M J Porter – Page 29

The first kings of the ‘English’ – Kings Athelstan and Edmund (924-946) #histfic #non-fiction #Brunanburh

(I’m re-sharing an old post, which I’ve amended slightly and added some new graphics).

England, Wales, Scotland, the smaller kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Powys, Gwynedd, Dal Riada – for the uninitiated (including myself) the sheer number of kingdoms and kings that peopled the period in British history before 1066 can appear as a bewildering display of names, places, times and events, and perhaps never more so than when a historian is trying to sell a book and so makes a statement in their title that applies to that particular king.

Phrases such ‘the Golden Age of Northumbria’, ‘the Mercian hegemony’, ‘the rise of Wessex’, they all mask so many events that I find the phrases very unhelpful and perhaps worse, misleading.

I think that Athelstan and his younger half brother, Edmund, probably deserve their titles as Kings of the English. And it’s not just my opinion either. There was, according to Sarah Foot in her book on Athelstan, a concerted effort by the king and his bishops to have him stand apart from his predecessors – to be something ‘different’ to them. They named him king of the English, not king of Mercia (a post he held briefly before another of his younger brothers died) and not king of Wessex, for all that he was both of those things.

They changed his title, they crowned him with a crown, not a helmet. They wanted Athelstan to be something other than his grandfather, King Alfred, and his father, King Edward. It was a bold statement to make, and one they continued when Athelstan died too young and his half-brother, Edmund replaced him. He too was crowned using, it must be supposed, the same Coronation service. (For full details have a peek at Sarah Foot’s book on Athelstan – or read the first few chapters of King of Kings as the service appears in it as well).

So why the change? Essentially the old Saxon kingdoms, for all that they were preserved in the naming of the earls/ealdormens designations, had been swept aside by the Viking raiders. The old kingdoms had become a handy label to apply to certain geographic areas, and the kings of Wessex, whilst keen to hold onto their hereditary titles because of the permanence their own royal line had managed to acquire, were equally as keen to do away with regional boundaries. There was, it can’t be denied, a concerted and almost unrelenting urge to drive any Viking raider or Dane or Norwegian (the Norse) from British soil, and this is what Athelstan and then Edmund were tasked with doing.

Image showing all 4 book covers in The Brunanburh Series

Yet the idea of ‘English’ wasn’t a new concept. Why else would Bede have called his great piece of religious historical writing “The Ecclesiastical History of the English people’, if there hadn’t been a shared consciousness that the people in England, all be it in their separate kingdoms, didn’t have a shared heritage? Why the idea suddenly took flight under King Athelstan could be attributed to a new sense of confidence in Wessex and Mercia at the time. They were confident that they could beat the Viking raiders and they were convinced that England belonged to them.

Or perhaps it was more than that? The destruction wrought by the Viking raiders on the separate kingdoms must have been a stark reminder of just how insular the kingdoms had become, and the Viking raiders showed everyone just how easy it was to run roughshod over the individual kingdoms. Only in unity could the Saxon kingdoms of England survive another onslaught; only with unity could the Saxons hold onto their kingdoms they’d claimed about 500 years before.

It was a message that was learned quickly and taken to heart. Athelstan worked to reunite more of the Saxon kingdoms with the growing ‘England’, and he tried to do so by both diplomacy and through war. Yet, the Viking raiders hadn’t finished with England, and nor were they her only enemies. This also lies at the heart of Athelstan’s ‘masterplan’ his treaty of Eamont (if it truly happened – Benjamin Hudson in his Celtic Scotland is not convinced). Athelstan wanted to be a mighty king, but he also wanted England, and the wider Britain (also a concept already understood otherwise why else would that cantankerous monk – Gildas – have called his even earlier work than Bede’s “On the Ruin of Britain?”) to be united in their attempts to repel the Viking raiders. He was a man with a keen vision of the future and it was a vision that his brother continued, with slightly different direction and results.

The ‘English Kings” saw safety in unity, and of course, an increase in the power they held went hand-in-hand with that.

Yet at no point during the Saxon period can it be said that the emergence of ‘England’ as we know it, was a given certainty. Throughout the period other great kings had tried to claim sovereignty over other kingdoms, but never with any permanence. The earlier, regional kings, were powerful within their own lifetimes and within their own regions. Few, if any, were able to pass on their patrimony complete upon their death. This was a time of personal kingship, and it was only under Athelstan and Edmund that the leap was taken away from this to a more permanent power base.

Not that it was a smooth transition and it did have the side-effect of allowing other men, those not related to the royal family, to evolve their own individual power bases in the old Saxon kingdoms. The ‘English’ kings had to do more than just rule their own kingdom, they had to rule their ealdormen and earls, their warriors, bishops and archbishops. The number of names of kings might start to deplete in the after math of Athelstan and Edmund’s kingship, but in their place spring up more and more powerful men, men that these English kings had to rely on.

Becoming King of the English was very much a mixed blessing, bringing with it new and greater responsibilities and more, it brought with it the need to expand personal government further, to have a greater persona to broadcast.

Check out The Brunanburh Series page for more details.

When conservation itself becomes part of the historical landscape, Hackness Battery on Hoy

This sign today really made me chuckle and wonder just how long the temporary sheltering of the artifacts on this Historic Scotland site has been going on. Now I’m sure that the sign has been left on purpose to explain the now permanent feature of the series of sheds at Hackness Battery on Hoy, but it was a poignant reminder of just how quickly historic sites can be changed by modern inhabitants, and this one is only a mere two hundred years old. Just think what could happen in half a millenia or longer!

But for now, I’m going to enjoy the sign and hope I’ve not offended, because I really had no intention of doing so.

Saxon England as envisaged in 1695 – why I use old maps when writing my Saxon stories – the battle of Brunanburh, Northampton and the Welsh borders

We all know that I’m a little obsessed with old maps. They’re so very helpful when trying to reconstruct Saxon England. There are a collection of maps I often use, the John Speed maps of the early 1600s, which are English county maps, often with a small cut out in the corners, of important settlements at the time. When I was writing about Northampton, the John Speed map for the settlement fitted just about perfectly with the archaeological research that’s been conducted on the remains of the Saxon settlements. I find them very helpful for a sense of scale, and how they might have ‘sat’ in the surroundings. Modern maps don’t quite give the same sense, because they’re very busy with later building work and settlements.

But below is a fascinating map, dated from 1695, which reflects what was thought about Saxon England at that date.

The reason that I love this map is because if you look really close, you can see the name Brunanburh, close to Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) on the north east coast.

This is particularly intriguing. As I’ve said elsewhere, there’s been more discussion about where the battle of Brunanburh took place as opposed to its actual significance. The current thinking is that it quite probably took place on the Wirral, and so to the west of the country and not the north east at all. But, the logic for placing the battle close to the boundary with what would become Scotland works on a very English-centric view. The enemies of Athelstan were the kings of the Scots and of Strathclyde, along with the Norse of Dublin, who hoped to regain the powerful Jorvik, or York. Why then fight on the Wirral when they were powerful elsewhere?

It might be a little easier to see on the image above as opposed to on the map I have. Using old maps, before much of the infrastructure we now have, is a bit like peeling back the layers of soil in an archaeological dig. I find them so helpful, and I guess I am lucky that my Dad is a ‘map man’ and I can call him, with my very strange requests and he can send me back images of exactly what I want.

Another map I’m lucky to have my hands on is one from an 1809 printing of Richard of Cirencester’s Description of Britain. This contains a map of Roman Britain, and the roads that were then believed to have existed.

I’m hoping to use it to give me an idea of how the border region with Wales might have been connected, but it is proving a little stubborn, as many of the roads are thought to be ‘possible.’ So, old maps don’t tell you everything you want to know:)

If you’re interested in old maps, have a look on eBay and places like that, where copies are often available for sale quite cheaply. You can also get a book with all the John Speed county maps reproduced in it, and of course, there is David Hill’s An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England that is invaluable, if you’re lucky enough to find a copy, as it has been out of print for some time.