Either Oswald underestimated the strength of the enemy or he was outwitted by strategy and local knowledge; very possibly the British/Mercian force drew him towards the mountains in a false pursuit: even the greatest warrior is vulnerable far from home and on the enemy’s own patch. An alternative, that Oswald was duped by Eowa into falling into a trap of his brother’s setting, cannot be discounted. Victory, when it came, perhaps against exhausted troops low on supplies, was overwhelming. In his moment of heathen triumph, Penda dragged Oswald’s body from the field so that the remnants of his army should not be able to take it home for burial, dismembered him and displayed his limbs and head as trophies, a ritual heathen sacrifice to Woden, the Hanging God and deity of battle. The greatest of earthly warriors had been brought down by a new power in the land. After fourteen years of campaigning, Penda had with one stroke dispatched both his rival for the kingship of Mercia and the Christian overlord of Britain.
The enormity of Penda’s insult to Oswald’s body cannot really be appreciated in a Christian context; after all, his slaughter by a pagan ensured that Oswald was revered as a pre-eminent martyr. His holy life and glorious death ensured that he was ‘translated to the heavenly kingdom’.180 Once the Christian soul has left it, the body is so much flesh and bone, its burial according to rite more a matter of courtesy and hygiene than celestial qualification. It is true that the place of burial mattered to early saints and their followers: shrines became immensely important sources of healing and inspiration, as places for prayer and the gathering of pilgrims (and traders). To that extent, depriving Oswald of an earthly burial in his own land among his own people was a punitive act. But to grasp the more visceral tribal and heathen meanings of Penda’s treatment of his enemy one has to turn to the Beowulf poem, and to the famous resting place of King Rædwald.
Beowulf, at the end of a life of heroism and gift-giving, fought one last battle against a dragon who had been terrorising the kingdom of the Geats following the theft of a golden cup from the dragon’s lair by a slave. When he fell at last, fatally wounded, his body was guarded by a faithful warrior and kinsman, Wiglaf, while a bier was prepared for him to be carried in ceremony to the place of his funeral. From the site of his mortal combat with the great worm an ‘untold profusion of twisted gold was loaded onto a wagon, and the warrior prince borne hoary-headed’ to a place high on a headland that seafarers might see it from afar. Beowulf’s people brought great quantities of wood from all around: Geata leode ad on eorðan unwaclicne, helmum behongen...
The Geat race then reared up for him
a funeral pyre. It was not a petty mound,
but shining mail-coats and shields of war
and helmets hung upon it as he had desired.
Then the heroes, lamenting, laid out in the middle
their great chief, their cherished lord.
On top of the mound the men then kindled
the biggest of funeral fires. Black wood-smoke
arose from the blaze, and the roaring of flames
mingled with weeping...181
Laments are sung for Beowulf; an enclosure is built around the remains of the pyre; a great barrow is constructed over and in its chamber treasures are placed torques and jewels, ‘wealth in the earth’s keeping’ where no mortal man may use them again. We have a very fair idea of how such a mound would look from the Sutton Hoo excavation. It is true that the East Anglian king was buried in a ship; but in every other way the mix of personal, royal and military trappings recovered from Mound I proves that the Beowulf account reflects actual pagan reality, not mere poetic fancy.
Then the warriors rode around the barrow,
twelve of them in all, athelings’ sons.
They recited a dirge to declare their grief,
spoke of the man, mourned their king...
This was the manner of the mourning of the men of the Geats,
sharers in the feast, at the fall of their lord:
they said he was of all the world’s kings
the gentlest of men, and the most gracious,
the kindest to his people, the keenest for fame.182
Oswald and his people were deprived of the obsequies befitting a great warrior king. The conspicuous consumption of the funeral feast, the placing of treasure and weapons beyond gift or use so evident in the Sutton Hoo ship burial and in pagan Anglo-Saxon burials by the thousand, were essential components of death for the warrior king, as they were for fulfilment of his earthly life. Penda would allow no such end for Oswald or the Bernicians who mourned him. And the Idings were not just robbed of their farewells and mourning rituals, the necessary components of social bonding in the Early Medieval kingdom; they failed to retain possession of the body of their dead king.
*1EH III.9 He is Christianissimus rex Norðanhymbrorum. Bede, perhaps significantly, never uses the word martyr of him.
*2Wrocansætan: the name is known from the Tribal Hidage and derives from the Roman civitas capital Virconum Cornoviorum, now the village of Wroxeter in Shropshire.
*3A comprehensive and credible review of the case for and against Oswestry is outlined in Clare Stancliffe’s paper ‘Where was Oswald killed?’; Stancliffe 1995b.
*4HB 68. Bede, in his general introduction to Britain’s geography and resources, also mentions salt springs: EH I.1.
*5Cynddylan is not mentioned by Bede or the Nennian sources but Stancliffe (1995b) argues persuasively that later poetic traditions of Powys which do mention him can be trusted.
Timeline: AD 632 to 642
ABBREVIATIONS
EH—Bede’s Ecclesiastical History
HB—Nennius: Historia Brittonum
ASC—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
AU—Annals of Ulster
ATig—Annals of Tigernach
Names of battles are shown in bold
632
Edwin is killed at the Battle of Hæthfelth/Meicen on 12 October by Cadwallon of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia (ASC ‘E’ recension). Edwin’s son Osfrith also killed; the other, Eadfrith, flees to or is taken prisoner by Penda and is later killed in Mercia.
—James the Deacon remains in Northumberland, probably living near Catterick, and survives until the Synod of Whitby in 664.
—Death of Mohammed the prophet at Medina, at the age of sixty-three.
633
Fursey arrives from Athlone to establish see at Cnobheresburg (?Burgh Castle), granted by Sigeberht of East Anglia.
633–4
Northumbria collapses into constituent kingdoms; reverts to paganism under Eanfrith (son of Æthelfrith) and Osric (cousin of Edwin); Osric besieges British in an oppidum municipium and is defeated and killed by Cadwallon. Cadwallon lays waste to Northumbria.
634
Eanfrith sues for peace with Cadwallon in Bernicia and is murdered with his companions.
—Oswald returns from exile to claim Northumbrian kingdom, with ?brother Oswiu and a retinue including Dál Riatan and Ionan warriors. He defeats and kills King Cadwallon at the Battle of Denisesburn after raising his cross at Heavenfield.
—Possible birth date of Cuthbert somewhere near the Tweed Valley, of noble parents.
—Wilfrid born, also of a noble Anglian family.
—Possible date of marriage of Oswiu to Rhieinmelth, granddaughter of Urien of Rheged (HB).
—Birinus, possibly a graduate of a Columban monastery, preaches to the West Saxons (ASC).
635
Oswald sends for Aidan, an Irish monk/bishop from the Scottish island of Iona, to convert Northumbria to Celtic Christianity. Aidan establishes monastery on the island of Lindisfarne and becomes the first bishop of Lindisfarne. Foundation of monasteries at Melrose, Hartlepool and Coldingham follows.
—?Battle between Mercia and East Anglia: Penda defeats Egric and Sigeberht. Sigeberht, having abdicated to join the church, is dragged from a monastery to lead army; fights with a stick (could be as late as 643) and is killed.
—Probable date of Oswald’s marriage to ?C
yniburh, daughter of Cynegisl, king of Wessex.
—(or 636) Oswald is present at King Cynegisl’s baptism into the Roman church.
—A great snowfall kills many in Ulster (AU).
—Possible date of birth of Alhfrith, son of Oswiu; or Alhflæd, their daughter.
636
Cwichelm baptised at Dorchester-on-Thames (ASC); and dies.
—Probable date of birth of Œthelwald to Oswald and Cyniburh.
637
Battle of Magh Rath in Ireland; defeat of Domnall Brecc’s allies inc. Congall Ceach of the Dál nAraide. Dál Riata effectively cedes rights over Ulster.
—Congregation of the Saxons against Oswald (ATig) (or 639 AU).
—?Penda enlarges Mercia to include East Anglia; slays two East Anglian kings. Dál Riata now probably tribute to Northumbria. Bernician and Deiran warriors may fight in the battle (Moisl 1983).
638
Battle at Glenn Mureson (AU; 640 in ATig); Domnall Brecc is defeated by the Strathclyde Britons.
—Siege of Edinburgh (obsesio Etin: AU; 640 in ATig)—by Oswald or Oswiu?
639
Death of Dagobert I.
—Bishop Birinus baptises Cuthred, son of King Cwichelm of Wessex, at Dorchester;
—?Battle of Oswald, king of the Saxons (AU) against a southern confederation.
640
King Eadbald of Kent dies; succeeded by Eorconberht (to 664).
641?
Northumbrians, possibly under Oswiu, defeat kingdom of Manau having besieged Din Eidyn in previous campaigns. In concert with Domnall Brecc’s efforts against Britons?
642
Campaign against Mercia by Oswald drives Penda into Wales? Oswald is killed in the Battle of Maserfelth on 5 August (probably close to Oswestry) fighting against Penda of Mercia and possibly Welsh allies of Gwynedd. He is cut up and his head displayed on a pole at Oswestry/Croesoswald.
—Oswald is succeeded by his brother Oswiu in Bernicia and by Oswine (son of Osric; a cousin of Edwin) in Deira.
—Cynegisl of Wessex dies; succeeded by Cenwalh (a pagan: to 673). He marries a sister of Penda but repudiates her. Cenwalh is driven out of Wessex by Penda and seeks refuge with King Anna of East Anglia. Regains the throne in 648.
—Cuthbert given over to foster parents at Hruringaham.
—Domnall Brecc dies at hands of Owain mac Beli of Strathclyde in Battle of Strath Cairuin (Strathcarron).
XIII
Miracles will happen
Wudu sceal on
foldan blædum blowan
A wood shall bear blossoms
and fruit on the earth
Oswald’s cinematic last stand gave almost immediate rise to a popular cult centred on the supposed site of his martyrdom. His fame in life endured and surpassed death in a manner fitting for his short but dazzling career as a Christian warrior and tribal chief. The bodies of Bernician kings belonged in the sacral ground of Yeavering beneath the holy mountain of Glendale, or by the sea beneath the ramparts of Bamburgh. But now, the king who had spent so much of his life as an exiled freelance was also to be alienated from his homeland in death.
It is hard to say how the battlefield might have looked in the months after the slaughter of Maserfelth. Some bodies would have been retrieved by camp followers and relatives; those of the Bernician army might have been subject to abuse or mutilation or fed to dogs. The dead of the Mercian and British hosts were perhaps cremated on a great pyre, a mound raised over their ashes just as his companions had raised a mound over Beowulf’s remains; or they might have been interred in mass graves like the victims of Æthelfrith’s Chester campaign a generation earlier. Valuable metalwork will have been stripped from enemy warriors: the lion’s share, the gold and silver, great swords and finest fittings, would become part of Penda’s and Cynddylan’s own treasure hoards, winners’ booty to be recycled or hidden, buried in a field to tease archaeologists. Survivors took trophies: weapons, naturally, but probably also more gruesome souvenirs. If Penda took Oswald’s head and arms, he would not have been the only warrior to carry off such trophies. Whether the impaled remains were left on the battlefield or taken to a fortress belonging to Penda we cannot say. In the ensuing months carrion feeders stripped the remaining corpses, leaving white bones to bleach in the sun. The blood-soaked ground recovered in a year or two. Potassium-loving plants grew there to mark the spot. The grass grew a darker shade of green.
We do not know if Oswald’s brother Oswiu fought with him at Maserfelth; it is, I think, very unlikely. In truth, we do not know what sort of relations these two brothers enjoyed. Oswiu is not mentioned at all by Bede until after the disaster on the borders of Powys, so we can only guess that he was part of the Heavenfield campaign and others fought against the North Britons during Oswald’s reign. What we do know is that he brought up Oswald’s infant son Œthelwald, probably at his own court and that, a year after Oswald’s death at Maserfelth, he ‘came thither with an army’ and took Oswald’s remains away with him.183 Oswald’s head—with its gaping sword-slash wound—was given to the community on Lindisfarne and buried in the church there; his hands and arms were encased in a shrine, suitably made from silver, and interred in the fortress at Bamburgh, probably below the church dedicated to Saint Peter, now ruinous, which may have had an early crypt. Here they became, Bede tells us, objects of great veneration. As Aidan had predicted, they remained ‘incorrupt’ up until the time of Bede.
Oswiu’s expedition deep into Mercian territory was undertaken at great risk. He cannot realistically have hoped to confront and beat the combined armies of Mercia and Powys, given the devastation wrought on the Bernician host. More likely he led a raid, probably relying entirely on mounted warriors. That he succeeded argues for a degree of bravura and derring-do on his part. It also implies that his brother’s head and upper limbs, assuming they were identifiable (the whole thing has a rather grisly feel to it), were of sufficient value for the risks to be worth the reward. One imagines that the journey back must have been pretty hairy too, with all the forces at Penda’s disposal out to catch him. So why bother?
There is a clannish element in his motivation, of the ‘nobody insults my brother’s body’ sort; blood is and was, after all, thicker than water, and in tribal societies such insults are neither taken lightly nor forgotten. Blood feud was a constant source of conflict and interest in the Early Medieval period. Penda’s possession and humiliation of the great warrior’s body was a stain on Bernician pride. It was a challenge to both the Bernician folc and, more particularly, the dead king’s brother and successor. There is also something of the ancient Norse idea of dividing the sacral luck of the king on death into shares, each of which imparted some of that luck to those who possessed it. In keeping the arms and hands Oswiu was ensuring that some of his brother’s luck passed to him; in donating the king’s head to Lindisfarne he was aiming to ensure the continuing success of Aidan’s mission. Christian as he was, Aidan would not have been in any doubt of the potency of that gift and the continuing promise of patronage and virtus which came with it.
This hovers between Christian sentiment and tribal totemism: Oswald’s martyrdom and his earthly reputation seem very rapidly to have become something of a popular cult. The talismanic value of his body parts was huge and they belonged, in as equal parts as they could be, in Aidan’s church at Lindisfarne and the king’s own stronghold at Bamburgh: our king; our kin; our body; our magic. Conscious, perhaps, of Aidan’s prediction that Oswald’s right arm would never wither and conscious, too, of its martial reputation, Oswiu built for it a subterranean trophy cabinet in which it would play no small part in the creation of a mythology for the Anglo-Saxon kings of the Northumbrians. He had precedent to inform him, if nothing else: Edwin’s head had been brought to York after the battle of Hæthfelth and Oswald ensured that the church was restored so that it might be housed properly.
It was not long before Oswald’s magic began to rub off: literally. Within a ‘short time’ of his
death strange events began to occur which shed light not only on Oswald’s stellar reputation but also on the virtuous powers of corporeal magic at first, second and third hand, in the imagination of the Early Medieval mind—almost impossible, in fact, for the twenty-first century mind to comprehend (only rock stars seem to inspire such post-mortem devotion now: Jim Morrison in Paris, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, Elvis...). The king was dead: long live his relics and anything they might have touched. Oswald, in death, was about to embark on a journey more remarkable even than his life. He was to become one of the most widely revered saints of medieval Europe, from Iona to Salzburg.
The King in the North Page 25
