The Anglo Saxons at War 800-1066

by Paul Hill

  But how did the Anglo-Saxons deal with their own war dead? The answer to this question probably lies in the rank and religion of those who fell. The poem Beowulf describes in great detail the funerary pyre lit for the eponymous hero, the construction of the mound in which he is buried and the great pagan ceremonies that went with it. All this seemingly fantastical imagery was brought into stark reality by the spectacular discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasures in 1939, but in the period we are now discussing, the English Christian armies disposed of their dead in a different way.

  A good example of the lengths to which people went to bury their dead appropriately is that of Æthelwulf, the ealdorman of Berkshire, who on 31 December 870 had successfully defeated a detachment of the Danish Great Heathen Army at Englefield. Æthelwulf, a seemingly gifted warrior leader, lost his life only a few days after Englefield when he assisted the West Saxons in the disastrous siege of the Danes at their encampment at Reading. The chronicler Æthelweard records that when Æthelwulf’s body was finally recovered beneath the gates of the camp it was taken on a surprisingly long journey: ‘In fact, the body of the Dux mentioned above was carried away secretly and taken into Mercia to the place called Northworthig, but “Derby” in the Danish tongue.’ Æthelwulf, a Mercian, had died defending the northern frontier of Wessex and fighting alongside the West Saxons. Clearly, there were those in his retinue who could not forget the Mercian connection and who went to great lengths to see their leader buried in his proper ancestral place.

  If there was a physical consequence to warfare–the shattered bones, the beheadings, the grim struggle at sword’s edge, then there was also an emotional side to the affair as well. There was nothing that so depressed the Anglo-Saxon mind as being forced into exile after a defeat. It might be that a warrior’s lord was lost in the struggle and he had failed to avenge his lord’s death on the battlefield thereby committing the sin of surviving the battle. To wander around in search of a lord was the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of purgatory, a condition that it seems threw some Anglo-Saxons into a melancholy of soul-searching. This is beautifully portrayed in the poem The Wanderer:

  Often the solitary one

  finds grace for himself

  the mercy of the Lord,

  Although he, sorry-hearted,

  must for a long time

  move by hand

  along the waterways,

  (along) the ice-cold sea,

  tread the paths of exile.

  Events always go as they must! . . .

  The halls decay,

  their lords lie

  deprived of joy,

  the whole troop has fallen,

  the proud ones, by the wall.

  War took off some,

  carried them on their way,

  one, the bird took off

  across the deep sea,

  one, the gray wolf

  shared one with death,

  one, the dreary-faced

  man buried

  in a grave.

  The main character in The Wanderer loses his lord and wanders the landscape in search of a new hall, and a new gift-giver to serve. If this notion seems a little hackneyed or idealistic, it should be remembered that it crops up again in The Battle of Maldon, which was a real battle where the death of the ealdorman sparked a desire for vengeance in some of his followers.

  The misery of exile was not just felt by the warrior who lost his lord, however. One rather sad example of this was the fate of King Burgred of Mercia (852–74). Burgred lost a war against the Great Heathen Army in 874. It was a strange war in that it involved no recorded fighting as such, but saw the Danes encamp themselves at the spiritual home of the ancient Mercian royal line at Repton. There the Danish leaders, having bled Burgred dry of money over the winter, were able to claim a legitimacy by burying their own dead at the resting place of a Mercian dynasty not of Burgred’s own line, but of that of St Wystan. In short, the Danes exposed Burgred’s own discomfort about his hold on the throne by establishing themselves at Repton. The impact of this psychological warfare was too much for Burgred. He took his wife and headed for Rome. They travelled through Pavia and finally arrived in the ancient city, where Burgred settled and later ended his days. He was not to be interred in a Mercian mausoleum as he might once have wished, but instead was laid to rest in St Mary’s Church in the English quarter of Rome.

  There were many other examples of political exile and of death and great personal pain suffered throughout the period, but perhaps the last word should go to The Carmen, which tellingly describes a mother’s agony after the Battle of Hastings:

  The corpses of the English, strewn upon the ground, he [Duke William] left to be devoured by worms and wolves, by birds and dogs. Harold’s dismembered body he gathered together, and wrapped what he had gathered in fine purple linen; and returning to his camp by the sea, he bore it with him, that he might carry out the customary funeral rites.

  The mother of Harold, in the toils of overwhelming grief, sent even to the duke himself, asking with entreaties that he would restore to her, unhappy woman, a widow and bereft of three sons, the bones of one in place of the three; or if it pleased him, she would outweigh the body in pure gold . . .

  Duke William of course, would have none of it, preferring to set up a pile of stones high upon a cliff at Hastings where Harold was to rest. One William Malet, half Norman and half English, took up the duty of constructing the macabre ‘tomb’:

  and he [Malet] wrote as an epitaph:

  ‘by the Duke’s commands, O Harold, you rest here a king,

  That you may still be guardian of the shore and the sea’.

  Warfare, then, was a game of high stakes. The personal cost could be immense in terms of injury, death or exile and could even wipe out a whole dynasty in one encounter. When it came to competing families, the stakes were no less high. Let us look now at the curious phenomenon of the concept of vengeance to see where it fits into the picture of violence in the period.

  Feuding

  The words ‘feud’ or ‘blood feud’ are often applied to this period, having been borrowed from the High Middle Ages. In the latter period feuds were a state of lasting mutual hostility between family factions revolving around reciprocal violence. In the Anglo-Saxon period, however, ‘feuds’, which more properly should be called ‘cycles of vengeance’, were usually related to homicides and the need for retribution of the aggrieved. That is not to say there were not families strongly opposed to one another politically. Similarly, institutions could ‘feud’ with individual lords, such as monasteries pitting themselves against families who had a history of a controlling influence over them.

  But it was the ‘cycles of vengeance’ that had far-reaching implications for the rulers of the day. Kings recognised the potential for a disastrous effect on the stability of the political landscape, a landscape that the king himself would have played a great part in creating. In his prologue to the law code concerning the problem, King Edmund I (939–46) decreed: ‘The illegal and manifold conflicts, which take place among us distress me and all of us greatly.’ What he went on to refer to was that vengeance for a homicide could only be carried out against the killer himself, to cease the practice of attacking the extended kin in retribution. The killer had a year to pay compensation. If an avenger carried out an attack against kinsmen instead, then he himself would become an outlaw:

  If henceforth anyone slay a man, he is himself to bear the feud, unless he can with the aid of his friends within twelve months pay the full wer [compensation], of whatever birth the slain man may be. 1.1. If, however, his kindred abandons him, and is not willing to pay compensation for him, then I wish that all his kindred be exempt from feud, except the actual offender, if they afterwards give him neither food nor protection.

  1.2. If afterwards, however, any of his kinsmen harbours him, then–because they previously had abandoned him–the kinsman is to be liable to forfeit all that he owns to the king and to bear the feud as regards th
e kindred.

  1.3. If, then, anyone of the other kindred takes vengeance on any man other than the actual perpetrator, he is to incur the hostility of the king and all his friends, and to forfeit all that he owns.

  Vengeance killing, then, very much a part of Anglo-Saxon life, now had royal regulation. The law puts under royal management the whole notion of vengeance in a time that presumably had ample examples of all types of it.

  Memories were slow to fade in Anglo-Saxon England. Families could have long-running disputes and people could harbour thoughts of vengeance for generations. One particular story from a twelfth-century Durham tradition brings the whole sordid issue to light in the grimmest of ways. Earl Uhtred, son of Earl Waltheof of Northumbria, had become very powerful under King Æthelred II (979–1016). When Uhtred married his second wife Sige, daughter of a man called Styr, some sort of arrangement seems to have been made whereby Uhtred would kill Styr’s enemy–a man known as Thurbrand.

  Nobody quite knows if Uhtred ever attempted it, but events would show that some very important people knew about the plot. This notwithstanding, Uhtred went on to marry another wife, the daughter of King Æthelred himself, and remained loyal to the king despite Cnut of Denmark angling for his service. Cnut, of course, went on to become king himself. He summoned Uhtred to his hall at a place called Wiheal and when Uhtred got there he was horribly deceived by one Thurbrand the Hold, probably our enemy of Styr. It was apparently at Thurbrand’s instigation that the king’s soldiers, who were hidden behind a curtain that stretched across the hall, suddenly sprang out from behind it and slaughtered the earl and forty of his men in what must have been an astonishing bloodbath.

  Uhtred was succeeded by his brother Eadwulf, who soon died and was himself succeeded by Uhtred’s son from his first marriage, a man called Ealdred. Now the story–somewhat distorted through time–gets busy (as if it has not already been detailed enough). It was Ealdred who killed Thurbrand. Thurbrand’s son Carl sought out Ealdred, presumably for vengeance. In fact, the two of them tried to ambush each other from time to time until friends brought them around the table and brokered a peaceful settlement. It seems the two got along famously after this, even embarking for Rome together as sworn brothers, only to be thwarted by a storm at sea that caused them to return home. Carl received Ealdred into his home, bestowing the usual friendships on him and while honourably escorting him on his travels, he killed the unsuspecting Ealdred at a place called Risewood. A good example, perhaps, of keeping your enemies closer than your friends. Thirty-five years passed. A new player was on the stage. He was Earl Waltheof, grandson of Ealdred. He sent a band of warriors to Carl’s brother’s house at Settrington, near York. They caught the feasting sons and grandsons of Carl by surprise and slaughtered almost all of them, returning home with great spoils.

  The way in which the story is told is thought by some historians to emphasise the ‘feud’ aspects more than the political background. It is possible, however, that the killings were also a part of a wider political picture involving Northumbrian politics and the accession of Cnut to power in England, and the continuing antagonisms between Anglo-Scandinavians and English Northumbrians. The only thing we can be sure about (if we take the incidents at face value) is that there were very dangerous games being played out at the top of Anglo-Saxon politics.

  Hostages, Oaths, Treaties and Treachery

  Bargains made and broken involving the exchange of hostages and the swearing of oaths were such an important part of Anglo-Saxon warfare that scarcely an event was recorded without such an accompaniment. It is the glue that held the model of the political world together. By looking at the nature of such agreements it can be shown that the familiar tools used to cement agreements varied wildly in their effectiveness. The study of this one phenomenon alone can explain so much about Anglo-Saxon history.

  There were a number of ways in which the leaders of early Medieval England could seek to cement an agreement or alliance. For Christian parties there was the baptismal sponsorship or god-parenting arrangement. Also, there was the marriage alliance, particularly effective if the leader in question had several available beautiful sisters at his disposal, as did King Athelstan at the beginning of his reign (924–39). Athelstan was also a master of the fostering ploy as well. He fostered Haakon of Norway as part of a peace agreement made by his father. But not everyone was blessed with the power and political tools of the mighty King Athelstan. For most leaders, the keeping of an enemy to an agreement was done with the sometimes gritty and risky method of the hostage exchange.

  The Anglo-Saxon era is littered with a macabre history of the fate of hostages. It is a history that makes for unpalatable reading for modern minds. The making of a binding agreement with an enemy by exchanging hostages and swearing oaths might seem fairly watertight, but all too often one side or the other (frequently the pagan Danes) treated those who they had exchanged with little regard. And so it was with the swearing of oaths. Such oaths were only worth something if they were sworn on relics or holy items that actually meant something to the oath taker.

  Hostage exchanges had long been used throughout Early Medieval Europe. The Old English word for a hostage was ‘gisl’. This word is similar to the Irish ‘giall’ and to the Welsh ‘gwystl’. A hostage could be of a noble background, kept at the court of his captors to ensure the good behaviour of his own master, the captors’ enemy. They could also be members of a fighting force whose leader had been coerced to come to terms with his enemy.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle first mentions a major use of hostages in the period covered here in an entry for 874 after the Danes had driven out King Burgred of Mercia (852–74). Here, the scribe says:

  they [the Danes] granted the kingdom of Mercia to be held by Ceolwulf, a foolish king’s thegn, and he swore them oaths and granted them hostages, that it should be ready for them whichever day they might want it, and he himself should be ready with all who would follow him, at the service of the raiding army.

  Exactly who Ceolwulf’s hostages were is unknown, but it is likely they were valuable to him. These men may even have been chosen by the Danes themselves, who were holding all the cards at this time. Contemporary observers such as Asser saw this whole thing as a ‘wretched’ agreement, a comment that reveals the likely effectiveness of the arrangement.

  The next mention of hostages is in 876. This time, with Alfred cornering his enemy at Wareham, the impetus was apparently with him. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the king made peace with the Danes, possibly implying a cash payment (as the chronicler Æthelweard also implies), but that the Danes ‘granted him as hostages the most distinguished men who were next to the king in the raiding army, and they swore him oaths on the sacred ring, which earlier they would not do to any nation, that they would quickly go from his kingdom . . .’. Alfred had learned from his own dealings with the Danes and from what he had heard about similar arrangements in Francia. The Danes did not care much about keeping an oath sworn on Christian relics. This time they had sworn an oath on their own holy ring, possibly an arm ring of the type associated with Thor. But if Alfred thought this was enough to bind his enemies to their agreement, he was to be mistaken. The king had given his own hostages to the Danes in what was an exchange as opposed to a one-sided agreement. Asser tells us that during one night the Danes left Wareham and killed all their hostages, breaking the treaty and headed for Exeter. We can only guess what Alfred did with the men he had received as hostages on hearing this news.

  Guthrum, the Danish leader in all these negotiations, made it to Exeter with his mounted army and sat there confident that he had played a master stroke and had got himself out of a tight corner at Wareham. Alfred’s men had not spotted his night exodus, and had played catch-up to no avail arriving at the gates of Exeter when the Danes were already safely ensconced. Guthrum was also expecting a fleet of 120 ships to arrive and aid his bid, but when these vessels left Poole Harbour, rounding the headland off Swanage, they all succumbe
d to a storm and were lost. Consequently, Guthrum was once again on the back foot with an English army at his door. And with this development we see yet another turn in the story of the hostage exchange.

  The hostage ploy seems now to have favoured Alfred. It may seem surprising that there was an exchange as opposed to a one-sided Anglo-Saxon arrangement given what had happened to the English hostages at the hands of the Danes at Wareham, but conditions were not yet perfect for Alfred, he was just in the ascendancy. This time, the Danes granted him ‘as many hostages as he wished to have’, implying that the king was able to pick them. What followed this Exeter agreement, again sworn on oath, was the departure of the Danes from Wessex and their subsequent settlement of parts of Mercia which the puppet English King Ceolwulf had held open for them.

  Clearly, hostage negotiations in the ninth century were a bloody and dangerous game. Each phase in a campaign seems to have involved an upping of the stakes for both sides. Alfred’s subsequent misfortunes in the wilderness of the Somerset marshes are well documented for the year 878. However, his famous victory against the Danes at Edington was so decisive that it led to a further development in the art of the hostage negotiation. A fortnight passed with the English camped outside of the Danish camp to which their army had fled after its defeat. Starving, cold and fearful, the Danes came to the English seeking surrender on terms more onerous than ever before. They would give hostages again, just as many as the king wanted, and this time they would demand none in return. No such arrangement had ever been made before. This was as close as a Viking army of the ninth century could get to abject defeat in a campaign. It was followed by the baptism of Guthrum (now to be given the English name Athelstan) at Aller and an additional ceremony at Wedmore some weeks later. Guthrum would rise from the baptismal waters as a Christian leader in a Christian land. The Danes would indeed leave Wessex, providing Alfred with breathing space to rebuild an expanded kingdom.