Battle of Brunanburh

The Battle of Brunanburh was an English victory in 937 by the army of Æthelstan, King of England, and his brother Edmund over the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, the Norse-Gael King of Dublin, Constantine II, King of Scots, and Owen I, King of Strathclyde. Though relatively little known today, it was called "the greatest single battle in Anglo-Saxon history before Hastings."^[2] Michael Livingston claimed that Brunanburh marks "the moment when Englishness came of age."^[3]

Mention of the battle is made in dozens of sources, in Old English, Latin, Irish, Welsh, Icelandic, and Middle English, and there are many later accounts or responses to the battle, including those by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Jorge Luis Borges.^[4] A contemporary record of the battle is found in the Old English poem Battle of Brunanburh, preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Sources

Livingston identified at least fifty-three medieval sources containing references to the battle, including important accounts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the writings of Anglo-Norman historian William of Malmesbury, the Annals of Clonmacnoise, and Snorri Sturluson's Egils saga, whose antihero, mercenary berserker and skald Egill Skallagrimsson, served as a trusted warrior for Athelstan.^[5]

Background

After Athelstan's defeat of the Vikings at York in 927, his campaigns against the Welsh kings (who were forced to submit to him at Hereford in 927), and his subsequent successful invasion of Alba in 934, the power of Wessex was clearly on the ascent and forming a considerable threat to neighboring kingdoms.^[6] Though they had all been enemies in living memory, the threat of Athelstan was enough to bring together an alliance between the king of Dublin Olaf Guthfrithsson, the Scottish King Constantine II, and Owen of Strathclyde. Livingston points out that to come together "they had agreed to set aside whatever political, cultural, historical, and even religious differences they might have had in order to achieve one common purpose: to destroy Athelstan."^[7]

After defeating the rival Norse king Amlaíb Cenncairech at Limerick in August 937, Olaf Guthfrithsson crossed the Irish Sea with his army to join the forces of Constantine and Owen, suggesting that the Battle of Brunanburh probably occurred in early October of that year.^[8]

Livingston theorizes that the invading allied armies entered England in two waves: Constantine and Owen came from the north, possibly engaging in some early skirmishes with forces loyal to Athelstan as they followed the Roman road across the Lancashire Plains between Carlisle and Manchester, with Olaf's forces joining with him en route.^[9] It is possible, Livingston speculates, that the eventual battlesite at Brunanburh was then chosen in an agreement with Athelstan: "there would be one fight, and to the victor went England."^[10]

Battle

The medieval records of the battle are too elusive to trace the course of the battle with any surety, but the sources consistently describe it as a massive and bloody engagement even within the context of warfare in the Middle Ages.^{[citation needed]}

The famous poem about the battle in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the deaths of five kings and seven earls among Athelstan's enemies, along with (or among them) Constantine's son:

Five lay still

on that battlefield – young kings

by swords put to sleep – and seven also

of Anlaf’s earls, countless of the army,

of sailors and Scotsmen. There was put to flight

the Northmen’s chief, driven by need

to the ship’s prow with a little band.

He shoved the ship to sea. The king disappeared

on the dark flood. His own life he saved.

So there also the old one came in flight

to his home in the north; Constantine,

that hoary-haired warrior, had no cause to exult

at the meeting of swords: he was shorn of his kin,

deprived of his friends on the field,

bereft in the fray, and his son behind

on the place of slaughter, with wounds ground to pieces,

too young in battle.^[11]

Æthelweard's Chronicle notes that the battle was still called "the great war" by people in his day.^[12] Henry of Huntingdon describes the aftermath of carrion:

Then the dark raven with horned beak,

and the livid toad, the eagle and kite,

the hound and wolf in mottled hue,

were long refreshed by these delicacies.

In this land no greater war was ever waged,

nor did such a slaughter ever surpass that one.^[13]

The Annals of Ulster describes the battle similarly:

A huge war, lamentable and horrible, was cruelly waged between the Saxons and Norsemen. Many thousands of Norsemen beyond number died although King Anlaf escaped with a few men. While a great number of the Saxons also fell on the other side, Athelstan, king of the Saxons, was enriched by the great victory.^[14]

The largest list of those killed at the battle comes from the Annals of Clonmacnoise and names several kings and princes.^[15]

Battle site

The location of the battle appears in various forms in the sources: Brunanburh (in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or the chronicle of John of Worcester, or in accounts derived from them), Brunandune (Aethelweard), Brunnanwerc or Bruneford or Weondune (Symeon of Durham and accounts derived from him), Brunefeld or Bruneford (William of Malmesbury and accounts derived from him), Duinbrunde (Scottish traditions), Brun (Welsh traditions), plaines of othlynn (Annals of Clonmacnoise), and Vinheithr (Egil's Saga), among others.^[16]

The name of Bromborough, a settlement in the Wirral, may be derived from Old English Brunanburh (meaning 'Brun's fort'). While the location will likely never be known with 100% certainty, additional evidence has been claimed associating Brunanburh with Bromborough, taken from evidence of history, folklore studies, and literature.^[17] According to Michael Livingston, the case for a location in the Wirral has strong support among current historians.^[18] Additional onomastic arguments have been used to connect Dingesmere (a location associated with the battle in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) with Thingwall on Merseyside in order to strengthen the Brunanburh-Bromborough link.^[19] Because the earliest sources in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle locate the battle as taking place "ymbe Brunanburh" ("around Brunanburh"), numerous locations on the Wirral near Bromborough have been put forward as the site of the battle, including the Brackenwood Golf Course in Bebington, Wirral.^[20]

Though many scholars today appear to have accepted a "near Bromborough" location, dozens of sites for the battle have been suggested in the past. Paul Hill has identified over thirty possibilities, some of which still defended by local interest groups (see discussion of Shelfield Hill, below) or minority critics.^[21]

These alternatives include:

• Additional sites in Merseyside:
  • Newton-le-Willows, St Helens
• Sites in Northumberland
• Burnswark in Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland
• Tinsley Wood in South Yorkshire^[22]
• Near the Humber in Yorkshire/Lincolnshire
• Axminster in Devon.^[23][24]
• Sites in Lancashire:
  • Livesay. The Livesay Historical Society says that the names Livesay and Livesey came from the common Anglo-Saxon personal name Lēofsige (which means "beloved victory" or "he whose victory is beloved"), and that that name refers to the Battle of Brunaburh;^[25] but see Livesey#Etymology.
  • Burnley. In 1856, Burnley Grammar School master and antiquary, Thomas T Wilkinson, published a paper suggesting the moors above Burnley as the site of the battle, noting that the town stands on the River Brun.^[26] Local folklore told of a great battle at Saxifield during the Heptarchy, re-enforced by the occasional discovery of apparently human bones and iron arrowheads. The village of Worsthorne also had a tradition that the Danes constructed defences when a battle was fought on the moor that bares the same name, and that five kings were buried under tumuli^[27] apparent in the area.

Although he couldn't categorically identify a burh by the Brun, he referenced the work of Thomas Dunham Whitaker listing what he felt was a large number of earthworks. Some such as Castercliff, Twist Castle and Ringstones Camp, he thought of Roman origin, but showed the historical significance of the area. Others like an entrenchments on Broad Bank hill at Burwains farm 53°48′48″N 2°08′59″W / 53.8132°N 2.1497°W / 53.8132; -2.1497 (Burwains Camp prehistoric defended settlement west of Broad Bank Hill),^[28] and Bonfire hill 53°47′57″N 2°11′56″W / 53.7992°N 2.1988°W / 53.7992; -2.1988 (entrenchment on Bonfire hill),^[29] a possible camp on Shelfield hill 53°49′54″N 2°09′45″W / 53.8318°N 2.1625°W / 53.8318; -2.1625 (Shelfield enclosure)^[30] around the site of the Victorian Walton Spire, and dykes at Saxifield, Thieveley,^[31] Ree Lees,^[32] and Broadclough^[33] near Bacup, he felt indicated military activity during the period. He also showed that the Heasandford area of the town is named for a ford of the River Brun on an ancient trans-pennine route known locally as the long causeway, but in part as the Danes road. He equated the estate of Emmott with Eamot the site of a treaty following the victory at York, the Swinden valley with Weondune, and Worsthorne with bishop Wærstan who supposedly died fighting for Æthelstan. He also suggested that local place names like Winewall, Daneshouse, and Warcock hill could be significant and that the Cuerdale Hoard represented a Danish war chest lost as a result of the battle.

His work was subsequently referenced and expanded by a number of local authors.^[34][35] New infomation was added including that around this time, the land between the rivers Ribble and Mersey had been re-conquered from Danish Northumbria and held by the crown until the Norman conquest. And although most of the sites mentioned have since been classified as much older, the story still interests some today.^[36]

These are not the only sites suggested, but they are those most commonly put forth.

Aftermath

The battle's importance lies in Athelstan defeating the combined Norse-Celtic force facing him confirmed England as a fully unified kingdom. However, he was militarily weakened and the battle effectively forced all the kingdoms of the British Isles to consolidate in the positions they occupy today.^[37]

The Battle of Brunanburh still has a great deal of influence in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, 200 miles (320 km) south of any probable site. The townsfolk of Malmesbury fought for King Athelstan, and he granted them five hides (600 acres (2.4 km²)) of land^[38] and gave them all freemen status. This status and the organisation formed then exists today, as the Warden and Freemen of Malmesbury, and Athelstan is remembered in their ceremonies.^[39] When Athelstan died, his body was transported from Gloucester to Malmesbury for burial.

Footnotes

Sources

Primary sources

• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition. 8 vols. Cambridge, 1983; tr. Michael J. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. 2nd ed. London, 2000.
• The Battle of Brunanburh (Old English poem), ed. Alistair Campbell, The Battle of Brunanburh. London: Heinemann, 1938.
• Æthelweard, Chronicon, ed. and tr. Alistair Campbell, The Chronicle of Æthelweard. London, 1961.
• William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and tr. R.A.B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum. The History of the English Kings. OMT. 2 vols: vol 1. Oxford, 1998.
• Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and tr. D.E. Greenway, Henry Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum. The History of the English People. OMT. Oxford, 1996.
• Annals of Ulster, ed. and tr. Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, The Annals of Ulster (to AD 1131). Dublin, 1983.
• Annals of the Four Masters, ed. and tr. John O’Donovan. Annála Rioghachta Éireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters. 7 vols. Royal Irish Academy. Dublin, 1848–51.
• Egils saga, ed. Finnur Jónsson, Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. Halle, 1894; tr. Herman Pálsson and Paul Edwards, Egil's Saga. Harmondsworth, 1976.

Secondary sources

• An Oxford History of England, Volume 2: Anglo Saxon England
• Charles Hardwick, Ancient Battle-fields in Lancashire (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Stationers' Hall Court, 1882)
• Peter Marren, Battles of the Dark Ages (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2006)
• Michael Livingston, ed., The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook (University of Exeter Press, 2011)

Further reading

• Breeze, Andrew (1999). "The Battle of Brunanburh and Welsh tradition". Neophilologicus 83: 479–82. doi:10.1023/A:1004398614393. 
• Campbell, Alistair (1970-03-17). "Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History". Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture. Viking Society for Northern Research. http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Skaldic%20verse%20and%20anglo-saxon%20history.pdf. Retrieved 2009-08-25. 
• Cavill, Paul; Stephen Harding and Judith Jesch (2004). "Revisiting Dingesmere". Journal of the English Place Name Society 36: 25–38. http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/-sczsteve/JEPNS_paper.PDF. 
• Foot, Sarah, "Where English becomes British: Rethinking Contexts for Brunanburh," in Barrow, Julia; Andrew Wareham (2008). Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 127–44. 
• Halloran, Kevin (2005). "The Brunanburh Campaign: A Reappraisal". Scottish Historical Review 84 (2): 133–48. doi:10.3366/shr.2005.84.2.133. 
• Higham, Nicholas J., "The Context of Brunanburh" in Rumble, A.R.; A.D. Mills (1997). Names, Places, People. An Onomastic Miscellany in Memory of John McNeal Dodgson. Stamford: Paul Watkins. pp. 144–56. 
• Livingston, Michael (2011). The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0-85989-863-8. 
• Niles, J.D. (1987). Skaldic Technique in Brunanburh. 59. Scandinavian Studies. pp. 356–66. 
• Orton, P. (1994). On the Transmission and Phonology of The Battle of Brunanburh. 24. LSE. pp. 1–28. 
• Wood, Michael (1980). "Brunanburh Revisited". Saga Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 20 (3): 200–217. 
• "Tinsley Wood," in Wood, Michael (1999). In Search of England. London. pp. 203–21. 

External links

• Text of the poem "Battle of Brunanburh", including Anglo-Saxon version, modern English translation, and Tennyson's version
• Short documentary produced by C Bebenezer about aural traditions and the possible Burnley location of the battle