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Dedication
- Andrew Breeze
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Index
- Andrew Breeze
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12 - 893: Vikings Liquidated at Buttington, Powys
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Summary
The Anglo- Saxon Chronicle entry for 894 (recte 893) describes the Viking campaigns of that year. It states that ‘the marauding parties were both gathered together at Shoburg [Shoebury] in Essex, and there built a fortress. Then they both went together up by the Thames, and a great concourse joined them, both from the East- Angles and from the Northumbrians. They then advanced upward by the Thames, till they arrived near the Severn. Then they proceeded upward by the Severn.’ While that was happening, Alfred's generals gathered forces.
When they were all collected together, they overtook the rear of the enemy at Buttington on the banks of the Severn, and there beset them without on each side in a fortress. When they had sat there many weeks on both sides of the river, and the king meanwhile was in Devonshire westward with the naval force, then were the enemy weighed down with famine. They had devoured the greater part of their horses; and the rest had perished with hunger. Then went they out to the men that sat on the eastern side of the river, and fought with them; but the Christians had the victory.
Notes on this translation indicate the difficulties of locating Buttington, where Viking marauders so unpleasantly starved to death. Ingram referred to John Speed (d. 1629), William Somner (d. 1669), Obadiah Walker (d. 1699) and Edward Gibson (d. 1748) for it as by Welshpool, Powys, while Sir John Spelman (d. 1643) put it in Gloucestershire. Walker actually mentioned earthworks visible at the former site (although he mistakenly placed it in Shropshire). Despite that Ingram plumped for Boddington, north- west of Cheltenham. But Boddington is not on the Severn.
Later writers also show the slow progress of agreement between the seventeenth century and the twenty- first. Plummer placed the conflict at Buttington Tump (National Grid Reference (NGR) ST 547931), on a peninsula between the Wye and Severn near Tiddenham, Gloucestershire. Sir John Lloyd also thought Buttington by Chepstow suited the Chronicle account better than did Buttington by Welshpool (especially for the composition of the English army and its leaders). Hugh Smith agreed, thinking ‘that the two sides of the river’ referred to Wye, and not to the Severn Estuary. Garmonsway similarly placed Buttington in Gloucestershire.
10 - 655: Treasure Lost on the Uinued or River Went, Yorkshire
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Summary
The Battle of the Uinued in 655, debated by scholars for over four centuries, is now understood thus. After a humiliating capitulation at Stirling, where he had to hand over fabulous amounts of treasure, Oswiu (d. 670) of Northumbria pursued the victorious Penda to the Uinued near Leeds, killed him and gained power over Mercia until his death. Oswiu's triumph showed a sensational reversal of fortune. Yet aspects of it remain unclear. What follows thus has four parts. It surveys discussion of the battle, offers an etymology for its name, suggests where it was fought and proposes a new account of it based on this material.
Bede says the battle took place ‘near the river Uinued, which had broken its banks after heavy rain, so that far more were drowned as they tried to run away than died by the sword in combat’. Plummer has a useful commentary here, citing authorities from Camden onwards. He notes that the Old English Bede translates as neah Winwede streame; rejects the view that this was in Lothian; explains the name as an English one, the second element meaning ‘ford’ and the first perhaps meaning ‘fight’ (this is impossible); and describes its location as obscure. Plummer, an Anglican priest, also notes how the battle meant the effective end of Anglo- Saxon paganism. Besides its political consequences, it was hence ‘decisive as to the religious destiny of the English’. Anderson, although rightly cool on the idea that there were Celts from Cornwall, Ireland and Scotland in the Northumbrian army, notes that Oswiu's nephew Talorcen, son of Eanfrith, was the Pictish King. So Pictish warriors may have fought by the Uinued. Against this, however, is Bede's statement that Oswiu's army was ‘tiny’. His victory was, like Waterloo, surely won by choice of battlefield, not superiority in numbers.
The Uinued, figuring in almost all accounts of Anglo- Saxon England, also appears in histories of Wales. Sir John Lloyd (locating it in the West Riding) describes it characteristically. After Penda's triumph at Stirling, he tells how Oswiu at Winwaed Field burst upon his ‘serried hosts’ who were returning in ‘careless mood’ and ‘slew the implacable enemy of his house’.
Contents
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British Battles 493–937
- Mount Badon to Brunanburh
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'British Battles 493–937' is one of the most revolutionary books ever published on war in Britain. It deals with thirteen conflicts, either locating them correctly or explaining some of their aspects which have puzzled historians. They include the following: Mount Badon (493) at Braydon, Wiltshire; battles of the British hero Arthur (the legendary 'King Arthur') (536–7) in southern Scotland or the borders; 'Degsastan' (603) at Dawyck, on the River Tweed, Scotland; Maserfelth (642) at Forden, on the Welsh border; the Viking victory of 'Alluthèlia' (844) at Bishop Auckland, near Durham; and the English triumph of Brunanburh (937) was at Lanchester, also near Durham.
3 - 573: Legends of Merlin at Arfderydd or Arthuret, Cumbria
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Summary
If locations of other conflicts discussed in this book have been unclear, that of Arfderydd has long been known. In 1868 the Scottish antiquary W. F. Skene (1809– 1892) identified it as Arthuret in north- east Cumbria. We can be sure that this battle took place near Carlisle in 573 (or perhaps 575). Nevertheless, more can be said on its location and the meaning of its name. What follows thus has two functions: it reviews what has been written on the conflict between 1860 and 2019, and then sets out a new etymology for Arfderydd, with implications for where the action took place.
Annales Cambriae records the encounter under the year 573. The best manuscript here is London, British Library, MS Harley 3859 (copied in about 1100), which has merely Bellum Armterid. But London, National Archives, MS E.164/ 1 (of the thirteenth century) adds to this, saying the encounter was ‘between the sons of Eliffer, and Gwenddolau son of Ceidio, in which battle Gwenddolau fell. Merlin went mad.’ The mention of Merlin (Merlinus, a form deriving from Geoffrey of Monmouth) shows how a historical event has gained the trappings of legend.
A step forward was made by W. F. Skene in his Four Ancient Books of Wales (Edinburgh, 1868) and elsewhere, where he identified Arfderydd as Arthuret, south of the Esk in what is now Cumbria. Sir John Rhys (1840– 1915), fertile in ideas now discredited, describing Carlisle as ‘the most important town of the Northern Cumbrians’, considered ‘much of its importance’ lost thanks to the battle, its site identified by some with Arthuret (‘and by others with Airdrie’, east of Glasgow). The victor was Rhydderch, who ‘thereupon fixed his headquarters on a rock in the Clyde’, the massive volcanic height of Dumbarton ‘fort of Britons’. If only we could be so sure of events. There seems no archaeological evidence for Carlisle as a major centre of population in the sixth century, and it is effectively unknown in early Welsh tradition, unlike the realm of Rheged, with its capital in east Cumbria, at or near Penrith.
Sir John Lloyd, a great historian, agreed with Skene on the site, regarding the encounter as ‘a triumph won by Rhydderch [of Strathclyde] over Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio.’ Yet he rejected the notion (which Skene thought implied by later hagiography) of its also being a victory of Christianity over semi- paganism.
6 - 613: Chester and the Massacre of Welsh Monks
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Summary
The Battle of Chester, dated by some to 613 (although others prefer 615), and (preceding it) the Northumbrian massacre of monks from Bangor- is- Coed were forgotten neither by the victors nor the vanquished. Almost from the day that it was fought, there have been English and Welsh accounts of the conflict. Among the Welsh this includes Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1155), Charles Edwards (1628–1691?) and Theophilus Evans (1693– 1767). The second (as a Welsh patriot) claimed that native princes fought back, killing more than a thousand of their foes and thereby avenging the ‘blood of the monks’ (gwaed y myneich). The third (as both Welsh patriot and Protestant) asserting that those monks differed from later monks, being devout men who served God ‘in spirit and truth’ (mewn yspryd a gwirionedd ). Inventions on the day are repeated by a nineteenth- century topographer, according to whom St Augustine warned how the Britons ‘would speedily find death by swords of those to whom they had refused to preach the word of life’, and how this came true, for the English slaughtered over a thousand monks of Bangor and then ‘entirely destroyed the monastery, and committed its valuable library to the flames’.
The subject of this paper is, however, not old legends but modern discussion, especially of a mysterious king ‘Cetula’ who fell in the battle. Plummer quoted an Irish annal on the Northumbria triumph: Cecidit solon mac conain rex Bretannorum et cedula rex cecidit. He identified the first as Selyf ap Cynan, king of Powys, yet confessed ‘who Cedula was I am unable to say’. He was followed on the engagement as in 616, with much other comment, including a remark on the Irish annalist's description of Selyf as rex Bretannorum as perhaps indicating that he was ‘over- king of the Kymry’. The conflict was described in sober terms by Sir John Lloyd. He remarked that even Bede admitted the heavy Northumbrian losses. Lloyd added that Selyf ap Cynan, as ruler of Powys, was a ‘natural defender of the Valley of the Dee’ but that Gwynedd took no part in the fighting. He said nothing on ‘Cetula’. Hugh Williams did not mention the battle, yet did reject the notion ‘first expressed by Henry VIII's antiquary John Leland’ that the fifth- century heretic Pelagius came from Bangor- is- Coed.
1 - 493: British Triumph at Mount Badon or Braydon, Wiltshire
- Andrew Breeze
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We begin this chronicle of slaughter and fighting men by discussing a battle in Wiltshire. It is a county which (fortunately) has seen few conflicts, despite its central position. In the spring or summer of 493 it was yet the location of Mons Badonicus or Mount Badon, described by the British historian Gildas, writing in 536. Even though this British victory halted Anglo- Saxon conquests for half a century, there has been no agreement on its date or location, despite a hazy belief in the former as between 490 and 520, and in the latter as in north Wiltshire, perhaps near Badbury, south of Swindon. Also unsure is whether the leader of the Britons was Arthur or Ambrosius Aurelianus. If we could be certain on these points, knowledge of Britain's history would progress considerably.
In what follows, six conclusions are offered: (a) Gildas wrote in 536, as argued in 2010 by David Woods of Cork; (b) the Siege of Mount Badon was 43 years earlier, and so in 493; (c) obscure and meaningless ‘Badon’ is a scribal error, and must be corrected to Braydon; (d) the siege was thus at Ringsbury, a hillfort above Braydon Forest, near Swindon; (e) Arthur, a North British warrior killed in 537, had no connection with the events in 493; and (f) the general who defeated a West Saxon army (surely marching on Cirencester) was instead the Ambrosius Aurelianus praised by Gildas. These conclusions have been in print for some years, but remain disputed. Hence this book.
An outline of earlier discussion allows understanding of both the problem and the solutions to it. Statements go back a long way. John Leland (d. 1552) quoted one from the twelfth- century chronicler Ralph of Diceto: ‘Gildas Britonum gesta flebili sermone descripsit anno domini DLXXXIII’ and thus ‘sub Mauricio imperatore’. Maurice was Emperor of Byzantium in 582– 602, which is far too late. If, however, we knew Ralph's source, it might be of great value; for emended DXXXVI would put Gildas in 536 and Badon in 493, as maintained here.
The difficulties are made clear by Philip Perry (1720– 1774), rector of the English College, Valladolid.
Frontmatter
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4 - c. 590: Picts at Gwen Ystrad or the River Winster, Cumbria
- Andrew Breeze
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Among the problems of early Northern history is the location of Gwen Ystrad, where sixth- century Britons commanded by Urien of Rheged repelled an attack. The assault, apparently made by Pictish sea raiders, is described vividly in a poem of Taliesin. But Gwen Ystrad has been unidentified, although it was clearly in Rheged, a territory with its heartland around Penrith, and extending into Lancashire, south- west Scotland and north Yorkshire. In what follows there is a review of previous discussion and then a solution, in which the manuscript's ‘Gwen Ystrad’ is emended to Gwensteri or the River Winster, Cumbria. Despite the novelty of the emendation, we shall see that a location on the Winster was proposed as far back as the 1850s. Admirers of the Victorians will be encouraged to find nineteenth- century scholarship seemingly vindicated in the twenty- first.
Modern awareness of the conflict began in the eighteenth century, when the earliest Welsh poetry (of about the year 600) started to appear in print. In a pioneer collection of Welsh verse and prose, Taliesin's poem on Gwen Ystrad was presented with a translation, declaring that raiders ‘came in a body to Gwenystrad to offer battle; neither the fields nor the woods afforded protection to their enemies when they came in their fury, like the roaring wave rushing in its might to cover the beach’. It was accompanied by another rousing battle poem of Taliesin, on Argoed Llwyfain (possibly by the River Lyvennet, south of Penrith), where Urien Rheged vanquished the English leader Fflamddwyn, leaving ‘many a dead carcase’, so that ‘ravens were coloured’ as they picked at English corpses. The editors of the poems described Urien as ‘King of Cumbria’. But more pertinent is a third poem attributed to Taliesin, which praises not Urien of Rheged but Gwallawg, who ruled the former British kingdom of Elmet, east of Leeds. It recounts his victories, including one on the Gwensteri, long identified as the River Winster, south- east of Windermere.
These poems in the fourteenth- century Book of Taliesin reappear in an edition famed for the accuracy of its text and the absurdity of its commentary. The absurdity appears in its explanation of ‘Gwen Ystrad’ as ‘warrior’s dale’, its locating near Carmarthen and its identification of Gwensteri as Basingwerk, Flintshire.
9 - 642: Maserfelth and King Oswald's Death at Forden, Powys
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Maserfelth was where Penda of Mercia in 642 defeated Oswald of Northumbria, who was killed in the battle. It was a dramatic event, emphasized by Bede, who describes miracles later occurring at the spot, which he took as that of a martyrdom. Despite these clues, its location has been obscure. Yet the traditional identification with Oswestry (National Grid Reference (NGR) SJ 2929) in Shropshire was rightly rejected by the place- name scholar Margaret Gelling. A better answer can now be given on the basis of a communication to Ferdinand Holthausen by Max Förster (1869– 1954) of Munich, who derived Maser- from Welsh. Maser- , relating to place names near Welshpool, Powys, thus apparently denotes the - felth or plain of the Severn close to Forden, where a Roman road enters Wales. As for the battle's Old Welsh name Cocboy (where coc- perhaps denotes a hillock), this seems to be Castle Mound (NGR SJ 2301), a conspicuous outcrop in Forden parish.
Now for the details. The Battle of Maserfelth, where the pagan king Penda killed Oswald of Northumbria, has been at once famous and obscure. Thanks to Bede, it has never been forgotten; but why it was fought and what happened on the field of conflict remain obscure. Its importance was still recognized by Britons and Saxons alike. Even though nothing shows that the Welsh took part in the engagement (a struggle for mastery among the English), Annales Cambriae has an entry for 644, ‘Battle of Cocboy, in which fell Oswald king of the Northumbrians and Eoba king of the Mercians’. Difficulties begin when we try to locate it. Plummer had notes on Bede's account of the battle, and referred to late traditions of it at Oswestry, near Offa's Dyke. At the same time Maserfelth was explained tentatively as ‘open space of maple trees’, despite phonological difficulties for maser (which, if signifying ‘maple’, should not have a as first vowel) and absence of the element from other English toponyms, where the word for this tree is mapuldor.
On the location at Oswestry, Sir John Lloyd regarded Old Welsh Cocboy as counting neither for nor against it. But he saw ‘much in favour’ of accepting Maserfelth as Oswestry, because ‘Bede's account of the miracles which signalized the spot’ implies somewhere ‘in a wild region sometimes visited by British wayfarers’.
11 - 844: Alutthèlia, Vikings, and a Bridge at Bishop Auckland
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‘In the same year,’ declares an annal of 844 preserved by Roger of Wendover, ‘Aethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was expelled from the kingdom, and Raedwulf succeeded to the kingdom; and when, hastily invested with the crown, he fought a battle with the pagans at Alutthèlia, he and Ealdorman Alfred fell with a large part of their subjects, and then Aethelred reigned again.’ The annal may relate to the entry for 844 in the Annals of St Bertin’s, in part by Bishop Prudentius (d. 861) of Troyes, on how the Northmen then ‘attacked with war the island of Britain, especially in the part which is inhabited by the Anglo- Saxons, and fighting for three days were victorious, committed plunder, rapine, and slaughter everywhere, and possessed the land at their pleasure’.
The fatal events at Alutthèlia in 844 have not attracted much attention. Kirby, observing that Danish raids worsened in the 840s, referred to the death in 844 of Raedwulf of Northumbria in battle against the invader, linking what was relayed by Roger to the words of Prudentius. Roger's annal was also noted by Stenton. He spoke of it as rare evidence for Northumbrian history at this date, showing how the kingdom suffered from Viking attacks, like the rest of England. The perceptive comment is also made that, although Raedwulf is mentioned in no other historical document, his name occurs on many Anglo- Saxon coins in the British Museum and elsewhere. It indicates a stronger and more significant ruler than manuscript sources would imply. The shortness of his reign (‘hastily invested with the crown’) can probably be reconciled with this. An energetic usurper might well issue many coins rapidly.
In any case, we should no doubt hear more from modern historians on the battle of 844 if we knew where Alutthèlia was. Whitelock observed that, unless the form is very corrupt, it cannot represent Elvet (Swan Stream) (on the River Wear opposite Durham), which appears in the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle for 762 as Ólfetee. This must be right. So there seems a case for identifying Alutthèlia with Bishop Auckland, eight miles south- south- west of Durham.
2 - 537: Arthur's Death at Camlan or Castlesteads, Cumbria
- Andrew Breeze
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The British hero Arthur has been a headache for scholars. Some maintain that there is no historical evidence for him, and that he is as mythical as Robin Hood or Father Christmas. In what follows, we turn that upside down. Arthur is as historical as Oliver Cromwell or Abraham Lincoln, and we have plenty of hard information on him, including the place and date of his death: in 537 at Camlan or Castlesteads, on Hadrian's Wall, north- east of Carlisle. Like his other battles, it belongs to southern Scotland and the Borders. How we reach that solution is the purpose of this Chapter.
Authentic knowledge of Arthur comes from three sources: a polemical tract written by Gildas in 536 and mentioning the Battle of Mount Badon of 493; the entry for 537 in Annales Cambriae; and a list of 12 battles in the ninth- century Historia Brittonum, which includes Badon. We start with the second as edited by John Williams ab Ithel (1811– 1862). It reads, ‘Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere; et mortalitas in Britannia et Hibernia fuit.’ The editor explained gueith as Old Welsh for ‘battle’, while Camlann was identified by the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford (1886– 1957) as the fort of Camboglanna on Hadrian's Wall. The ‘Medraut’ who fell with Arthur is otherwise unknown. As for mortalitas, it has been translated as ‘plague’, but it should be taken as ‘famine’, part of a worldwide one during the volcanic winter of 536– 37, the consequence of a volcanic eruption in the Americas, probably at Ilopango in El Salvador. The reasoning for that appears below.
Now for Gildas. There are two references in his work. In the first, after telling how the Britons under Ambrosius Aurelianus resisted Anglo- Saxon aggression, he states in Chapter 26 that the struggle went this way and that ‘up to the year of the siege of Badon Hill (obsessionis Badonis montis)’, which was ‘also the year of my birth’ 43 years and a month prior to the time of writing. The second reference is in Chapter 93, where he alludes to ‘a certain thick mist and black night’ sitting ‘upon the whole island’ of Britain. In 2010 it was referred by Dr David Woods to the cloud of volcanic ash covering the Northern Hemisphere in 536– 37.
7 - 633: Hatfield Chase and British Victory at Doncaster
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The battle at Hatfield, usually taken as Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, is a historical might- have- been. It was at Hatfield in 633 that, in alliance with Penda of Mercia, Cadwallon of Gwynedd wiped out a Northumbria army under Edwin and for a year had the North at his mercy. Yet his defeat by Oswald near Hexham in late 634 destroyed for ever the dream of a Celtic reconquista in Britain. A dramatic turn of the tables has thus left Haethfelth as a footnote for historians, not a Chapter heading. But it was no small engagement. Since there has been disagreement on where it was fought (Yorkshire or Powys?) and when, this paper sets out discussion of it between 1860 and 2013, beside showing what its Welsh name, Meicen or Meigen, tells us on events.
Early observers well understood the magnitude of Cadwallon's triumph. In its entry for 630, Annales Cambriae (using North British sources) states ‘Battle of Meiceren (var. Meigen), and there Edwin was killed with his two sons. But Cadwallon was the victor.’ Plummer cited this (and Historia Brittonum, which names the sons as Osfrid and Eadfrid), giving the date as 633 and the place as Hatfield Chase, north- east of Doncaster. He did not reflect that the combat was surely south- east of the town, at the chase's southern edge, on the Roman road from Lincoln. He also quoted the Annals of Tigernach and Annals of Ulster on the event, which mention Edwin, Cadwallon and Penda, but not where they fought. On the aftermath of battle (dated to 633) Anderson quoted a Latin life of St Oswald by Reginald of Durham (active 1162– 73), with the statement on how Anfrid returned from Scottish exile to rule Bernicia for a year (while Edwin's son Osui took over Deira).
Full and careful information was given by Sir John Lloyd (1861– 1947), as expected. He observed that the ‘scene of this memorable encounter cannot, unfortunately, be fixed with certainty’. Bede implies somewhere in Deira or bordering it, but the Welsh called the spot Meicen, later identified with Meigen, near Breiddin Hill, north- east of Welshpool, Powys. Sensing confusion of two places with the same name, Lloyd opted for the northern location as site of the battle.
Introduction
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This book is about war, and specifically about early battlefields in Britain. Some of its material has appeared in historical journals (as shown in the bibliography); other Chapters are previously unpublished. All of them break new ground. They relate, for example, the British victory over West Saxons at Mount ‘Badon’ in 493 to Braydon in north Wiltshire; the massacre of an allied Scottish- Irish force at ‘Degsastan’ in 603 to Wester Dawyck, southern Scotland; the Northumbrian defeat at Maserfelth in 642 to Forden, near Welshpool; and the English triumph at Brunanburh in 937 to Lanchester, County Durham. The traditional locations proposed for these battles (Badbury, Dawston Rigg, Oswestry, Bromborough) can hence be rejected.
If arguments for such places are compelling, there are three main benefits. First, much Anglo- Saxon history can be rewritten. We shall understand better the aims of commanders on both sides and their success (or lack of it). Second is an advance for archaeologists. They need not waste time excavating a site in mid- Wiltshire or the Wirral in a quest for swords and spears, because they would be looking in the wrong place. Third is the demonstration of a method. Analysis of place names in English or Welsh allows emendation of (for example) ‘Badon’ or ‘Degsastan’, which make no sense, to names that do make sense and can be found on the map. The technique can be applied to sites other than battlefields. The sixth- century writer Gildas refers to the (fourthcentury?) martyrdom of Aaron and Julius at ‘Legionum urbs’, often taken as Caerleon, in south- east Wales. Yet the form is better emended to Legorum urbs or Leicester, more important than Caerleon, and hence a likelier place for persecution of Christians. Again, for St Patrick, who refers to his home at the obscure ‘Bannaventa Burniae’, it is not difficult to show this (after Ludwig Bieler and the local historian Harry Jelley) as a corruption of Bannaventa Tabernae (Bannaventa of the Tavern) and therefore Banwell, Avon. St Patrick would have been a Somerset man, living near the opulence of Roman Bath, but also near a low- lying coast dangerously open to Irish predators.
This does not limit the applications of place names. If British Battles 493– 937 demonstrates their significance for military history, three volumes in preparation show their uses elsewhere.
5 - 603: Carnage at ‘Degsastan’ by Wester Dawyck, Borders
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The Battle of ‘Degsastan’ was decisive for both Northumbria and Scotland. For the Northumbrians it began an ascendancy on its northern border which lasted until the Viking Age; for the Scots it was a crushing defeat, a seventhcentury equivalent of Flodden Field or Culloden. Thanks to Bede, we know that it was fought in 603; we know too that in it, after bitter fighting, the Bernicians vanquished the Scots of Dál Riada. Yet, the conflict's whereabouts having been unknown, we here set out previous discussion of it, before offering fresh arguments for its location and the meaning of its name. If correct, they provide a solution to a problem debated by scholars since the late seventeenth century.
We start, as often, with Charles Plummer (1851– 1927), who thought that the name Degsastan might actually be due to the battle, being a corruption of the Old English for ‘at Aedán's stone’. (The suggestion makes no sense, but is still significant. Prompted by Egesan stane in Abingdon versions of the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, it shows how even speakers of Old English were baffled by the form.) Plummer elsewhere brought out the perplexity of his predecessors. Quoting W. F. Skene (1809– 1892) and noting the philological objections to Dalston, near Carlisle, he took the place as ‘Probably Dawston, in Liddesdale’. He also mentioned (as other proposals) Theekstone, north of Ripon, and Dissington, north- west of Newcastle. No one remembers these. An older view appears in collections of Joseph Bosworth (1789– 1876), which state ‘DAWSTON or Dalston, Cumberland’.
Even in the twentieth century, the conflict was still vaguely related to Dawstone (near Jedburgh) or Dalston (near Carlisle), as well as Dawston Rigg in Roxburghshire/ Borders. The last has thereafter ousted other contenders (on the principle that a bad suggestion is better than a worse one). We start with Anderson's version of Bede's text. ‘In these times Ethelfrid, a most powerful king, and very eager for glory, reigned over the kingdom of the Northumbrians.’ Than him ‘no one among kings, after expelling or subduing the inhabitants, made more of their lands either tributary to the English nation or habitable by them’, so that Bede applied Old Testament language to him, the king resembling Saul as a ‘ravening wolf ‘ which devoured prey and divided spoil.
8 - 634: Hefenfeld and British Defeat in Northumberland
- Andrew Breeze
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- Book:
- British Battles 493–937
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- Anthem Press
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- 02 April 2020
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- 29 February 2020, pp 79-86
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Summary
After ravaging Northumbria for over a year, Cadwallon of Gwynedd was killed in the winter of 634– 35, when his army was surprised and routed by Oswald of Bernicia at Denisesburn, now Rowley Burn (National Grid Reference (NGR) NY 9358), three miles south of Hexham, Northumberland. This Chapter deals with the circumstances of the battle and specifically with Hefenfeld. It was there, on the north side of Hexham, that Oswald and his men camped before attack, with Oswald raising a cross at the spot and praying for victory. Bede here tells us much, as noted by Dr Catherine Clarke. Discussing his account of Dryhthelm, she says,
Dryhthelm is denied entry into these paradisal landscapes until after death, but the Ecclesiastical History continually hints at the possibility of realizing the heavenly on earth and, more importantly, on English soil. When Oswald's Christian Saxon army defeats the British pagans at Heavenfield in 642, Bede notes the name of the place in both Latin and English. ‘This place is called in English Heavenfield, and in Latin Caelestis Campus, a name which it certainly received in days of old as an omen of future happenings’ (Vocantur locus ille lingua Anglorum Hefenfeld, quod dici potest latine ‘Caelestis campus’, quod certo utique praesagio futurorum antiquitus nomen accepit). The place of battle and suffering is transformed into an image of heaven, recalling both the paradisial claims of Dryhthelm’s vision and the Edenic image of Britannia which opens the History. Clearly, the narratives of specific individuals and places can be seen as microcosmic performances of the myth central to the Ecclesiastical History: the aspiration to re- discover and recover an ideal, unfallen state through faith and struggle.
Whatever one thinks of her interpretation, Professor Clarke was cavalier with the facts. Oswald's army was Anglian, not Saxon; its Welsh enemies were Christians, not pagans; the battle was fought not at Heavenfield, but several miles away; and it took place in the winter of 634– 35, not 642. Her ‘vocantur’ is a mistake for Bede's vocatur. Battles and Latin grammar are not the strong point of Catherine Clarke, or (it seems) of Southampton University, where she now has a Chair of English.
However, reference to better historians also reveals inconsistency and error, as we shall see. The Tudor antiquary Leland reported on the matter thus.
13 - 937: Brunanburh and English Triumph at Lanchester, County Durham
- Andrew Breeze
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- British Battles 493–937
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- 02 April 2020
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At Brunanburh, in the late summer of 937, Athelstan of Wessex eliminated an invading army of Scots, Strathclyders and Vikings. It was a major victory, never forgotten, and crucial in uniting England, for Athelstan's success was in part due to Mercian forces under his command. But the battle's location was eventually forgotten and became a long- standing historical mystery. In 2018, however, I (following a suggestion of Alistair Campbell in 1938) published reasons to locate Brunanburh at the burh or Roman fort of Lanchester, above the Brune or river Browney in County Durham.
That account being in book form and hence accessible to readers, there is no need to go through it again in full. All the same, for the sake of completeness, British Battles 493– 937 can be brought to an end with a Chapter on it, including information on points not mentioned in the original paper.
The bibliography of Brunanburh is immense, like that for Mount Badon and Arthur's other Twelve Battles in Historia Brittonum. As with the Twelve Battles, where one finds shrewd and cogent remarks, together with a great deal of nosense, so also with Brunanburh. Early scholars came close to the truth, later and lesser scholars ignore what they said.
We start with the Reverend James Ingram (1774– 1850), editor and translator of the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle. In his edition (a handsome one, with much of interest), he could do no more than cite William Camden (1551– 1623) for the suggestion of ‘Bromeridge’ in Northumberland, and Camden’s translator Edmund Gibson (1669– 1748) for Bromborough, Cheshire. The latter has defenders even now. But, after three centuries, his ideas should be dismissed. The first writer to approach the correct solution seems to have been Joseph Bosworth (1789– 1876). Discussing the Old English poem The Battle of Brunanburh, he translated Brunanburh as ‘castle of Bruna’ (better, the Brune) and put it by the river Browney. Unfortunately, he located the battlefield not near Lanchester, but outside Durham. His suggestion in any case had no influence.
The next step came in 1938, when the Oxford scholar Alistair Campbell
edited The Battle of Brunanburh, in one of the finest ever editions of an Old
English poem. He collected other names for the conflict.
Bibliography
- Andrew Breeze
-
- Book:
- British Battles 493–937
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 02 April 2020
- Print publication:
- 29 February 2020, pp 129-138
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