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THE TRUE CHARACTER OF ALFRED’S BURGHAL

SYSTEM: AN EVALUATION OF THE BURGHAL HIDAGE

IN RELATION TO THE ANDREDESWEALD

March 2015

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THE TRUE CHARACTER OF ALFRED’S BURGHAL

SYSTEM: AN EVALUATION OF THE BURGHAL HIDAGE

IN RELATION TO THE ANDREDESWEALD

ABSTRACT

The purpose this study is to re-examine the character of the West Saxon fortified network initiated by Alfred the Great at the end of the ninth century, in particular reference to the Burghal Hidage. It will utilise a range of material, both written and archaeological while also considering the extensive, but also inconsistent, models constructed by secondary interpretation. Overall, it aims to demonstrate the hybridised derivation of the West Saxon burhs, that the network which they formed had significant weaknesses and that their function as refuges was their primary function. This will be achieved through applying characters of the system in reference to the Andredesweald area that now resides in modern-day Sussex and Surrey.

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Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................... 1

Acknowledgements ....................................................................... 2

List of Illustrations ....................................................................... 4

Abbreviations ............................................................................... 5

Introduction ................................................................................. 6

Chapter One: The Burhs of Wessex .............................................. 12

Chapter Two: The Defence of the Kingdom: The Burghal Hidage . 21

Chapter Three: The Andredesweald: The Alfredian Achilles Heel?

..................................................................................................... 31

Conclusions ................................................................................ 45

Appendix .................................................................................... 48

Bibliography ................................................................................ 49

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List of Illustrations

Cover Photograph. Photograph showing the exterior defences of Portchester

Castle, Sussex (M. De La Pole, February 2015).

Figure 1. Map showing the Andredesweald region studied in Chapter Three. 7

Figure 2. Maps showing the street layouts of Saxon Winchester and Bath in

contrast to the excavated Roman system ............................................... 13

Figure 3. Diagrams demonstrating the distinct similarities between Roman

ramparts (3.1) and those of Wessex (3.2) ............................................... 15

Figure 4. Maps showing the rectilinear Street and defensive layouts of

Cricklade and Wareham .................................................................... 17

Figure 5. Location of Mercian burhs .................................................. 23

Figure 6. Map demonstrating the quasi-linear defences of the Burghal

Hidage fortifications ........................................................................ 25

Figure 7. Map showing the burhs of Edward the Elder (899-924) ............ 29

Figure 8. Map showing the extent of the Andredesweald in Anglo-Saxon

England .......................................................................................... 31

Figure 9. Demographic map of England according to Domesday ............. 32

Figure 10. Map showing the Roman Roads of South-East England .......... 34

Figure 11. Diagram showing the figure of eight defences at Burpham ....... 38

Figure 12. Viking Campaigns 892-3................................................... 39

Figure 13. Map of South-East England showing the location of burhs,

minsters, settlement, industries and resources ....................................... 41

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Abbreviations

ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Cited by MS (where it differs from MS A),

annal year, corrected annal year and relevant page(s) from M.

Swanton (ed. and trans.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London,

2000).

EHD English Historical Documents Vol. 1: c.500–1042, ed. D.

Whitelock (London, 1955; 2nd edn, 1979).

Asser Asser, Vita Alfredi: trans. S.D. Keynes and M. Lapidge (eds),

Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other

Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), cited by chapter,

relevant page(s).

Æthelweard, Chronicon Chronicon Æthelweardi: The Chronicle of

Æthelweard, ed. and trans. A. Campbell, Medieval Texts (London,

1962).

DB Greater Domesday Book: Domesday Book: A Complete

Translation, A. Williams and G.H. Martin (eds) (London, 2002),

cited by fol., relevant page(s).

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Introduction

This dissertation seeks to establish a greater understanding of the series

of fortifications laid down by Alfred the Great (r.871-899) and his son Edward

the Elder (r.899-924) in the Kingdom of Wessex. This is will be achieved

through the study of Andredesweald region of south-east England and with

particular reference to the fortifications listed in the Burghal Hidage document

of the early tenth century. Alfred’s victory at Edington (878) presented the

opportunity for military reform in Wessex and a chance establish a defensive

system.1 These defences were significant in the establishment of the English

Kingdom which emerged under during hegemony of the West Saxons at this

time.2 The dissertation considers the wide range of associated historiography

with this phenomenon, using it to establish a fresh perspective and provide new

insights. However, the paper also reflects upon the interpretation of primary

material, both archaeological and written, made by previous scholarship as well

as suggesting novel interpretations. That said, it not only reviews this material

but also establishes a study in a geographical area relatively untouched in this

field, this being the zone between the North and South Downs in Sussex and

Surrey (see Figure 1).3 This will all be achieved while also considering the

context of the situation Alfred and Edward found themselves in, most notably

the ‘Viking Age’ (c.800–1066). It will assess the origin, development but also

the grand network of the burh fortifications, providing new insights particularly

in Chapter Three. Thus, Chapters One and Two are an essential review of the

burghal network, one that is required to put Chapter Three into context.

The issue of burh derivation is examined in Chapter One, the

dissertation rejecting the traditional notion that the West Saxon Kings, such as

Alfred, were exclusively responsible for the design of an effective fortification

used to counter the Viking threat. Instead, it corresponds with recent study that

emphasises the role of foreign culture in the design of the burh by the likes of

Stephen Bassett for example.4 However, Bassett’s work is very much based

1 R. Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, c.800-1066: The Defences of Alfred the Great Against

the Vikings (Oxford, 2003), 16. 2 P. Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the

Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1989), 31. 3 i.e. the Andredesweald. 4 S. Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule? The Military Infrastructure of Eighth and Ninth-Century

Mercia’, Early Medieval Europe 15 (2007), pp. 53-85, 58.

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upon earlier ideas that developed in the 1980s that has re-emerged, particularly

the work of Jeremy Haslam and Richard Abels. Haslam is the first to highlight

the significance of eighth and ninth-century Mercian burhs as a prototype for

Alfred’s.5 This was soon followed up on by Abels in 1988, while also implying

that it was not only fortifications in Mercia that influenced those in Wessex but

also those in the West Frankish Kingdom.6 Bassett’s theses are drawn from

these works in light of the advance in archaeology in the last thirty years,

especially in what we know of the Mercian burhs.

Much of what Haslam and Abels discussed was directly linked to the

extensive archaeological excavation of burh sites, most notably Martin Biddle’s

excavations of Winchester in the 1960s/70s. Biddle’s chapter in The

Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England seems to be the basis of this, but also a

5 J. Haslam, Early Medieval Towns in Britain c. 700 to 1140 (Aylesbury, 1985), 31. 6 R.P. Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1988), 68.

Most notably the fortified bridges of Charles the Bald in the 860s.

Figure 1.

Map showing the Andredesweald region studied in Chapter Three (highlighted area).

Modified from J. Baker & S. Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage: Anglo-Saxon Civil

Defence in the Viking Age (London, 2013), 7.

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foundation in the study of burh archaeology for the subsequent decades.7 Biddle

even refers to the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon towns as only a ‘recent

phenomenon’ and previous to this, historians were often limited to

documentation and topographical studies.8 That said, the scholarship and

debate on Anglo-Saxon towns commenced as far back as the 1930s between

James Tait and Carl Stephenson, both focusing on whether they even existed.9

This debate was heavily reliant of documentary sources, which is by no means

poor practice, though such studies predate the full establishment of the Burghal

Hidage text which is key to the historical study of the field.10

Derivation of the burh is by no means a thing of the distant past however.

Indeed, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries saw a new generation

of historians and archaeologists come into the academic eye, individuals who

would reassess previous work while establishing new theses. Academics such as

Bassett, Stuart Brookes, John Baker, Andrew Reynolds and Ryan Lavelle built

upon what previous scholars suggest while also engaging in an active dialogue

with their predecessors. A key argument that seems to have arisen from the likes

of Reynolds and Lavelle is that Alfred’s burhs may have been more original than

previously stressed by the likes of Abels and Haslam.11 Indeed, Lavelle suggests

that similar designs of fortification without collaboration can be applied to West

Frankia in the ninth century in reference to the burh.12 In similar pro-Alfredian

fashion, Reynolds suggests that Roman remains such as gateways were used

purely because of the practicality they offered, instead of them being an

inspiration to the West Saxons.13 This is logical and increasingly so following

7 M. Biddle, ‘Towns’ in D.M. Wilson (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England

(London, 1976), pp. 99-150. 8 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 101. Referring to E.A. Freeman’s town/burh sketches of the 1870s. The

study had a keen interest with towns and the internal layout of Winchester, and in particular the arrangement of the streets.

9 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 100. See C. Stephenson, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Borough’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 45, No. 178 (Apr., 1930), pp. 177-207, and J. Tait, The Medieval English Borough: Studies on its Origins and Constitutional History (Manchester, 1936).

10 The full Burghal Hidage text was established as late as 1969. In addition to these works, there are some archaeological based publications from the 1930s, such as Helen Cam’s excavations at Cambridge and R.E.M. Wheeler’s assessment of London, though some of these post-date the initial publications of Tait and Stephenson. These localised archaeological studies multiplied in the middle of the twentieth century, culminating in Biddle’s work on Winchester. H.M. Cam, ‘The Origin of the Borough of Cambridge: A Consideration of Professor Carl Stephenson’s Theories’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Vol. 35 (1935), pp. 33-53. R.E.M. Wheeler, London and the Saxons (London, 1935).

11 A. Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England: Life and Landscape (Stroud, 1999), 86. 12 R. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the

Viking Age (Woodbridge, 2010), 213. 13 A. Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England, 90.

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Haslam’s later work in 2006, in which he implies that the fortifications in the

Burghal Hidage were set up in a mere fifteen months.14 However, this

dissertation takes a more balanced stance between the two sides of the

argument. Chapter One will argue that even though practicalities were

important, as Reynolds suggests, it is hard to completely exclude any external

influence on the West Saxon burh.

The 1970s saw a reversal back to the written sources of Angl0-Saxon

towns and burhs. This was very much initiated by Henry Loyn and Nicolas

Brooks in 1971, suggesting that more could be learnt from studying

documentation alongside the new archaeological evidence.15 Due to this

reversal, there was an increased emphasis on the network of burhs rather than

the burh sites themselves.16 As stated, Chapter One will discuss the physical

characteristics of the fortifications whereas Chapter Two will look into the

aspect of the burhs as a fortified network of defence. Specifically, it will analyse

the structure and supply of this network in terms of military organisation. This

brings us back to the work of Haslam and Abels, but there are other significant

contributors such as Richard Hodges in 1989 for example. Although, Hodges

emphasised the role of the Anglo-Saxon wic or trading centre that pre-dates the

burhs of Wessex, using key examples such as Southampton.17 Hodges also

brings his idea of ‘The First English Industrial Revolution’ to the table, casting

a far more sociological view on the field.18 Instead of this, Abels seems to focus

on military organisation, suggesting that this was the real ‘genius’ of Alfred’s

fortifications.19 The contribution of Haslam’s work to the field should not be

forgotten though. With numerous articles concerning the origins of Anglo-

Saxon urban sites as well as many book contributions, Haslam is an invaluable

contributor.

14 J. Haslam, ‘King Alfred and the Vikings: Strategies and Tactics 876-886 AD’, Anglo-Saxon

Studies in Archaeology and History 13 (Oxford, 2006), pp.122-154, 129. 15 P. Clemoes & K. Hughes (eds), England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources

Presented to Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1971). See Loyn’s chapter on Anglo-Saxon towns and Brooks’ chapter on military obligation.

16 However, there were still archaeological reports such as Biddle’s piece on 1976 but also other ones such as that by J.M. Hassall and David Hill in 1970. Hassall and Hill’s article is particularly interesting as it is one of the few dedicated studies to the influence of Frankia or Mercia on the West Saxon burhs. J.M. Hassall & D. Hill, ‘Pont de L’Arche: Frankish Influence on the West Saxon Burh?’, The Archaeological Journal 127 (1970), 188-194.

17 R. Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement: Archaeology and the Beginnings of English Society (London, 1989), 147-8.

18 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 150 fd.. 19 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 74.

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Historiography associated with Chapter Two seems to have continued

into the 1990s, particularly in Hill’s and Alexander Rumble’s publication The

Defence of Wessex.20 This study not only consolidated work previous to it, but

also assessed the textual difficulties posed by the Burghal Hidage document.21

In particular, this dissertation utilises Brooks’ chapter on the administrative

background of the Burghal Hidage when examining the fortification system

set-up by Alfred.22 Brooks highlighted the importance of the ‘common burdens’

to Alfred’s system but also stresses how these where not Alfred’s innovation, but

rather the end of a long tradition of military organisation.23 This argument is

central to the study of the burghal system and is expanded upon in this

dissertation, arguing that even though Alfred had this pre-existing system at his

feet, he exploited it to great effect.

Other recent scholars such as Bassett reiterate the points made by Abels

and Haslam in the 1980s, particularly that the West Saxon burhs had a

prototype in Mercia. This is fully emphasised in Bassett 2007 publication

‘Divide And Rule?’, in which he assesses new evidence for the presence of a

sophisticated system of fortified defence in eighth and ninth-century Mercia.24

Chapter Two has been dedicated to the assessment of the Burghal Hidage

defence network and poses the question whether a previous Mercian system can

really be seen as a substantial prototype. Chapter Three examines the

Andredesweald in terms of the burghal network also, arguing that it was by no

means perfect, it had areas of defensive weakness.

The most recent substantial works based around the study of Anglo-

Saxon fortifications have to be Baker and Brookes’ Beyond the Burghal

Hidage,25 as well as Landscapes of Defence which is edited by the previous two

20 D. Hill & A.R. Rumble (eds), The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-

Saxon Fortifications (Manchester, 1996). 21 J. Blair, ‘The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and the Anglo-Saxon Fortifications’,

review of The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and the Anglo-Saxon Fortifications, by D. Hill & A.R. Rumble (eds), The English Historical Review, Vol. 113, No. 454 (Nov., 1998), pp.1263-1264, 1263.

22 N.P. Brooks, ‘The Administrative Background of the Burghal Hidage’, in D. Hill & A.R.

Rumble (eds), The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications

(Manchester, 1996), pp. 128-150. 23 Brooks, ‘Background of the Burghal Hidage’, 129 24 S. Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule? The Military Infrastructure of Eighth and Ninth-Century

Mercia’, Early Medieval Europe 15 (2007), pp. 53-85, 58. 25 J. Baker & S. Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage: Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence in the

Viking Age (London, 2013).

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authors alongside Reynolds.26 Baker and Brookes’ study assembles all past

scholarship in reference to Anglo-Saxon fortifications in general, rather than

limiting itself to those included in the Burghal Hidage. However, they do

challenge some widely accepted models for the development of the West Saxon

burhs. An example would be their divergence from Biddle’s thesis that the

streets of Winchester were laid-down in a single phase of operation.27 The book

also makes a case study of the Kentish area in the south-east of England which

has much logical motive because of its exclusion from the Burghal Hidage

document.

For similar reasons, this dissertation will examine the Sussex and Surrey

Andredesweald as it was not included in the Burghal Hidage or in the burghal

system in general. Unlike Kent however, this area does not contain any sort

West Saxon fortification whereas Kent’s defences were simply not included in

the system. Thus, the study of Chapter Three and indeed the main thesis of this

dissertation is fixed around this absence of burghal defence in the Weald. From

this, more general conclusions can be made about the burghal system as a

whole, conclusions that shed new insight on the primary function of Alfred’s

defensive system. It will argue that the system’s primary motive was the defence

of the West Saxon population.

However, this dissertation will not rely solely upon secondary works but

will actively engage with contemporary source material as well as

archaeological excavations to achieve its goals. Of course, this period does lack

extensive documentation compared to more modern times, even that of the

later medieval periods. This dissertation particularly utilises the Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle and Asser’s Life of King Alfred, although other written sources such

as Domesday Book and contemporary charters will be employed also. Each of

these has their own particular advantages and drawbacks concerning their

dependability and worth, elements of which will be discussed throughout the

paper where appropriate.

26 A. Reynolds, J. Baker & S. Brookes (eds), Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval Europe

(Turnhout, 2013). 27 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 68. See Chapter One for this.

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Chapter One: The Burhs of Wessex

Before c.850 there were no more than ten known burhs but by the next

century there were over one hundred,1 clearly this reflects an urban building

programme. Much of this has been accredited to Alfred the Great’s (r.871-899)

building programmes, though more credit should be given to his successors.2

There appears to have been a great deal of external influence on the burhs in

terms of their physical design and purpose.3 This chapter will analyse the

remaining physical evidence for the burhs and relate the archaeology back to

ideological concepts. This background study into to the purpose of the West

Saxon burhs will prove essential when examining the burghal network in

Chapter Two and indeed Sussex/Surrey region in Chapter Three.

The first recorded burhs are the rebuilt Roman towns and forts such as

at Winchester, Chichester and Portchester and there is evidence that such

places had been occupied as early as the seventh century.4 The best evidence for

the internal layout of these towns comes from the rebuilt Roman town of

Winchester, due to its extensive excavation and its characterisation for most

West Saxon sites.5 However, it must be said that Winchester does not provide a

model for all sites as not all burhs had such an urban function, notably the

promontory forts. Though, Winchester does provide a model for the de nova

(Latin for “afresh”) burhs built during Alfred’s reign, the most notable of which

are Cricklade, Wallingford and Wareham. This chapter will analyse the physical

and written evidence for the West Saxon burhs while relating the evidence back

to the common defensive ideology.

At Winchester the main Roman streets seem to have been kept while

additional branch roads have been added. The site shows a clear rectilinear

arrangement in the street layout which was used to divide the area lying within

the old Roman walls.6 This suggests a reuse of the Roman streets, but following

1 Hassall & Hill, ‘Pont de L’Arche’, 188. 2 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 154. 3 W. Hollister, Military Institutions on the Eve of the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1962), 142. 4 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 55. 5 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 131. 6 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 130.

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Martin Biddle’s archaeological work in the 1960s and 1970s it appears that the

street system is of the Alfredian era.7 That said, later archaeological work by

Graham Scobie suggests that the period in which Biddle and Hill have suggested

the street-plan was laid out is too short and was more staged.8 The main

thoroughfares of the Roman town seem to have been reused in Alfred’s ninth-

century street-plan.9 The medieval high-street is only sixteen metres north of

the original Roman east-west street and there is also a correlation between what

is now Middle Brook Street and the original Roman north-south thoroughfare

(see numbers 6 and 9, Figure 2).10 The gateways were already in suitable

positions, near ditch causeways and river crossings.11 Other examples where the

Roman street systems were ignored include Canterbury and Bath. At

Canterbury, the Saxon east-west street cuts diagonally across the old Roman

street system12 and at Bath the temple and bath complex is ignored by a totally

new street (see Figure 2).13 Despite these few examples, the street pattern is

‘remarkably consistent’ in this rectangular fashion, throughout the fortified

7 Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England, 89. 8 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 68-9. See to the west of the city at St Georges

Street and urban reorganisation c.840-80. 9 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 130. 10 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 107. 11 M. Biddle & D. Hill, ‘Late Saxon Planned Towns’, The Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 51 (1971),

pp.70-85, 81. 12 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 109. 13 Biddle & Hill, ‘Planned Towns’, 81.

Figure 2.

Maps showing the street layouts of

Saxon Winchester and Bath in

contrast to the excavated Roman

system. Taken from M. Biddle & D.

Hill, ‘Late Saxon Planned Towns’, The

Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 51 (1971),

pp. 70-85.

Roman Streets and Features red

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towns of Wessex.14 Two key features of this system were the ‘crossroad’ of the

main thoroughfares,15 and the ‘wall’ street. The former were maintained due to

the practicality of using the Roman gateways in the rebuilt towns, rather than

as an attempt to revive the older Roman road system.16 The latter is more

significant as it is an addition to the concept of the Roman street system.17 The

‘wall’ street followed the internal walls of the burh, allowing speed of access to

the fortifications, their presence suggests a real military purpose of these rebuilt

towns, even if only preliminary.18 As for the other streets, the existing Roman

streets were maintained where usefully situated but remodelling was employed

in other areas.

The walls of the rebuilt Roman towns ‘were probably still standing

sufficiently high above ground to require no more than repairs to their

stonework’,19 when Alfred began their reconstruction in the late ninth century.

However, their reconstruction may have started even as early as 860 during the

reign of Æthelbald (r. 858 to 860).20 According to the contemporary chronicler

Æthelweard, the Romans ‘made cities, forts, bridges and streets with skill, and

these are to be seen to this day’.21 Written sometime in the late tenth-century,

the fact these structures still appeared to be made ‘with skill’ suggests that they

were still in decent condition and not just ruins. Naturally, this cannot be

applied to every remaining Roman town or fort. According to Asser’s extended

Chronicle entry for 867 the city of York ‘did not yet have firm and secure

walls’,22 when the Vikings raided it, despite the fact Roman walls had been

present. Though York was in the Northumbrian Kingdom, this reference

demonstrates that not all Roman fortifications were fully intact during the ninth

and tenth centuries. In Colchester, Canterbury, Winchester, Chichester and

Exeter the medieval walls follow the exact path of the previous Roman ones.23

Indeed, the first five metres of stonework at the Westgate in Winchester appears

14 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 131. 15 M. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1992), 128. 16 Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England, 90. This is a well-considered point bearing in mind

that these fortified towns were constructed in order to protect local populations. Creating new gateways would have proved a lengthy and pointless commission in times of vulnerability from Viking raids.

17 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 22. 18 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 130. 19 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 127-8. 20 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 69. 21 Æthelweard, Chronicon, 5. 22 Asser, ch.27, 76. 23 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 107. Also London and Lincoln outside of Wessex.

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to be Anglo-Saxon, which suggests that the Roman gate was rebuilt.24 This may

also be true for Chichester’s Eastgate and Exeter’s Southgate.25 Despite this,

during Alfred’s reign there is little evidence for any major refurbishment of the

Roman defences,26 which would suggest the walls were intact enough to be

effectively defended.27

The first series of new burhs constructed, namely those during Alfred’s

reign, imitated these old Roman forts and towns with their impressive

geometry.28 These de nova burhs are particularly interesting as they

demonstrate the concept of a fortified settlement from the West-Saxon

perspective.29 Compared to the rebuilt Roman towns, the de nova burhs are

much more obscure however, as they consisted of earth walls and ramparts,

with stone walls rather a later addition.30 The clearest evidence for this is at

Wareham where the original West-Saxon rampart survives to this day. Haslam

states that the defences of these sites included a wooden palisade.31 Though

evidence for this is limited,32 it is not unreasonable to suggest that there were

wooden palisades used to support the rampart,33 which were probably the

24 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 128. 25 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 128. 26 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 127. 27 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 63. See site at Malmesbury where there is no

evidence for Alfredian refortification despite being included in the Burghal Hidage. 28 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. 29 Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England, 90. 30 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 128. 31 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 32 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 128. 33 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 19. Though local variations did exist.

Figure 3.

Diagrams demonstrating the distinct similarities between Roman

ramparts (3.1) and those of Wessex (3.2). Taken from A. Johnson, Roman

Forts (London, 1983), 54 and R. Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex c.800-

1066: The Defences of Alfred the Great Against the Vikings (Oxford,

2003), 19 respectfully.

3.1 3.2

15

standard.34 They would also act as a ten foot vertical face, supporting the

sloping earth rampart and presenting a formidable barrier externally (see

Figure 3.2).35 At Wareham, from the base of the ditch to the top of the palisade

was about nine feet, presenting a daunting barrier to enemies.36

The defences of these sites were not limited to ramparts and palisades;

in many places they were far more sophisticated.37 At Cricklade and Lydford,

there is some evidence for a palisade and clearer indication of impressive triple

ditch-systems.38 The concentricity of multiple ditches seem to recall the

sophisticated systems used by the Romans,39 used to break up enemy

formations as well as to slow their advance. One of the most complex was at

Cricklade where the triple ditch-system surrounded the site in combination

with the River Thames, stressing its importance in the defence of the northern

border.40 Remarkable is the fact that Roman forts and fortified towns employed

a similar tactic, which is to increase the number of ditches in areas of greater

anticipated hostility.41 While this need not have been the case for the West

Saxons, it is hard to overlook the similar characteristics.42 Though the walls of

Roman sites would still be mostly intact, the same cannot be said for ditches

that would be at least five-hundred years old. While their trajectories may still

have been visible, their exact measurements were almost certainly not.

However, there is evidence for the use of an Iron Age/Roman ditch at

Winchester,43 though this was in addition to the Saxon defences which would

suggest that it was not fully intact. Thus, these ditches may have inspired the

West-Saxon earthworks but are not likely to have been copied directly either

34 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 35. 35 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 35. 36 B.S. Bachrach & R. Aris, ‘Military Technology and Garrison Organization: Some Observations

on Anglo-Saxon Military Thinking in Light of the Burghal Hidage’, Technology and Culture, Vol. 31, No.1 (Jan., 1990), pp.1-17, 4.

37 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 38 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 39 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 129. 40 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. See Chapter Two in reference to the quasi-linear

defences of the burghal network on the Mercian frontier. 41 G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army (London, 3rd edn, 1985), 176-9. 42 Webster, Imperial Army, 177. For a typical Roman ditch, the width would be three to four

metres wide at the top and two to two-and-a-half metres deep. Correspondingly, the ditches of the de nova burhs of Wallingford and Cricklade were around 3.6 metres wide and 1.9 metres deep. Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 76. The depths almost match up suggesting a direct inspiration but this is probably limited.

43 K.E. Qualmann et al., Oram’s Arbour: The Iron Age Enclosure at Winchester, Volume 1: Investigations 1950-1999 (Winchester, 2004), 95.

16

from the Roman ruins or Iron Age hillforts. This is important when considering

the context in which these fortifications were built.44

The internal layouts of these towns is harder to decipher than the

defences due to later developments on the same sites. Haslam has suggested

that the lack of internal layout evidence itself may suggest that such sites failed

to function as urban centres in this design.45 What we do know is that they

followed a similar pattern to the rebuilt Roman sites, a rectilinear street layout

with two main thoroughfares.46 However, smaller fort sites such as Shaftsbury

or Malmesbury cannot be included in this model due to the harsh topography

of these sites.47 ‘At Wareham, Wallingford, and Cricklade, new burhs were built

adopting an innovative design imitating Roman towns … based on a similar,

regular geometric plan, comprising a central road crossing’ (see Figure 4).48

Some of these original plans are reflected in the modern street layout of the

surviving burh towns but the burghal forts were not internally organised

regularly due to their limited size.49 The incorporation of ‘wall’ streets, as we

saw in as additions to the rebuilt burhs, appear to be a common feature of the

44 See Chapter Two. 45 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 24. 46 Biddle & Hill, ‘Planned Towns’, 82-3. 47 Biddle & Hill, ‘Planned Towns’, 81. 48 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 6. 49 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 126.

Figure 4.

Maps showing the rectilinear Street and defensive layouts of Cricklade and

Wareham. Taken from M. Biddle & D. Hill, ‘Late Saxon Planned Towns’, The

Antiquaries Journal, Vol. 51 (1971), pp. 70-85.

17

de nova burhs.50 These show the duel-purpose of the burh settlements as not

just urban foci but also as military centres.51 The internal division also shows an

economic function with certain areas specialising in certain industries.52 That

said, more recent empathises is put on the development of the burhs into

economic centres, particularly in the later tenth century.53

These new burhs were all constructed near key strategic positions which

would include a flat river crossing or a spur site.54 Of the thirty-eight burhs

recorded in the Burghal Hidage, twenty-two of them were on river crossings,55

stressing their strategic importance.56 They were also set to the location of

available water for the use in industrial activities.57 Those associated with river

crossings included Cricklade and Wallingford and examples of spurs sites

would include Malmesbury, Lydford and Shaftsbury.58 The use of ‘natural

topography, such as the bend in a river or promontory, allowed the construction

of a highly defensive site’.59 Positions such as Malmesbury and Shaftsbury

essentially became new hillforts.60 The sites that used such defensive landscape

features had a more restricted plan/layout compared to those on flat river

valleys.61 However, even those burhs had topographical limitations to their

design and size, forced to sub-react to the landscape.62 This is seen at Wareham

and Wallingford, where the defences were not quite so rectilinear, compared

with Cricklade’s for example (see Figure 4).63 More on topography in terms the

network of West Saxon burhs will be discussed in the subsequent chapter.

The burhs were by no means limited to the reign of Alfred, his successors

played an important role in their evolution and the construction of others.

Indeed, historians have tended to neglect the burhs in southern England

between the reigns of Edward the Elder (r.899-924) and Æthelred ‘the

50 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 130. 51 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 52 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 131. 53 G. Astill, ‘Community, Identity and the Later Anglo-Saxon Town: The Case of Southern

England’, in W. Davies, G. Halsall & A. Reynolds (eds), People and Space in the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2006), pp.235-254, 236.

54 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 55 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 28. Again similar to Roman principles. 56 Also possibly their economic function. 57 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 133. 58 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 31. 59 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. 60 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. 61 Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, 128. 62 Hassall & Hill, ‘Pont de L’Arche’, 191. 63 Hassall & Hill, ‘Pont de L’Arche’, 191. Here is where Hassall and Hill have questioned the

prevalence of rectangular design in West Saxon fortifications.

18

Unready’ (978-1013 and 1014-1016).64 Lavelle has emphasised the tension

between urban life and the military requirements of the burhs.65 This followed

the expansion of the West Saxon kingdom in the tenth century,66 which put the

southern burhs on a far more economic footing as they saw less and less

conflict. This is evident in Winchester with suburban growth outside the

Westgate in the second half of the tenth century,67 with similar evidence at

Oxford.68 Previous archaeology has shown that it was by the mid-ninth century

that people started to re-settle the Roman walled towns such as Winchester and

Canterbury for protection against the Vikings.69 However, archaeological work

by Grenville and Astill has found that several large areas of burhs remained

undeveloped even into the tenth century.70 Single coin finds as well as a lack of

international pottery shows that the burhs ‘did not prompt an immediate

explosion in economic growth’.71 This was not consistent in every burh

settlement however, during Æthelstan’s reign (r. 924-939) there is a clear

commercialisation of the burhs shown through the regulation of Channel trade

for example.72 This is also shown in the abandonment of certain sites such as

Pilton for more economically desirable ones such as Totnes and Barnstaple

(Devon).73 There is also a clear attempt to upgrade the burh settlements to stone

fortifications in the late tenth century.74

Edward the Elder and those who reigned after him participated in a

programme of urban foundation that surpassed that of Alfred’s in terms of

innovation.75 This included the use of the ‘double burh’, the earliest of which

appears during Alfred’s reign at (or near) Hertford in 894 at which Alfred ‘made

two fortifications on the two sides of the river’.76 Such structures demonstrate a

variety of other influence from other cultures as the ‘double burhs’ that have a

64 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 40. 65 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 40. 66 Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 24. Especially with the death of Æthelflaed (918) and

the unification of Merica and Wessex under Edward the Elder and especially under his son Æthelstan (c.894-939) in 925.

67 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 133-4. 68 Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, 128. 69 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 148. 70 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 89-90. Namely Gloucester, Cricklade,

Wallingford, London and Canterbury. 71 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 90. The growth of the Five Boroughs in the

Danelaw possibly shows that trade was more internal than external. 72 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 90. 73 Biddle & Hill, ‘Planned Towns’, 84. 74 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 35. 75 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 154. 76 ASC, 895 (s.a. 894), 89.

19

clear derivation from Charles the Bald’s structures in ninth-century West

Frankia as well as some Scandinavian structures.77 The later ‘double burhs’

would include Buckingham (918), Bedford (919), Stamford (922) and

Nottingham (924).78 However, Hassall and Hill have pointed out that some of

these were relatively close to river sources and traversed small streams which

would not support the strategy to block Viking incursions up rivers.79 On the

other hand, many of Edward’s new burhs were placed across river mouths or

estuary heads which practice this exact tactic.80 Such a tactic is reflected not

only on a local scale but also in terms of the whole burghal network.

A variety of settlements can be labelled as burhs in the West Saxon

Kingdom during the ninth and tenth centuries. The first of which were the

rebuilt towns and forts left behind by the Romans in the first half of the

millennium. With substantial fortifications remaining and ideally placed in the

landscape, these places once again became important centres of authority and

of the economy.81 It is off these that the de nova burhs were ultimately based

when one reviews the archaeological remains, verifying the very Roman sway

on the West Saxon burhs. The other class of fortifications found in Wessex were

the promontory forts which are far more significant in terms of the system as a

whole.82 Other cultural influence has been observed in the West Frankish

‘double burh’ possibly providing a prototype for those in Wessex. However,

Mercian principles of defence clearly had a profound effect of West Saxon

burhs. However, the next chapter will argue that their influence was far more

important in terms of the administration of the network as a whole, the Burghal

Hidage.

77 See the D-shaped fortification at Repton, Derbyshire in 873/4. 78 M. Swanton (trans.) (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London, 2000), 89, n. 8. 79 Hassall & Hill, ‘Pont de L’Arche’, 191. The water courses not being substantial enough to

support Viking ships. 80 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 38. 81 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. 82 See Chapter Two below.

20

Chapter Two: The Defence of the Kingdom: The

Burghal Hidage

The Burghal Hidage document is what gives historians some idea of the

scale of the administration required to defend the West Saxon Kingdom.1 It is a

list of over thirty burhs and the hidage figures associated with them to arrange

for their maintenance, repair (wealstilling) and defence (waru).2 Written down

in the early tenth century, the purpose and authorship of the Burghal Hidage

is contested, though it is certainly either a practical administrative document or

a paper exercise.3 However, this chapter is by no means a repetition of

numerous assessments made on the origin of the document but an examination

of the practical administration of the burghal network itself in preparation for

Chapter Three. It will look into organisation of the defence of the West Saxon

Kingdom and argue that this was the real achievement of Alfred and his

successors, not the burh fortifications themselves.

That said, the ‘construction or repair of fortifications as a defence against

Vikings was not a new policy in the reign of Edward the Elder, or even Alfred’.4

Burhwork or burhbot had been a general obligation throughout Anglo-Saxon

England, not just Wessex and not just on the underprivileged landowners.5 In

September 822 for example (forty-nine years before Alfred’s accession),

Ceolwulf I, King of Mercia granted Archbishop Wulfred land that was …

… to remain freed everywhere for ever from all burdens … except from these four causes which I [Ceolwulf] will now name: military service against pagan enemies, and the construction of bridges and the fortifications or destruction of fortresses among the same people6

Many Anglo-Saxon charters, and even ones that predate this one, contain such

a clause in the agreement suggesting that even well before Alfred’s reign

burhbot was a traditional burden, one of the three ‘common burdens’. These

1 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 18. 2 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 128. 3 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 128. 4 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 5 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 6 EHD, 515.

21

were as named above: service in the army, burhwork and bridgework. The

traditional view is that Alfred was at the forefront of implementing the ‘common

burdens’, though more recent study by the likes of Bassett among others has

challenged this, assigning more credit to their Mercian counterparts as well as

Alfred’s son Edward the Elder.7 Indeed, by the end of even the eighth century,

the ‘common burdens’ or ‘threefold obligations’ were widespread throughout

Mercia and were a key factor in their hegemony in that era (c.600-c.900),8 a

fact that was not lost on Alfred or his successors.9 It was an ‘embryonic burghal

system’,10 a ‘prototype’ for Alfred’s Burghal Hidage system of the late ninth

century.11 This is down to the ‘morphological similarities in the construction of

these defence works [which] has been used to suggest they existed … in a

network of fortified places, akin to that described by the Burghal Hidage’.12

Recent work by Lavelle appears to concur with Bassett’s notion though

Lavelle seems to favour the idea that ‘none of these periods of development are

necessarily mutually exclusive’.13 This is to say that there were no distinct

phases of redevelopment, but rather that the Mercian and West Saxon

kingdoms developed their similar defensive organisation in parallel but

undoubtedly at different rates and in different technological directions. Indeed,

by looking at certain charters, we can assume that by the reign of Æthelbald

(r.858-860), the common burdens were fully integrated throughout the

Kingdom of Wessex.14 Though this is later than in Mercia, we cannot assume

that these charters represent the first use of the system however, which could

push the date back as far as the eighth century.15 Though what is clear is that by

the tenth century, over eighty percent of West Saxon charters contained such

obligations.16

Although the Burghal Hidage had its origins in the ‘common burdens’,

the system also presents some quite innovative features. Fortification systems

7 Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, 125. 8 Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule?’, 58. 9 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 49. 10 Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule?’, 84. 11 Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule?’, 58-9. Though Bassett does rightfully question whether the

Mercian system has been exaggerated in this sense. 12 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 49. 13 Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 212. 14 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 15 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 16 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 44.

22

were part of the common contemporary military ideology,17 but the West Saxon

burghal system surpassed the ordinary in terms of its scale and offensive

capabilities.18 Compared to the Mercian or even Frankish model of systematic

defence, the West Saxon system was far larger, effective, offensive and even

ground-breaking. In terms of scale, the Mercian system consisted of no more

than sixteen19 burhs whereas its West Saxon successor consisted of over thirty

(see Figures 5 and 6), demonstrating how intricate it was. However, the number

of fortifications is not the significant difference between the systems but is

instead it is their dispersion and relationship to one another.20 The defensive

strategy clearly differed between the Mercians and West Saxons, the distance of

17 J. De Meulemeester & K. O’Conor, ‘Fortifications’, in J. Graham-Campbell & M. Valor (eds),

The Archaeology of Medieval Europe: Vol. 1, Eighth to Twelfth Centuries AD (Aahus, 2008), pp. 316-341, 319-20.

18 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 69. 19 J. Haslam, ‘Market and Fortress in England in the reign of Offa’, World Archaeology 19, no.

1 (1987), pp. 76-93, 78. 20 Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 209.

Figure 5.

Taken from J. Haslam, ‘Market and Fortress in England in the reign of Offa’, World Archaeology 19, no. 1 (1987), pp. 76-93, 78.

23

the forts to every position in the kingdom of forty miles is not matched in

Mercian arrangement.21 Contrastingly, from what we know, the Mercian sites

seemed only to really cover the traditional heartlands of the kingdom,22 whereas

the West Saxon system is far more dispersed being within forty miles of every

point in the kingdom. However, the West Saxon system failed to achieve this on

occasion, an example of which will be discussed in Chapter Three.

The dispersion of the West Saxon burhs compared to those of Mercia

suggests a different defensive strategy was used by the West Saxons, namely

defence-in-depth.23 Very similar to that employed by the Romans,24 this system

was innovative in comparison to Wessex’s contemporaries across northern

Europe. Whereas the Mercian and Frankish models focused on defending the

borders of their respective territories or just the central royal centres of each

region, the West Saxon system endeavoured to defend the whole interior of the

kingdom.25 The prime example would be Offa’s Dyke of Eighth-century Mercia

under King Offa (r. 757-796) which followed the Mercian-Welsh border.26 It is

even questionable to whether the Mercian fortifications operated in a cohesive

system but were rather just individual strongholds.27 This made them far more

effective in repelling Vikings as from the late ninth century their raids had been

targeting royal estate centres, penetrating the Kingdom in order to seize

renders.28 An example of this is action was in 914 with the raid of Ohter and

Hroald in Kent who were intercepted despite avoiding the burhs upon

infiltration.29 By placing the burhs on key lines of communication: Roman

roads, track-ways and rivers, Alfred and his successors were able to protect their

kingdom effectively on both its borders and internal landscape.30 That said, the

system does still display traditional ideals of linear border defence. Of those

burhs founded by Alfred and Edward in the late ninth and early tenth centuries,

a clear defensive line in the north of the West Saxon kingdom is evident (see

21 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 52. 22 Modern day Glos., Heref., Oxon., Worcs., Warks., Staffs., West Midlands, Northants.,

Bucks., Beds., Herts., and Cambs.. 23 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 86. 24 Bachrach & Aris, ‘Military Technology and Garrison Organization’, 3. Though the

suggestion that Anglo-Saxon commanders had ‘a well-developed sense of strategy that may have been based on Roman ideas of the later empire’ is perhaps stretching the evidence.

25 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 26. 26 D. Tyler, ‘Offa’s Dyke: a historiographical appraisal’, The Journal of Medieval History, Vol.

37, pp.145-161, 153. 27 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 49. 28 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 26. 29 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 72. 30 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 69.

24

Figure 6).31 Though not a linear structure per se, such as a dyke, the sites do

form a linear network that sat on the Wessex-Mercia border of which a similar

line stretches along the southern coast to repel the Viking threat. However,

these linear border systems were only a portion of the entire defence network,

it is the others (the internal burhs) which really demonstate the ingenuity of the

Alfred and Edward. Portchester has been included in this linear system though

was probably a later addition as it comes into royal possession during the reign

of Edward the Elder.32

As Figure 6 clearly demonstrates, the burghal system was by no means

assigned to defending just the borders of Wessex. There are certainly at least

nine or ten that one could label as ‘inland’ sites rather than being placed on the

coast or on the borders of the kingdom.33 These include both fortified towns

such as Winchester or Bath but also promontory forts like Eashing or Lydford.

31 Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England, 87. 32 Haslam, ‘King Alfred and the Vikings’, 144. 33 Namely: Lydford, Lyng, Langport, Shaftesbury, Wilton, Winchester, Eashing, Chisbury, and

Bath. Possibly Halwell, Axbridge or even Eorpeburnan. Buckingham not included as it was in the Burghal Hidage as it had recently been occupied by Edward the Elder (c.914), an expansion of the original system.

Figure 6.

Map demonstrating the quasi-linear defences of the Burghal Hidage fortifications. Modified from

Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage: Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence in the Viking Age

(Leiden, 2013), 7. Red lines are the individual additions.

25

The Burghal Hidage document fails to reveal this variety in burh fortification,34

the list only representing their rough location in terms of a clockwise pattern

throughout the kingdom.35 This is a considerable limitation when assessing the

individuality of the Burghal Hidage document as the variety of burhs

mentioned within it was actually one of its key innovative features.

As shown in Chapter One, the fortifications were by no means just

limited to just proto-urban fortifications and fortified towns but it also included

promontory forts,36 and perhaps even beacons (though evidence for the latter

is scarce).37 This distinction has been neglected in past studies where it should

not have been.38 Though not defending a civilian population or valuable

resource, these smaller defensive sites were important to the whole network as

they were situated on keys lines of communication that even enemy units would

have used. It is because of this function that this study will examine the absence

of burh fortifications in central Sussex. Being built in these key locations, they

allowed garrisons to combine to defeat enemies quickly and effectively, possibly

assembling in only half a day.39 Brooks highlights these so-called ‘emergency

burhs’ as one of the unique features of the West Saxon system which can only

be seen terms of the Burghal Hidage as a whole.40 In reference to the beacons,

these may appear as relatively rudimentary but as a beacon system this is less

so.41 These beacons would not be simply placed at the highest points in the

landscape, in fact, they would have been carefully positioned to view entire

valleys and placed to circumvent large hills/mountains.42 With the first being

lit on the coast in times of attack, the system would start a chain-reaction that

would give the rural populace time to seek refuge in the closest burh as well as

warning the garrisons nearby.43 These beacons needed to be kept dry at all times

with plenty of wood stockpiled in preparation for an attack, the men manning

them would have to well drilled and steadfast for the system to be effective.44

34 Biddle, ‘Towns’, 126. 35 Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 211. This pattern was very much the norm when it came to listing

fortification circuits for the Anglo-Saxons. 36 Such as Malmesbury or Shaftsbury for example. 37 D. Hill & S. Sharp, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Beacon System’, in R. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars: Sources

and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age (Woodbridge, 2011), pp.218-225, 218.

38 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 66. Notably Haslam (2006). 39 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 26. 40 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 136-7. 41 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 28. 42 Hill & Sharp, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Beacon System’, 222. 43 Hill & Sharp, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Beacon System’, 225. 44 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 181.

26

Although it is hard to prove that such a system existed, Hill and Sharp believe

that enough evidence does survive though it would be expected to have existed

regardless of this.45 This is through place-name evidence which we also see

extensively explored along Stane Street in Sussex by Graham Gower.46 It is clear

that the West Saxon defence system boasted a range of mechanisms that were

at its disposal but what really demonstrates the genius of the burghal system

developed by Alfred and Edward is the garrisoning of it.47

Indeed, ‘without standing garrisons, these fortified towns were worse

than useless; they could be taken by the Danes and turned into enemy

strongholds’,48 as seen with earlier fortifications in the Chronicle entries for

867, 870 and 875-6.49 The manning of these fortifications represented a

significant development in the defence of resources and population,50 and the

style of warfare conducted in the 890s would suggest that they were garrisoned

enough to withstand Viking attacks by the Great Army.51

The king had separated his army into two, so that there was always half at home and half out, except for those men who had to hold the fortresses.52

The Chronicle confirms that there is a clear level of organisation here. Alfred

established a permanent garrison to man the burhs that was separate from the

army itself, perpetually defending these recently built fortifications.53 This was

Alfred’s newly reformed fyrd, a standing garrison supplied by the thegns and

nobility of Wessex.54 Abels has previously emphasised how important the

45 Hill & Sharp, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Beacon System’, 225. 46 G. Gower, ‘A Suggested Anglo-Saxon Signalling System between Chichester and London’,

London Archaeologist, Vol. 10:03 (2002), pp. 59-63, passim. 47 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 74. 48 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 74. Also see R.P. Abels, ‘The Costs and

Consequences of Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence, 878-1066’, in Baker, Brookes & Reynolds (eds), Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval Europe (Turnhout, 2013), pp.195-222, 203.

49 ASC, 868 (867), 870 & 876-7 (875-6), pp.68-74. Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 64. Namely Nottingham, Reading and Exeter respectfully.

50 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 64. 51 Brooks, ‘Background of the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 52 ASC, 894 (893), 84. 53 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 17. The Burghal Hidage calculation assigns 27,071 men,

almost certainly an extremely optimistic figure. Abels, ‘Costs and Consequences’, 206. This also does not include the number that would have been assigned to the burhs in Kent, perhaps another c.2000 men additionally.

54 Previously, the fyrd had been a levied force of freemen in which each shire contributed a pre-allocated number of men to the king but Alfred put it on a more permanent footing.

27

relationship between the fyrd and the burh fortifications was, not just in terms

of static defence but also in terms of offence.55 Other scholars such as Eric John

do not seem to share the same belief, to him, the duty to garrison these

fortifications laid outside the fyrd completely.56

However, not only would they both act cohesively in defence of Viking

raids (see 914 incursion as previously mentioned)57 but would also combine to

conquer and consolidate territory, particularly in Edward’s reign (899-924).

Indeed, in terms of offence, it is Edward that should be credited and not Alfred

for this strategy.58 It was this amalgamation that ‘robbed the Vikings of their

major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility’,59 and even enabling them to

become the ‘military creators of the English kingdom’ in the tenth century.60

Used to consolidate conquered territory, the later burhs of Edward (see Figure

7) demonstrate a significant feature of the West Saxon burghal system. For

example, compared to the Mercian conquest of East Anglia, the West Saxon

assimilation of Kent was far more successful because of this strategy.61 Although

other rulers such as Æthelflaed of Mercia (r.911-918) also used this system such

as at Chester, its significance is clearly observed. At the Battle of Tettenhall,

English forces levied from these fortifications won a decisive victory against the

Northumbrian-Danes in 910.62 The victory would open-up the expansion of the

West Saxon kingdom into Northumbria,63 the system was ‘a key element in their

[West Saxons] systematic conquest of eastern and northern England’.64

However, this burghal system was a huge burden on the whole West

Saxon kingdom.65 Indeed, such a system was only plausible through competent

taxation and royal persuasion to build the burhs themselves.66 Alfred was very

much at the centre of this, using the Viking threat to his advantage, using it to

55 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 71. 56 E. John, Reassessing Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1996), 86. 57 See page 24. 58 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 38. 59 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 71. 60 Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 31. Though a variety of other factors contributed to this

achievement, specifically the union of Mercia and Wessex under Æthelstan and the effective internal administration of the kingdom.

61 Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 27. 62 ASC, MS E, 910, 95. 63 F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1971), 319. 64 Welch, Anglo-Saxon England, 128. 65 R.P. Abels, ‘From Alfred to Harold II: The Military Failure of the Late Anglo-Saxon State’, in

R.P. Abels & B.S. Bachrach (eds), The Normans and Their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 2001), pp.15-30, 20.

66 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 8.

28

extort his kingdom to pay for these projects, creating ‘a new societal

collectively’.67 The effective defence of Wessex was dependent upon Alfred’s

extortion and the compliance of his noble landowners with it.68 Asser makes a

significant account of this:

… by gently instructing, cajoling, urging, commanding, and (in the end when his patience was exhausted) by sharply chastising those who were disobedient and by despising popular stupidity and stubbornness in every way, he carefully and clearly exploited and converted his bishops and ealdormen and nobles, and his thegns most dear to him, and reeves as well … to his own will and to the general advantage of the whole realm.69

This purposefully precedes a notable account of an unfinished fortification –

probably Eorpeburnan, on the Kent/Sussex border – which was attacked in

c.892/3.70 Both sources demonstrate how the fear of Viking attacks and royal

67 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 8. 68 Abels, ‘Costs and Consequences’, 197. 69 Asser, ch.91, pp.101-2. 70 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 341.

Figure 7.

Map showing the burhs of Edward the Elder (899-924). Taken from R. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon

Warfare in the Viking Age (Woodbridge, 2010), 228.

29

punishments led to the ‘hesitant West Saxon aristocracy’ agreeing to this

punitive common burden.71 That said, this was implemented in other

contemporary kingdoms72 and in fact earlier ones also.73 Although, this

interpretation of Alfred’s skill may just be a reflection the Asser’s bias towards

the king, this account was placed in his biography of Alfred. In addition, the legal

administrative infrastructure that had been implemented prior to Alfred’s reign

may have allowed him to succeed where others had failed.74 That said, it is vital

to remember that Alfred’s new obligations were in addition to the common

requirements to service in the fyrd that was previously established.75 Alfred

seems to have enforced a more effective system, one that lays at the forefront of

his achievement despite its very deep roots in both Wessex and Mercia.76 This

system was to have its strategic flaws though, an example of which is discussed

in the following chapter.

71 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 77. 72 Brooks, ‘Background to the Burghal Hidage’, 129. 73 Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 77-8. Offa seems to have conducted similar

exploitation when constructing his dyke in eight-century Mercia. 74 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 24. 75 G. Williams, ‘Military and Non-Military Functions of the Anglo-Saxon Burh, c. 878-978’, in

J. Baker, S. Brookes & A. Reynolds (eds), Landscapes of Defence in Early Medieval Europe (Turnhout, 2013), pp.129-163, 133.

76 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 152.

30

Chapter Three: The Andredesweald: The

Alfredian Achilles Heel?

The burghal system and its associated defensive sites demonstrate a

sophisticated system of defence that was both innovative but also evolutionary.

However, this study has yet to provide an in depth analysis of a certain area or

region within this network of fortifications. In their 2013 study, Baker and

Brookes selected Kent for this, as it was quite unique in its political

administration and apparent absence from the Burghal Hidage document

itself.1 This study will examine the area directly to the west of Kent, namely the

Sussex/Surrey region (see Figure 1) which may have had a similar political

individuality. This zone of Anglo-Saxon Wessex has received some

historical/archaeological attention though it is often neglected in many studies.

Much of this has been focused either side of the geographical region known as

the Weald or Andredesweald which separates the North and South Downs of

the South-East (see Figure 8). The rationale behind this, would be to consider

the level of settlement and fortification on the region’s coastline in contrast to

its sparsely populated interior (see Figure 9). Indeed, the number of candid

references to towns in Sussex from Domesday is less than five.2 However, when

1 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 379. 2 D. Hill, ‘The Origins of the Saxon Towns’, in P. Brandon (ed.), The South Saxons (Chichester,

1978), pp.174-189, 177.

Figure 8.

Map showing the extent of the Andredesweald in Anglo-Saxon England. Taken from P. Brandon,

‘The South Saxon Andredesweald’, in P. Brandon (ed.), The South Saxons (Chichester, 1978),

pp.174-189, 140.

31

considering a defensive system and its lack of defences within certain zones, the

population density is not the only factor. Environmental and strategic dynamics

can been seen to be just as important. Paradoxically, these are also fundamental

motivations for building fortifications in places such as the Weald, in addition

to the presence of communication networks, estate centres and local industry.

The chapter will investigate this apparent ‘dead-zone’ in the burghal system that

occupies north-central Sussex and southern Surrey. It will discuss why there

was not and why there should or should not have been fortification(s) there and

the strategic significance of this. In essence, was this the Achilles Heel of the

Alfredian burghal system?

Figure 9.

Demographic map of England according to Domesday. Taken from D. Hill,

An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), 19.

32

The most prominent feature of the Sussex-Surrey area, and indeed that

of the entire South East, is the dense woodland area known as the Weald.3 This

mainly clay soiled area seems to have been relatively uninhabited during the

Saxon period, though some headway had been made into clearing areas of the

forest even since the Iron Age.4 That said, the scattering of Roman pottery in

the Weald suggests that it was arable farmland during the early first

millennium.5 Even though medieval woods grew up over these areas, the area

is by no means consists of the ‘dark tangles jungles’ previously suggested.6

There are very few written references to the nature of the Weald during this

period but the Chronicle sheds some light on the matter for the entry for 892.

Here in this year the great raiding-army … came up into the mouth of the Lympne [River Rother, Kent] with 250 ships. That river-mouth is in eastern Kent, at the east end of the great wood which we call Andred. That wood is a hundred-and-twenty miles long or longer from east to west, and thirty miles broad.7

This account immediately precedes the description of an unfinished burh

(almost certainly Eorpeburnan) being destroyed by Vikings, but overestimates

the length of the area by about thirty miles.8 Other than this, we look to wills,

local charters and even Domesday for topographical information.

A clear penetration of the area was made by the Roman roads that lied

on a rough north-south axis stretching from London to areas of the south-coast

(see Figure 10).9 These suggest that access to the Weald was by no means

impossible and by the ninth and tenth centuries and would probably have been

slightly easier than in pre-Roman Britain. However, even though these routes

existed, their condition in the ninth and tenth centuries is harder to

determine.10 Indeed, following the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the early

fifth century, there is little doubt that sections of these roads fell into disrepair,

3 P. Brandon, ‘The South Saxon Andredesweald’, in P. Brandon (ed.), The South Saxons

(Chichester, 1978), pp.174-189, 140. 4 Brandon, ‘South Saxon Andredesweald’, 138-9. See the Roman ‘iron ways’ which had been

used to transport iron from the area probably since the Iron Age. 5 D. Chatwin & M. Gardiner, ‘Rethinking the Early Medieval Settlement of Woodlands:

Evidence from the Western Weald’, Landscape History, Volume 27 (2005), pp.31-49, 31. 6 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 31. 7 ASC, 893 (s.a. 892), 84. 8 Brandon, ‘South Saxon Andredesweald’, 141. 9 These include the London-to-Lewes Way, London-to-Brighton Way and the most prominent

of the three, Stane Street. 10 A.J. Langlands, Travel and Communication in the Landscape of Early Medieval Wessex:

Volume 1 (Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Winchester, 2013), 242.

33

especially considering the extensive flooding that occurs in the low lying area of

the Weald.11 An example of this would be the Riven Arun valley and its effect of

the course of Stane Street between the old Roman stations of Hardham and

Alfoldean (Sussex). New routes to by-pass these areas of flooding would have

been made and the use of them (especially Stane Street) is evident from the very

Saxon place-names that fall along their courses.12 In the Weald there are also a

substantial number of track-ways known as ‘Droves’, routes that cut deep into

the forested ridges. These had been used for the movement of livestock to graze

in the woodland, particularly pigs.13

The Chronicle commonly refers to the use of Roman roads and track-

ways (herepaths) by the West Saxon military to travel across the kingdom.14

This meant that they were not just navigable but also used on a regular basis.

The Chronicle records a battle at ‘Oak Field’ (Aclea) in the year 850 in which

11 G.J. Copley, ‘Stane Street in the Dark Ages’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, Vol. 89

(1950), pp.98-104, 104. Though labelled as ‘Dark Ages’ this study does cover the period up to c.1075.

12 Copley, ‘Stane Street’, 104. Langlands, Travel and Communication, 242. Some Roman roads may have even been ‘reborn’ as part of the Anglo-Saxon urban strategy.

13 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 37. 14 Baker & Brookes, Beyond the Burghal Hidage, 140.

Figure 10.

Map showing the Roman Roads of South-East England, some of which may have been in poor

condition in Anglo-Saxon England. Taken from I.D. Margery, Roman Roads in Britain (London,

1967), 37.

34

‘King Æthelwulf … made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army’.15

Though the location of this battle is unclear, there has been much emphasis on

it being located near village of Ockley, located on Stane Street near the Surrey-

Sussex border.16 Though it does not explicitly record the use of Stane Street, one

can assume that the location of the battle implies its use of it by both forces.17

Thus, Stane Street offered an aggressor, such as the Vikings in 850, an easy

route into Sussex,18 the street being essential to any force wishing to control

Sussex or Surrey. In 2002, Gower provided a persuasive argument for the

existence of a beacon signalling system along Stane Street, between London and

Chichester.19 This was supported mainly through Old English place-name

evidence, especially for ‘tot’ sites which can be translated as a ‘look-out

places’.20 This suggests that the West Saxons appreciated the importance of

Stane Street but also the danger it posed in terms of Viking movement.

The strategic significance of these routes is clear and was appreciated by

post-Roman peoples,21 with many of Alfred’s burhs being placed on or close to

them. So why do we find no fortifications built along them in the Weald?

Instead, the Sussex-Surry burhs are mainly located on or near to the coast at

Chichester, Burpham, Lewes and Hastings (the only exception is Eashing,

Surrey which will be discussed in due course). Comparatively, there are

fortifications in the Burghal Hidage that occupy similar environments to

Sussex/Surrey such as at Lydford, Devon and Hertford, Hertfordshire. Lydford

is a promontory burh, as mentioned in previous chapters, but its location in the

sparsely populated moorlands of Devon (see Figure 9) makes an interesting

comparison to the environment of the Weald.22 In addition to this, it is located

inland and not immediately on a key line of communication.23 What Lydford

does have in its favour though, is its strategic position on a valley spur next to

the River Lyd. The place-name obviously infers that there was a crossing point

or ‘ford’ near the site, but as previously discussed, Viking raiding was very much

15 ASC, MS E, 851 (s.a. 850), 65. 16 ASC, MS E, 851 (s.a. 850), 65. The account records the Viking army coming south from the

River Thames which would suggest that the West Saxon army came from the south. 17 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, 62. 18 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, 60. 19 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, passim. 20 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, 59. 21 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, 60. 22 Though not in terms of woodland, the Weald being far more vegetated than areas such as

Dartmoor. 23 Nearest one is the Roman Road 6km to the north which does not seem to have been in very

good condition in comparison to those in the South-East.

35

reliant on rivers to penetrate into Wessex. The Chronicle accounts for a raid in

the area in 997:

Here in this year the raiding … turned into the mouth of the Tamar,24 and then went up until they came to Lydford, and burned and killed everything that they met, and burned down Ordwulf’s monastery at Tavistock, and brought indescribable war-booty with them to the ships.25

This differs from internal Sussex as there were not any Anglo-Saxon monastic

sites in the area compared to Devon.26 This would give extra impetus to build

the site at Lydford, though its position further up river is confusing. One of the

purposes of Alfred’s system was to prevent Viking incursions upriver, but

Lydford is incorrectly placed to perform such an amenity. Similar areas in the

Weald would be the Adur or Arun River valleys, but here there are burhs in

place on the coast to prevent any penetration into the kingdom, Lewes and

Burpham respectfully (see Figure 13). However, it is unclear why there is

inconsistency in this policy that was a key element to the burghal system. A

possible explanation might be observed when one assesses the local

topography, suitable sites may have been hard to come by closer to river

mouths.

In theory, if we were to follow the precedent of Lydford for example, then

we would expect the Burpham or Lewes sites to be further upriver. This would

apply especially to Burpham, as it was far less urban and therefore open to

coastal trade as Lewes was.27 Moving the Burpham burh further north would

have had little effect economically. A suitable site then, in theory, would be near

the modern village of Pulborough (see Figure 10). This is a key strategic point

as it lies on the confluence of two rivers (Arun and Rother),28 and the old Roman

road of Stane Street passes through it. All the Burghal Hidage sites were closely

24 The River Lyd being a tributary of the River Tamar. 25 ASC, MS E, 997, 131. Tavistock lies further downstream from Lydford (six miles directly

south), and as the account states, the raiders destroyed a monastery there and took much loot.

26 Ferring, the bishopric at Selsey and the both Stanmer and South Malling near Lewes, all on/near the coastline.

27 That said, H. Sutermeister argued in 1976 that Burpham was more than just a refuge site and that internal buildings imply a more urban function, similar to that of a town. H. Sutermeister, ‘Burpham: A Settlement Site with the Saxon Defences’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, Vol. 114 (1976), pp.194-296, passim.

28 Not to be confused with the River Rother in East Sussex that Eorpeburnan was probably located on.

36

associated with river crossings, both burh and bridge combining as a single unit

to restrict Viking movement along rivers.29 The place-name itself would suggest

that there is a fortified enclosure (‘-borough’) next to the confluence of the Arun

and Rother Rivers of which ‘-pul’ (pool) may refer to. It is hard to say whether

this was of ninth-century origin specifically, but the reference to the village in

Domesday suggests that it was around in the general period.30 The old Roman

station at Hardham also stresses its strategic importance (see Figure 10), the

point at which the Greensand Way (known to be used in the Saxon period)

meets Stane Street. There is also an abrupt rise in the landscape at the Village

itself, this lies just north of the Arun River and provides a reasonable view

across the Arun valley to the foot of the South Downs. The site may have also

been part of the Stane Street signalling system proposed by Gower, acting as a

lookout beacon.31 Domesday records two churches and allocates sixteen hides,

a reasonably large sum in comparison to other hundreds in Sussex.32 The survey

also records thirty acres of meadow at Pulborough but only a meagre eight at

Burpham.33 Clearly by 1086, Pulborough was a significant settlement with

much land cleared around it. This, along with the eleventh-century churches

located in the area,34 would suggest that Pulborough was settled during the

Anglo-Saxon period. Placing a burh here would have also protected more

ecclesiastical sites that are located further upriver.35 Their location next to the

river may suggest that the river was navigable this far up, though it is certainly

even tidal up to Pulborough at any rate.36

However, there was logical reasoning in placing the Arun burh at

Burpham rather than further upriver in the Weald, in significantly strategic

places such as Pulborough. For a start, the Burpham fortification (see Figure 11)

is possibly the successor to an Iron Age fort on the same site.37 Even though

Alfred was keen to change the original defences on his burh sites,38 many of the

sites listed in the Burghal Hidage (especially promontory sites) were built upon

29 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 20. 30 DB, Sussex (fol. 24v), 58-9. 31 Gower, ‘Signalling System’, 60. 32 DB, Sussex (fol. 24v), 58-9. The later village of Burpham itself was only allocated five hides

for comparison. 33 DB, Sussex (fol.24v), 58-9. 34 Namely St. Botolph's Church, Hardham and the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Stopham. 35 Selham, Woolbeeding and Chithurst. 36 Although, these sites are in relative proximity to the burhs of Chichester and Eashing which

were presumably responsible for their security. 37 Sutermeister, ‘Burpham’, 197. 38 Sutermeister, ‘Burpham’, 197. Such as Portchester, Hampshire.

37

pre-existing Iron Age or Roman defences. This would align with Haslam’s thesis

in 2006, that the burghal system was set-up rapidly to counter the particular

threat of a Viking army in Mercia (878/9).39 Alfred would have taken every

opportunity to reduce the work load and the construction time by reusing

earlier sites. Due to the site’s former role as an Iron Age site and probable use

by the South Saxon Kingdom prior to the ninth century, Burpham is an ideal

site in the landscape. It lies on a natural Chalk ridge that elevates it above the

floodplain, utilising the natural contours of the river valley.40 In addition to this,

the River Arun probably flooded more frequently than in modern times and

would have made Burpham quasi-islandic much of the time.41 That said, there

are at least six other Iron Age hillfort/enclosure sites in the Sussex Weald that

Alfred could have utilised but chose not to.42

If we consider the political context of Alfred’s building program, then

Burpham makes a far more obvious choice than somewhere further north. To

construct a brand-new fortification would have taken more time and resources,

39 Haslam, ‘King Alfred and the Vikings’, 29. Haslam suggests a fifteen month period for this,

May 878 to August 879. 40 Sutermeister, ‘Burpham’, 197. 41 Sutermeister, ‘Burpham’, 197. 42 M. Russell, Prehistoric Sussex (Stroud, 2002), 131. Garden Hill (nr. Crowborough),

Hammer Wood (nr. Midhurst), High Rocks (nr. Royal Tunbridge Wells), Philpots (nr. West Hoathly), Piper’s Copse (nr. Northchapel) and Saxonbury (nr. Crowborough) respectfully.

Figure 11.

Diagram showing the figure of eight

defences at Burpham, Sussex. Taken from H. Sutermeister, ‘Burpham: A Settlement

Site within the Saxon Defences’, Sussex

Archaeological Collections, Vol. 114 (1976),

pp. 194-206, 196.

38

the former Alfred had very little of. The Burpham site also offers protection for

a larger part of the area as it controls river movement nearer to the mouth of

the Arun. Thus, it seems to protect the whole valley if one presumes the threat

came from the river. It also provides a refuge for a greater per cent of the rural

population, of which most resided closer to the coast. This would suggest that

Alfred’s burhs are far more concerned with protecting the local populations in

which they are situated, rather than as an overall defensive network. This is not

to say that they was not any relationship between the location of the burhs to

one another, as there is, but that their localised duty of protecting the

population was their primary function. This is reinforced by the events that

occurred in 893, around fifteen years after Alfred’s burhs were constructed.

Figure 12.

Viking Campaigns 892-3. Taken from Taken from D. Hill, An Atlas of

Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), 40.

39

King Alfred gathered his army and … went through the forest in gangs and mounted groups, on whichever edge was without an army … [but] The raiding-army did not come out in full from those positions more than twice; on the one occasion … when they wanted to leave those positions … Then the army [Alfred’s forces] rode in front of them and fought against them at Farnham, and put the raiding-army to flight and recovered the war-booty.43

This follows the destruction of Eorpeburnan by the said army after which, had

taken up positions in both a fortification and ‘the woods’ (Andredesweald).44

The scribe consigns these events to ‘Appledore’,45 Kent but Alfred’s army does

not engage the Viking army until it reaches Farnham, west-Surrey (see Figure

12). This, along with the description of what seems to be Alfred’s army searching

through the Weald forest for the army, suggests a weakness in the fortification

network. We can see that the Weald forest,46 acted almost as a free passage into

the West Saxon heartlands.47 The fact that their ‘war-booty’ was reacquired

when they reached Farnham also suggests that travelling in the Weald was not

as difficult as it may have seemed; they were able to navigate it while still

carrying their loot. Concealment in the Wealden forest would account for the

written absence until they reached Farnham, with the Eashing burh, just to the

south of Farnham, possibly having swayed them further north towards the

River Thames (see Figure 13). The episode demonstrates how the function of

the burhs protecting their hinterlands may have been more of a priority than

the defensive integrity of the entire kingdom. It also shows the fragility of the

system. If one coastal burh such as Eorpeburnan were to fall as it did, then the

whole system was compromised and the interior of the kingdom is at risk.

In many areas this had been assured however, especially in the west.

Here, coastal burh forts such as Southampton, Christchurch and Wareham had

a safeguard in Winchester, Wilton and Shaftesbury respectfully (see Chapter

Two). This ‘defence-in-depth’ that has been previously discussed was not

present in the Sussex-Surrey region, but why? Obvious environmental and

demographic reasoning has been pointed out but also challenged. As we have

43 ASC, 894 (s.a. 893), 84-5. 44 Also known as the Weald forest mentioned above and below. 45 ASC, 893 (s.a. 892), 84. 46 Which stretches from Kent as far west as the Hampshire border (see Figure 8). 47 Æthelweard Chronicon, 49. Æthelweard also accounts for the events in his entry for 893

(though particularly focuses on Edward’s activities), stating that ‘the army … following the thickets of a huge wood called Andred … penetrated Wessex’.

40

seen at Lydford, these factors are not the only ones consulted when deciding

where to site the burhs. Once again, we must pass back into theory and

conjecture to understand this.

A sensible place to place an ‘inland-burh’ then, would have to be on the

Lewes-to-London Way that runs north-to-south through East Sussex and Kent

(see Figure 10). This road also intercepts both the navigable Ouse and Medway

Rivers but it is doubtful that they would have been navigable quite so close to

their sources. The zone is also located in the area known as the High Weald, a

relatively undulating landscape, providing ample sites to place a defensive

fortification. A rather similar landscape to where Lydford is placed in

Dartmoor. Indeed, there are at least two known Iron Age hillforts in the

immediate area, Garden Hill and Saxonbury.48 Placing a burh here, even if just

a simple one,49 would be ideally placed to protect inland areas of both East

Sussex and western-Kent. However, it would have had more of a role in terms

of ‘plugging-the-gap’ that was the Weald and would have also been useful in the

repulsion of Viking raids on Canterbury and its Kentish hinterlands in

48 Russell, Prehistoric Sussex, 131. 49 i.e. a promontory burh.

Figure 13.

Map of South-East England showing the location of burhs, minsters, settlement, industries and

resources. Taken from Taken from D. Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), 188.

41

1011/12.50 That said, the eleventh century witnessed a significant decline in the

burghal system, with some burhs replaced with more economic centres.51 Burh

site ditch defences such as that at Cricklade and Southampton were allowed to

fill, while other sites such as Shaftesbury and Eashing were completely

abandoned.52 If there was burh placed in the High Weald then it would have

surely suffered the same fate before 1011. In a place of such low population

density,53 it would have probably been one of the first to be forsaken, though

some of these promontory sites were reoccupied following the recommence of

Viking raids in the eleventh century.54

On the other hand, the area does possess naturally occurring iron ore (see

Figure 13).55 Indeed, ‘the Weald is one of the few areas of iron ore in Southern

England’,56 emphasising its importance to protect through fortification. The

metal was essential for the production of tools and weaponry. In the Ashdown

Forest area there was evidence of iron smelting and production found in 1980,

though it appears to be on a rather small scale.57 However, this does not rule out

its importance as more substantial sites may just have not been excavated as yet,

or later developments on ore sites may have destroyed such evidence. What we

can say is that iron production in the Weald would have been very liable, not

only because of the presence of iron itself but also the extensive woodland which

could be used for smelting fuel.58 This industry would have been worth

protecting but the fact that it was not suggests that the scale of the commerce

may be overstated.

Another function of the West Saxon burh was to exuberate authority on

the landscape in which it were situated, particularly royal authority.59 Although

many of Alfred’s sites seem to have militarily focused, the developing burghal

50 ASC, MS E, 1011, 141. ‘They had overrun … all the Kentish and South Saxons and the

Hastings district and Surrey and Berkshire and Hampshire and much of Wiltshire … And in this year, between the Nativity of St Mary and Michaelmas they besieged Canterbury…’.

51 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 50. 52 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 50. 53 D. Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1981), 19. Under 2.5-5 per square mile. 54 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 50. Commonly known as the ‘emergency burhs’ of the later

tenth century. 55 P. Drewett, D. Rudling & M. Gardiner, The South-East To AD 1000 (Harlow, 1988), 330.

Most notably the Ashdown Forest area in East Sussex. 56 Drewett, Rudling, Gardiner, The South-East, 327. 57 Drewett, Rudling, Gardiner, The South-East, 330. Domesday mentions only one ironworks

or ferraria in the South-East which would suggest little financial value in the industry. 58 Drewett, Rudling, Gardiner, The South-East, 330. The Iron Age Hillfort of Garden Hill is

also located in the area (see n.41), a suitable site to convert into a burh as was done at Burpham.

59 Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 213.

42

system acted as centres of royal authority and public manifestation.60 This

appears to have been severely lacking in the Sussex/Surrey region due to the

lack of state fortification. Documents such as the Will of Alfred himself shed

light on what estate centres existed during the late ninth and tenth centuries.

I, Alfred, king of the West Saxons, by the grace of God and with this witness, declare how I wish to dispose of my inheritance after my death … to my brother’s son Æthelhelm the estate at Aldingbourne and at Compton and at Crondall and at Beeding and at Beddingham and at Burnham and at Thunderfield and at Eashing.61

Most of these reside in either Sussex or Surrey,62 but the ones of key interest are

that of ‘Thunderfield’ and ‘Beeding’, which lie in the Weald area. The presence

of these centres indicates that the land in the Weald was at least under the

umbrella of royal control. However, Alfred’s decision to leave it to his nephew

suggests that they may have been of little importance. Both places seem to be

rather remote in the kingdom though this applies to Beeding more so. Their

remoteness suggests that they were responsible for a great deal of land or estate

which implies that authority lacked in these areas. Indeed, place-name evidence

suggests that these centres had far reaching outlying lands associated with

them.63 There are two explanations for this, the first being that by the

establishment of remote estate areas the access to resources such as wood,

timber, iron, clay and stone was amplified.64 The other possible explanation is

that it was a means of staking claim to the area for future development.65 Both

explanations would give further impetus for the construction of a fortified site

somewhere in the area, either to protect local resources or to bring the king’s

peace to this area of the kingdom.

Past scholarship seems to label the Andredesweald as a rather desolate

area with settlement few and far between, but this is a little extreme. Certainly

the population density was moderately lower than other areas of Anglo-Saxon

England, but in similar areas such as Devon, fortifications were built. What is

key to consider is that woodland areas in the early medieval period were

60 Williams, ‘Functions of the Anglo-Saxon Burh’, 158. 61 EHD, 492-5. 62 Crondall has been assigned to Hampshire while Compton is too common a name to easily

locate. 63 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 48. 64 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 48. 65 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 48.

43

valuable resources in themselves, there is evidence across England that they

were a source of fuel, game and grazing land.66 It was not an area of the Kingdom

that should have been completely disregarded which seems to have been the

case under the West Saxon kings. Though kings such as Alfred and his son

Edward did not see the landscape aerially intrinsically, this fails to excuse the

hole in their defensive system set-up in the ninth and tenth centuries. On the

other hand, one can understand why there was disregard for the area. The lack

of population seems to have been a key factor along with the presence of burh

fortifications on the southern coast. Without a sufficient population, the

construction of any burh, let alone a proto-urban one, would have seemed a

senseless endeavour in contemporary eyes. Building a burh here would have

been a waste of valuable time, manpower and resources at a point when the West

Saxon Kingdom could not meet the expense of it. This emphasises the role in

which burhs played in the protection of the local population rather than its other

possible fucntions. Alfred needed a system that was effective but he also needed

to recognise practicalities of his predicament, he needed a quick fix to the Viking

threat. Though it would have aided the strategic effectiveness of the Burghal

Hidage, such as in 892, not placing a burh in the Weald was a cut in the system

that could be made, and was indeed made

66 Chatwin & Gardiner, ‘Settlement of Woodlands’, 31.

44

Conclusions

As a whole, each chapter has demonstrated how a different perspective

can be taken when examining the West Saxon burhs, particularly in Chapter

Three. The first section of the paper established the basis of previous

scholarship over the past fifty or so years, a preparation for the main study. The

following two chapters reviewed the evidence for the West Saxon burhs and the

burghal system, while still bringing in new standpoints on occasion. The first

chapter particularly showed that external influence on the design of the West

Saxon burh was significant and should be considered more earnestly. Chapter

Two continued in a similar theme, arguing that Alfred the Great’s Burghal

Hidage was partly based on a pre-existing system, one that originated in the

Mercian ‘common burdens’.1 Finally, the case study on the Andredesweald

challenged the idea that Alfred’s system was as effective as it is made out to be.

This chapter attempted to take the model of the burghal system that was

explored in Chapters One and Two and apply it to an area that it was not

introduced to. In fact, by examining an area in which the system was absent

allows us to discover more about its character and its foremost function.

It is clear that the term ‘burh’ cannot be assigned to a just single class of

fortification,2 this is especially appropriate for those in late ninth and early

tenth-century Wessex. These included reused Roman walled towns, proto-

urban enclosure sites and promontory forts. The point was made that the de

nova proto-urban sites were built in the image of their roman predecessors,

especially in terms of their layout.3 However, their defences were based upon

the Mercian design of the previous centuries, sited at places such as Hertford

and Tamworth. Thus, it appears that the design of the West Saxon burh was

very much a hybrid of the fortifications that were still visible in the landscape,

demonstrated by their reprocessed features. This also applies to the

promontory sites which repeatedly recycled Iron Age hillforts.4 Later

developments in burh disposition demonstrate a similar process of recondition,

most notably the ‘double burh’. It was no coincidence that this new strategy

1 Bassett, ‘Divide And Rule?’, 58-9. 2 Haslam, Early Medieval Towns, 19. Refers either to a private plot (thegnly or royal) with an

enclosure or to a larger communal fortification. 3 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 33. 4 Sutermeister, ‘Burpham’, 197. Burpham for example.

45

immediately proceeded those built in Charles the Bald’s West Frankish

Kingdom of the late ninth century.5

However, influence on Alfred’s burghal system was not limited the

physical characteristics of the fortifications within it. The burghal system was

the greatest system of defence in Western Europe since those of the Romans,6

consisting of over thirty fortified sites, varying from fortified towns and hillforts

but probably also simple beacons. Its ‘defence-in-depth’ was unique to this

period, a system that does not seem to have been employed since the Romans.7

That said, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the administration of

the system was heavily reliant on previous obligations. These ‘common burdens’

seem to have originated in the old Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, the burdens

of military service, burhwork and bridgework. Alfred used these obligations as

a basis for his network but must be credited for implementing them to a far

greater degree of efficiency. Hodges compares him to Machiavelli is this regard;

someone who knew how to bend the rules in his favour. This, alongside Alfred’s

military reforms that established a standing army to garrison the network was

Alfred’s real achievement, a genuine patron of his epithet as ‘the Great’.8

Interestingly, the notion that every part of the kingdom was within forty

miles of a burh, does not actually seem to have been upheld. Indeed, areas such

as the Weald lacked any sort of defensive protection with the only part of the

network to cover such areas were beacons, but even these were limited.9 This is

demonstrated by the events of 893, when a Viking army was able to penetrate

deep into the kingdom, something that Alfred’s system was established to

prevent. Clearly we should not over-state the effectiveness of Alfred’s system as

many do to this day. Instead, we should recognise that the system was not

perfect, it had its flaws, both avoidable and unavoidable.

On the other hand, the case of the Weald does not simply show us the

weaknesses in the system but more importantly it benefits our understanding of

what the system’s principal function was. As stated, the area was considerably

5 Although this is contested by some. For example, Lavelle compares the evolution of the West

Saxon and Frankish to the evolution of the Tank in the First World War (1914-1918). He suggests that the evolution of the burh was similar as the tank was derived in Britain and France without cohesion between the countries. Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 213.

6 Lavelle, Fortifications in Wessex, 17. 7 Lavelle, Alfred’s Wars, 210. 8 Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, 152. 9 See Gower’s study of the Stane Street system in 2002 for the only evidence for one in the

Weald.

46

depopulated during the period in comparison to other parts of Anglo-Saxon

England.10 The absence of fortification here suggests that the primary utility of

the West Saxon burh was ‘for the protection of all the people’.11 This function

appears to supersede the other suggested core functions of the burh (contrary

to Williams),12 namely: the implementation of royal authority, protection of raw

materials, economic centralisation and of course grand military strategy. The

construction of a burh in the Weald would have fulfilled all of these functions

apart from protecting a significant proportion of Wessex’s population. The area

lacked much royal authority, had numerous resources of iron and timber as well

as farmland, required economic centralisation and indeed left a hole in Wessex’s

defence network. The evidence presented here would suggest that the protection

of the West Saxon population was Alfred’s chief concern when he formulated

the burghal system, arguably his most important resource of all. That said, other

evidence would suggest that this was not the case, and that the defence of the

Kingdom as a whole was their chief occupation as Williams suggests.13 Perhaps

then, the best we can take from this study is that we should be more open to the

idea that Alfred wanted to protect his population, rather than just the land they

inhabited.

Word Count: 10375

10 Particularly areas such as Devon where a burh at Lydford was built. 11 EHD, 498. 12 Williams, ‘Functions of the Anglo-Saxon Burh’, 131. Williams suggests that ‘it seems unlikely

that that defence of the civilian population per se was the only, or even major, function of the burhs’.

13 Williams, ‘Functions of the Anglo-Saxon Burh’, 158.

47

Appendix

A Chronology of Relevant Key Events

757–96 Reign of King Offa in Mercia

c.789 First recorded raid in Wessex, Portland (Dors.)

793 Lindisfarne Monastery raid, Northumbria

839–58 Reign of King Æthelwulf in Wessex

855–60 Reign of King Æthelbald in Wessex

860–6 Reign of King Æthelbert in Wessex

866–71 Reign of King Æthelred I in Wessex

871–99 Reign of Alfred ‘the Great’

878 Alfred’s victory over the Vikings at Edington

874-5 Viking force overwinters at Repton (Derbys.)

878 Alfred dispossessed of Wessex by Viking force at Chippenham; Battle of

Edington (Wilts.) and Alfred-Guthrum Peace Treaty (c.878-90)

886 Alfred restores the city London

892 Eorpeburnan burh in the Andredesweald (Kent, unknown location);

Viking fortifications built at Appledore and Milton (Kent)

893 Battle of Farnham between West Saxons and Vikings from Kent

899–924 Reign of King Edward ‘the Elder’ over the ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’

924–39 Reign of King Æthelstan over kingdom of the English

978–1016 Reign of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’

998 Viking raids into Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex from the Isle of Wight

999 West Saxon defeat to Vikings at Rochester and extensive raiding in Kent

1011 Vikings army sack Canterbury and raid Kent

48

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