Danish raids start up within a year of Ethelred's accession in 979. The Danes are responding to a political reality: Ethelred's difficulties in re-uniting the Kingdom after the murder of Edward the Martyr. We have already looked at the immediate effect of the raids on the Church but matters become truly serious in 991 when, at the Battle of Maldon, the Danes inflict their first major victory over the English (led by Byrhtnoth of Essex) in over a century. The raids intensify on English weakness so that the English King is reduced to paying out what amounts to protection money (called Danegeld) to buy off the raiders - 10,000 pounds of silver in 991 alone. It is not a strategy that works particularly well. The raiding is now led by a serious player indeed. Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, leads the attack in 994. The implication is no longer just plunder or even settlement but possible control of the total asset. There is nothing decisive for a while but there is another raid in 997 and the situation remains unstable until Ethelred makes a most serious blunder.
Before that mistake, Ethelred makes another, a fateful step for his line and for the English people, arguably still the last peoples who have yet to be liberated from the imperial yoke to be created within the next century. In 1002 he marries Emma, daughter of Richard Duke of Normandy, in a desperate attempt to draw this militarily formidable Christianised Viking Duchy into his orbit as an ally. His second and more immediately foolish blunder, in that same year, was to try to exterminate the Danes settled in England in the infamous St. Brice's Day Massacre. In Oxford, the Danes sheltered in St. Frideswide's Minster Church only to have it burned down with them inside.
What happened was nasty bit of genocidal mania, triggering analogies with modern Balkans thuggery. It takes the shine off any righteous outrage felt by the English at their own treatment by the Normans later in the century - but there we have it, a bit of ethnic cleansing that was, in political terms, worse than cruel, it failed. Even if the targets were unreliable Danish mercenaries (according to some archaeological evidence), the King spoke in brutal terms after the massacre and without remorse: "a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and
magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this
island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination." What actually happened is disputed but it may have been the worst set of massacres in several places between the undoubtedly even more brutal killings of Boudicca and William I. Certainly, whoever was advising the King was judged by history to have been a fool but the bigger fool was the man who took the advice.
Killing peasants is one thing, killing the daughter of King Sweyn's sister, Gunhild (who just happened to bear his mother's name), and all her family in Oxford must count as beyond stupidity. A year later (2003), Sweyn responded to the massacres, landed on the East Anglian coast and sacked Norwich. It might be noted here that we probably allowed ourselves a dash too much cynicism about the Church's motives in eventually switching sides from the English to the Danish Kingship but it is reasonable to suppose that burning innocent people to death and desanctifying and destroying a holy place through mass murder would have upset even the most hardened and political bishop even if the King placed the blame firmly on the massacred. Ethelred may have been sensitive to this since he was quick to order its lavish rebuilding.
Indeed, the pressure we have noted on the Danish King (yes, we know this is a spoiler) to recognise the English 'martyrs' murdered by the Danes could be seen as a strategy of reconcilation between ethnic communities that was managed by the Church to show that murder as an instrument of policy has political costs. On the Continent, the Church was also taming the Normans and the Franks through the institution of at least minimal rules to limit the barbarism of war. This was a process, designed to protect the innocent, that would take on a life of its own with the later notion of the 'just war' and the diversion of violence into the Crusades against the Saracens. Given the nature of barbarian culture, this internally civilising effect of the Church must be granted to it, even if its malign redirection of violence outwards is something we are still living with.
But back to the story. Sweyn of Denmark remains in England until 1005 but returns home to raise more forces in 1005. He is back in 1006 and marches into the heart of Wessex through Berkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Matters worsen - 80 English ships are burned to destruction in 1009 through the treachery of an English captain. This may give us a clue to the demoralisation and disaffection on the English side. Another Danish army appears that year led by Hemming and Thorkill the Tall. This new force burns Oxford in 1010 and then moves across to East Anglia where presumably it would have had considerable support from worried Danish settlers on the front-line with Anglo-Saxon Essex.
Two years later, the Danes raid Canterbury. We have already told of the murder of Alphage of Canterbury and the destruction of the Cathedral but it is clear that atrocities are not treated lightly even by the raiders. If an English captain can betray his own kind in one year, a Danish warlord, Thorkill, can be so disgusted by the murder of an Archbishop that he can switch sides and join the English in another. What we are seeing here is anarchy, inter-ethnic violence and warlordism under an incompetent King and it can only get worse unless someone gets a grip of the situation. It is at this point (1013) that Sweyn Forkbeard comes back to take decisive action (some Englishmen might by now have preferred a competent Danish to an incompetent English King), landing at Sandwich in Kent and restoring order where his writ could run. Three more years of hell are required before matters are settled.
Understandably, the Danelaw accepted Sweyn as ruler of England almost immediately. By this point, the situation has almost certainly degenerated into frightened ethnic communities who have moved from suspicion to full-on hate but it is clear that the Southern English do not have the backing of Northen Anglo-Saxons. Ethelred scuttled to Normandy and Sweyn made a triumphal progress up the River Trent, a key frontier river, to Gainsborough where he received the submission of the Northumbrians (who probably had no particular love of Wessex in any case), the men of Lindsay and the Danish settlers of North-East Mercia. Sweyn, however, died in 1014. Ethelred is briefly restored in the confusion but the Danish Army in England is quick to elect Cnut, son of Sweyn, as King in a counter move.
Ethelred's murderous ways fail to leave him even at the end. He undertakes another genocidal campaign against Lindsey (Lincolnshire) for its 'treachery' before expiring in 2016 and leaving the throne to Edmund II Ironside. In that year, Edmund and Cnut battle it out until, quite quickly, Edmund and Cnut agree to call a truce which becomes an agreement that leaves Wessex to the English line and the rest of England to Cnut. By the end of the year, Edmund has been murdered and Cnut is King. One suspects that the people of Wessex would be highly nervous at this juncture but the new King proves to be statesmanlike - of which more in the next posting.
Showing posts with label Mercia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mercia. Show all posts
Monday, 7 March 2016
Saturday, 5 March 2016
955-979: An Interlude of Three Kings
The next quarter century can be disposed of quite quickly as an interlude of Anglo-Saxon complacency between periods of Danish threat under three successive kings - the unpopular Eadwig the All-Fair (955-959), nephew of Edred, Edgar the Peaceable (959-975) and his ill-fated 13 year old son, Edward the Martyr (975-979).
Eadwig's reign is marked by a rebellion by his brother Edgar who is proclaimed King of Mercia in 957 (effectively ruling all England north of the Thames) before he acquires the throne in 959 on the death of his brother. Edgar unites the Kingdom. It is his reign that sees the high point of Church-State relations that we discussed in the previous posting in which Archbishop Dunstan, having engaged in a dynamic process of monastic reform, used his religious authority to buttress the authority of the King as 'Emperor of Britain' in 973.
Edgar's death in 973 placed the Kingdom in a very vulnerable position. Edward the Martyr was murdered at Corfe Castle and became revered as a martyr but his death handed the throne to the notorious Ethelred II the Unready. Within a year, the Danish raids had begun again.
Eadwig's reign is marked by a rebellion by his brother Edgar who is proclaimed King of Mercia in 957 (effectively ruling all England north of the Thames) before he acquires the throne in 959 on the death of his brother. Edgar unites the Kingdom. It is his reign that sees the high point of Church-State relations that we discussed in the previous posting in which Archbishop Dunstan, having engaged in a dynamic process of monastic reform, used his religious authority to buttress the authority of the King as 'Emperor of Britain' in 973.
Edgar's death in 973 placed the Kingdom in a very vulnerable position. Edward the Martyr was murdered at Corfe Castle and became revered as a martyr but his death handed the throne to the notorious Ethelred II the Unready. Within a year, the Danish raids had begun again.
Saturday, 20 February 2016
924-955: Athelstan, Edmund I and Edred
The next quarter century sees three Kings of Wessex - Athelstan (924-939), son of Edward the Elder, Edmund I (939-946), half-brother to Athelstan and Edred (946-955), his brother. The Welsh, Scottish and Danish sub-kings' oaths of allegiance to Edward the Elder were renewed in 926, indicating that England was now well established as the overlord of Great Britain. It is already getting close to the imperial multicultural model that is central to the later United Kingdom.
In the following year, England's northern frontier is established at the River Tees with direct rule by the English King over the Danes of York. Clearly the sub-kings are not entirely happy with the overlordship arrangements. Two subordinated kingdoms (the Scots and Strathclyde), directly invaded by the English, combined with the Danes who had founded Dublin to challenge Athelstan only to be defeated at the important battle of Brunanburh in 937.
Overlordship is converting steadily into effective control of the island by the English. There is a Danish rebellion in Mercia and Northumbria in 945 when Edmund works with rather than against the Scots. Edmund, however, is murdered by an outlaw, Leofa, in own hall (Pucklechurch, Gloucerstershire) indicating that this remains a rough and ready and, in some respects, barely civilised society.
Edred continues to be troubled by the Danes. York fell to Eric Bloodaxe in 947. Bloodaxe makes himself King of York before being driven out in 848. Bloodaxe's successor, Anlaf Sihtricson, is then ousted by Bloodaxe in 952. Edred's response is to invade York and Northumbria, driving Bloodaxe out in 954 towards the Solway Forth. Bloodaxe is ambushed and killed in the Stainmore Pass in the Pennines. It is probably from this date that we can start to say that England is unified within the frontiers that we broadly know today.
In the following year, England's northern frontier is established at the River Tees with direct rule by the English King over the Danes of York. Clearly the sub-kings are not entirely happy with the overlordship arrangements. Two subordinated kingdoms (the Scots and Strathclyde), directly invaded by the English, combined with the Danes who had founded Dublin to challenge Athelstan only to be defeated at the important battle of Brunanburh in 937.
Overlordship is converting steadily into effective control of the island by the English. There is a Danish rebellion in Mercia and Northumbria in 945 when Edmund works with rather than against the Scots. Edmund, however, is murdered by an outlaw, Leofa, in own hall (Pucklechurch, Gloucerstershire) indicating that this remains a rough and ready and, in some respects, barely civilised society.
Edred continues to be troubled by the Danes. York fell to Eric Bloodaxe in 947. Bloodaxe makes himself King of York before being driven out in 848. Bloodaxe's successor, Anlaf Sihtricson, is then ousted by Bloodaxe in 952. Edred's response is to invade York and Northumbria, driving Bloodaxe out in 954 towards the Solway Forth. Bloodaxe is ambushed and killed in the Stainmore Pass in the Pennines. It is probably from this date that we can start to say that England is unified within the frontiers that we broadly know today.
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
900-924: Edward the Elder & the Creation of England
Alfred the Great is succeeded by Edward (only called the Elder to distinguish him from a later King Edward) in 900, reigning until 924. The first quarter of the tenth century is defined by the roll back of the Danes, the creation of a viable idea of England as island-wide and by what amounts to the progressive sanctification and 'orientalisation' by the Church of the Monarchy, seated in a national capital at Winchester.
The first test of the treaties made under Alfred was an attempt by the men of Kent in 902 to oust the Danes from East Anglia which failed, although the Danish ruler of the East Anglians, Eric, was killed at the Battle of the Holme. However, the Anglo-Saxons are now stronger and better organised than the Danes. The reconquest of the Danelaw starts in earnest from 910. The warrior princess Aethelflaed, Edward's sister and wife of the Ealdorman of Mercia, Aethelred, was no shrinking violet but took on the role of 'Lady of the Mercians' when her husband was killed in 911. She not only ruled her husband's domains but expanded them, seizing Derby in 917 and ruling until 920. Thanks to her and the Mercians' efforts, the Northern frontier of England was extended to the Dee-Wash line.
Meanwhile, Edward reconquered East Anglia and the rest of Southen England under Danish independent control in 918 and accepted the submission of the Welsh Kings of Dyfed and Gwynedd. By 919 the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik (York) under its new ruler Ragnald had also acknowledged the overlordship of Edward. By 920 Edward ruled as overlord all Southern Britain as far as the Forth-Clyde line, uniting the area (at least notionally) for the first time since the Romans. In 923 Edward even received the submission of the King of the Scots. Alfred the Great is rightly regarded as 'Great' for having saved England existentially but the making of England as a sovereign entity that was more than just a large Wessex may be put down to his now less well known successor.
As for the sanctification process which helped to link the fortunes of the Anglo-Saxons as a people to their Kings as divinely sanctioned, this is exemplified by the transfer of the claimed body of King Edmund of East Anglia (murdered in 870 by the Danes) to be buried with full rites at Beodricsworth (later Bury St. Edmunds).
The first test of the treaties made under Alfred was an attempt by the men of Kent in 902 to oust the Danes from East Anglia which failed, although the Danish ruler of the East Anglians, Eric, was killed at the Battle of the Holme. However, the Anglo-Saxons are now stronger and better organised than the Danes. The reconquest of the Danelaw starts in earnest from 910. The warrior princess Aethelflaed, Edward's sister and wife of the Ealdorman of Mercia, Aethelred, was no shrinking violet but took on the role of 'Lady of the Mercians' when her husband was killed in 911. She not only ruled her husband's domains but expanded them, seizing Derby in 917 and ruling until 920. Thanks to her and the Mercians' efforts, the Northern frontier of England was extended to the Dee-Wash line.
Meanwhile, Edward reconquered East Anglia and the rest of Southen England under Danish independent control in 918 and accepted the submission of the Welsh Kings of Dyfed and Gwynedd. By 919 the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik (York) under its new ruler Ragnald had also acknowledged the overlordship of Edward. By 920 Edward ruled as overlord all Southern Britain as far as the Forth-Clyde line, uniting the area (at least notionally) for the first time since the Romans. In 923 Edward even received the submission of the King of the Scots. Alfred the Great is rightly regarded as 'Great' for having saved England existentially but the making of England as a sovereign entity that was more than just a large Wessex may be put down to his now less well known successor.
As for the sanctification process which helped to link the fortunes of the Anglo-Saxons as a people to their Kings as divinely sanctioned, this is exemplified by the transfer of the claimed body of King Edmund of East Anglia (murdered in 870 by the Danes) to be buried with full rites at Beodricsworth (later Bury St. Edmunds).
Sunday, 7 February 2016
871-899: Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great, already a highly experienced warrior, comes to the throne with the Danes on a roll as they push their advantage. The year after his accession in 871, they occupy London. In response to their puppet, Ecgberht I, being expelled in Northumbria and replaced by Ricsige in 873, they occupied the bulk of North East England. This left Ricsige and the Anglo-Saxons only with Bernicia - the northern portion between the Tees and the Forth. The Danes now held Deira between the Humber and the Tees. Ricsige was said to have died in 876 of a broken heart as a result, to be replaced by Ecgbehrt II, last recorded King of Northumbria dead only two years later.
The onslaught continued - Burgred of Mercia was driven out (he died in exile in Rome to be succeeded by Ceolwulf II) and Mercia taken by the Danes in 874. From there, in 874, they renewed their attacks on the East of England. The Danes (led now by Guthrum, Oscytel and Anund) moved south to attack Wessex in 875, leaving behind a Kingdom in York (Jorvik) founded by Haldan Ragnarsson. The aim is obvious - to bring all of England under a network of Viking Kingdoms and displace the Anglo-Saxon monarchies as once the Anglo-Saxons displaced the post-Roman Cymri.
The momentum for the Danes, however, is beginning to be lost. A Danish fleet of 120 ships was wrecked off Peveril Point (Swanage, Dorset) in 877. In 878, the Danes appeared to agree to quit Exeter and Wareham (Dorset). This latter, however, was a ruse. Guthram made a surprise attack on Alfred at Chippenham (Wiltshire) and the King was forced to hide out at Athelney Abbey (Somerset). He recovered to lead an Anglo-Saxon army drawn from all over Southern England which defeated Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. The Treaty of Wedmore (879) resulted in the baptism of Guthrum - an important symbolic act. In return, Alfred ceded all England north of Watling Street to the invader. In essence, he had saved (in theory) Southern England at the expense of Northern England and East Anglia.
Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Danes was seen in Christian terms. It is not accidental that the peace treaty that recognised the Danish 'right to remain' required the symbolic baptism of Guthrum the invader and his adoption of an English name, Athelstan, in order to rule East Anglia as a Danish Kingdom. The implication is that Wessex was too tough a nut to crack for the Vikings but that Wessex in itself was not strong enough to expel the Danes as settlers from England as a whole. The Danish Army settled in East Anglia in 880, creating what would become the Danelaw under ultimate English suzerainty.
By this 'deal', Mercia south of Watling Street returned to Anglo-Saxon rule but under changed conditions - it is now ruled by an Ealdorman (Ethelred) who acknowledges the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred re-takes and occupies London in 886. A second treaty with Guthrum (who dies in 890 without an effect on the settlement) formally recognised the Danelaw between Thames and Tees, with Watling Street between Chester and London as the frontier. Sacrificing the North seems to have strengthened Wessex to the point that, with all rival Kingdoms now destroyed by the invaders, what is left can be called England for the first time with some credibility.
We have scarcely mentioned the Church for some time for the very simple reason that its alliance with the Anglo-Saxon monarchies was firm by necessity. The Danish invasion was a Heathen invasion, perfectly willing to extirpate Roman ways. Northumbrian Christianity is effectively exiled. The Lindisfarne monks took their sacred relics (the bones of St. Aidan and the head of St. Oswald), place them in St. Cuthbert's Coffin and, with the Lindisfarne Gospels, went on walkabout in Northumbria and Galloway, seeking to evade the Viking horde from 875. Only in 883 do they find a more permanent home at Chester-le-Street in County Durham.
In the south, of course, the Church is not merely preserved but prospers. Shaftesbury Abbey was founded in 880, for example. The King himself started to learn Latin after the second treaty with Guthrum. The identification of Church and English State was complete. Interestingly, Rome seemed around this time to have been concerned about a revival of paganism in Britain and that this was not simply a matter of Heathen invasion. The history is obscure but Pope Formosus was threatening to excommunicate England in the 890s if it did not deal with the problem. The Papacy was in some disarray at the time so this may have had more to do with the stance of the English Church in relation to Papal ambitions than any serious surge in pagan belief but it is possible that tensions over monarchical rule and the successes of the Heathens might have drawn many back towards ancient traditions. Conversely, Alfred's determined allegiance to the Church may equally have been a weapon in ensuring cohesion for an English people under siege from without.
The two treaties with Guthrum were, however, only treaties with Guthrum and not with all possible Danish invaders. Another large Viking force (under Haesten) attempted an invasion of England by way of the Thames Estuary but it does not get very far. The momentum had been lost. Alfred has unified the resources of the relatively wealthy Southern English in a way that was not possible only half a century before. Haesten's force arrived in 892 but had dispersed by 896. Alfred died in 899 to be succeeeded by his son, Edward the Elder.
The onslaught continued - Burgred of Mercia was driven out (he died in exile in Rome to be succeeded by Ceolwulf II) and Mercia taken by the Danes in 874. From there, in 874, they renewed their attacks on the East of England. The Danes (led now by Guthrum, Oscytel and Anund) moved south to attack Wessex in 875, leaving behind a Kingdom in York (Jorvik) founded by Haldan Ragnarsson. The aim is obvious - to bring all of England under a network of Viking Kingdoms and displace the Anglo-Saxon monarchies as once the Anglo-Saxons displaced the post-Roman Cymri.
The momentum for the Danes, however, is beginning to be lost. A Danish fleet of 120 ships was wrecked off Peveril Point (Swanage, Dorset) in 877. In 878, the Danes appeared to agree to quit Exeter and Wareham (Dorset). This latter, however, was a ruse. Guthram made a surprise attack on Alfred at Chippenham (Wiltshire) and the King was forced to hide out at Athelney Abbey (Somerset). He recovered to lead an Anglo-Saxon army drawn from all over Southern England which defeated Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. The Treaty of Wedmore (879) resulted in the baptism of Guthrum - an important symbolic act. In return, Alfred ceded all England north of Watling Street to the invader. In essence, he had saved (in theory) Southern England at the expense of Northern England and East Anglia.
Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Danes was seen in Christian terms. It is not accidental that the peace treaty that recognised the Danish 'right to remain' required the symbolic baptism of Guthrum the invader and his adoption of an English name, Athelstan, in order to rule East Anglia as a Danish Kingdom. The implication is that Wessex was too tough a nut to crack for the Vikings but that Wessex in itself was not strong enough to expel the Danes as settlers from England as a whole. The Danish Army settled in East Anglia in 880, creating what would become the Danelaw under ultimate English suzerainty.
By this 'deal', Mercia south of Watling Street returned to Anglo-Saxon rule but under changed conditions - it is now ruled by an Ealdorman (Ethelred) who acknowledges the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred re-takes and occupies London in 886. A second treaty with Guthrum (who dies in 890 without an effect on the settlement) formally recognised the Danelaw between Thames and Tees, with Watling Street between Chester and London as the frontier. Sacrificing the North seems to have strengthened Wessex to the point that, with all rival Kingdoms now destroyed by the invaders, what is left can be called England for the first time with some credibility.
We have scarcely mentioned the Church for some time for the very simple reason that its alliance with the Anglo-Saxon monarchies was firm by necessity. The Danish invasion was a Heathen invasion, perfectly willing to extirpate Roman ways. Northumbrian Christianity is effectively exiled. The Lindisfarne monks took their sacred relics (the bones of St. Aidan and the head of St. Oswald), place them in St. Cuthbert's Coffin and, with the Lindisfarne Gospels, went on walkabout in Northumbria and Galloway, seeking to evade the Viking horde from 875. Only in 883 do they find a more permanent home at Chester-le-Street in County Durham.
In the south, of course, the Church is not merely preserved but prospers. Shaftesbury Abbey was founded in 880, for example. The King himself started to learn Latin after the second treaty with Guthrum. The identification of Church and English State was complete. Interestingly, Rome seemed around this time to have been concerned about a revival of paganism in Britain and that this was not simply a matter of Heathen invasion. The history is obscure but Pope Formosus was threatening to excommunicate England in the 890s if it did not deal with the problem. The Papacy was in some disarray at the time so this may have had more to do with the stance of the English Church in relation to Papal ambitions than any serious surge in pagan belief but it is possible that tensions over monarchical rule and the successes of the Heathens might have drawn many back towards ancient traditions. Conversely, Alfred's determined allegiance to the Church may equally have been a weapon in ensuring cohesion for an English people under siege from without.
The two treaties with Guthrum were, however, only treaties with Guthrum and not with all possible Danish invaders. Another large Viking force (under Haesten) attempted an invasion of England by way of the Thames Estuary but it does not get very far. The momentum had been lost. Alfred has unified the resources of the relatively wealthy Southern English in a way that was not possible only half a century before. Haesten's force arrived in 892 but had dispersed by 896. Alfred died in 899 to be succeeeded by his son, Edward the Elder.
Sunday, 31 January 2016
865-871: The 'Great Heathen Army' (The Reign of Ethelred of Wessex)
The Danish forward base in Thanet has, until now, been essentially a smash-and-grab and extortion racket. The Saxons in Kent, for example, get peace but only if they pay protection money and the Danes have no intention of honouring any agreements if they can get away with it. The real action, presenting an existential threat to England, is about to take place a little to the north as organised crime shifts into its political mode, a war of conquest.
In 865 a Danish 'Heathen Army', an invasion force possibly seeking land but certainly seeking tribute, appears under the command of Halfdan Ragnarrson and Ivar the Boneless, said to be sons of the legendary Norse King Ragnar Lodbrok (if he actually existed which is a matter that is up for historical grabs). It moves across England in the following year, taking control of York in 865 and ravaging Mercia and Northumbria. King Aelle of Northumbria and his rival Osberht are both killed in battle (the rivals united to meet a common threat) and replaced by a Viking puppet Egbert I.
Ethelred moves to try and dislodge the Vikings from Nottingham in 868, accompanied by Alfred who had married Elswitha of Mercia in the previous year but little progress is made. The 'Great Heathen Army' moves back down into East Anglia in 869, murdering Edmund King of East Anglia (his successor is Oswald, the last King of East Anglia) in 870 when he declines to play the same role there as Egbert in Northumbria.
The strategy of permanent tribute and conquest seems to be targeted at the whole of England. As winter draws close in 870, the Danes (Danes, Norse, Heathens and Vikings are interchangeable terms in this context) move south into the Thames Valley as far as Reading, right up to the borders of the Wessex heartland. In a major battle at Ashdown in 871, Ethelred and Alfred lead a Saxon army in a major victory over the invaders under Halfdan and Bagsac. Ethelred is severely injured and dies and is succeeded by Alfred. As he comes to the throne, the Danish invaders have been checked by the strongest remaining Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, one about to become England itself, but they are far from defeated. It is down to Alfred to become 'the Great' in containing the threat over the next couple of decades.
In 865 a Danish 'Heathen Army', an invasion force possibly seeking land but certainly seeking tribute, appears under the command of Halfdan Ragnarrson and Ivar the Boneless, said to be sons of the legendary Norse King Ragnar Lodbrok (if he actually existed which is a matter that is up for historical grabs). It moves across England in the following year, taking control of York in 865 and ravaging Mercia and Northumbria. King Aelle of Northumbria and his rival Osberht are both killed in battle (the rivals united to meet a common threat) and replaced by a Viking puppet Egbert I.
Ethelred moves to try and dislodge the Vikings from Nottingham in 868, accompanied by Alfred who had married Elswitha of Mercia in the previous year but little progress is made. The 'Great Heathen Army' moves back down into East Anglia in 869, murdering Edmund King of East Anglia (his successor is Oswald, the last King of East Anglia) in 870 when he declines to play the same role there as Egbert in Northumbria.
The strategy of permanent tribute and conquest seems to be targeted at the whole of England. As winter draws close in 870, the Danes (Danes, Norse, Heathens and Vikings are interchangeable terms in this context) move south into the Thames Valley as far as Reading, right up to the borders of the Wessex heartland. In a major battle at Ashdown in 871, Ethelred and Alfred lead a Saxon army in a major victory over the invaders under Halfdan and Bagsac. Ethelred is severely injured and dies and is succeeded by Alfred. As he comes to the throne, the Danish invaders have been checked by the strongest remaining Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, one about to become England itself, but they are far from defeated. It is down to Alfred to become 'the Great' in containing the threat over the next couple of decades.
Sunday, 24 January 2016
849-864: Heathen Depredations & The Catholic Community
The kings of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms come and go but we should note the birth of Alfred in 849, fifth son of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex. Ethelwulf will die in 858 to be succeeded by his son Ethelbald (co-ruler since 855). Ethelbald dies in 860 and is succeeded by his brother Ethelbert but it is Alfred who is eventually going to be seen as the first English hero-king in the struggle against the Danes. The Wessex dynasty passes relatively smoothly from Ethelwulf through a line of brothers that will end up (via Ethelred next) with Alfred, suggesting an essential stability to Wessex that helps ensure its ability to unify the Anglo-Saxons against the Danish threat. Meanwhile, Mercian heirs are still being murdered by their godfathers as Wystan was in 849 and Mercia remains as preoccupied with fighting the Wealhas (Welsh) as the Danes. The marriage of Ethelwulf's daughter to Burgred of Mercia suggests that Wessex was keen to make sure that Mercia remained at least neutral in the struggle with the Heathens.
The next major Danish challenge after their defeat in 845 came in 851 when they overwintered in Southern England with 350 shiploads of men, sailed up the Thames and sacked London. They pillaged Canterbury and defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia. From there, they moved into Surrey (Middlesex) where they were met by Ethelwulf supported by Ethelbald who managed, after a major battle, to defeat them. This is followed up with a Saxon naval victory off Sandwich in which the Saxons were led by Athelstan - nine ships were captured and the rest scattered.
Thanet in Kent was a front line part of the county and became the Danes' forward base. There was a further major battle there in 853 in which the men of Kent (under Ealhere) and of Surrey (under Hutha) engagde in a fierce struggle with the Danes in which both Ealdormen are killed. The Danes appear not to have been dislodged and, in 855, they wintered on the Isle of Sheppey and, in 860, attacked Winchester. Whichever way we look at it, the Anglo-Saxons were holding their own by the mid-860s but were not able to dislodge the Danes or stop them from undertaking serious assaults on their major towns. This state of violent equilibrium was not going to last long.
The Saxons are seen by Rome as their front line against Northern Heathenism. Four year old Alfred visits Rome in 853 and is honoured by the Pope. There is another state visit in 855 when he is six, this time with his father Ethelwulf. Alfred stayed a full year. One suspects that, as a fifth son who might not be expected to come to the throne, he was being lined up for a senior Church position although the Church was not generally keen to have Church and State under the control of one family in one location. This mission to save Christendom is to be taken seriously by Alfred much later in our story.
In another dynastic manouevre, Ethelwulf on his return homewards married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bold, King of the Franks, indicating a more adroit diplomacy than that of Offa. Bit by bit Wessex is becoming not merely the dominant indigenous state in England but also part of the 'international community' of the day, one which saw Heathenism much as the modern 'international community' sees Islamism. Interestingly, to maintain this system, Ethelwulf's successor, Ethelbald, his son, will marry Judith, his Frankish step-mother.
The next major Danish challenge after their defeat in 845 came in 851 when they overwintered in Southern England with 350 shiploads of men, sailed up the Thames and sacked London. They pillaged Canterbury and defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia. From there, they moved into Surrey (Middlesex) where they were met by Ethelwulf supported by Ethelbald who managed, after a major battle, to defeat them. This is followed up with a Saxon naval victory off Sandwich in which the Saxons were led by Athelstan - nine ships were captured and the rest scattered.
Thanet in Kent was a front line part of the county and became the Danes' forward base. There was a further major battle there in 853 in which the men of Kent (under Ealhere) and of Surrey (under Hutha) engagde in a fierce struggle with the Danes in which both Ealdormen are killed. The Danes appear not to have been dislodged and, in 855, they wintered on the Isle of Sheppey and, in 860, attacked Winchester. Whichever way we look at it, the Anglo-Saxons were holding their own by the mid-860s but were not able to dislodge the Danes or stop them from undertaking serious assaults on their major towns. This state of violent equilibrium was not going to last long.
The Saxons are seen by Rome as their front line against Northern Heathenism. Four year old Alfred visits Rome in 853 and is honoured by the Pope. There is another state visit in 855 when he is six, this time with his father Ethelwulf. Alfred stayed a full year. One suspects that, as a fifth son who might not be expected to come to the throne, he was being lined up for a senior Church position although the Church was not generally keen to have Church and State under the control of one family in one location. This mission to save Christendom is to be taken seriously by Alfred much later in our story.
In another dynastic manouevre, Ethelwulf on his return homewards married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bold, King of the Franks, indicating a more adroit diplomacy than that of Offa. Bit by bit Wessex is becoming not merely the dominant indigenous state in England but also part of the 'international community' of the day, one which saw Heathenism much as the modern 'international community' sees Islamism. Interestingly, to maintain this system, Ethelwulf's successor, Ethelbald, his son, will marry Judith, his Frankish step-mother.
Saturday, 9 January 2016
797-834: Avoiding the Mistakes of the British
In the last posting we saw the arrival of the 'Heathen Men' (the Vikings) in raids on Lindisfarne, Jarrow and Iona in the mid-790s. We have classed these raiders, like the Saxons of the 360s and later, as a form of hungry organised crime. The Roman Empire had been able to hold the Saxons at bay for a while because it was a unified and relatively efficient structure that could command the necessary resources. Britain only became England because the Romans left and because what remained was a set of petty Kingdoms quarrelling with themselves as much as seeking to resist interlopers. We recall that the English invasion started in earnest when the nearest thing to a British 'bretwalda' [Vortigern] invited one set of invaders [the Saxons] in to deal with another [the Picts]. So, before looking at the progress of the Viking raids and how Wessex managed to avert the fate of Vortigern's Britain, we have to look at just how divided and so potentially vulnerable the Anglo-Saxons were to this new incursion, an incursion that might be regarded as a form of poetic justice from the point of view of the Cymry.
At the opening of the period, the dominant petty state is still Mercia. Perhaps Mercia (as we have suggested) could have become strong enough to be the 'Wessex' of the later period. While the Vikings were threatening the North, Mercian ambitions were largely directed at rival Kingdoms. Kent, for example, was laid waste by Cenwulf of Mercia in 798 when it attempted to recover its independence. The Kentish King Eadbert was taken to Mercia, blinded and had his hands cut off. The Kingdom was not made into a tributary but was effectively destroyed, with Cenwulf's brother, Cuthred, acting as Governor (though titled King of Kent). Anglo-Saxon campaigning (noting the laying waste of Cornwall by Egbert of Wessex in 815) and violent court politics continues but without a final resolution until Egbert of Wessex appears. When Cenwulf of Mercia dies in 821 and is succeeded by Ceolwulf, it seems almost normal for Cenwulf's seven year old son to be murdered. Ceolwulf is deposed two years later and succeeded by Beornwulf and so on and so forth.
The two great players by the mid-820s are the chaotic Mercia and the more disciplined Wessex. They eventually came to blows at the Battle of Ellandun (825) in Wiltshire. Egbert of Wessex defeated the Mercians, gaining overlordship over the minor Kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex. Beornwulf is was killed that year by the East Anglians, the fourth of the small South Eastern Kingdoms, but the main change is that Kent, Sussex and Essex are now to be ruled over directly by the Kings of the West Saxons. This unites all Southern England under one dynastic house capable of undertaking some resistance to the Vikings who have not yet emerged as a major force in Southern Britain.
In 827, the possibility of a unified approach is enhanced by Egbert of Wessex's conquest of Mercia, thoroughly weakened by another round of dynastic blood-letting. Egbert of Wessex is now the eighth King or 'bretwalda' to control all England south of the Humber. The early bretwaldas were simply the dominant minor kings of their day (Aelle of Sussex, Ceawlin of a much smaller Wessex, Aethenbryht of Kent, Redwald of East Anglia) but this is the first serious unification of the majority of the English since the age of the Northumbrian Kings Edwin, Oswald and Oswy. Not even Offa had achieved so much.
An acquisition of power in Early English history is never simple or complete. The Mercians make a brief come-back in 830 but the successes of Egbert of Wessex mean that, when the Danes do arrive in force in 835/836, we have one centre of power that can 'roll with the punches' and command greater resources, backed by the power of a Church with a clear interest in defeating the 'heathens' if they cannot be converted. The more divided (internally and externally) Mercian world would be unlikely to be able to do this so the rise of Wessex does seem to presage the survival of England - a territory that might otherwise now be speaking a version of Danish. A severely weakened Northumbria and the smaller Southern Kingdoms would never have been able to command the necessary resources in themselves. The question is simply whether Wessex was internally stable enough and administratively competent enough not only to do what Ambrosius Aurelianus is said to have done to check the Saxon raids after Vortigern but to have sustained that defence and built on it to expel the raider in a way that Ambrosius Aurelianus's successors could not.
At the opening of the period, the dominant petty state is still Mercia. Perhaps Mercia (as we have suggested) could have become strong enough to be the 'Wessex' of the later period. While the Vikings were threatening the North, Mercian ambitions were largely directed at rival Kingdoms. Kent, for example, was laid waste by Cenwulf of Mercia in 798 when it attempted to recover its independence. The Kentish King Eadbert was taken to Mercia, blinded and had his hands cut off. The Kingdom was not made into a tributary but was effectively destroyed, with Cenwulf's brother, Cuthred, acting as Governor (though titled King of Kent). Anglo-Saxon campaigning (noting the laying waste of Cornwall by Egbert of Wessex in 815) and violent court politics continues but without a final resolution until Egbert of Wessex appears. When Cenwulf of Mercia dies in 821 and is succeeded by Ceolwulf, it seems almost normal for Cenwulf's seven year old son to be murdered. Ceolwulf is deposed two years later and succeeded by Beornwulf and so on and so forth.
The two great players by the mid-820s are the chaotic Mercia and the more disciplined Wessex. They eventually came to blows at the Battle of Ellandun (825) in Wiltshire. Egbert of Wessex defeated the Mercians, gaining overlordship over the minor Kingdoms of Kent, Sussex and Essex. Beornwulf is was killed that year by the East Anglians, the fourth of the small South Eastern Kingdoms, but the main change is that Kent, Sussex and Essex are now to be ruled over directly by the Kings of the West Saxons. This unites all Southern England under one dynastic house capable of undertaking some resistance to the Vikings who have not yet emerged as a major force in Southern Britain.
In 827, the possibility of a unified approach is enhanced by Egbert of Wessex's conquest of Mercia, thoroughly weakened by another round of dynastic blood-letting. Egbert of Wessex is now the eighth King or 'bretwalda' to control all England south of the Humber. The early bretwaldas were simply the dominant minor kings of their day (Aelle of Sussex, Ceawlin of a much smaller Wessex, Aethenbryht of Kent, Redwald of East Anglia) but this is the first serious unification of the majority of the English since the age of the Northumbrian Kings Edwin, Oswald and Oswy. Not even Offa had achieved so much.
An acquisition of power in Early English history is never simple or complete. The Mercians make a brief come-back in 830 but the successes of Egbert of Wessex mean that, when the Danes do arrive in force in 835/836, we have one centre of power that can 'roll with the punches' and command greater resources, backed by the power of a Church with a clear interest in defeating the 'heathens' if they cannot be converted. The more divided (internally and externally) Mercian world would be unlikely to be able to do this so the rise of Wessex does seem to presage the survival of England - a territory that might otherwise now be speaking a version of Danish. A severely weakened Northumbria and the smaller Southern Kingdoms would never have been able to command the necessary resources in themselves. The question is simply whether Wessex was internally stable enough and administratively competent enough not only to do what Ambrosius Aurelianus is said to have done to check the Saxon raids after Vortigern but to have sustained that defence and built on it to expel the raider in a way that Ambrosius Aurelianus's successors could not.
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
757-796: The Age of Offa: What Else Was Happening Before the Vikings
In the previous post we referred to a first abortive attempt to create an English Empire within at least Southern Britain by Offa King of Mercia and suggested that, at the end, he was not the man for the job. As we will see, further 'progress' would be delayed by the eruption of the Viking raiders, bad luck and lack of strong leadership. It may be argued that this delay in creating a viable English State was at the root of one of the salient events of British history - the ease with which the brutal post-Viking Normans were able to occupy and destroy the native English aristocracy without even bothering to absorb them as the Romans had done. But we run ahead of ourselves ... what else was happening around Offa in these years?
Northumbria had turned in on itself as it ceded moral secular authority to Offa. Its great age was well and truly over. King Edbriht became a monk in 758 (we noted earlier in our postings how the Church had created a means of retirement to effect a peaceful transition of power). He is succeeded by his son Osulf but there is no peaceful transition - he is killed within his own household and Aethelwold Moll becomes King in 761. Throughout the next half century, every King of Northumbria (and there are six of them in our period including Aethelwold Moll) is deposed, murdered or exiled with only one returning to the throne only to be murdered in his turn. I suggest we pass over the unedifying details, fascinating though these may be to students of dark deeds and courtly intrigue in a generation being raised on Game of Thrones. One can reasonably assume that the Mercians were dabbling in these murky waters as well as in every other court in England.
Northumbria is not going to be the core of a central English state. Its political weakness may even have been the first encouragement to Viking raids - a back door to the rape of Southern England. There is a certain logic to this loss of impetus for Northumbria. Southern Britain is where the wealth is. That wealth would increase with the development of relatively ordered pre-feudal societies which could trade with Europe and accumulate the capital to invest in further order (we have already seen the economic and political effects of a deterioriation in the relationship between Offa and Charlemagne). The deliberate creation of the Frankish Empire as Roman substitute would have helped shift Britain back to its 'normal' Roman pattern of wealthy province in times of relative peace.
Power would flow from the North to the South. Perhaps even Mercia was not South enough to be the pivot of a viable English nationalism. Perhaps that destiny was always going to be that of Wessex which would underpin a half-viable English State, albeit one ready to be plucked like a ripe apple by European opportunists because of its delayed political development. Whoever was going to create a unified English Nation State, it was not by the end of the Eighth Century going to be Northumbria and the odds were already lengthening on Mercia. The tragedy would be that a European invasion would exploit England's delayed development and impose an alien regime that was neither the fish of native organic State nor the fowl of wealthy Province of a Universal Empire. Perhaps our current post-Imperial Atlantic system, neither organic native State nor centralised European Empire reproduces that weakness today - neither fish nor fowl.
We run ahead of ourselves to note that, in three hundred years, a series of events would impose a bunch of military adventurers and brutal gangsters as an occupying force that was neither native nor universal. Those gangsters, no different other than their superior efficiency than the gangsters who seized Britannia after the departure of the Romans a further three hundred years before Offa, are the lineal ancestors of our current elite albeit thoroughly watered down and democratised over our last 350 years! That same elite, in a rare moment of polemic here, that has given up on the independent nation and yet cannot go for integration into a more logical empire and sits, like the weak English aristocracy of the Eleventh Century on the historical fence waiting for events to happen to it, ducking and diving and crossing its fingers in the hope that the worst will not happen.
Meanwhile, it is a case of business as usual for the petty kingdoms that accepted or were to accept Offa's overlordship or, in the case of Northumbria, were just outside his remit as rex totius Anglorum Patriae. The natural Southern rival of Mercia remained Wessex where Sigebehrt is succeeded by Cynewulf as King in 757. We have noted in the previous posting that Offa was at war with Wessex in 779 and came to some kind of dynastic alliance through the marriage of his daughter to Brihtric in 789. Wessex too, like Northumbria, was subject to internal dissension. Cynewulf is killed in 783 by Cyneheard but is then killed in turn to be succeeded by Brihtric in that same year.
In the minor Kingdoms, Ethelbert of Kent dies in 762 to be succeeded by his son Eardwulf. Kent was may have been particularly problematic for Mercia (the Battle of Otford is noted in 776). We can put this down to Kent's pivotal role in the cross-channel European trade. The wealth of Kent would be vital to any claim to overlordship. The pacification of Europe under the Carolingian Frankish Empire would have increased trade substantially. Kent, a wealthy but essentially small and so weak polity, would have been target for any aggrandising English nation builder. Offa should have offered no exception. Offa was, as we have seen, quite capable of beheading a King of East Anglia (792) for what amounts to temerity although he clearly had to back-track soon enough to keep his alliance with the Church and no doubt internal peace but the power was there in the Mercian State as we shall see. Kent survives Offa only to fall to a successor - a matter for the next posting. Eadbert King of Kent, who will be the target of Mercian ire, comes to the throne only at the very end of our period in 796.
Archbishops also come and go. Cuthbert of Canterbury dies in 760 and is succeeded by Bregowine in 761. Ethelbert of York dies in 780 and is succeeded by Eanbald. In the same year, there are changes in the Northumbrian Bishoprics - Ealhmund of Hexham dies to be succeeded by Rilberht and Cynewulf of Lindisfarne resigns to be succeeded by Higbald. From now on, we will take these copmings and goings as read, referring only to those Churchmen who make some greater mark on history. By the end of the Eighth Century, the proper relationship between Church and State, of which we have a modern pale reflection in the Established Anglican Church today, had been established and, until the Reformation, would not be disrupted except by pagan raiding and the occasional schism in the Church or irruption of popular protest as heresy.
We should note as a marker event the politically but not theologically contentius Synod at Chelsea in 787 and signs that Offa's position owes not a little to Papal support, the Papacy always tending to encourage centralised secular authority that respects its own claim to a higher spiritual authority. Offa promoted at his Synod the supply of funds from the English Church to Rome through what later was to become St. Peter's Pence, an institution that survived until the Henrician Reformation but which here signifies (in essence) an annual payment to the Papacy for its endorsement of Offa's divine right to rule so long as he continued to toe the spiritual line.
The Catholic Church was, by now, an effective operation for establishing its own totalitarian position within Early Medieval society - soft power endorsement and a universal network of social control and intelligence operations (albeit with social welfare aspects) offered in return for the elimination of all rival religious structures and a flow of funds to maintain an extensive parallel government, a proto-civil service that buttressed secular power (and could survive the chaos of secular politics much as the British Civil Service does today), moderated its tendencies towards ruthlessness and brutality and (at least in part) protected the general population fromn extremes of exploitation. As a system, it was finely tuned to grow with pacification, centralisation and economic recovery although the seeds of its own eventual destruction lay in the internal contradictions of it supporting ambitious secular kings who, with increased wealth and authority, would chafe at the restraints put on them by a Church that was to become fully secularised as a power in its own right over the subsequent 750 years.
But then everything is in danger of being turned upside down by the Pagan Vikings who are going to dominate our next set of postings. The first raids on the Anglo-Saxon world are recorded in 787 and they are back again in 793 during a period of famine. In this latter raid, the Vikings sack and destroy the Church at Lindisfarne. This first major raid is reported across the nation. The raiders go on in the same year to sack the monastery at Jarrow but suffer a reverse when their fleet breaks up in bad weather and many are drowned, any survivors who struggle ashore being killed by the Northumbrians at Tynemouth. There is another raid on Iona in 795 so we see a pattern of targeting the easy money to be found in church treasures in a smash-and-grab raid within a polity past its prime and unable to organise itself to defend or effect a punishing defeat on what amount to an organised crime operation that strengthens as it accumulates capital from its raids. Northumbrian weakness is the first stage in the creation of a loose gangland empire of initially pagan plunder. We might today wonder whether Western weakness is not enabling a similar accumulation of capital amongst organised criminals leading to similar effects. After all, ISIS has emerged out of smuggling gangs much as the Normans arose out of the raiding Northmen. We shall see.
Northumbria had turned in on itself as it ceded moral secular authority to Offa. Its great age was well and truly over. King Edbriht became a monk in 758 (we noted earlier in our postings how the Church had created a means of retirement to effect a peaceful transition of power). He is succeeded by his son Osulf but there is no peaceful transition - he is killed within his own household and Aethelwold Moll becomes King in 761. Throughout the next half century, every King of Northumbria (and there are six of them in our period including Aethelwold Moll) is deposed, murdered or exiled with only one returning to the throne only to be murdered in his turn. I suggest we pass over the unedifying details, fascinating though these may be to students of dark deeds and courtly intrigue in a generation being raised on Game of Thrones. One can reasonably assume that the Mercians were dabbling in these murky waters as well as in every other court in England.
Northumbria is not going to be the core of a central English state. Its political weakness may even have been the first encouragement to Viking raids - a back door to the rape of Southern England. There is a certain logic to this loss of impetus for Northumbria. Southern Britain is where the wealth is. That wealth would increase with the development of relatively ordered pre-feudal societies which could trade with Europe and accumulate the capital to invest in further order (we have already seen the economic and political effects of a deterioriation in the relationship between Offa and Charlemagne). The deliberate creation of the Frankish Empire as Roman substitute would have helped shift Britain back to its 'normal' Roman pattern of wealthy province in times of relative peace.
Power would flow from the North to the South. Perhaps even Mercia was not South enough to be the pivot of a viable English nationalism. Perhaps that destiny was always going to be that of Wessex which would underpin a half-viable English State, albeit one ready to be plucked like a ripe apple by European opportunists because of its delayed political development. Whoever was going to create a unified English Nation State, it was not by the end of the Eighth Century going to be Northumbria and the odds were already lengthening on Mercia. The tragedy would be that a European invasion would exploit England's delayed development and impose an alien regime that was neither the fish of native organic State nor the fowl of wealthy Province of a Universal Empire. Perhaps our current post-Imperial Atlantic system, neither organic native State nor centralised European Empire reproduces that weakness today - neither fish nor fowl.
We run ahead of ourselves to note that, in three hundred years, a series of events would impose a bunch of military adventurers and brutal gangsters as an occupying force that was neither native nor universal. Those gangsters, no different other than their superior efficiency than the gangsters who seized Britannia after the departure of the Romans a further three hundred years before Offa, are the lineal ancestors of our current elite albeit thoroughly watered down and democratised over our last 350 years! That same elite, in a rare moment of polemic here, that has given up on the independent nation and yet cannot go for integration into a more logical empire and sits, like the weak English aristocracy of the Eleventh Century on the historical fence waiting for events to happen to it, ducking and diving and crossing its fingers in the hope that the worst will not happen.
Meanwhile, it is a case of business as usual for the petty kingdoms that accepted or were to accept Offa's overlordship or, in the case of Northumbria, were just outside his remit as rex totius Anglorum Patriae. The natural Southern rival of Mercia remained Wessex where Sigebehrt is succeeded by Cynewulf as King in 757. We have noted in the previous posting that Offa was at war with Wessex in 779 and came to some kind of dynastic alliance through the marriage of his daughter to Brihtric in 789. Wessex too, like Northumbria, was subject to internal dissension. Cynewulf is killed in 783 by Cyneheard but is then killed in turn to be succeeded by Brihtric in that same year.
In the minor Kingdoms, Ethelbert of Kent dies in 762 to be succeeded by his son Eardwulf. Kent was may have been particularly problematic for Mercia (the Battle of Otford is noted in 776). We can put this down to Kent's pivotal role in the cross-channel European trade. The wealth of Kent would be vital to any claim to overlordship. The pacification of Europe under the Carolingian Frankish Empire would have increased trade substantially. Kent, a wealthy but essentially small and so weak polity, would have been target for any aggrandising English nation builder. Offa should have offered no exception. Offa was, as we have seen, quite capable of beheading a King of East Anglia (792) for what amounts to temerity although he clearly had to back-track soon enough to keep his alliance with the Church and no doubt internal peace but the power was there in the Mercian State as we shall see. Kent survives Offa only to fall to a successor - a matter for the next posting. Eadbert King of Kent, who will be the target of Mercian ire, comes to the throne only at the very end of our period in 796.
Archbishops also come and go. Cuthbert of Canterbury dies in 760 and is succeeded by Bregowine in 761. Ethelbert of York dies in 780 and is succeeded by Eanbald. In the same year, there are changes in the Northumbrian Bishoprics - Ealhmund of Hexham dies to be succeeded by Rilberht and Cynewulf of Lindisfarne resigns to be succeeded by Higbald. From now on, we will take these copmings and goings as read, referring only to those Churchmen who make some greater mark on history. By the end of the Eighth Century, the proper relationship between Church and State, of which we have a modern pale reflection in the Established Anglican Church today, had been established and, until the Reformation, would not be disrupted except by pagan raiding and the occasional schism in the Church or irruption of popular protest as heresy.
We should note as a marker event the politically but not theologically contentius Synod at Chelsea in 787 and signs that Offa's position owes not a little to Papal support, the Papacy always tending to encourage centralised secular authority that respects its own claim to a higher spiritual authority. Offa promoted at his Synod the supply of funds from the English Church to Rome through what later was to become St. Peter's Pence, an institution that survived until the Henrician Reformation but which here signifies (in essence) an annual payment to the Papacy for its endorsement of Offa's divine right to rule so long as he continued to toe the spiritual line.
The Catholic Church was, by now, an effective operation for establishing its own totalitarian position within Early Medieval society - soft power endorsement and a universal network of social control and intelligence operations (albeit with social welfare aspects) offered in return for the elimination of all rival religious structures and a flow of funds to maintain an extensive parallel government, a proto-civil service that buttressed secular power (and could survive the chaos of secular politics much as the British Civil Service does today), moderated its tendencies towards ruthlessness and brutality and (at least in part) protected the general population fromn extremes of exploitation. As a system, it was finely tuned to grow with pacification, centralisation and economic recovery although the seeds of its own eventual destruction lay in the internal contradictions of it supporting ambitious secular kings who, with increased wealth and authority, would chafe at the restraints put on them by a Church that was to become fully secularised as a power in its own right over the subsequent 750 years.
But then everything is in danger of being turned upside down by the Pagan Vikings who are going to dominate our next set of postings. The first raids on the Anglo-Saxon world are recorded in 787 and they are back again in 793 during a period of famine. In this latter raid, the Vikings sack and destroy the Church at Lindisfarne. This first major raid is reported across the nation. The raiders go on in the same year to sack the monastery at Jarrow but suffer a reverse when their fleet breaks up in bad weather and many are drowned, any survivors who struggle ashore being killed by the Northumbrians at Tynemouth. There is another raid on Iona in 795 so we see a pattern of targeting the easy money to be found in church treasures in a smash-and-grab raid within a polity past its prime and unable to organise itself to defend or effect a punishing defeat on what amount to an organised crime operation that strengthens as it accumulates capital from its raids. Northumbrian weakness is the first stage in the creation of a loose gangland empire of initially pagan plunder. We might today wonder whether Western weakness is not enabling a similar accumulation of capital amongst organised criminals leading to similar effects. After all, ISIS has emerged out of smuggling gangs much as the Normans arose out of the raiding Northmen. We shall see.
Saturday, 19 December 2015
757-796: The Age of Offa: A False Start for an English Kingdom
Offa, King of Mercia, dominates the second half of the Eighth Century. We will cover the other kingships in a subsequent post in order to have the facts on the table but it is Offa who interests us here. He seized power in 757 and united most of England under his rule. If his rule did not extend North of the Humber on his accession that was only because his son-in-law ruled in Northumbria (which we will deal with in the next posting). As leading 'Southumbrian', Offa is now termed in the Churchmen's Latin Rex Totius Anglorium Patriae. We have the first inklings of the possibility of a unified English State, a mini-empire to ape that of Charlemagne on the Continent.
Wars to assert dominance have to continue however. In 776 Mercian and Kentish forces meet in battle at Otford in Kent and in 779 Offa defeats Cynewulf of Wessex near Benson (Oxfordshire) which town Offa then seizes. A border (Offa's Dyke) is also constructed between Anglian Mercia and the Welsh Kingdom of Powys although more recent archaeological research has suggested that he was building on earlier Mercian construction that may possibly have gone back to post-Roman times.
Offa was a dynastic player intent on building a lasting 'house'. In 787, Offa has his son Egfrith solemnly consecrated as King of the Mercians under his overlordship. In 789, Brihtric of Wessex takes Offa's daughter Eadburg as his Queen. Offa is the most powerful King in England before Alfred, powerful enough to feel able to quarrel with the Empreror Charlemagne over marriage arangements. Apparently he thought himself important enough to have his son marry a daughter of the Emperor in return for sending a daughter over to Aachen to marry one of the Emperor's son. The Emperor did not agree and this lese-majeste led to Frankish ports being closed to English merchants, a serious economic matter for the Southern English.
Things got worse. Ethelbert of East Anglia was a suitor for Offa's daughter Alfrida in 792. Offa, for whatever reason, beheaded him but something about this did not sit right with him or with the public. He felt remorse, or was forced to appear to feel remorse, and ordered a tomb for the murdered king in what was later to become the Saxon Cathedral of Saints Mary & Ethelbert in Hereford (near Sutton Walls where the King was based). We also get a sense that Offa was now very interested in ensuring that the Church was on side (and we cannot forget the relationship between the Universal Church and the new Imperial Frankish regime in Europe). He founded St. Albans Abbey in the next year (793). It is hard not to see a connection between all this and reports of famine (perhaps connected to the economic effects of the closure of the Frankish sea ports) and of 'portents' (which we may take as signs of rumblings amongst the people). This is also the beginning of the period of Viking Raids, initially affecting Northumbria rather than points further south but perhaps creating an air of anxiety and fear.
As Offa's reign drew to a close, we can see the reasons why he was a false dawn from the point of view of England. He had an exaggerated sense of his own importance in relation to the Frankish Empire, he made political misjudgements and he came too late to an understanding that a viable Kingdom must be built on an alliance with the Church rather than through simple force of arms and dynastic fixes. Given that a European culture of dynastic legitimacy was emerging that required the backing of the Catholic Church, the lesson would not be lost on Alfred the Great. Offa died in 796. Mercian dominance died with him. His son and successor Ecgfrith did not live out the year and Ecgfrith was succeeded by Cenwulf.
[1] Source - BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/anglo_saxons/kings_and_laws
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| Offa's Dyke - incomplete today but still the longest earthwork in Britain [1] |
Offa was a dynastic player intent on building a lasting 'house'. In 787, Offa has his son Egfrith solemnly consecrated as King of the Mercians under his overlordship. In 789, Brihtric of Wessex takes Offa's daughter Eadburg as his Queen. Offa is the most powerful King in England before Alfred, powerful enough to feel able to quarrel with the Empreror Charlemagne over marriage arangements. Apparently he thought himself important enough to have his son marry a daughter of the Emperor in return for sending a daughter over to Aachen to marry one of the Emperor's son. The Emperor did not agree and this lese-majeste led to Frankish ports being closed to English merchants, a serious economic matter for the Southern English.
Things got worse. Ethelbert of East Anglia was a suitor for Offa's daughter Alfrida in 792. Offa, for whatever reason, beheaded him but something about this did not sit right with him or with the public. He felt remorse, or was forced to appear to feel remorse, and ordered a tomb for the murdered king in what was later to become the Saxon Cathedral of Saints Mary & Ethelbert in Hereford (near Sutton Walls where the King was based). We also get a sense that Offa was now very interested in ensuring that the Church was on side (and we cannot forget the relationship between the Universal Church and the new Imperial Frankish regime in Europe). He founded St. Albans Abbey in the next year (793). It is hard not to see a connection between all this and reports of famine (perhaps connected to the economic effects of the closure of the Frankish sea ports) and of 'portents' (which we may take as signs of rumblings amongst the people). This is also the beginning of the period of Viking Raids, initially affecting Northumbria rather than points further south but perhaps creating an air of anxiety and fear.
As Offa's reign drew to a close, we can see the reasons why he was a false dawn from the point of view of England. He had an exaggerated sense of his own importance in relation to the Frankish Empire, he made political misjudgements and he came too late to an understanding that a viable Kingdom must be built on an alliance with the Church rather than through simple force of arms and dynastic fixes. Given that a European culture of dynastic legitimacy was emerging that required the backing of the Catholic Church, the lesson would not be lost on Alfred the Great. Offa died in 796. Mercian dominance died with him. His son and successor Ecgfrith did not live out the year and Ecgfrith was succeeded by Cenwulf.
[1] Source - BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/anglo_saxons/kings_and_laws
Saturday, 5 December 2015
695-756: Before Offa - The First Half of the Eighth Century
The lack of development (of which we wrote in the last posting) will persist for another half century before the next great overlord appears - Offa of Mercia - in 757 but we run ahead of ourselves. It is our duty first to tell of kings and then, in the next posting, of prelates. The basic system remains the same as in the previous century - near constant fighting for survival and precedence amongst the same small set of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms whose instability is more noticeable than their power.
In 697, Osthryth, the Queen of Aethelred of Mercia, is murdered for reasons unknown by Mercian nobles. She is daughter of Oswy, King of Northumbria. If that it is not going to be the basis of a blood feud, one wonders what might be but nothing of significance happens as a result. Perhaps she was just written off as a wasting asset. Aethelred seems not to have had the confidence of his own people and abdicated to become a monk in 704 (he dies in 716). He is replaced by Coenred who is then replaced by Aethelred and then Osthryth's son Ceolred. Cenred makes his way to Rome (accompanied by the East Saxon King Offa, not to be confused with the later Offa of Mercia) where he remained until his death. Ceolred lasted until 716 and was buried at Lichfield to be succeeded by Ethelbald
In Northumbria, King Aldfrith died in 704 to be succeeded by Eadwulf but only for a few months before being succeeded by Osred, Aldfrith's son, who, in turn is killed, probably in a battle (716) with the Picts. Osred is succeeded by Cenred who dies two years later (718). Cenred is succeeded by Osric, another son of Aldfrith, who is succeeded by Ceolwulf in 729. In East Anglia, Aldwold succeeds Aldwulf as King of East Anglia who dies in 749. East Anglia is then divided amongst three successors - Hun, Beonna and Alberht. In Kent, the long-reigned (690-725) Wihtred of Kent is succeeded by a succession of often joint obscure monarchs best listed from Wikipedia.
This decentralising tendency, with the patrimonies of the Eastern Anglo-Jutes being divided up instead of turned into centralised states, is interesting. It suggests that not having a border with neighbours who posed a direct threat took away the incentive to centralise power and reversed history somewhat by restoring power to the highest nobility. Empires seem to require external threats or radical ambition to self-organise (as we know from our own time). However, this does not mean that the nobles were idle in internal politics - where kings failed to offer a decentralised model through their princelings, as in Wessex, rebel nobles would clearly try to force the issue.
Both Mercia and Wessex are thus rather more centralised states with important border issues with the 'Welsh' (see below) and each other - Northumbria, of course, exists in direct competition with the Picts. The struggle for supremacy between Wessex and Mercia in the South and Midlands is ever-present with Ine of Wessex and Ceolred of Mercia fighting at the Battle of Adam's Grave, a Neolithic Long Barrow in Wiltshire in 715. Later, in 752, Cuthred of Wessex and Ethelbald of Mercia go to war and the latter is defeated in battle in 749 despite an earlier alliance of the two against the Welsh (see below).
But, when not fighting neighbours, the rulers of Wessex were fighting rebels. In 722, Ine's wife Ethelburgh had to destroy a town founded by Ine (Taunton) in the West because (apparently) it became a rebel stronghold - the circumstances are obscure. Ine dies in 726 and is succeeded by Aethelheard in 726. He dies in 740 and is succeeded by Cuthred whose reign also appears to have been troubled with revolts and dissent. Indeed, compared to Kent and East Anglia (though we know precious few details to be sure of this), Wessex appears to be peculiarly unstable during this period. While always stronger than the 'Welsh' and able to hold the Picts to a standstill, the Anglo-Saxons remained, in secular though not in religious terms, a fragmented and unstable culture with an inability, it would appear, to create a strong indigenous State, a weakness that would prove fatal three centuries later.
Although most of the action takes place within and between the Heptarchy, we should not forget the small poor principalities of the 'Celts', the Romano-British survivor states in the far West of Britain against which the Saxons continue to push their advantage. In 710, for example, Ine of Wessex and his under-king Num of Sussex made war on Geraint, the last significant King of Dumnonia (the South Western 'Wealhas'), who died that year. From this point on, the Southern 'Welsh' are continuously pushed back to what is now modern Cornwall. Further to the North the rivals Ethelbald of Mercia and Cuthred of Wessex will find themselves in alliance in another war against the 'Welsh' (which we will now call them) in 743.
Cuthred dies in 756 ( to be succeeded by Sigebehrt) and Ethelbald, still the acknowledged overlord of the Southern English despite recent events, was murdered in a palace coup at Seckington in the same year. The scene has been set for Offa.
In 697, Osthryth, the Queen of Aethelred of Mercia, is murdered for reasons unknown by Mercian nobles. She is daughter of Oswy, King of Northumbria. If that it is not going to be the basis of a blood feud, one wonders what might be but nothing of significance happens as a result. Perhaps she was just written off as a wasting asset. Aethelred seems not to have had the confidence of his own people and abdicated to become a monk in 704 (he dies in 716). He is replaced by Coenred who is then replaced by Aethelred and then Osthryth's son Ceolred. Cenred makes his way to Rome (accompanied by the East Saxon King Offa, not to be confused with the later Offa of Mercia) where he remained until his death. Ceolred lasted until 716 and was buried at Lichfield to be succeeded by Ethelbald
In Northumbria, King Aldfrith died in 704 to be succeeded by Eadwulf but only for a few months before being succeeded by Osred, Aldfrith's son, who, in turn is killed, probably in a battle (716) with the Picts. Osred is succeeded by Cenred who dies two years later (718). Cenred is succeeded by Osric, another son of Aldfrith, who is succeeded by Ceolwulf in 729. In East Anglia, Aldwold succeeds Aldwulf as King of East Anglia who dies in 749. East Anglia is then divided amongst three successors - Hun, Beonna and Alberht. In Kent, the long-reigned (690-725) Wihtred of Kent is succeeded by a succession of often joint obscure monarchs best listed from Wikipedia.
This decentralising tendency, with the patrimonies of the Eastern Anglo-Jutes being divided up instead of turned into centralised states, is interesting. It suggests that not having a border with neighbours who posed a direct threat took away the incentive to centralise power and reversed history somewhat by restoring power to the highest nobility. Empires seem to require external threats or radical ambition to self-organise (as we know from our own time). However, this does not mean that the nobles were idle in internal politics - where kings failed to offer a decentralised model through their princelings, as in Wessex, rebel nobles would clearly try to force the issue.
Both Mercia and Wessex are thus rather more centralised states with important border issues with the 'Welsh' (see below) and each other - Northumbria, of course, exists in direct competition with the Picts. The struggle for supremacy between Wessex and Mercia in the South and Midlands is ever-present with Ine of Wessex and Ceolred of Mercia fighting at the Battle of Adam's Grave, a Neolithic Long Barrow in Wiltshire in 715. Later, in 752, Cuthred of Wessex and Ethelbald of Mercia go to war and the latter is defeated in battle in 749 despite an earlier alliance of the two against the Welsh (see below).
But, when not fighting neighbours, the rulers of Wessex were fighting rebels. In 722, Ine's wife Ethelburgh had to destroy a town founded by Ine (Taunton) in the West because (apparently) it became a rebel stronghold - the circumstances are obscure. Ine dies in 726 and is succeeded by Aethelheard in 726. He dies in 740 and is succeeded by Cuthred whose reign also appears to have been troubled with revolts and dissent. Indeed, compared to Kent and East Anglia (though we know precious few details to be sure of this), Wessex appears to be peculiarly unstable during this period. While always stronger than the 'Welsh' and able to hold the Picts to a standstill, the Anglo-Saxons remained, in secular though not in religious terms, a fragmented and unstable culture with an inability, it would appear, to create a strong indigenous State, a weakness that would prove fatal three centuries later.
Although most of the action takes place within and between the Heptarchy, we should not forget the small poor principalities of the 'Celts', the Romano-British survivor states in the far West of Britain against which the Saxons continue to push their advantage. In 710, for example, Ine of Wessex and his under-king Num of Sussex made war on Geraint, the last significant King of Dumnonia (the South Western 'Wealhas'), who died that year. From this point on, the Southern 'Welsh' are continuously pushed back to what is now modern Cornwall. Further to the North the rivals Ethelbald of Mercia and Cuthred of Wessex will find themselves in alliance in another war against the 'Welsh' (which we will now call them) in 743.
Cuthred dies in 756 ( to be succeeded by Sigebehrt) and Ethelbald, still the acknowledged overlord of the Southern English despite recent events, was murdered in a palace coup at Seckington in the same year. The scene has been set for Offa.
Monday, 2 November 2015
664-694: The Dullness of English Politics
In our last posting, we were able to report the vigour of the Church under the last truly Roman Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, and how his legacy was a Church that could be ruled by local lads yet owe its full allegiance to Rome rather than to an English King - a legacy that would last until the time of Henry VIII 850 years later. Unfortunately the history of the secular authorities during this period is rather dull in comparison.
The most notable event is the ending of the Northumbrian supremacy. King Oswiu is succeeded by Ecgfrith in 670 and this is generally taken to mean the end of the supremacy, confirmed at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685. Ecgfrith and many of his men are killed and he is succeeded by Aldfrith.
Not much else changes, Kings come and go. In Kent, Earconbehrt has been succeeded by Egbert I (663-673). King Hlothere of Kent dies and is succeeded by his son Eadric in 685 who dies the next year and is succeeded by Oswini. Oswini is succeeded by Wihtred, son of Egbert I in 690. In East Anglia, Ethelwold has been succeeded by Aldwulf in 663. In Mercia, Wulfhere dies in 674 and is succeeded by Ethelred, son of Penda.
In Wessex, Cenwalh, founder of Cerdicing Dynasty that will eventually include Alfred the Great, is succeeded by his Queen, Seaxburg in 672 but Aescwine follows her in the following year. Centwine, the next King is deposed in 685 and is succeeded by Caedwella. Caedwalla gives us a burst of savage excitement by attacking Kent, for the second time in 687 when his brother Mul, probably briefly installed as King of Kent after the earlier attack, is burned to death by the locals with some of his followers. Caedwella abdicates in 689 and travels to Rome where he is baptised Peter by Pope Sergius, dying only a week later (he is buried in St. Peter's). He is succeeded by Ine who styled himself 'King of the West Saxons' with a domain that extended across Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. He is notable for producing the earliest surviving set of English laws. By 694 the growing power of Wessex is indicated by the fact that Kent is forced to negotiate with Ine over compensation arrangements for the murder of Mul.
So there we have it. These relatively small states are now broadly established in some sort of balance of power, not exactly stable, competing and often warring with each other, but, although the Northumbrian supremacy comes to an end and Wessex is on the way to its eventual ascendancy, none can master the others sufficiently to create a unitary Kingdom. This alone makes them weak players against a Church that may not have any legions but has a global (in early medieval terms) presence and a monopoly of the education required to administer even relatively small statelets.
The most notable event is the ending of the Northumbrian supremacy. King Oswiu is succeeded by Ecgfrith in 670 and this is generally taken to mean the end of the supremacy, confirmed at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685. Ecgfrith and many of his men are killed and he is succeeded by Aldfrith.
Not much else changes, Kings come and go. In Kent, Earconbehrt has been succeeded by Egbert I (663-673). King Hlothere of Kent dies and is succeeded by his son Eadric in 685 who dies the next year and is succeeded by Oswini. Oswini is succeeded by Wihtred, son of Egbert I in 690. In East Anglia, Ethelwold has been succeeded by Aldwulf in 663. In Mercia, Wulfhere dies in 674 and is succeeded by Ethelred, son of Penda.
In Wessex, Cenwalh, founder of Cerdicing Dynasty that will eventually include Alfred the Great, is succeeded by his Queen, Seaxburg in 672 but Aescwine follows her in the following year. Centwine, the next King is deposed in 685 and is succeeded by Caedwella. Caedwalla gives us a burst of savage excitement by attacking Kent, for the second time in 687 when his brother Mul, probably briefly installed as King of Kent after the earlier attack, is burned to death by the locals with some of his followers. Caedwella abdicates in 689 and travels to Rome where he is baptised Peter by Pope Sergius, dying only a week later (he is buried in St. Peter's). He is succeeded by Ine who styled himself 'King of the West Saxons' with a domain that extended across Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. He is notable for producing the earliest surviving set of English laws. By 694 the growing power of Wessex is indicated by the fact that Kent is forced to negotiate with Ine over compensation arrangements for the murder of Mul.
So there we have it. These relatively small states are now broadly established in some sort of balance of power, not exactly stable, competing and often warring with each other, but, although the Northumbrian supremacy comes to an end and Wessex is on the way to its eventual ascendancy, none can master the others sufficiently to create a unitary Kingdom. This alone makes them weak players against a Church that may not have any legions but has a global (in early medieval terms) presence and a monopoly of the education required to administer even relatively small statelets.
Wednesday, 2 September 2015
645-663:The Anglicisation of British Christianity
What we see now in English history is little more than perpetual conflict between relatively small Germanic states seeking overlordship in Southern Britain or seeking merely to survive, with the Church both tool and asset but one with powerful interests of its own. The three big players in the game are going to be Weseex, Mercia and Northumbria. Penda of Mercia drives Cenwalh of Wessex from his kingdom around 645, although nearly all dates are obscure at this time, yet Cenwalh is back in power to consecrate the precursor to the Cathedral in Winchester and found its Bishopric some time after 648.
Interestingly, Cenwalh arranges for the Bishop to be a Saxon having "grown weary of [Agilbert, the bishop of Dorchester's] barbarous tongue" suggesting a new phase for the Church in England, one of replacing foreign clerics with native clerics more in tune with the needs of courts handling people who spoke Anglo-Saxon dialects as their first language. The Church is still, however, an international corporation. Executives get moved around - the Frank Agilbert is neatly translated to become Bishop of Paris in 600. If there is a 'nationalisation' process, it seems not to be restricted to England. One suspects that Rome was having issues with Roman manpower as it expanded rapidly into barbarian territory.
A native 'spiritual sensibility' is also in evidence. On August 31st, 651, as Bishop Aidan is dying in the parish church at Bamburgh, a shepherd in the Lammermuir Hills, Cuthbert, sees a vision of angels which, connecting with the death of Aidan, he interprets as a call to religious service. Again, this 'shepherd' is not all he appears to be - he was almost certainly of noble origins and raised in the environs of Lindisfarne's sister Scottish establishment Melrose Abbey. This future patron saint of Northern England bears all the hall marks of a celebrity-driven propaganda operation but the outcome is still that the Church is no longer quite so reliant on outsiders for its maintenance.
The Church's symbiosis with royal power is beginning to nationalise it: in return for gaining royal protection, it gets political influence but it has to concede that the men who will run it in England will be of the same class and blood origins as their political allies. Though answerable to Rome, these men will interpret Roman ways according to the political, cultural and social needs of the local States. It is all very finely balanced. The unbalancing of the relationship will lead to periodic crises, excommunications and splits over the next thousand years that will lead ultimately to the breach with Rome of Henry VIII.
With exquisite timing in this context, Honorius, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury who had arrived to help introduce Christianity to Kent in 597 and was a Roman by birth, died in September 653. His successor in 655 was an Anglo-Saxon given the name Deusdedit, a transitional figure, a Romanised native, repeating the patterns of control of the old Roman Empire whose continuities have perhaps been underestimated.
Loyal natives can often be better governors of imperial systems than imposed foreigners after the first generation of charismatic leaders has passed - one might say that the entrepreneurs are being replaced by the managers and that the corporation is maturing. The fact that all this was achieved in only half a century suggests the degree to which the Church had provided some things very important to the small English states in their struggles with each other - legitimacy, administrative support, psychological management of the subject peoples and charismatic magical power.
Meanwhile kings come and go. Oswine of Deira dies in August 651 and is succeeded by Ethelwald son of Oswald. Anna, King of East Anglia dies in 654 and is succeeded by Aethelhere. The dynastic details are for antiquarians, The real action though is taking place in Middle England where Mercia's recent dominance comes under threat. Penda, the pagan mainstay of Mercia, is defeated and killed, along with a considerable number of allied royalty and nobles including Aethelhere of East Anglia (succeeded by Ethelwold), at the Battle of Winweaed (November 15th, 654).
Oswiu, King of Bernicia, brother of Oswald of Northumbria, seizes Mercia and holds it for three years as King. He follows up with the seizure of Deira in 655 and so becomes bretwalda. Peada of Mercia, brother of Penda, struggles on briefly but is murdered in 656 and succeeded by Wulfhere, son of Penda, who was king from 657 to 675. Wulfhere becomes bretwalda of at least the Southern English but not of the Northumbrians. It may not be unimportant here that Wulfhere converts to Christainity and abandons the ways of his father (Peada had also converted). His southern bretwalda role involved some support for his allies and attempts to clean up the anomalies existing on the borders between small states - in 661 he invaded the Jutish Isle of Wight (the Jutes seem to have been a problem for the dominant Saxons) and handed it over to Ethelwold, King of Sussex.
Nor should we forget the continued presence of the Cymry. King Cenwalh of Wessex is in battle with them at Penselwood in 658. Yet the real action is taking place in more prosperous England. The Cymry are largely an excluded side show to English state formation. The Church knows where power lies in that context. The monastery at Whitby is founded in 657 and an Augustinian foundation appears at Canterbury in 600.
Whitby becomes central to the history of British Christianity because it is here, in 663, that Oswiu of Northumbria holds the Synod of Whitby, ostensibly to deal with calendrical issues. In fact, it is an assertion of the dominance of Roman Christianity over Celtic Christianity. It sets the cultural seal on two hundred years of Saxon victories over the Cymry and half a century of the Roman Christianisation of the victors in the post-Roman struggle for Southern Britain. Rome is back but not as it was - not as 'top dog' but as devious and powerful junior partner to brute barbarian power.
Interestingly, Cenwalh arranges for the Bishop to be a Saxon having "grown weary of [Agilbert, the bishop of Dorchester's] barbarous tongue" suggesting a new phase for the Church in England, one of replacing foreign clerics with native clerics more in tune with the needs of courts handling people who spoke Anglo-Saxon dialects as their first language. The Church is still, however, an international corporation. Executives get moved around - the Frank Agilbert is neatly translated to become Bishop of Paris in 600. If there is a 'nationalisation' process, it seems not to be restricted to England. One suspects that Rome was having issues with Roman manpower as it expanded rapidly into barbarian territory.
A native 'spiritual sensibility' is also in evidence. On August 31st, 651, as Bishop Aidan is dying in the parish church at Bamburgh, a shepherd in the Lammermuir Hills, Cuthbert, sees a vision of angels which, connecting with the death of Aidan, he interprets as a call to religious service. Again, this 'shepherd' is not all he appears to be - he was almost certainly of noble origins and raised in the environs of Lindisfarne's sister Scottish establishment Melrose Abbey. This future patron saint of Northern England bears all the hall marks of a celebrity-driven propaganda operation but the outcome is still that the Church is no longer quite so reliant on outsiders for its maintenance.
The Church's symbiosis with royal power is beginning to nationalise it: in return for gaining royal protection, it gets political influence but it has to concede that the men who will run it in England will be of the same class and blood origins as their political allies. Though answerable to Rome, these men will interpret Roman ways according to the political, cultural and social needs of the local States. It is all very finely balanced. The unbalancing of the relationship will lead to periodic crises, excommunications and splits over the next thousand years that will lead ultimately to the breach with Rome of Henry VIII.
With exquisite timing in this context, Honorius, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury who had arrived to help introduce Christianity to Kent in 597 and was a Roman by birth, died in September 653. His successor in 655 was an Anglo-Saxon given the name Deusdedit, a transitional figure, a Romanised native, repeating the patterns of control of the old Roman Empire whose continuities have perhaps been underestimated.
Loyal natives can often be better governors of imperial systems than imposed foreigners after the first generation of charismatic leaders has passed - one might say that the entrepreneurs are being replaced by the managers and that the corporation is maturing. The fact that all this was achieved in only half a century suggests the degree to which the Church had provided some things very important to the small English states in their struggles with each other - legitimacy, administrative support, psychological management of the subject peoples and charismatic magical power.
Meanwhile kings come and go. Oswine of Deira dies in August 651 and is succeeded by Ethelwald son of Oswald. Anna, King of East Anglia dies in 654 and is succeeded by Aethelhere. The dynastic details are for antiquarians, The real action though is taking place in Middle England where Mercia's recent dominance comes under threat. Penda, the pagan mainstay of Mercia, is defeated and killed, along with a considerable number of allied royalty and nobles including Aethelhere of East Anglia (succeeded by Ethelwold), at the Battle of Winweaed (November 15th, 654).
Oswiu, King of Bernicia, brother of Oswald of Northumbria, seizes Mercia and holds it for three years as King. He follows up with the seizure of Deira in 655 and so becomes bretwalda. Peada of Mercia, brother of Penda, struggles on briefly but is murdered in 656 and succeeded by Wulfhere, son of Penda, who was king from 657 to 675. Wulfhere becomes bretwalda of at least the Southern English but not of the Northumbrians. It may not be unimportant here that Wulfhere converts to Christainity and abandons the ways of his father (Peada had also converted). His southern bretwalda role involved some support for his allies and attempts to clean up the anomalies existing on the borders between small states - in 661 he invaded the Jutish Isle of Wight (the Jutes seem to have been a problem for the dominant Saxons) and handed it over to Ethelwold, King of Sussex.
Nor should we forget the continued presence of the Cymry. King Cenwalh of Wessex is in battle with them at Penselwood in 658. Yet the real action is taking place in more prosperous England. The Cymry are largely an excluded side show to English state formation. The Church knows where power lies in that context. The monastery at Whitby is founded in 657 and an Augustinian foundation appears at Canterbury in 600.
Whitby becomes central to the history of British Christianity because it is here, in 663, that Oswiu of Northumbria holds the Synod of Whitby, ostensibly to deal with calendrical issues. In fact, it is an assertion of the dominance of Roman Christianity over Celtic Christianity. It sets the cultural seal on two hundred years of Saxon victories over the Cymry and half a century of the Roman Christianisation of the victors in the post-Roman struggle for Southern Britain. Rome is back but not as it was - not as 'top dog' but as devious and powerful junior partner to brute barbarian power.
Sunday, 2 August 2015
560-624: The Kingdoms Establish Themselves
A king's leadership is not, however, always uncontested. Ceawlin
himself seems to have been ousted, probably by Ceol, but he may just as
likely have been killed at another significant battle, also obscure,
with Aethelbert of Kent reversing the position of 568 in 591and
replacing Ceawlin as capo di tutti capi or rather 'bretwalda' or overlord of the Anglo-Saxons, at least in Southern England.
The violence continues into the seventh century as you would expect (the arrival and early history of Christianity is covered in the next posting). Two kingdoms, Bernicia, which we have mentioned, and Deira merge to become a major force in the North of England called Northumbria under Aethelfrith who becomes a dominant figure in wars against the Cymry, with a great deciding battle at Chester in 607. He dies in 617 at the hands of Raedwald, King of East Anglia, another Anglo-Saxon Kingdom we have taken somewhat for granted in this series. We have also taken for granted Mercia in the Midlands through which Raedwald marched with impunity to 'take out' Athelfrith. Mercia will later become very important. Who is and who is not an overlord of the English is sometimes never very clear - Aethelfrith appears to have been one so Raedwald defeating and killing him in battle naturally made him his successor. Or did it? Although defeated by Raedwald, Aethelfrith is succeeded by a strong figure in Edwin under whom Northumbrian power continues to increase culturally and politically and he is widely seen as the natural 'bretwalda'.
What is actually going on is a story of personal and dynastic rivalries, greed and lust for power, of which Game of Thrones is merely the fictional version. Most of the detail is of no interest to us. What we are interested in are the grand themes and it is to be noted here that by the time we get to struggles between Athelfrith and Raedwald in the 610s, positions on Christianity and paganism have become part of the mix. For example, it is a material political fact that the son of Aethelberht of Kent, Eadbald, reverts to paganism for a brief period in 616 but is soon 'persuaded' back into the fold because it is becoming clear that Christian clerical support is an asset and loss of that support is a problem. The re-emergence of Christianity is what we have to turn to next.
The period closes with a number of kingdoms vying for leadership of Anglo-Saxon England. Traditionally these will come to be termed a heptarchy of four major players (Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria) and three small 'original' settler Kingdoms (Kent, Sussex and Wessex) but this belies the complexity of the situation with borders shifting, mergers (as with Bernicia and Deira into Northumbria), shifting power bases (with the South Eastern Kingdoms becoming less important over time in favour of the geographically bigger 'frontier' states) and some small settlement kingdoms simply becoming subsumed into others, such as Middlesex as contested territory. There are also viable small Cymric states surviving in the South West, Wales proper and Cumbria and, of course, there are Pictish and Scottish proto-states to the North.
The violence continues into the seventh century as you would expect (the arrival and early history of Christianity is covered in the next posting). Two kingdoms, Bernicia, which we have mentioned, and Deira merge to become a major force in the North of England called Northumbria under Aethelfrith who becomes a dominant figure in wars against the Cymry, with a great deciding battle at Chester in 607. He dies in 617 at the hands of Raedwald, King of East Anglia, another Anglo-Saxon Kingdom we have taken somewhat for granted in this series. We have also taken for granted Mercia in the Midlands through which Raedwald marched with impunity to 'take out' Athelfrith. Mercia will later become very important. Who is and who is not an overlord of the English is sometimes never very clear - Aethelfrith appears to have been one so Raedwald defeating and killing him in battle naturally made him his successor. Or did it? Although defeated by Raedwald, Aethelfrith is succeeded by a strong figure in Edwin under whom Northumbrian power continues to increase culturally and politically and he is widely seen as the natural 'bretwalda'.
What is actually going on is a story of personal and dynastic rivalries, greed and lust for power, of which Game of Thrones is merely the fictional version. Most of the detail is of no interest to us. What we are interested in are the grand themes and it is to be noted here that by the time we get to struggles between Athelfrith and Raedwald in the 610s, positions on Christianity and paganism have become part of the mix. For example, it is a material political fact that the son of Aethelberht of Kent, Eadbald, reverts to paganism for a brief period in 616 but is soon 'persuaded' back into the fold because it is becoming clear that Christian clerical support is an asset and loss of that support is a problem. The re-emergence of Christianity is what we have to turn to next.
The period closes with a number of kingdoms vying for leadership of Anglo-Saxon England. Traditionally these will come to be termed a heptarchy of four major players (Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria) and three small 'original' settler Kingdoms (Kent, Sussex and Wessex) but this belies the complexity of the situation with borders shifting, mergers (as with Bernicia and Deira into Northumbria), shifting power bases (with the South Eastern Kingdoms becoming less important over time in favour of the geographically bigger 'frontier' states) and some small settlement kingdoms simply becoming subsumed into others, such as Middlesex as contested territory. There are also viable small Cymric states surviving in the South West, Wales proper and Cumbria and, of course, there are Pictish and Scottish proto-states to the North.
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