243 Linen 378
Kenyon, Joseph 329 Little Chart 232
Keynes, Simon 339, 349 Little Domesday Book 422, 434, 437–8
 i n d e x 469

Little Stour, river 46 Maldon, Battle of 344

Liudhard, bishop 154–5 Malmesbury 160, 316, 351, 420
Loch Tay 17 Malory, Sir Thomas 63, 69
Loire, river 107 Manchester 278, 301
London 3, 25–8, 30, 41, 49, 55, 99, 128, 141, 146, 153–5, Man, Isle of 344, 346
158, 159, 181–7, 193, 196, 201, 219, 246, 249–50, Manor 328, 437–9
252–3, 258, 262, 266, 277, 279, 281, 282, 291, 298, Manufacturing 33, 42, 56, 163, 195, 198, 199, 204, 228,
299, 314, 315, 339, 345, 351, 363, 364, 374, 375, 395, 246, 277, 280, 282, 291, 374–81
397, 403, 415, 422, 434: see also Drapers’ Garden Margaret, wife of King Malcolm 406
Hoard, Lundenwic Markets 23, 28, 42, 49, 105, 106, 198, 280–3, 420–2
Aldwych 146, 194 Markham, Sir Clements 16
Billingsgate 422 Marton Oak 17
Cheapside 281 Maryport 37
Charing Cross 193 Mary, queen of England 424
Covent Garden 194, 246 Material culture 42, 43, 70, 76, 89, 104, 115, 128, 144–8,
Cripplegate 26 164, 178, 285, 289–93, 323
Eastcheap 281 Matilda, queen 405, 408, 427: see also Edith
London Bridge 27, 422 Mayen 281, 374
Peace Guilds of 27, 307 Meath, County 9
Queenhithe 281 Mebyon Kernow 9
St Paul’s 397 Mecklenburg 82
Strand 194, 246, 276 Medehamstede 256, 316: see also Peterborough
Wall of 27 Mediterranean 89, 103, 105, 123, 147, 224, 380, 425
Whitehall 196, 247 Mellitus, bishop 124, 126, 152, 154
White Tower 415 Melrose 243
Long Sutton 342 Meols 195
The Lord of the Rings: see Tolkien Mercia 7, 9, 135, 146, 156, 164, 165, 167, 178, 179, 182,
Lotharingians 393 187, 192, 197, 202, 203, 209, 233–5, 239–43, 250,
Lothbury 196 260–2, 297, 275, 277, 299, 304, 309, 310, 330, 342,
Lothian 9, 304 349, 352, 360, 393, 404, 406, 420
Louis IV, king of West Francia 305 Structure of 243–4
Louth 209 Western 252
Loveluck, Christopher 226 Mercian Register 275, 298–301
Low Countries 195, 296 Mercians 65, 72, 74, 138, 140, 141, 143, 155, 158, 178, 179,
Lucius, legendary king of Britons 13 192, 239, 241, 262, 301, 315, 399
Ludeca, king of Mercians 240 kings of 182–93, 244, 262
Lullingstone Roman villa 31, 40 Mercian Supremacy 179–217, 239–40, 245
Lundenwic 194–5, 246, 247, 249, 251: see also London Merfyn, king of Gwynedd 65, 66, 69
Lupus, abbot 252 Merovingians 89, 124, 143, 145, 155
Luxembourg 222 Mersey, river 301, 331
Lydford 279, 346 Merton 278
Lydney 39 Metal-Â�working 25, 39, 55, 94, 144, 147, 195, 226, 228–9,
Lyfing, bishop 362 246, 277, 281–2, 332, 374, 376, 422
Lyme 99 Middle Angles 74, 139, 141, 158
Lyminge 196, 199, 235, 251, 257 Middlesex 182, 184, 185, 187, 209, 434
Lympne 99 Middleton 290
Lyon 41, 75 Middlewich 422
Midlands 156, 179, 187, 226, 277, 281, 331, 349, 351,
Maccus, earl 304 393–5, 406, 415, 434, 437
MacDurnan Gospels 313 Midland System 323–4
Mægla 72 Milan 41
Mælmin 136 Milburn 327
Mærleswein 405 Mildenhall Treasure 49
Maglocunus (Maelgwn), king of Britons 60, 2 Militias, in late Roman Britain 51–2
Magnus, king of Norway 393 Millenarianism 334, 353, 356
Magnus Maximus, Roman general 41, 58 Millfield 136, 137
Magonsæte 139 Millhill 81
Mainz 223 Mills 46, 200, 279, 422, 436–7
Malcolm, king of Scotland 401, 406, 408 Milton 311
 470 index

Ministri: see thegns Norman immigration 418

Minster-Â�in-Â�Thanet 196–7, 208, 210, 211: see also Thanet Normans 15, 387, 393, 394, 415, 431
Minsters 206, 214: see also churches, monsteries Norsemen 301, 304, 396: see also Danes, Norwegians,
Mints, Anglo-�Saxon 201, 240, 248, 250, 251, 266, 277, Scandinavia
279, 281, 282, 287, 300, 306, 310, 346, 374, 380, 400, North Africa 30, 89
421, 422 North America 236
Frankish 106 Northampton 287, 299–300, 434
Roman 28, 41, 42, 50 Northamptonshire 33, 326, 399, 409, 434
Missionaries, Anglo-Â�Saxon 160–1, 166, 212, 218–24: see Northamptonshire Geld Rolls 409
also by name North Conesby 225, 230
to England 148, 153–6, 164: see also by name North Elmham 112
Moll, Northumbrian nobleman 206 Northey Island 344
Monasteries 18, 158, 159, 171, 181, 196, 204–11, 214, 238, North Ferriby 146
251–2, 255–7, 311–16, 320, 354–5, 374, 411 Northman 360, 361
Moneyers 201, 300 North Sea 9, 91, 103, 230, 231
Monkwearmouth 153, 159, 160, 167, 168 Northumbria 7–9, 142, 151, 153, 156, 157, 164, 171, 172,
Monmouth 404 178, 180, 182, 185, 200, 206, 212, 234, 236, 240, 242,
Montacute 363 245, 248, 253, 256, 259, 260, 275, 287, 297–9, 301,
Monte Amiato 168 333, 360, 374–5, 393, 396, 406, 420
Monte Cassino 224 Conquest of 301–4
Montfichet Castle 415 Northumbrians 74, 139, 144, 165, 241, 260, 287, 304, 315,
Moray Firth 9 351, 375, 377, 378, 399
Morcar, earl 399, 401, 403–6 Norton 87
Morcar, thegn 341, 351 Norway 292, 294, 344, 363, 377
Morken 131 Norwegians 286, 391, 393, 401, 431
Moses 14, 270 Norwich 421
Mote of Mark 137 Nothhelm, archb. of Canterbury 185
Mount Badon: see Badon Notitia Dignitatum 36–8, 104
Mucking 78, 92–4, 199 Nottingham 260, 278, 287, 299, 301, 405
Multiple Estates 289, 367 Nottinghamshire 406, 438–9
Murdrum 411 Numismatics 18, 333–4: see also coinage
Museum of London Archaeological Service 120–5 Nursling 222
Myres, J. N. L. 77, 78
Octa, king of Kent 143
Nackington 131 Oda, archb. of Canterbury 313–14, 320
Nantwich 99 Constitutions 313
Nazeing 256 Odda of Gloucester, earl 361, 394, 395
Nectaridus 38 Odo, bishop 404, 427, 428, 431, 432
Nene Valley 33, 368 Oeric Oisc, king of Kent 143
Nennius 65 Offa, king of Mercians 12, 177, 179, 180, 182, 186–91,
Neston 290 197–8, 200–1, 208, 209, 249, 256, 269
Netherlands 222, 249 Offa’s Dyke 52–4, 187–8, 200
Nether Wallop 352 Ogham 46, 103
New Forest 33, 408 Oiscingas 143
Newfoundland 236 Olaf Guthfrithsson 303–4
Nial, Irish visionary 252 Olaf Sihtricsson 304
Niduari 138 Olaf Tryggvason 344–5
Norfolk 33, 52, 81, 90, 112–19, 293, 395, 410, 423, 434 Old English 2, 70, 97, 99, 100, 102, 110–11, 213, 229, 252,
Norham 253 262, 268, 271, 275, 281, 285, 287, 289, 320, 336, 337,
Norman architecture 413–18 354, 355, 381–6, 409, 435
Norman commentators 371, 387, 398, 430 Standard 320, 409
Norman Conquest 11, 12, 14, 271, 317, 322, 358, 359, 362, Old Norse 409: see also Scandinavian language
371, 377, 387, 401–8 Old Sarum 346, 407
Effects of 409–26 Old Saxons 74, 218, 223
Norman court 410 Open Fields 323–8, 367–8, 438
Normandy 29, 236, 346, 351, 360, 391, 395, 401, 448, 410, Ordeal 306
424, 425, 428 Oppida 25, 28
Lower 145 Orc 363
Norman French 425: see also French language Orderic Vitalis 423
 i n d e x 471

Ordinary Gloss 167 Pennines 25, 99, 110, 292, 406

Orkney 401 Pennsylvania 14
Orosius 57, 58 Penwortham 420
Orton Hall Farm 91 Pepper 147, 167
Osberht, king of Northumbrians 260 Pershore 415
Osbern fitz Osbern 394 Persia 33
Osbern Pentecost 394 Personal naming 30, 43, 96, 423, 426
Osgar, monk 314, 318 Peterborough 212, 256, 275, 290, 316: see also
Osric, king of Deirans 143 Medehamstede
Oswald, archb. of York 311, 313–15, 317–18, 320, 337, Pevensey 36, 402, 404, 415, 431
353: see also Byrhtferth of Ramsey Peverel, Ranulph 437–8
Oswald, St, king of Northumbrians 143, 150, 153, 155, Pfäfers 313
157, 177 Philip I, king of France 408
Relics of 298 Pictavia 243
Oswine, king of Deirans 102, 143, 157 Picts 35, 37, 41, 59, 62, 73, 75, 98, 153, 185, 243, 276
Oswiu, king of Northumbrians 144, 153, 157–9 Piercebridge 55
Ottonian emperors 305 Pillar of Eliseg 185
Ouse, river 194, 374, 375, 379, 401 Pilsbury Castle 416
Ouse, river (Great) 262 Pippin II, king of Franks 219, 221
‘Overkingship’ 133, 141–2, 158, 179–85, 193, 208, 297–8, Pippin III, king of Franks 200, 219
305: see also imperium Pirton 44
Owain, king of Dyfed 68 Place names 16, 97–102, 284–9, 294
Owain, king of Strathclyde 303 Ploughs 324–6, 420, 437, 438, 439
Oxford 33, 279, 298, 347, 348, 351, 361, 364, 369, 421 Poetry 63, 96, 166, 213, 251, 270, 276, 303, 304, 313, 334,
St Michael’s Northgate, at 369 344, 352, 359, 381–6
Oxfordshire 291, 394 Pollen diagrams 16–17, 87
Polydore Vergil 9
Paganism, Anglo-Â�Saxon 149–53, 162–3 Pontefract 406
in Beowulf 382–6 Ponthieu 398
Suppression of 159, 162–3, 203 Poole Harbour 33, 283
Paganism, in later Roman Britain 39, 47–50, 55 Population 30, 418–20
Paganism, Scandinavian 290 Port, legendary Saxon leader 72
Paine, Thomas 14 Portable Antiquities Scheme 18, 173
Palaeobotany 16–17, 87, 104, 108 Portchester 72, 369, 370, 415
Pallig, Viking leader 348 Portland 99, 235, 258, 343
Papal legates 182, 190 Ports 26, 183, 196–7, 246–51, 282, 426: see also
Paris 155 emporia, wics
Parisi 29 Post-Â�hole buildings 91–5, 226–8: see also halls
Parker Chronicle 271, 272, 274: see also Anglo-�Saxon Potteries, Anglo-�Saxon 144, 374, 422: see also Charnwood
Chronicle Forest, ‘Ipswich ware’, Thetford Ware
Parker, Matthew, archb. of Canterbury 13 Potteries in Roman Britain 33, 38
Parliament 13–14, 16 Potteries in sub-Â�Roman Britain 44–5, 78
Parret, river 258 Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke 173
Paschal, pope 210 Pottery, Anglo-Â�Saxon 144, 195, 226–7, 230–1, 248, 277,
Pastoral care 210, 213–17, 285, 321–2, 354–5 374: see also by named type
Patching hoard 51, 329 Pottery, imported 33, 46, 132, 195, 198, 374, 422
Patrick, St 43, 66, 76 Poundbury 28, 76: see also Dorchester
Paulinus, bishop 153 Powys 33, 185, 186, 188, 239
Peada, king of Middle Angles 139 Preston 329
Peak District 25, 128, 139, 301: see also Pecsæte ‘Princely burial’ 120–5, 131–5, 142, 163, 177, 292
Peakirk 415 Prittlewell chambered grave 120–5, 135
Pecsæte 139: see also Peak District Private Eye 6
Pehtred 252 Procopius of Caesarea 8, 142, 150
Pelagianism 43 ‘Productive sites’ 137, 146–7, 163, 198–9, 225–31, 248
Pelagius 43 Pseudo-�Ingulf 12
Pembrokeshire 327, 344 Pybba, king of Mercians 143
Penda, king of Mercians 139, 141, 142, 143, 150, 157–9,
177, 178, 182 Queenford Farm 88
Pennies 200, 357: see also coinage Quentovic 219, 249, 374
 472 index

Quernstones 195, 197, 226, 228, 281, 374, 379 Later 33–40, 105
Quintillian 252 Lowland zone of 25–30
Quoit Style, of metalworking 45, 78 Military zone of 22–5
Provinces of 28, 138
Rædwald, king of East Angles 124, 133, 143, 144, 155, Roman Conquest of Britain 20–1
157, 161 Roman Empire 4, 20, 33–4, 62, 103, 105, 106, 111, 148
Ragnald Guthfrithsson 304 Eastern 128, 142, 143, 163: see also Byzantium
Ragnald, Viking king 299, 301, 302, 303 Western 34, 35, 41, 49, 70, 76, 105, 384
Ragyndrudis Codex 223 Romanesque architecture 413–14
Ralph, earl 394, 395, 397 Romans 4, 73, 88, 105, 110, 172, 329
Ramsey 316, 352 Rome 13, 20, 153–5, 159, 160, 168, 222, 224, 255, 261,
Ramsey Psalter 352 265, 266, 279, 363, 395
Ranvaik Casket 290 Romney Marsh 196, 258, 402
Rath Melsigi 221 Romsey Crucifixion 352
Raunds 368 Rosebery, Lord 15
Rectitudines singularum personarum 371 Rouen 408
Reculver 36, 99, 196, 208, 210 Rougemont Castle 404–5
Reeves 371, 436 Roundway Down 135
Reformation, English 13 Rowe Ditch 52
Regni 138 Royal Bible 212
Regularis Concordia 319, 372: see also Æthelwold, bishop Royal Prayerbook 212
Rendlesham 137, 141 Rudham 248
Repton 183, 186, 253, 260, 262–3, 278, 296, 298 Rudolf of Fulda 220
Restitutus, bishop 40 Rufinus of Aquileia 172
Rhineland 42, 78, 147, 195, 226, 227, 228, 247, 374, 378 Rule of St Benedict 311–19: see also Benedictine Reforms;
Rhine, river 34, 38, 41, 281 Benedict, St, of Nursia
Rhuddlan 415 Rushock Hill 188
Ribble, river 329 Russia 236, 378
Ribe 374 Ruthwell Cross 161
Riccal 401 Rye 421
Richard I, duke of Normandy 346 Rye, river 138
Richard II, duke of Normandy 351
Richard fitz Scrob 394 Saberht, king of East Saxons 124, 155
Richard’s Castle 394 Saga literature 390
Richborough 36, 39, 40, 46, 78, 99 St Albans 27, 43, 44, 46, 49, 100, 110
Richmond 406 St Bertin, Saint-�Omer 268
Ricula, sister of King Æthelberht 124 St Bertolin 415
Ripon 161, 221, 320 ‘St Brice’s Day’ Massacre 341, 347–8, 350, 355
Ridgeway Hill 348 St David’s 268
Robert de Commines 406 St Eadburh 415
Robert de Romney 424 Saint-Â�Évroul 423
Robert fitz Wimarc 402 St Frideswide’s Church 347–8
Robert I, duke of Normandy 391 St Gallen 313
Robert II, duke of Normandy 408, 424 St Gervais, priory of 408
Robert of Jumièges 394, 395, 413 St John’s College, Oxford 348
Robert of Mortain 431 St Martin-�in-�the-�Fields 49, 193
Robert of Rhuddlan 404, 415 St Mary at Stow 417
Robert of Stafford 422 St Omer 363, 391
Rocester 287, 331, 333 St Osyth 437
Rochester 3, 128, 153, 154, 155, 158, 159, 160, 196, 201, St Pega 415
249, 250, 251, 278, 282, 342 St Peters Broadstairs 128
Roger de Westerham 424 St Petroc 343
Roger of Montgomery 405, 423 St Valery 401
Roger of Poitou 411–12 Salin Style I, metalwork 148
Roger of Wendover 255 Salin Style II, metalwork 148, 175
Roman army 22–3 Salt 25, 181, 422
Roman Britain 4, 20–69, 89, 111, 157 Saltwood 81
Economy of 30–3, 38–9, 42 Sancton 81
End of 41–56, 105 Sandtun 196, 248, 249
 i n d e x 473

Sandwich 145, 258, 344, 348, 349, 350 Shrewsbury 4, 405

Sandy 79 Earl of 416
San Salvatore, Brescia 265 Shropshire 17, 434
Saracens 224 Sicily 424, 425
Sarre 99, 145, 196, 197 Sidonius Apollinaris 76, 150
Saxon material culture 129, 147, 178: see also material Sigeferth, thegn 341, 351
culture Sigered, king of East Saxons 191
Saxons 4, 8, 41, 53, 58, 65, 73, 75–7, 85, 86, 88, 98, 106, Sigeric, archb. of Canterbury 345–6
110, 156, 164 Sigeweard of Asthall 355
As federate troops 51, 56, 62, 72, 78, 104, 106 Signal Stations 37
Continental (Old) 7, 8, 74, 106, 268 Sihtric, Viking king of York 302
Saxon Shore 36–7, 41, 42, 54, 58, 59, 78, 402 Silchester 27, 39, 40, 46, 103
Saxony, Continental 220, 268 Silk 132, 147, 371, 377–8
Scandinavia 86, 90, 91, 106, 116, 131, 145, 149, 163, 177, Silver 50–1, 106, 118, 133, 145–6, 163, 173–8, 200, 227,
233, 236, 237, 239, 286, 330, 344, 348, 363, 377, 381, 229, 240, 243, 281, 329–34, 363, 371, 380, 416
384, 421, 425, 438 Silverdale Hoard 330, 333
Scandinavian identity 290 Simeon of Durham 399
Scandinavian language 287–9: see also Old Norse Simy Folds 291–2
Scandinavian material culture 289–96 Sisam, Kenneth 384
Scandinavian settlement 285–96, 312, 362 Siward Barn 406
Scarborough 37 Siward, earl 380, 393–5, 397
Sceattas 146, 200, 227: see also pennies Sixtus, St 156
Schleswig 82, 294 Slaves 25, 75–6, 109, 145, 147, 420, 437, 438, 439
Scotland 5, 8, 9, 22–3, 52, 96, 103, 164, 303, 304, 305, 330, Smyth, Alfred 265
380, 406, 415, 425 Snape 123, 133, 141
Scots 41, 59, 62, 73, 156, 276, 301, 303 Soapstone 377, 379
Scottish missionaries 155–6 Social mobility 365–73
Sculpture 161, 200, 212, 227, 253, 290, 352–3, 384 Sockburn on Tees 290
Scyld Shefing 384 Solent 36
Seckley 240 Solway 23
Secklow Hundred 308 Somerset 76, 156, 185, 262, 283, 284, 310, 323, 346, 352,
‘Second Decimation’ 255 363, 420
Sedbury Cliffs 188 Somerset Levels 261
Sedgeford 292 Somme, river 401
Sedlescombe Hoard 329 Sompting 418
Sées Abbey 412 Southampton 181, 193, 194, 196, 201, 235, 247, 258, 281,
Seine, river 29 343, 391: see also Hamwic
Valley 147 Southampton Water 146
Selethryth, abbess 193, 251, 257 South Cadbury 54, 346
Selham 418 Southend-�on-�Sea 120
Selsey 144, 369 South Ferriby 198
Senlac Hill 403 South Gyrwe 139
Sermon of the Wolf to the English: see Wulfstan II South Humbria 200, 212, 252
Settlement archaeology 91–5, 135–7, 285, 291–2, 366–9 Southminster 363
‘Settlement Shift’ 93, 199, 248, 291 South Saxons 138, 140, 141, 144, 164, 185, 187
Severn, river 9, 22, 45, 199, 373 South Shields 25, 37
Shapwick 367–8 Southwark 49, 279, 283, 363, 364, 422
Sheffield’s Hill 130 Spain 29, 70, 105, 111, 236
Shelford 287 Spalda 139, 142
Sheppey, Isle of 236, 258 Spalding 139
Sherborne 160 Spanish 70
Sherburn 95 Spong Hill 81, 112–19
Sherwood Forest 17 Sprouston 137
Ships 123–4, 133, 156, 196, 219, 249, 258, 281, 344–5, 349, Stafford 281, 283, 309, 415, 422
361, 363, 401, 428–31, 433, 436 Stafford, Pauline 339
Shire court 308, 310, 422, 436, 437 Staffordshire 309
Shire-Â�reeve (sheriff) 309, 408, 410, 411, 436 Staffordshire Hoard 5, 148, 173–8
Shires 3, 307–10, 322, 408, 426, 433, 434, 436, 437 Stainmore 304
Shire towns 4, 421–2: see also burhs Stamford 231, 237, 287, 301
 474 index

Stamford Bridge, Battle of 401–2 Thegns 244, 365, 410–11, 424

Starkey, David 177 Thelwall 301
Stapleton, Thomas 13 Theobald, Northumbrian prince 142
Stenton, Sir Frank 16, 179 Theodore, archb. of Canterbury 153, 156, 159, 162, 164
Stephen, king of England 275 Penitential attributed to 159, 162
Stephen of Ripon 8 Theodosius, count 41
Life of Wilfrid 153: see also Wilfrid I, St, bishop Theodosius I, emperor 41, 355
Stephen proto-�martyr 59 Theophylact of Todi 190
Stigand, archb. of Canterbury 406, 430 Thessalonica 355
Stockholm Codex Aureus 212, 238 Thetford 260, 421
Stockport 420 Thetford Hoard 49
Stonehenge 4 Thetford Ware 248
Stour, river 196 Theudeberht, king of Franks 155
Strathclyde 301, 303 Theuderic, king of Franks 155
Streanæshalch 19: see Whitby Thietmar of Merseburg 350
Stretham 337 Thing 102
Stycas 229: see also coinage Thomas, bishop 160
Styli 29, 198, 229 Thomas of Elmham 12
Suffolk 33, 80, 99, 410, 434 Thorkell of Warwick 409, 423
Sulgrave 370, 415 Thorkell, Viking leader 348–52, 357, 360, 363
Sulis Minerva 27 Thorney 316
‘Sunday Letter’ 252 Thorneycroft, Hamo 15
Sunken-Â�Featured Buildings (SFBs) 91–5, 112, 130: see also Thorold 437–8
Grubenhäuser Thrislington 326
Surrey 53, 141, 182, 235, 241, 243, 245, 283, 363 Thundersfield 306–7
Sussex 7, 52, 72, 148, 203, 234, 241, 243, 244, 245, 249, Thundersley 151
256, 279, 283, 329, 346, 349, 395, 400, 401, 411, 418, Thunor, god 149, 151
439, 440 Thurferth, Viking earl 299–300
Sutton Hoo 120, 122–4, 132–5, 141, 144, 148, 157, Thuringia 222, 224
173–5, 384 Tiberius, emperor 58
Sweden 296, 381 ‘Tiberius Style’ of manuscript 212
Swein Estrithson, king of Denmark 391, 393 Tidenham 371, 372–3
Swein Forkbeard 339, 344–6, 348–51, 358 Tintagel 69
Conquest of England by 350–1 Tiu, god 102, 149
Swein Godwineson, earl 393, 394, 395 Tobias, bishop 160
Swithun, St, bishop 251 Tofi the Proud 362–3, 417
Cult of 280 Toki, son of Wigot 424
Switzerland 313 Tolkien, J. R. R. 7
Tolls 185, 196–9, 249
Tacitus 21, 70, 91, 102 Tomsæte 243
Tadcaster 401 Tonbridge 404
Tamworth 183, 200, 277, 281, 300, 302, 309 Torksey 231, 260
Taplow 132, 135 Tostig Godwineson, earl 372, 380, 393, 395, 397, 399, 401
Tatwine, archb. of Canterbury 185 Totnes 405
Tauberbischofsheim 219, 220 Tournai 131
Taxation 4, 28, 30, 38, 51, 104, 105, 106, 144, 157, 199, Tours 49, 155
201, 202, 245, 345, 358, 394, 399, 408: see also Geld Towns, Anglo-Â�Saxon 18, 245–51, 277–83, 291, 327, 363,
Temples 27, 28, 29, 39, 136, 150–2 374–80, 420–1, 426, 434, 437: see also burhs,
Tennyson, Alfred Lord 69 emporia, wics
Test, river 277 In Roman Britain 25–8, 39, 105–6, 277
Tettenhall, Battle of 299 Trade 23, 25, 27–9, 42, 56, 62, 103, 105, 123, 126, 145–8,
Textiles 94, 128, 132, 133, 194, 195, 198, 228, 246, 249, 163, 178, 181, 182, 185, 186, 189, 195–200, 204, 219,
277, 282, 374, 377–8, 422 226–31, 234–7, 246–9, 277–83, 291, 365, 374–80
Textus Roffensis 157 Traprain Law 35, 104
Thames, river 27, 193–4, 200, 234 Trees 17
Thames Valley 72, 76, 80, 90, 186, 187, 198, 291 Trent Basin 183–4
Lower 328 Trent, river 147, 225, 262, 350–1
Upper 130, 195, 198, 323 Treuddyn 188
Thanet 66, 71, 99, 258, 343–4: see also Minster-Â�in-Â�Thanet Trewhiddle 243
 i n d e x 475

Tribal Hidage 139, 140, 142, 164 Vindolanda 25, 36–7, 50, 55
Tribute 102, 106, 110, 137, 139, 177, 243, 255, 260, 305, Vines 22
361, 362 Viroconium: see Wroxeter
To Vikings 344, 345, 346, 349, 350 Visigoths 76
Trier 41 Vítharr 290
Trinovantes 137 Victricius, bishop 40
Trumpington 163 Vortigern, British king 51, 65
Tweed, river 9 Vortimer, son of Vortigern 65–6
Tynemouth 236
Tyne, river 23, 260, 287, 303 Wado, nobleman 242
Walcher, bishop 406
Ufegeat, son of Ælfhelm 341, 349 Wales 8, 9, 12, 23, 25, 52, 60, 61, 69, 90, 96, 99, 103, 138, 185,
Uhtred, ealdorman 351 187, 192, 239–41, 268, 294, 331, 346, 397, 404, 415, 425
Ukraine 236 Walh 109–10: see also Welsh
Uley 29 Wallace-�Hadrill, Michael 263
Ulf, bishop 395 Wallasey 110
Ulfcetel 346 Wallingford 404
Ulfr, earl 361 Waltham 363, 417
Uncleby 81 Waltheof, earl 400, 406
United States of America 1, 6, 14, 16, 243 Walton 110
Unwona, bishop 191, 386 Wansdyke 53–4, 151
Updown Eastry 128 Wantsum Channel 86, 141, 196
Urien, British king 66 Wapentakes 307: see also hundreds
Urns 44, 78, 112–13, 115, 149: see also cremation Warbands 102, 108, 111, 128, 141, 144
Utrecht 221, 222, 249, 281 Wareham 110, 283, 346
Warrington 156
Valens, emperor 35 Warrior graves: see Weapons graves
Valentinian III, emperor 46 Warwick 281, 405
Vale of York Hoard 330–1, 333 Warwickshire 406, 423
Val-Â�ès-Â�Dunes, Battle of 391 Wash 36, 139, 141, 375
Varangian Guard 425 Wasperton 79, 81, 89
Vegetius 37 Watchet 343
Vercelli Book 352 Water Newton Treasure 40
Verstegan, Richard 14 Watling Street 100, 178, 184, 262, 351
Verulamium: see St Albans Wat’s Dyke 52, 54
Vespasian Psalter 212 Wayland, god 151
Vexin 408 Wayland’s Smithy 151
Vici 23, 25, 35–6 Weald 25, 80, 141
Victricius, bishop 40 Weapons graves 85, 119, 123, 129, 131
Viking Age 3, 91, 163, 236–7, 282, 326, 328, 425 Wearmouth: see Monkwearmouth
Hoards of the 329–34, 345: see also by place name Wear, river 287, 303
Viking armies 233, 243, 258–62, 286, 287, 299, 348, 357, Wednesbury 99, 151, 152
380, 401 Wells 3
Viking attacks 182, 232, 235–7, 251–2, 255–62, 268, 272, Welsh language 29, 64, 97, 409: see also Brittonic,
284, 312, 343–50, 357, 384, 391 Celtic, Cornish
Viking colonies 236 Welsh people 70, 109, 185, 186, 240, 298, 396, 399: see also
Viking Conquests 259–62, 278, 284, 286, 291, 351–2, 391 Britons, walh
Viking Empire 424 Welsh Annals 60, 61, 68
Vikings 4, 15, 230, 232–9, 245, 249, 276, 283, 296, 298, Welsh Marches 9, 156, 393, 394, 411
299, 308, 356, 357, 390 Wennington 338
Impact on the Church of 255–8, 356 Wensum, river 112
Fleets of 249, 258, 343, 344, 401, 436 Wéoh place names 151
Fortifications of 281 Werferth, bishop 252, 268
Return of the 322, 335–6, 343–52 Wergild 102, 108, 110, 144
Settlements of 234–5, 258, 261, 284–96, 291, 332 Wessex 72, 135, 164, 182, 185, 192, 209, 234, 235, 239–43,
Tactics of 267–8 250, 252, 261–2, 264, 266, 268, 272, 279, 297–9, 301,
Villas 24, 29, 30–3, 36, 42, 108 303, 305, 309, 310, 322, 324, 349, 352, 360, 393, 395, 410
Villages 291, 323–8, 367–8, 438–9 ‘Greater’ 245, 266, 273, 297, 307, 309, 311
Villeins (Villani) 324, 420, 436–9 Organisation of 243–4
 476 index

Westbury-�on-�Trym 316 Nunnaminster at 279, 319

Westerham 54 Old Minster at 279–80, 311, 316, 319, 413
West Heslerton 84, 89, 93–5, 229 Winchester Style 320
West Hythe 196 Windsor Great Park 17
West Midlands 156, 178, 362 Winnall cemeteries 130
Westminster 316, 321, 364, 397, 400, 404, 413, 422 Wirksworth 212
West Saxons 7, 19, 65, 72, 73, 110, 139–42, 146, 155, 164, Wirral 195, 286, 294, 299, 330
180, 185, 187, 234, 239–42, 255, 258, 261, 275, 278 Witham 299
Conquests of 284, 287, 298–305, 368 Woden, god 74, 102, 149, 151, 152
Hegemony of 239–45, 301 Woodchester 30
West Stow 92, 94 Woodland 16–17, 87, 436–9
West Yorkshire 110 Wood-Â�working 94, 228–9, 277, 282, 375, 377
Whales 372 Woodnesborough 151
Wharram Percy 292, 326 Wool 145, 227, 228, 377, 422
Whitby 19, 37, 150, 153, 158, 160, 199, 213 Woolavington 367
Life of Gregory 150, 153 Worcester 184, 196, 211, 256, 266, 268, 315–18, 337, 355,
Synod of 153, 155, 158 362, 390
Whitchurch 46 Wormegay 248
Whitelock, Dorothy 16, 189 Wrekin 138
Whithorn 156 Writs 359, 391, 400
Whittlebury 307 Wrocensæte 111, 138
Whittlewood 326 Wroxeter 27, 39, 46, 111, 138
Wickham 99 Wuffa, king of East Angles 143
Wics 146–7, 163, 196, 277, 374: see also emporia Wuffingas 143
Wigheard, archb. of Canterbury elect 160 Wulfbald 341
Wight, Isle of 29, 73, 75, 77, 140, 159, 248, 277, 346, 400 Wulfgar, bishop 343
Wiglaf, king of Mercians 240, 241–2, 250 Wulfheah 341, 343, 349
Wigmore 404 Wulfheard, Mercian nobleman 210
Wigmund, archb. of York 252 Wulfheard, West Saxon ealdorman 241
Wigstan, St, cult of 253 Wulfhere, king of Mercians 140, 182
Wihtred, king of Kent 163, 183, 201 Wulfnoth Cild 349
Wild animals 227, 229, 230, 262, 373, 378 Wulfred, archb. of Canterbury 181, 193, 209–11, 239, 256
Wild Wood 17 Wulfric ‘Spot’ 343, 349
Wilfrid I, St, bishop 8, 20, 144, 153, 158, 160, 161, 170, Wulfsige, archb. of Canterbury 252
171, 221, 320: see also Stephen of Ripon Wulfstan, bishop 406, 424
Relics of 313, 320 Wulfstan ‘Cantor’ 312, 314, 317
Willa, East and West 139 Life of St Æthelwold 312, 317–20, 378
Willehad, bishop 220 Wulfstan I, archb. of York 303
William, bishop 395, 424 Wulfstan II, archb. of York 275, 335, 354–8, 360, 365, 371
William fitz Osbern 404 Concerning the Dignities and Laws of the People 365
William Malet 406 Gethynctho 365, 369–70
William of Jumièges 391, 394 Lawcodes associated with 355–7, 361
William of Malmesbury 12, 167, 179, 271, 411 Laws of the Northern People 365, 371
William of Poitiers 401, 404 Sermon of the Wolf to the English 358
William Rufus, king of England 271, 408 Thought of 356–7, 365–6
Williamson, Tom 327 Wulfstan of Dalham 311, 316
William the Conqueror 4, 11, 387, 391, 394–5, 397–8, Wulfwaru, Somerset landowner 372
401–17, 424–5, 427–32 Wye 151
Willibald, bishop 224 Wye, river 277
Willibrord, bishop 219–22 Wye Valley 185
Wills 246, 252
Wilmslow 135 Yarborough Camp 54
Wilton 244, 261, 338, 346, 367 Yarburgh 54
Wiltshire 33, 110, 128, 185, 244, 262, 352, 420 Yeavering 135–7, 150, 277
Wimborne 297 Yelling 338
Winchcombe 277, 316 York 3, 8, 20, 23, 25, 28, 35–8, 41, 89, 100, 128, 138, 143,
Winchester 3, 15, 28, 47, 83, 201, 251, 256, 274, 275, 279–82, 154, 166, 181, 193, 194, 201, 206, 231, 235, 247, 252,
300, 301, 314, 315, 319–21, 354, 363, 375, 413, 434 259, 260, 275, 277, 287, 290, 291, 299, 301, 302–3,
New Minster at 279–80, 303, 311, 316–19, 363, 397 315, 330, 374–80, 399, 401, 405, 406, 415, 420, 42
 i n d e x 477

York (cont. .â•›.â•›.) Hungate at 379

Archbishopric of 164, 290, 374 Roman 20, 28, 36, 89
Archbishops of 164, 303: see also by name St Helen-�on-�the-�Walls, church of 379
Anglian 3, 100, 145, 194, 201, 235, 277, 374–5 St Mary Bishophill Junior, church of 379
Cathedral school of 166 Viking Age 231, 247, 291, 299, 330, 375–81:
Clementhorpe Nunnery at 379 see also Jorvik
Colonia at 379 Viking kingdom of 287, 301–3, 375, 377, 380
Coppergate at 375–9 Yorkshire 80, 195, 290, 397, 406, 434
Fishergate at 146, 194, 247, 277, 374–5
Heslington Hill at 194 Zosimus 41–2