Alfred's Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age

426 Pages·2010·32.33 MB·English

by  Ryan Lavelle

WARFARE IN HISTORY
Alfred’s Wars
Sources and Interpretations
of Anglo-Saxon Warfare
in the Viking Age

Selected by Choice for the 2011 list of Outstanding Academic Titles.

The warfare of the late Anglo-Saxon period had momentous consequences
for the development of the English state following Alfred the Great's reign.
This book provides a comprehensive guide, with extracts in translation
from the principal sources for our knowledge, accompanied by the most
important interpretations by scholars through the ages, and new
introductions by the present author. It looks at every aspect of the topic,
from land and sea forces to logistics and campaigning, from fortifications
and the battlefield to the final peacemaking. In so doing, it highlights the
significance of warfare and its organisation for the late Anglo-Saxon state,
and the multitude of ways in which it was recorded and remembered.
WARFARE IN HISTORY
ISSN 1358-779X Series editors
Matthew Bennett, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst Anne Curry, University
of Southampton
Stephen Morillo, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, USA
This series aims to provide a wide-ranging and scholarly approach to
military history, offering both individual studies of topics or wars, and
volumes giving a selection of contemporary and later accounts of particular
battles; its scope ranges from the early medieval to the early modern period.
New proposals for the series are welcomed; they should be sent to the
publisher at the address below.
Boydell and Brewer Limited, PO Box 9,
Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of this volume

Contents
Frontcover
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Source Acknowledgements
Note on sources
Preface
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: A Society at War: Mentalities of Warfare in Later Anglo-Saxon
England
Ealdorman Æthelweard: The writing of history and the experience of warfare in the tenth century
The study of later Anglo-Saxon warfare: Themes and their studies
Ideologies of war
Masculinity, youth and experience in Anglo-Saxon warfare
2 Friends and Foes
Britons and the ‘Kingdom of the English’
The advent of the Vikings
Their own worst enemy? Internal conflicts
3 Organization and Equipment: Land
The nation at arms?
‘Five Hides and All That’: Aristocrats and military service
A royal elite? The housecarls
Arms, armour, and status
‘A nobleman belongs on horseback’: horses and equestrian equipment
Summary
4 Organization and Equipment: Maritime
Types of vessel
Fleet logistics
Æthelweard’s Chronicon and records of nautical terminology
The organization of coastal defence
Summary
5 Campaigns and Strategies
The movement of armies
Amphibious warfare and combined operations: Ships in campaigns
Summary
6 Fortifications
The Burghal Hidage and the organization of fortifications
Fortifications in action
Fortifications in the Second Viking Age
Summary and observations
7 Fields of Slaughter: Battles and Battlefields
Courage, cowardice and motivation
Medieval or classical sources?
Fighting techniques and battlefield tactics
Naval battles
Locating and remembering battlefields
Summary
8 After the Battle: Peacemaking and Peace Agreements
Opportunities for negotiation
Strategic peace: the use and abuse of peace?
Truce, peace and peace treaties
Summary
9 Conclusions
Appendix: Chronology
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Fig. 2.1 (Map) Locations of English actions recorded in Annales Cambriae
Fig. 2.2 Grave marker from Lindisfarne, depicting Viking warriors armed with
contemporary weapons (Illustration by Don Lavelle)
Fig. 2.3 Scutchamer Knob, East Hendred, Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire): an
Anglo-Saxon assembly site, from which a Viking force issued a challenge to
battle in 1006
Fig. 2.4 (Map) Distribution of Viking Age rune-stones referring to expeditions in
England
Fig. 2.5 Rune-stone (U 344) from Yttergärde, Uppsala, Sweden, recording gelds
taken in England
Fig. 3.1 Unarmoured English warriors in a probable temporary fortification at the
Battle of Hastings depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (Detail of the Bayeux
Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City of Bayeux)
Fig. 3.2 Irish Defence Force extras drilling for the 1969 film, Alfred the Great
(Courtesy of Captain Kevin McDonald, Irish Defence Force)
Fig. 3.3 (Diagram) Relative wealth and social standing of late Anglo-Saxon testators
Fig. 3.4 Pre-Conquest equestrian sculptures from (a) Gosforth (Cumberland), (b)
Chester-le-Street (Co. Durham), (c) Neston (Cheshire), (d) Baldersby
(Yorks.), (e) Sockburn (Co. Durham) (Illustrations by Don Lavelle; (d)
redrawn by Don Lavelle after a sketch by Dawn Hadley)
Fig. 3.5 Norman warriors on campaign in Brittany depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
(Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City
of Bayeux)
Fig. 3.6 Norman cavalry at the Battle of Hastings depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
(Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City
of Bayeux)
Fig. 4.1 Different types of Viking-Age ship (Illustration by Don Lavelle)
Fig. 4.2 (Map) Coastal burhs during the reign of Alfred the Great posited by Edwin
and Joyce Gifford
Fig. 4.3 (Map) Identifiable places referred to in a letter by Bishop Æthelric of
Sherborne (S 1383) regarding the absence of ‘ship scot’
Fig. 4.4 (Map) Ealdorman Æthelweard’s references to different types of vessel
Fig. 4.5 (Map) Coastal lands recorded in charters of King Æthelred II
Fig. 4.6 (Map) Terrain of Æthelweard’s Cornish estates recorded in the charter S
832 (Illustration by Don Lavelle)
Fig. 5.1 (Diagram) Model of the relationship between supplies, cohesion and prestige
in early medieval campaigns
Fig. 5.2 (Map) The area of Wessex associated with the Edington campaign, 878
(Drawn by Don Lavelle)
Fig. 5.3 Detail of a royal encampment, depicted in the eleventh-century Old English
Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.IV, fol. 25r.
Reproduced with permission.)
Fig. 5.4 (Map) Terrain around Plumstead (Kent), an area discussed in the account of
the recovery of the relics of St Ælfheah by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
housecarls, 1023 (Illustration by Don Lavelle)
Fig. 5.5 (Map) Royal and other actions outside England
Fig. 5.6 (Map) Areas relating to the Godwine family and King Edward’s actions,
1052
Fig. 6.1 (Map) Fortifications recorded in the Burghal Hidage and the areas
pertaining to them
Fig. 6.2 (Map) Armada beacons in Hampshire with known Saxon weard sites
(Drawn by David Hill)
Fig. 6.3 Twelfth-century depiction of a siege of a city from the Harley Psalter
(London, British Library Harley MS 603, fol. 32v. Reproduced with
permission)
Fig. 6.4 (Map) Fortifications recorded during the reign of Edward the Elder
Fig. 6.5 (Map) Lands held by housecarls in 1066 in shires around London
Fig. 6.6 (Map) Attacks on English towns during the later tenth and eleventh
centuries to 1066
Fig. 6.7 (Map) Locations of Viking activities around Exeter in 1001
Fig. 6.8 (Map) Urban assemblies and sites of surrender
Fig. 7.1 An Anglo-Saxon ‘shield-wall’ depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (Detail of the
Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City of Bayeux)
Fig. 7.2 Gyrth, brother of Harold, at the Battle of Hastings with his brother
Leofwine depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th
century, by special permission of the City of Bayeux)
Fig. 7.3 Eleventh-century depiction of Abraham’s army in pursuit of Lot’s captors,
followed by a battle on foot, illustrated in the Old English Hexateuch (London,
British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.IV, fol. 25r. Reproduced with
permission.)
Fig. 7.4 Mounted warriors depicted in the Harley Psalter (London, British Library,
Harley MS 603, fol. 69r. Reproduced with permission.)
Fig. 7.5 (Map) The possible course of actions recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
entry for 896 applied to Poole Harbour, on the English Channel coast
Fig. 7.6 The end of the Battle of Hastings, depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (Detail
of the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City of
Bayeux)
Fig. 7.7 (Map) The suggested locations for events in the Ethandun campaign, 878
Fig. 8.1 Norman vessels with shields raised, depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry (Detail
of the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century, by special permission of the City of
Bayeux)

Figs. 2.2, 3.4, 4.1, 4.6, and 5.4 courtesy of Don Lavelle.
Figs. 3.1, 3.5, 3.6, 7.1, 7.2, 7.6, and 8.1 by special permission of the City of Bayeux.
Fig. 3.2 courtesy of Captain Kevin McDonald, Irish Defence Force.
Figs. 5.3, 6.3, 7.3, and 7.4 reproduced with permission of the British Library,
London.
Fig. 6.2 courtesy of David Hill.
All other images are by the author or from the author’s collection. Maps were drawn
with the aid of the Online Map Creation website, <http://www.aquarius.ifm-
geomar.de/>.
Tables
Table 2.1 Scandinavian rune-stones referring to England from the late tenth and
eleventh centuries
Table 3.1 Types of military service and their landed assessments
Table 3.2 Heriots and bequests of weapons in later Anglo-Saxon wills
Table 4.1 Terms for ships used in Æthelweard, Chronicon, and other narrative
sources
Table 5.1 Names of witnesses in charters associated with King Athelstan’s Scottish
campaign, 934
Table 5.2 Suggested overland speeds of elements of an early medieval army
Table 5.3 Comparison of extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle manuscript
entries CD and E for 1052, showing the Godwine family and King Edward’s
movements
Table 6.1 Factors concerning urban status and defensibility
Table 6.2 Attacks on English towns and their relative sizes
Table 6.3 Viking activities around Exeter
Table 7.1 Antiquarians’ suggested locations for the events in the Ethandun campaign,
878