The Anglo Saxons at War 800-1066

by Paul Hill

  Perhaps it is a mangled tradition based on a number of different instances. Chester was ‘restored’ in 907 according to an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It was the focus of further activity during the later years of the reign of Edward the Elder and again in the reign of Athelstan. We cannot know if the work of Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh was truly authentic or not, but the amusing descriptions of this siege of Chester in or around the year 907 have much in them that we might expect of siege warfare in the Anglo-Saxon era, a grim but at times almost comical encounter.

  993–1016: London Under Siege

  By 1016, London was hardly a stranger to foreign attack and domestic political strife. Centuries earlier, the port of Lundenwic, situated outside the old Roman city walls, had experienced direct assaults by Viking flotillas which preyed upon the market stalls near to the shoreline of the Thames. By the time of King Æthelred, however, the place was much better defended and had changed out of all recognition. It had become the focus of the wars between the Danes and the English and now the stakes were so high that the taking of London was tantamount to the taking of the whole kingdom. The city had grown throughout the ninth and tenth centuries in terms of economic and political importance as commercialisation and urbanisation had spread by royal decree across the towns of southern England. London was at the centre of international trade routes and was conveniently placed at the border of two great former Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Wessex and Mercia.

  Alfred the Great’s capture in 886 of the Danish fortification at London was a landmark event in the city’s history. He had subsequently provided it with planned streets and refortified it. He then parcelled out valuable wharves and allotments to important Anglo-Saxons and when he had done so, he returned the city to its rightful owner, the Lord of Mercia. Throughout the tenth century the city thrived and was the focus of legislation from King Athelstan who encouraged posses of mounted men to chase down criminals in the local countryside. During King Edgar’s reign London got on with its life, but by the 980s when Æthelred had come to power the town once again became vulnerable as the Duchy of Normandy began to harbour its Viking cousins’ ships in its English Channel ports.

  After the defeat of Byrhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon in 991 (pp. 117–20), King Æthelred ordered his ships to fall back on London. From here, an attempt was made by Londoners to bottle up the enemy Danish fleet in the Thames Estuary but the treachery of Ælfric of Hampshire led to failure in this respect. In 993 it seems that London withstood an attack by up to 100 ships led by Swein of Denmark and Olaf Tryggvason, an achievement attributed by John of Worcester to divine intervention. The Danes returned many times and in 1009 they stationed themselves off London, frequently attacking it but apparently at great cost to themselves.

  Swein of Denmark, who by 1013 had secured the support of most of the country, had set out south from his base at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire ravaging through the countryside, but failed once again to take London because he could not find the right place to ford the Thames. Æthelred and his Danish ally Thorkell the Tall sat strong in the city while they repulsed stratagems and direct assaults. Swein decided to move to Wallingford where he sat and secured the submission of the western thegns of England. From here he returned to Gainsborough confident that his reduction of the countryside had brought him the throne of England. Even the Londoners knew by now they had no choice. Swein’s reputation for cruelty and the fact that Æthelred had gone to Winchester meant that it was just a matter of time before London would surrender. Soon London’s hostages were sent to the Dane and it must be that the price paid was that London was once again flooded with Danish warriors. Æthelred turned to Normandy for refuge, sending his Norman wife Emma and his sons Alfred and Edward ahead of him.

  Upon Swein’s death at Gainsborough in 1014, his place was taken by his son Cnut. Æthelred, however, was recalled from exile by his countrymen. London it seems would once again play a vital part in the struggle between Dane and Englishman. Here, for some fascinating–if unreliable–evidence we turn to the Legendary Saga of St Olaf. It is said that while in exile (apparently in Flanders), Æthelred had solicited the aid of the great Norwegian Olaf and his Vikings who were more than happy to take on their Danish enemies in England. We cannot know if this is true or not, but the description of Æthelred’s return to London contains things that have an authentic ring about them, even if some of them may be borrowed from what happened later in London:

  On the other side of the river there was a large trading-town which is called Southwark; there the Danes had made great fortifications, dug large ditches, and built inside them walls of wood, stones, and turf, and there had a large force. Æthelred caused a fierce attack to be made on it; but the Danes defended it, and the king could not capture it. There was such a broad bridge across the river between the city and Southwark that wagons could pass each other on it. On the bridge were bulwarks which reached higher than the middle of a man, and beneath the bridge piles were driven into the bottom of the river. When the attack was made, the whole host stood on the bridge and defended it.

  Against the missiles of these defenders Olaf’s forces are said to have covered his ships with hurdles, and then rowed once again into the fray:

  As the host came near the bridge they were shot at, and such large stones thrown down on them that neither their helmets nor shields could withstand them; and the ships themselves were greatly damaged, and many retreated. But Olaf and the Northmen with him rowed up under the bridge, and tied rope round the supporting posts, and rowed their ships down stream as hard they could. The posts were dragged along the bottom until they were loosened from under the bridge. As an armed host stood thickly on the bridge and there was a great weight of stones and weapons upon it, and the posts beneath were broken, the bridge fell with many men into the river; the others fled into the city or into Southwark. After this they attacked Southwark and captured it. When the townsmen saw that the River Thames was taken, so that they could not hinder ships going up into the country, they became afraid, gave up the town, and received King Æthelred.

  With Æthelred restored, Cnut had secured the support of the men of Lincolnshire who had provisioned him with warriors and horses. Æthelred then launched his punitive campaign in that area (p. 78). Cnut sailed to Sandwich where he cruelly disembarked the hostages he had held since one of Swein’s earlier negotiations (p. 33) before sailing for Denmark. Meanwhile, Edmund Ironside, the king’s son, was playing out an intriguing game of politics through marriage alliance with the widow of a northern Anglo-Dane called Siferth, who had been murdered by the treacherous Eadric Streona. With new estates in the north as a result of this new alliance, Edmund Ironside was able to build a sizable force for himself. So now Edmund sat in the north where Cnut had once been strong. Cnut, for his part, sailed back into English politics and headed around the south coast and laid waste Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. While Æthelred lay ill at Cosham in Sussex, Edmund was busily recruiting in the north. Moreover, the treacherous Eadric Streona gathered an army in Mercia, but we are told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of Eadric’s desire to betray Edmund. And so it would turn out.

  Eadric Streona managed to persuade the Danish fleet that had been serving Æthelred under Thorkell the Tall at Greenwich to join with him and go over to Cnut. Now Edmund, the son of a king of England of West Saxon lineage, would be leading a force recruited from the historic Danish areas of the midlands in direct opposition to a Danish challenger in the south who had at his disposal an ealdorman of Mercia and a Danish fleet of forty ships. As if to add to the confusion, all this was taking place while there was one rightful king of England (Æthelred) still just about alive.

  It was now 1016. Cnut and Eadric Streona began their punitive campaigning by crossing the Thames at Cricklade and striking into Mercia, ravaging the Hwicce heartlands of one Ealdorman Leofwine. Edmund amassed his forces, but those Mercians in his ranks were reluctant to engage the West Saxons and the Danes without King Æthelred and the Londo
ners being present. It had long been the tradition that the Londoners would stand beneath the banners of the reigning monarch on the battlefield and it seemed to many Mercians in this new cultural confusion of warfare that this was the only logical way forward. Edmund’s army therefore disbanded until word could be got to the king with a plea for him to join in the fray.

  Æthelred on hearing the plea in London did indeed ride out with his men to meet with his son who had called out a new national host, but somewhere on the way the king was told of a man who would betray him and he disbanded his forces and rode back to the city. Edmund, now somewhat desperate, rode to the earl of Northumbria Uhtred, soliciting his aid, which he gave. There began a giant campaign of cat-and mouse in the widest of landscapes, but always at the centre of it was London. Together, Edmund and Uhtred ravaged Staffordshire, Shrewsbury and Chester, targeting Eadric’s homelands. For their part, Cnut and Eadric ravaged Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, along the fen to Stamford, into Lincolnshire and then up the Great North Road towards York. Uhtred, who received news of this invasion of his homeland, split from Eadric and hurried to York where he was brutally murdered along with thirty-nine others at the hands of Cnut’s henchmen (pp. 22–3). The stench of treachery hung everywhere. Cnut left a Scandinavian called Eric in charge of Northumbria and headed south, reunited with his ships and headed for London. So too did Edmund Ironside. Here at London, lay an increasingly ill Æthelred knowing very well that two giant armies were heading for his city.

  As Cnut later sailed from Poole harbour to the mouth of the Thames, Æthelred died. It was 23 April 1016. The men of London and the garrison chose Edmund as their king. In Southampton, however, leading abbots, bishops and ealdormen gave Cnut their support when they met him there and in a bold move specifically renounced the line of Cerdic. Edmund would have none of it. It was he who was the legitimate heir to the Old English throne. Cnut sailed to Greenwich and then to London itself. It was May 1016. John of Worcester describes Cnut’s forces as digging a giant ditch on the south side of Thames. They then dragged their ships to the west side of the bridge. They surrounded the city with a broad and deep trench so that nobody could get in or out. Frequently, Cnut’s forces assaulted the city but were repelled to a distance from the walls. This surely indicates the use of projectiles by the defenders. Cnut raised the siege himself. He decided to carry the war into Wessex and left a force to guard the ships that he had protected at London. Edmund he knew was at large in Wessex. Back in London was Æthelred’s widow Emma and her two sons Alfred and Edward, whose veins still pumped with royal blood from the line of Cerdic. Legend tells that they both managed to escape in a boat. No one knows if they fled to the Continent straight away or stayed a while to fight alongside Edmund.

  Edmund met Cnut in the field at Penselwood near the manor of Gillingham in Dorset and won a rare battlefield victory. Soon the armies clashed once again at Sherston. Cnut returned to concentrate on London. Edmund headed after him after raising yet another giant army to attempt to relieve the city. This time his attempt was successful. He came from the north side of the town, coming out through Clayhanger, near Tottenham and surprising the besiegers who took to their ships and fled. There soon followed a disaster for Edmund at Brentford in London where his own warriors went ahead of the army in chase of the enemy in the hope of booty, this coming after a defeat of the Danish forces. Many of them drowned as a result of their impetuosity. Cnut knew he needed London to submit to him, so he returned to have yet another go at the city while Edmund went off recruiting yet again. This time, as so many times before, the Dane was unsuccessful. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes Cnut’s attempts to attack the city by land and by water as unsuccessful, its ultimate defence once again being the work of the Almighty.

  The wars of 1016 were by no means over, but London had held out. There would be more double dealing and treachery from Eadric Streona, more battles in the open countryside and ultimately, despite a heroic and legendary defence of his rightful inheritance, Edmund Ironside would succumb. The kingdom of England would indeed pass to Cnut, who became a very successful and powerful monarch. However, London even gained a place in the hearts of the Danes during these hard-fought years. An old Scandinavian song of victory, the Lithsman’s Song, recalled how

  every day the buckler was stained red with gore when we were out on the foray with our prince Cnut; but ever since the hard fight was fought we sit merrily in fair London.

  Chapter 6

  Weapons, Armour and Accessories

  Weapons

  Spears

  Moreover, it is established: if anyone has a spear over his shoulder and a man is transfixed on it, the wergild is to be paid without the fine.

  If he is transfixed before his eyes, he is to pay the wergild; if anyone accuses him of intention in this act, he is to clear himself in proportion to the fine, and by that [oath] do away with the fine.

  If the point is higher [three fingers] than the butt end of the shaft. If they are both level, the point and the butt end, that is to be [considered] without risk.

  It would seem that the spear when carelessly handled could cause great damage, enough to attract the attention of the king by way of Alfred the Great’s law codes 36–36.2, quoted above. We shall discover that the potency of this weapon, much ignored by modern observers in favour of the more seductive axes and swords, was very great indeed.

  The spear has a grand heritage. It was widely used in the period between the end of Roman Britain and the Middle Ages. However, numerous Bronze Age finds show that the weapon was popular in Britain as early as the second millennium BC. But what of the ubiquitous spear in the Anglo-Saxon period?

  The spear, with its iron weapon head, in the later Anglo-Saxon period was a weapon of the free man, and as such provided him with a status symbol, whatever his rank. In fact, a Carolingian law code of the period describes the punishment for a slave found carrying a spear as having the weapon struck across his back until it broke. There was a difference, of course, in the ways in which a variety of spears were employed in battlefield conditions. Some lighter and more fragile than others, clearly had a missile capability, whereas some larger weapon heads could only have had their shafts held in two hands. These latter have such important fighting characteristics that they would rarely have been flung from their owners’ hands on the field of battle.

  The spears of the period c. 800–1066 in England come to us largely through river finds and some occasional land discoveries which can be described as pagan Viking single burials. Gone is the wealth of material evidence like we found in huge pagan-period cemeteries which so characterise the archaeology of the Dark Ages. We find ourselves feeding off comparative morsels. The location of the river finds has prompted some theories as to whether these weapons were lost in battle at important crossing points. For example, the wealth of material from the River Thames at Brentford in London (at a place known as ‘Old England’) which spans most of the Anglo-Saxon period cannot have arrived there by accident.

  The later Anglo-Saxon spears are characterised by a greater diversity of form from those of the earlier period and include within them some of the largest weapon heads ever known in the archaeological record, reaching up to 800mm in length in some cases. Another characteristic of the later period is that the weapons of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and to a certain extent those of the Franks can be seen to cross-fertilise, making it hard to ascertain what is a true Scandinavian, a true English or a true French weapon. One seemingly consistent feature of English spears, however, was the open-socket ferrule technique of manufacture which continued on from the pagan period in England. On the Continent and in Scandinavia, the method of constructing the ferrule was for it to be closed and welded. The continuation of the open-socket ferrule, therefore, is one of the key indicators as to the Englishness of a weapon. For example, in the later period, we might come across two spears of similar length and weight, one with an open or ‘cleft’ socket and one with its socke
t welded shut. It might be reasonably concluded that the former was of English manufacture and the latter of Danish, Norwegian or Continental (Fig. 6).

  Fig. 6. Viking (left) and Anglo-Saxon (right) spearheads showing the characteristic English cleft or open socket.

  In terms of the length of the shafts of spears, we have little evidence to go on. The pagan-period graves might indicate that spear shafts could be anything from between 6–11ft in length–a considerable variation. It is the length of the shaft and weight and density of the weapon head that dictates how it is handled on the battlefield. As England gradually opened trading contacts with the Rhineland smiths at the start of the period under consideration here, it is generally thought that the resultant availability of quality ores led to the lengthening of the weapon head itself. One of the main problems this would bring about is that the junction between the blade and the socket would be the weapon head’s weakest spot. A device adopted to solve this problem was the introduction of the ‘baluster’ mould at this junction, but as some surviving weapons show, even this was not enough to stop a spearhead bending upon impact. Occasionally, a spearhead might have a reinforcing copper band at the junction, or the amount of metal at the junction would be increased by the smith ‘faceting’ it . This provided the shank with angled sides, a technique attributed by some to Scandinavian smiths.

  On many of the spearheads in museum collections around Britain, there is some evidence for damage. Some of this may be put down to post-depositional damage, sustained by corrosive or destructive forces after the weapon was disposed of. However, there are some tell-tale signs of bending and twisting that give clues as to the usage of the weapon. A familiar feature of such damaged weapon heads is that they are bent into an s shape as if they had been forced into a shield or some other immovable object. Similarly, other blades are bent dramatically at the junction as if they had fallen back on the weight of their haft after being lodged into a shield.