PENGANTAR SEJARAH INGGRIS
Compiled by: Romel Noverino
Faculty of Letters
Gunadarma University
Narrative History of England Introduction by Peter N. Williams, Ph. D.
Naturally, our study will be concerned with the lives of the men and women who contributed to the history of their great nation, for good or for ill. We will look, at the growth of England's political institutions, its Kings, Queens and chief ministers, and its technical and scientific marvels (phenomena) that put Britain ahead of its contemporaries in so many areas and gave the world the industrial and agricultural revolutions that changed peoples' lives forever. We will also discuss the important battles that determined the fate of the English nation.
We will look at the great men of literature who wrote in a language that is now being understood and copied in almost every area of the world. And we mustn't forget those who fought against the establishment in so many different areas, those men (and women) whose revolutionary ideas helped change the face of government, brought down kings and parliaments, and introduced modern democracy. Then there were those who were responsible for advances in medicine, psychology, sanitation, road-building, military reform, shipbuilding -- the list seems endless. Perhaps we should begin our account right at the beginning, long before recorded history began.
Part 1: The Prehistoric Period by Peter N. Williams, Ph. D.
Pre-Roman Britain
Though the scribes (writers) that accompanied the Roman invaders of Britain gave us the first written history of the land that came to be known as England, its history had already been writ large in its ancient monuments and archeological findings. Present-day Britain is riddled with evidence of its long past, of the past that the Roman writers did not record, but which is etched in the landscape. Looking out on the green and cultivated land, where it is not disfigured by the inevitable cities and towns and villages of later civilizations, strange bumps and mounds; remains of terraced or plowed fields; irregular slopes that bespeak ancient hill forts; strangely carved designs in the chalk; jagged teeth of upstanding megaliths; stone circles of immense breadth and height and ancient, mysterious wells and springs.
lifestyle and his habits. Of course, the land was not then known as England, nor would it be until long after the Romans had departed.
We know of the island's early inhabitants from what they left behind on such sites as Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, and Swanscombe in Kent, gravel pits, the exploration of which opened up a whole new way of seeing our ancient ancestors dating back to the lower Paleolithic (early Stone Age). Here were deposited not only fine tools made of flint, including hand-axes, but also a fossilized skull of a young woman as well as bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, lions, horses, deer, giant oxen, wolves and hares. From the remains, we can assume that man lived at the same time as these animals which have long disappeared from the English landscape.
So we know that a thriving culture existed around 8,000 years ago in the misty, westward islands the Romans were to call Britannia, though some have suggested the occupation was only seasonal, due to the still-cold climate of the glacial period which was slowly coming to an end. As the climate improved, there seems to have been an increase in the number of people moving into Britain from the Continent. They were attracted by its forests, its wild game, abundant rivers and fertile southern plains. An added attraction was its relative isolation, giving protection against the fierce nomadic tribesmen that kept appearing out of the east, forever searching for new hunting grounds and perhaps, people to subjugate and enslave.
The Neolithic Age
The new age of settlement took place around 4,500 BC, in what we now term the Neolithic Age. Though isolated farmhouses seem to be the norm, the remarkable findings at Skara Brae and Rinyo in the Orkneys give evidence of settled, village life. In both sites, local stone was used extensively to make interior walls, beds, boxes, cupboards and hearths. Roofs seem to have been supported by whale bone, more plentiful and more durable than timber. Much farther south, at Carn Brea in Cornwall, another Neolithic village attests to a lifestyle similar to that enjoyed at Skara Brae, except in the more fertile south, agriculture played a much larger part in the lives of the villagers. Animal husbandry was practiced at both sites.
Very early on, farming began to transform the landscape of Britain from virgin forest to ploughed fields. An excavated settlement at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire shows us that its early inhabitants kept cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and dogs. They also cultivated various kinds of wheat and barley, grew flax, gathered fruits and made pottery. They buried their dead in long barrows -- huge elongated mounds of earth raised over a temporary wooden structure in which several bodies were laid. These long barrows are found all over Southern England, where fertile soil allied to a flat, or gently rolling landscape greatly aided settlement.
appear in many areas away from the source of their manufacture. At Grimes Graves, in Norfolk (in the eastern half of Britain), great quantities of flint were mined by miners working deep hollowed-out shafts and galleries in the chalk.
At the same time the Windmill people practiced their way of life and other farming people were introducing decorated pottery and different shaped tools to Britain. The cultures may have combined to produce the striking Megalithic monuments, the burial chambers and the henges. The tombs consisted of passage graves, in which a long narrow passage leads to a burial chamber in the very middle of the mound; and gallery graves, in which the passage is wider, divided by stone partitions making stall-like compartments. Some of these tombs were built of massive blocks of stone standing upright as walls, with other huge blocks laid across horizontally to make a roof. They were then covered with earthen mounds which have in many cases, completely eroded. One of the most impressive of these tombs is New Grange in Ireland. They are the oldest manmade stone structures known, older than the great Pyramids of Egypt.
Sometime in the early to middle Neolithic period, groups of people began to build camps or enclosures in valley bottoms or on hilltops. Perhaps these were originally built to pen cattle and later used for defense, settlement or simply meeting places for trading. Perhaps they were built for religious purposes. Soon, these enclosures began to evolve into more elaborate sites that may have been used for religious ceremonies, perhaps even for studying the night stars so that sowing, planting and harvesting could be done at the most propitious times of the year. Whatever their purpose, we call these sites, most of which are circular or semi-circular in pattern, henges. They include banks and ditches; the most impressive, at Avebury, in Wiltshire, had a ditch 21 metres in width, and 9 metres deep in places.
Many of the timber posts that defined these henges have long disappeared, but many sites still contain circles of pits, central stones, cairns or burials and clearly defined stone or timber entrances. It was not too long before stone circles began to dot the landscape, spanning the period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Ages (c 3370 - 2679 BC). Outside these circles were erected the monoliths, huge single standing stones that may have been aligned on the rising or setting sun at midsummer or midwinter. Some of these, such as the groups of circles known as the Calva group in present day Scotland, were also used for burials and burial ceremonies. Henges seem to have been used for multiple purposes, justifying the enormous expenditure of time and energy to construct them.
group of Europeans we call the "Battle-axe people," who had domesticated the horse, used wheeled carts and smelted and worked copper. They also buried their dead in single graves, often under round barrows. They also may have introduced a language into Britain derived from Indo-European.
Prehistoric Earthworks and the "Wessex Culture" The two groups seem to have blended together to produce the cult in Southern England that we call the 'Wessex Culture.' They were responsible for the enormous earthwork called Silbury Hill, the largest manmade mound in prehistoric Europe. Silbury is 39 metres high and was built as a series of circular platforms; their purpose still unknown. Nearby is the largest henge of all, Avebury, consisting of a vast circular
ditch and bank, an outer ring of one hundred standing stones and two smaller inner rings of stones. Outside the monument was a mile-long avenue of standing stones.
Stonehenge, in the same general area as Silbury and Avebury, is perhaps the most famous, certainly the most visited and photographed of all the prehistoric monuments in Britain. We can only guess at the amount of labor involved in its construction, at the enormous complexity of the task which included transporting the inner blue-stones from the Preseli Hills in Wales and erecting of the great lintelled circle and horseshoe of large sarsen stones, shaped and dressed. The architectural sophistication of the monument bears witness to the tremendous technological advances being made at the time of the arrival of the Bronze Age.
Grave goods also attest to the sophistication of the Wessex culture: These include well-made stone battle axes, but also metal daggers with richly decorated hilts, precious ornaments of gold or amber, as well as gold cups, amulets, even a sceptre with a polished mace-head at one end. To make bronze, tin came from Cornwall; gold came from Wales, and products made from these metals were traded freely both within the British Isles and with peoples on the continent of Europe. Bronze was used to make cauldrons and bowls, shields and helmets, weapons of war, and farming tools. It was at this time that the Celtic peoples arrived in the islands we now call Britain.
The Celts
Before the arrival of the Celts in Britain, iron-working had begun in the Hittite Empire, of Asia Minor. Those who practiced the trade kept it a closely guarded secret, but shortly after 1200 BC, the Hittites were overthrown and knowledge of the miracle metal began to leak out. In Central Europe, a culture known as "Urnfield" developed and prospered. It quickly adapted the iron-working culture known as "Hallstatt," after a site in Austria.
chambers under earthen barrows. The Hallstatt people were highly-skilled craftsmen, who used iron, bronze and gold, and produced fine burnished pottery. At some time they reached the British Isles and their culture began to infiltrate those foggy, wet, but mineral-rich islands off the Continent.
From their contact with Mediterraneans, the Hallstatt people had advanced their technology and culture developing into what is called "La Tene" after a site in Switzerland. The La Tene style, with its production of beautiful, handsomely-made and decorated articles, came into existence around the middle of the fifth century BC. It was produced by the Celts, the first people in the islands of Britain whose culture and language survive in many forms today.
Of the Celtic peoples, Hermann Noelle wrote:
The Celtic culture as a whole, developing very early on about 1000 BC, and reaching its finest expression around 500 BC, is a fundamental part of Europe's past. This is not to underrate the subsequent influence of the Latin and Germanic peoples on this part of Europe. But the Celtic foundation was already present. Thus, European culture is inconceivable without the Celtic contribution. Even when the presence of the Celts in their original territory is no longer obvious, we must acknowledge the fact: they are at the root of the Western European peoples who have made history. (Die Kelten und Ihre Stadt Manching, cited in Cunliffe, 214)
The arrival of people into the British Isles from the Continent probably took place in small successive waves. The Greeks called these people Keltoi, the Romans Celtai. In present-day Yorkshire, "the Arras Culture" with its La Tene chariot burials attests to the presence of a wealthy and flourishing Celtic society in Northeast Britain. In the southwest, cross-Channel influence is seen. Here, a culture developed that was probably highly involved in the mining and trading of tin; it is characterized by a certain type of hill fort that is also found in Britanny.
Hill Forts
Hill Forts from the Iron-Age, the age of the Celts, are found everywhere in the British Isles. Spectacular relics from prehistoric times, hill forts had as many purposes as sites. They varied from shelters for people and livestock in times of danger, purely local settlements of important leaders and their families, to small townships and administrative centers. Long practiced in the art of warfare, the people of these isolated settlements were responsible for some of the finest known artistic achievements. In addition to their beautifully wrought and highly decorated shields, daggers, spears, helmets and sword, they also produced superb mirrors, toilet articles, drinking vessels and personal jewelry of exquisite form and decoration.
and Manx. Along with their languages, the Celts brought their religion to Britain, particularly that of the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning. The Druids glorified the pursuits of war, feasting and horsemanship. They controlled the calender and the planting of crops and presided over the religious festivals and rituals that honored local deities.
Many of Britain's Celts came from Gaul, driven from their homelands by the Roman armies and Germanic tribes. These were the Belgae, who arrived in great numbers and settled in the southeast around 75 BC. They brought with them a sophisticated plough that revolutionized agriculture in the rich, heavy soils of their new lands. Their society was well-organized in urban settlements, the capitals of the tribal chiefs. Their crafts were highly developed; bronze urns, bowls and torques illustrate their metalworking skills. They also introduced coinage to Britain and conducted a lively export trade with Rome and Gaul, including corn, livestock, metals and slaves.
Of the Celtic lands on the mainland of Britain, Wales and Scotland have received extensive coverage in the pages of Britannia. The largest non-Celtic area, at least linguistically, is now known as England, and it is here that the Roman influence is most strongly felt. It was here that the armies of Rome came to stay, to farm, to mine, to build roads, small cities, and to prosper, but mostly to govern.
Part 2: The Roman Period by Peter N. Williams, Ph. D.
Changes in Empire and at Home
The first Roman invasion of the lands we now call the British Isles took place in 55 B.C. under war leader Julius Caesar, who returned one year later, but these probings did not lead to any significant or permanent occupation. He had some interesting, if biased comments concerning the natives: "All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle." It was not until a hundred years later that permanent settlement of the grain-rich eastern territories began in earnest.
The highlands and moorlands of the northern and western regions, present-day Scotland and Wales, were not as easily settled, nor did the Romans particularly wish to settle in these agriculturally poorer, harsh landscapes. They remained the frontier -- areas where military garrisons were strategically placed to guard the extremities of the Empire. The stubborn resistance of tribes in Wales meant that two out of three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on its borders, at Chester and Caerwent.
Major defensive works further north attest to the fierceness of the Pictish and Celtic tribes, Hadrian's Wall in particular reminds us of the need for a peaceful and stable frontier. Built when Hadrian had abandoned his plan of world conquest, settling for a permanent frontier to "divide Rome from the barbarians," the seventy-two mile long wall connecting the Tyne to the Solway was built and rebuilt, garrisoned and re-garrisoned many times, strengthened by stone-built forts as one mile intervals.
For Imperial Rome, the island of Britain was a western breadbasket. Caesar had taken armies there to punish those who were aiding the Gauls on the Continent in their fight to stay free of Roman influence. Claudius invaded to give himself prestige, and his subjugation of eleven British tribes gave him a splendid triumph. Vespasian was a legion commander in Britain before he became Emperor, but it was Agricola who gave us most notice of the heroic struggle of the native Britons through his biographer Tacitus. From him, we get the unforgettable picture of the druids, "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations." Agricola also won the decisive victory of Mons Graupius in present-day Scotland in 84 A.D. over Calgacus "the swordsman," that carried Roman arms farther west and north than they had ever before ventured. They called their newly-conquered northern territory Caledonia.
When Rome had to withdraw one of its legions from Britain, the thirty-seven mile long Antonine Wall, connecting the Firths of Forth and Clyde, served temporarily as the northern frontier, beyond which lay Caledonia.. The Caledonians, however were not easily contained; they were quick to master the arts of guerilla warfare against the scattered, home-sick Roman legionaries, including those under their ageing commander Severus. The Romans abandoned the Antonine Wall, withdrawing south of the better-built, more easily defended barrier of Hadrian, but by the end of the fourth century, the last remaining outposts in Caledonia were abandoned.
Chartered towns were governed to a large extent on that of Rome. They were ruled by an ordo of 100 councillors (decurion ). who had to be local residents and own a certain amount of property. The ordo was run by two magistrates, rotated annually; they were responsible for collecting taxes, administering justice and undertaking public works. Outside the chartered town, the inhabitants were referred to as peregrini , or non-citizens. they were organized into local government areas known as civitates , largely based on pre-existing chiefdom boundaries. Canterbury and Chelmsford were two of the civitas capitals.
In the countryside, away from the towns, with their metalled, properly drained streets, their forums and other public buildings, bath houses, shops and amphitheatres, were the great villas, such as are found at Bignor, Chedworth and Lullingstone. Many of these seem to have been occupied by native Britons who had acquired land and who had adopted Roman culture and customs.. Developing out of the native and relatively crude farmsteads, the villas gradually added features such as stone walls, multiple rooms, hypocausts (heating systems), mosaics and bath houses..The third and fourth centuries saw a golden age of villa building that further increased their numbers of rooms and added a central courtyard. The elaborate surviving mosaics found in some of these villas show a detailed construction and intensity of labor that only the rich could have afforded; their wealth came from the highly lucrative export of grain.
Roman society in Britain was highly classified. At the top were those people associated with the legions, the provincial administration, the government of towns and the wealthy traders and commercial classes who enjoyed legal privileges not generally accorded to the majority of the population. In 2l2 AD, the Emperor Caracalla extended citizenship to all free-born inhabitants of the empire, but social and legal distinctions remained rigidly set between the upper rank of citizens known as honestiores and the masses, known as humiliores. At the lowest end of the scale were the slaves, many of whom were able to gain their freedom, and many of whom might occupy important govermental posts. Women were also rigidly circumscribed, not being allowed to hold any public office, and having severely limited property rights.
One of the greatest achievements of the Roman Empire was its system of roads, in Britain no less than elsewhere. When the legions arrived in a country with virtually no roads at all, as Britain was in the first century A.D., their first task was to build a system to link not only their military headquarters but also their isolated forts. Vital for trade, the roads were also of paramount important in the speedy movement of troops, munitions and supplies from one strategic center to another. They also allowed the movement of agricultural products from farm to market. London was the chief administrative centre, and from it, roads spread out to all parts of the province. They included Ermine Street, to Lincoln; Watling Street, to Wroxeter and then to Chester, all the way in the northwest on the Welsh frontier; and the Fosse Way, from Exeter to Lincoln, the first frontier of the province of Britain.
bog and marsh so typical in much of the land, and stayed clear of the impenetrable forests. They also utilized bridges, an innovation that the Romans introduced to Britain in place of the hazardous fords at many river crossings. An advantage of good roads was that communications with all parts of the country could be effected. They carried the cursus publicus, or imperial post. A road book used by messengers that lists all the main routes in Britain, the principal towns and forts they pass through, and the distances between them has survived: the Antonine Itinerary.. In addition, the same information, in map form, is found in the Peutinger Table. It tells us that mansiones were places at various intervals along the road to change horses and take lodgings.
The Roman armies did not have it all their own way in their battles with the native tribesmen, some of whom, in their inter-tribal squabbles, saw them as deliverers, not conquerors. Heroic and often prolonged resistance came from such leaders as Caratacus of the Ordovices, betrayed to the Romans by the Queen of the Brigantes. And there was Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) of the Iceni, whose revolt nearly succeeded in driving the Romans out of Britain. Her people, incensed by their brutal treatment at the hands of Roman officials, burned Colchester, London, and St. Albans, destroying many armies ranged against them. It took a determined effort and thousands of fresh troops sent from Italy to reinforce governor Suetonius Paulinus in A..D. 6l to defeat the British Queen, who took poison rather than submit.
Apart from the villas and fortified settlements, the great mass of the British people did not seem to have become Romanized. The influence of Roman thought survived in Britain only through the Church. Christianity had thoroughly replaced the old Celtic gods by the close of the 4th Century, as the history of Pelagius and St. Patrick testify, but Romanization was not successful in other areas. For example, the Latin tongue did not replace Brittonic as the language of the general population. Today's visitors to Wales, however, cannot fail to notice some of the Latin words that were borrowed into the British language, such as pysg (fish), braich (arm), caer (fort), foss (ditch), pont (bridge), eglwys (church), llyfr (book), ysgrif (writing), ffenestr (window), pared (wall or partition), and ystafell (room).
The disintegration of Roman Britain began with the revolt of Magnus Maximus in A.D. 383. After living in Britain as military commander for twelve years, he had been hailed as Emperor by his troops. He began his campaigns to dethrone Gratian as Emperor in the West, taking a large part of the Roman garrison in Britain with him to the Continent, and though he succeeded Gratian, he himself was killed by the Emperor Thedosius in 388. Some Welsh historians, and modern political figures, see Magnus Maximus as the father of the Welsh nation, for he opened the way for independent political organizations to develop among the Welsh people by his acknowledgement of the role of the leaders of the Britons in 383 (before departing on his military mission to the Continent) The enigmatic figure has remained a hero to the Welsh as Macsen Wledig, celebrated in poetry and song.
defences against the onslaught of the Saxon hordes. The famous letter of A.D.410 from the Emperor Honorius told the cities of Britain to look to their own defences from that time on. As part of the east coast defences, a command had been established under the Count of the Saxon Shore, and a fleet had been organized to control the Channel and the North Sea. All this showed a tremendous effort to hold the outlying province of Britain, but eventually, it was decided to abandon the whole project. In any case, the communication from Honorius was a little late: the Saxon influence had already begun in earnest.
Part 3: Arthurian Britain by Peter N. Williams, Ph. D.
The Dark Ages
From the time that the Romans more or less abandoned Britain, to the arrival of Augustine at Kent to convert the Saxons, the period has been known as the Dark Ages. Written evidence concerning the period is scanty, but we do know that the most significant events were the gradual division of Britain into a Brythonic west, a Teutonic east and a Gaelic north; the formation of the Welsh, English and Scottish nations; and the conversion of much of the west to Christianity.
By 4l0, Britain had become self-governing in three parts, the North (which already included people of mixed British and Angle stock); the West (including Britons, Irish, and Angles); and the South East (mainly Angles). With the departure of the Roman legions, the old enemies began their onslaughts upon the native Britons once more. The Picts and Scots to the north and west (the Scots coming in from Ireland had not yet made their homes in what was to become later known as Scotland), and the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes to the south and east.
The two centuries that followed the collapse of Roman Britain happen to be among the worst recorded times in British history, certainly the most obscure. Three main sources for our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon permeation of Britain come from the 6th century monk Gildas, the 8th century historian Bede, and the 9th century historian Nennius. From them, and from archeological evidence, it seems that the Anglo-Saxon domination of Britain took place in two distinct phases. I have hesitated to use Bede's term of "Conquest" for sound reasons.
Referring to Israel, but in general terms, Neil Silberman wrote: "Archeology's real contribution has been, and will continue to be, the recognition that our biblical heritage is drawn from a complex mosaic of cultures, ideologies, and economies, and that some of our most profound spiritual and cultural traditions were forged in the vibrant diversity of the ancient Near Eastern world." As far as British history is concerned, we find English historians, especially Bede, doing the same thing as the biblical scribes. No matter how reliable an historian, Bede's bitter prejudice against the native Britons was honed by his religious beliefs and his praise of the English peoples' successes in colonizing the island of Britain.
Bede (672-735) spent his life at Jarrow, in Northumbria. In many ways a trustworthy historian, he was also a theologian. Acting as a bard of his own tribe in Northumbria, hIs intense hostility made him a partisan witness when he wrote of the British people, for they had retained a form of Roman Christianity which was anathema to him. He called members of the Celtic Church "barbarians," " a rustic, perfidious race," and is thus regarded by many modern historians (but especially Welsh writers) as a "fancy monger" especially for his account of the year of 708 that has been slavishly followed by countless generations of English historians throughout the centuries with nary a question. Nor do Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth escape censure, certainly not the writers of the English Chronicle., all of whom subscribe to the notion that the British people were driven out of their homelands into Wales and Cornwall as a result of a catastrophic event known as "the Anglo-Saxon conquest."
The heritage of the British people cannot simply be called Anglo-Saxon; it is based on such a mixture as took place in the Holy Land, that complex mosaic of cultures, ideologies and economies. The Celts were not driven out of what came to be known as England. More than one modern historian has pointed out that such an extraordinary success as an Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain "by bands of bold adventurers" could hardly have passed without notice by the historians of the Roman Empire, yet only Prosper Tyro and Procopius notice this great event, and only in terms that are not always consistent with the received accounts.
In the Gallic Chronicle of 452, Tyro had written that the Britons in 443 were reduced "in dicionen Saxonum" (under the jurisdiction of the English). He used the Roman term Saxons for all the English-speaking peoples resident in Britain: it comes from the Welsh appellation Saeson ). The Roman historians had been using the term to describe all the continental folk who had been directing their activities towards the eastern and southern coasts of Britain from as early as the 3rd Century. By the mid 6th Century, these peoples were calling themselves Angles and Frisians , and not Saxons.
therefore, that the Gallic Chronicle of 452 refers only to a small part of Britain, and that it does not signify conquest by the Saxons. According to a recent study, the Institute of Molecular Biology, Oxford (reported in Realm, March/April, 1999) has established a common DNA going back to the end of the last Ice Age which is shared by 99 percent from a sample of 6,000 British people, confirming that successive invasions of Saxons, Angles and Jutes (and Danes and Normans) did little to change that make-up.
Thus we have to agree with Professors John Davies and A.W. Wade-Evans that the Saxons did not sweep away the entire population of the areas they overran. The myth was especially promulgated by 19th century historians in their attempts to stress the essential teutonic nature of the English people, and their attempts to disassociate what they considered to be the politically mature, emotionally stable, enlightened English from their unreliable, untrustworthy Welsh, Scottish and Irish neighbors who apparently shared none of the former's redeeming characteristics.
It was not only Bede of course, who contributed to the confusion concerning the momentous events of the years 400 to 600, for the most influential document written during the period was that of the monk Gildas written about 540: De Excidio Britanniae (Concerning the Fall of Britain). Here, in some 25, 000 words, Gildas gives us a sermon that pours scorn on his contemporaries, the kings of Britain. He tells us that the coming of the Saxons was an act of God to punish the native Britons for their sins. As we discover from reading Gildas, there is a great lack of reliable written evidence from the period, and we have to turn to literature to inform ourselves of its important events, literature written before Bede's prejudiced history. Much of this literature was produced in what is now Scotland.
The Britons of the North produced two great poets Taliesin and Aneirin, both of whom lived in the area now known as Strathclyde in Scotland, but whose language is recognizable as Old Welsh Their poems are part of the heroic tradition that praise the warrior king and his brave followers in their constant battles against the Germanic invaders.. They also celebrate honor in defeat. Taliesin's poetry praises the ideal ruler who protects his people by bravery and ferocity in battle but who is mangnanimous and generous in peace. Aneirin is best remembered for Y Gododdin, commemorating the feats of a small band of warriors who fought the Angles at Catraeth and who were willing to die for their overlord. the poem is the first to mention Arthur, described as a paragon of virtue and bravery. In the Annales Cambriae, drawn up at St.David's in Wales around 960, Arthur is recorded as having been victorious at the Battle of Badon in 5l6 against the Saxons.
imaginative works of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1090-1155) that the Arthurian romances provided the basis for a whole new and impressive tradition of European literature.
It is the coming of Christianity, however, that overshadows the literary achievements of the age. In most of lowland Britain, Latin had become the language of administration and education, especially since Celtic writing was virtually unknown. Latin was also the language of the Church in Rome. The old Celtic gods had given way to the new ones such as Mithras introduced by the Roman mercenaries; they were again replaced when missionaries from Gaul introduced Christianity to the islands. By 3l4, an organized Christian Church seems to have been established in most of Britain, for in that year British bishops were summoned to the Council of Arles. By the end of the fourth century, a diocesan structure had been set up, many districts having come under the pastoral care of a bishop.
In the meantime, however, missionaries of the Gospel had been active in the south and east of the land that later became known as Scotland (It was not until the late tenth Century that the name Scotia ceased to be applied to Ireland and become transferred to southwestern Scotland) The first of these was Ninian who probably built his first church (Candida Casa: White House ) at Whithorn in Galloway, ministering from there as a traveling bishop and being buried there after his death in 397 A.D. For many centuries his tomb remained a place of pilgrimage, including visits from kings and queens of Scotland.
It was during the time of the Saxon invasions, in that relatively unscathed western peninsular that later took the name Wales, that the first monasteries were established (the words Wales and Welsh were used by the Germanic invaders to refer to Romanized Britons). They spread rapidly to Ireland from where missionaries returned to those parts of Britain that were not under the Roman Bishops' jurisdiction, mainly the Northwest.. Though preceded by St Oran, who established churches in Iona, Mull and Tiree, Columba was the most important of these missionaries, later becoming a popular saint in the history of the Christian Church, but even he built the nave of his first monastery facing west and not east. For his efforts at reforming the Church, he was excommunicated by Rome. His banishment from Ireland became Scotland's gain.
In 574, Columba is believed to have returned to Ireland to plead the cause of the bards, about to be expelled as trouble-makers. According to legend, he sensibly argued that their expulsion would deprive the country of an irreplaceable wealth of folklore and antiquity. He also refused to chop down the ancient, sacred oak trees that symbolized the old druidic religion. Although the bards were allowed to remain, they were forced to give up their special privileges as priests of the old religion (Some modern writers, such as Robert Graves have seen the old traditions underlying much Celtic literature throughout the long. long years since the 6th century).
In this period, the 5th and 6th Centuries, numerous Celtic saints were adopted by the rapidly expanding Church. At the Synod of Whitby in 664, however, the Celtic Church, with its own ideas about the consecration of its Bishops, tonsure of its monks, dates for the celebration of Easter and other differences with Rome, was more or less forced by majority opinion of the British bishops to accept the rule of St.Peter, introduced by Augustine, rather than of St.Columba. From this date on, we can no longer speak of a Celtic Church as distinct from that of Rome. By the end of the seventh century we can also begin to speak of an Anglo-Saxon political entity in the island of Britain, and the formation and growth of various English kingdoms.
Part 4: The Anglo Saxon Period by Peter N. Williams, Ph. D.
Commonly ascribed to the monk Gildas, the "De Excidio Britanniae" (the loss of Britain), was written about 540. As previously mentioned, it is not a good history, for it is most mere polemic. Closely followed by Bede, the account is the first to narrate what has traditionally been regarded as the story of the coming of the Saxons to Britain. Their success, regarded by Gildas as God's vengeance against the Britons for their sins, was a theme repeated by Bede isolated in his monastery in the north. We note, however, that Gildas made the statement that, in his own day, the Saxons were not warring against the Britons. We can be certain that the greater part of the pre-English inhabitants of England survived, and that a great proportion of present-day England is made up of their descendants.
To answer the question how did the small number of invaders come to master the larger part of Britain? John Davies gives us part of the answer: the regions seized by the newcomers were mainly those that had been most thoroughly Romanized, regions where traditions of political and military self-help were at their weakest. Those who chafed at the administration of Rome could only have welcomed the arrival of the English in such areas as Kent and Sussex, in the southeast.
settlement and growth, sometimes peaceful, sometimes not. If it is pointed out that the native Celts were constantly warring among themselves, it should also be noted that so were the tribes we now collectively term the English, for different kingdoms developed in England that constantly sought domination through conquest. Even Bede could pick out half a dozen rulers able to impose some kind of authority upon their contemporaries.
So we see the rise and fall of successive English kingdoms during the seventh and eighth centuries: Kent, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. Before looking at political developments, however, it is important to notice the religious conversion of the people we commonly call Anglo-Saxons. It began in the late sixth century and created an institution that not only transcended political boundaries, but created a new concept of unity among the various tribal regions that overrode individual loyalties.
In 597, St. Augustine was sent to convert the pagan English by Pope Gregory, who was anxious to spread the Gospel, and enhance papal prestige by reclaiming former territories of Rome. Augustine received a favorable reception in the kingdom of Ethelbert, who had married Bertha, daughter of the Merovingian King and a practicing Christian. Again, it is to Bede that we owe the story of the conversion of England to the new faith (the older Roman Christian Church remained in parts of Britain, notably Wales and Scotland as the Celtic Church). Augustine's success in converting a large number of people led to his consecration as bishop by the end of the year.
Pope Gregory had drawn up a detailed plan for the administration of the Church in England. There were to be two archbishops, London and York (each to have 12 bishops). As the city of London was not under the control of Ethelbert, however, a new See was chosen at Canterbury, in Kent. It was there that Augustine, promoted to archbishop, laid down the beginnings of the ecclesiastical organization of the Church in Britain. It was Gregory's guiding hand, however, that influenced all Augustine's decisions; both Pope and Bishop seemed to know little of the Celtic Church, and made no accommodations with it.
The establishment of the Church at York was not possible until 625; the immense task of converting and then organizing the converted was mostly beyond the limited powers of Augustine, well-trained in monastic rule, but little trained in law and administration. Edwin of Northumbria's wife chose Paulinus as Bishop and the See of York was established, though later attacks from Penda of Mercia meant that only a limited kind of Christian worship took place in the North until around the middle of the eighth century.
In 668 when a vacancy arose at Canterbury, the monk Theodore of Tarsus was appointed as archbishop. His background as a Greek scholar meant that he had to take new vows and be ordained in custom with the Church in the West. He then attacked his work with vigor. Assisted by another Greek scholar Hadrian, he set up the basis of diocesan organization throughout England and carried out the decisions made at Whitby.
successfully for the adoption of the Roman Church at Whitby. Theodore consecrated new bishops at Dulwich, Winchester and Rochester, and set up the Sees of Worcester, Hereford, Oxford and Leicester. Wilfred of Ripon reigned supreme in Northumbria as the exponent of ecclesiastical authority, but when he quarreled with King Ecgfrith, he was sent into exile. Theodore seized his opportunity to break up the North into smaller and more controllable dioceses. Over the next twenty years bishoprics were established at York, Hexham, Ripon and Lindsey. Theodore also re-established the system of ecclesiastical synods that disregarded political boundaries.
One of Theodore's great accomplishments was to create the machinery through which the wealth of the Celtic Church was transferred to the Anglo-Saxon Church. This wealth was particularly responsible for the late seventh century flowering of culture in Northumbria, which benefitted from both Celtic and Roman influences. In that northern outpost of the Catholic Church, a tradition of scholarship began that was to have a profound influence on the literature of Western Europe. It constituted a remarkable outbreak with equally remarkable consequences.
It all began with a Northumbrian nobleman, associated with monastic life, Benedict Biscop, who founded two monasteries, Wearmouth (674) and Jarrow (681). Both were to play important parts in this cultural phenomenon. Biscop made six journeys to Rome, acquiring many valuable manuscripts and beginning what can be termed a golden age in Northumbria. Its greatest scholar was Bede.
Known to posterity as "the Venerable Bede," the monk lived from 673-735. He entered Jarrow at the age of seven. Never traveling further than York, he became the most learned scholar of his time. Working in the library with the manuscripts acquired by Benedict Biscop, he added greatly to its store of knowledge through his voluminous correspondence. His contemporary reputation rested on his biblical writings and commentaries on the Scriptures as well as his chronological works that established a firm system of calculating the date of Easter. Bede's greatest work was his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.
Bede's audience was a newly-forged nation; the English were anxious to hear of their past accomplishments and of the lives of their great people; Bede provided them with both. His history shows the stages by which the Anglo-Saxon people became Christian. He sifted his evidence carefully, preserving oral traditions where they complemented his written material, and he often indicated his sources. Abounding in anecdotes, guides for memory, his concept of history set a new standard for future writers, though as noted earlier, his prejudices against the Britons (Welsh) mar his work.
missionaries was Boniface, who established many German Sees from his archbishopric at Mainz. From York came Alcuin, one of the period's greatest scholars. All in all, we can say that the Anglo-Saxon Church provided an important impetus for the civilizing of much of the Continent. In particular, it provided the agent for the fusing of Celtic and Roman ideas, and its work in Europe produced events that had repercussions of profound importance.
In the meantime, events were rapidly changing the political face of Anglo-Saxon England. There were separate kingdoms in England, settled by Angles, Saxons and Jutes whose areas, bit by bit, extended into the Celtic regions: Northumbria in the north; Mercia westwards to the River Severn and Wessex into Devon and Cornwall. In the southeast, the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent had achieved early prominence.
Hengist and Horsa had arrived in Kent with a small fleet of ships in around 446 AD to aid the Britons in the defense of their lands. They had been invited by British chief Vortigern to fight the northern barbarians in return for pay and supplies, but more importantly, for land. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates Hengist's assumption of the kingdom of Kent to 455 AD; and though it also records the flight of the Britons from that kingdom to London, it probably refers to an army, not a people. The invaders, who were Jutes, named the capital of their new kingdom Canterbury, the borough of the people of the Cantii. Only nine years after their arrival, they were in revolt against Vortigern, who awarded them the whole kingdom of the Cantii with Hengist as king to be succeeded by his son Oisc.
Thus the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain was an Anglo-Celtic kingdom, peopled by Anglo-Celts. The dynasty founded there by Hengist lasted for three centuries. However, with the death of joint kings Aethelbert and Eadberht, it was time for other kingdoms to rise to prominence. Only thirty years after the arrival of Hengist to Britain, another chieftain named Aelle came to settle. The leader of the South Saxons; Aella ruled the kingdom that became Sussex. Other kingdoms were those of the East Saxons (Essex); the Middle Saxons (Middlesex), and the West Saxons, (Wessex) destined to become the most powerful of all and one that eventually brought together all the diverse people of England (named for the Angles) into one single nation.
When Bede was writing his History, he was residing in what had been for over a century the most powerful kingdom in England, for rulers such as Edwin, Oswald and Oswy had made Northumbria politically stable as well as Christian. Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, was defeated by Cadwallon, the only British King to overthrow a Saxon dynasty, who had allied himself to Penda of Mercia, the Middle Kingdom. Oswald restored the Saxon monarchy in 633, and during his reign, missionaries under Aidan completed the conversion of Northumbria (an account of the early Christian Church in the North can be found in my "Brief History of Scotland," Chap. 2).
also defeated pagan king Penda and brought Mercia under his control, opening up the whole middle kingdom to Celtic missionaries. Then, in 663 under his chairmanship, the great Synod of Whitby took place, at which the Roman Church was accepted as the official branch of the faith in England. It was Oswy's forceful backing that secured the decision for Rome.
Northumbria's dominance began to wane at the beginning of the eighth century. It was hastened by the defeat and death of Ecgfrid in 685. The kingdom had been threatened by the growing power of Mercia, whose king Penda had led the fiercest resistance to the imposition of Christianity. After Penda's defeat, his successor Wulfhere turned south to concentrate his efforts on fighting against Wessex where strong rulers prevented any Mercian domination. However, the situation began to change in the early eighth century with the accession of two strong rulers, Aethelbold and Offa.
Aethelbold (726-57) called himself "King of Britain." Bede tells us that "all these provinces [in the South of England] with their kings, are in subjection to Aethelbald, king of Mercia, even to Humber." Whatever his claims to sovereignty, however, it was his successor Offa (757-96) who could call himself "king of all the English," for though Wessex was growing powerful within itself, Offa seems to have been the senior partner and overlord of Southern Britain. His many letters to Charles the Great (Charlemagne) show that the Mercian king regarded himself as an equal to the Carolingian ruler (his son Ecfrith was the very first king in England to have an official coronation). Offa's correspondence with the Pope also shows roughly the same attitude. It was Offa who inaugurated what later became known as Peter's Pence (those financial contributions that became a bane to later rulers who wished to have more control over their finances and sources of revenue).
Both Aethelbold and Offa insisted on being called by their royal titles; they were very much aware of the concept of unity within the kingdom of Mercia. Offa was the first English ruler to draw a definite frontier with Wales (much of the earthen rampart and ditch created in the middle of the eighth century, still exists). The creation of a metropolitan archbishopric at Lichfield attested to his influence with Rome. Under his reign an effective administration was created (and a good quality distinctive coinage). The little kingdom of Mercia found itself a member of the community of European states. Though Offa's descendants tried to maintain the splendors (and the delusions) of his reign, Mercia's domination ended at the battle of Ellendun in 825 when Egbert of Wessex defeated Beornwulf.
but their work was well done and they left behind a strong state able to withstand the might of Mercia.
A new phase began in 802 with the accession of Egbert and the establishment of his authority throughout Wessex. The dominance of Mercia was finally broken, the other kingdoms defeated in battle or voluntary submitted to his overlordship, and Egbert was recognized as Bretwalda, Lord of Britain, the first to give reality to the dream of a single government from the borders of Scotland to the English Channel. An ominous entry in the "West Saxon Annals" however, tells us that in the year 834 "The heathen men harried Sheppey." During the centuries of inter-tribal warfare, the Saxons had not thought of defending their coasts. The Norsemen, attracted by the wealth of the religious settlements, often placed near the sea, were free to embark upon their voyages of plunder.
The first recorded visit of the Vikings in the West Saxon Annals had stated that a small raiding party slew those who came to meet them at Dorchester in 789. It was the North, however, at such places as Lindisfarne, the holiest city in England, lavishly endowed with treasures at its monastery and religious settlement, that constituted the main target. Before dealing with the onslaught of the Norsemen, however, it is time to briefly review the accomplishments of the people collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, especially in the rule of law.
From the Roman historian Tacitus we get a picture of the administration of Saxon law long before they came to settle in Britain. His "Germania" tells us of the deliberation of the chiefs in smaller matters and the deliberation of all in more important ones. "Yet even those matters which are reserved for the general opinion are thoroughly discussed by the chiefs... in the assembly, actions may be brought and capital crimes prosecuted. They make the punishment fit the crime."
It was not long after the conversion of the Saxon peoples to Christianity that written laws began to be enacted in England to provide appropriate penalties for offenses against the Church (and therefore against God). In Kent, King Aethelbert (601-04) was the first to set down the laws of his people in the English language; his laws constitute by far the earliest body of law expressed in any Germanic language. They show no sign of Roman influence but are more in common with the Lex Salica issued by Clovis for the Salian Franks.
Other Kentish laws date from the reigns of Hlothhere and Eadric, brother and eldest son of Egbert. These were mainly enlargements of previous laws. They show a somewhat elaborate development of legal procedure, but they also recognized a title to nobility which is derived from birth and not from service to a king. More significant, however, is the fact that the men who direct the pleas in popular assemblies are not ministers of the king, but "the judges of the Kentish people." All in all, the laws show a form of society little affected by the growth of royal power or aristocratic privilege.
Under Wihtraed (695-96), laws were set down mainly to deal with ecclesiastical matters. They were primarily to provide penalties for unlawful marriages, heathen practices, neglect of holy days or fast days, and to define the process under which accused persons might establish their innocence. The Church and its leading ministers were given special privileges, including exemption from taxation. The oath of a bishop, like those of a king, is declared uncontrovertible, and the Church was to receive the same compensation as the king for violence done to dependents. Within 90 years, the Church which Aethelbert had taken under his protection had become a power all but equal with the king himself.
By the early part of the 10th century, the government had begun to regard the kin as legally responsible for the good behavior of its members, though respect for the kin did not mean that the ties of kindred dominated English law. There had been earlier passages which ignored or deliberately weakened this primitive function of kin. For example, a ceorl who wished to clear himself at the altar must produce not a group of his kinsmen, but three men who are merely of his own class. Mere oaths from his own family circle were looked upon with suspicion by the authorities, and thus encroachments upon the power of the kin to protect its own members constituted a rapid advancement of English law even before the end of the seventh century.
From the laws of Ine (688-95), the strongest king in Southern England during his long reign, it is clear that he was a statesman with ideas beyond the grasp of his predecessors. His code is a lengthy document, covering a wide range of human relationships, entering much more fully than any other early code into the details of the agrarian system on which society rested. They were also marked by the definite purpose of advancing Christianity. Not merely a tariff of offenses, it is the result of a serious attempt to bring together a body of rules governing the more complicated questions with which the king and his officers might have to deal. It stands for a new concept of kingship, destined in time to replace the simple motives which had satisfied the men of an earlier age.
By the year 878 there was every possibility that before the end of the year Wessex would have been divided among the Danish army. That this turn of events did not come to pass was due to Alfred. Leaving aside the political events of the period, we can praise his laws as the first selective code of Anglo-Saxon England, though the fundamentals remained unchanged, those who didn't please him, were amended or discarded. They remain comments on the law, mere statements of established custom.
In 896, Alfred occupied London, giving the first indication that the lands which had lately passed under Danish control might be reclaimed. It made him the obvious leader of all those who, in any part of the country, wished for a reversal of the disasters, and it was immediately followed by a general recognition of his lordship. In the words of the Chronicle, "all the English people submitted to Alfred except those who were under the power of the Danes." The occasion marked the achievement of a new stage in the advancement of the English people towards political unity, the acceptance of Alfred's overlordship expressed a feeling that he stood for interests common to the whole English race. Earlier rulers had to rely on the armed forces at their disposal for any such claims.
The Code of Alfred has a significance in English history which is entirely independent of its subject matter, for he gives himself the title of King of the West Saxons, naming previous kings such as Ine, Offa and Aethelberth whose work had influenced his own. The implication is that his code was intended to cover not only the kingdom of Wessex, but also Kent and Mercia. It thus becomes important evidence of the new political unity forced upon the English people by the struggle against the Danes. In addition, it appeared at the end of a century during which no English king had issued any laws. Following Alfred's example, English kings, unlike their counterparts on the Continent, retained their right to exercise legislative powers. As a footnote, Alfred insisted that to clear himself, a man of lower rank than a kings' thegn must produce the oaths of 11 men of his own class and one of the Kings' thegns.
Though much of Alfred's collection of laws came from earlier codes, there were some that were not derived from any known source and may thus be considered original. Showing the religious nature of one who had once depended upon the loyalty of his men for survival, the laws include provisions protecting the weaker members of society against oppression, limiting the ancient custom of the blood-feud and emphasizing the duty of a man to his lord.
stopped the Saxon advance into the Western regions at Mount Badon in 496, so a later leader stopped the advance of the Norsemen at Edington in 878. This time, our main source is more reliable; the leader was Alfred of Wessex.
Much of what we know about King Alfred, the only English monarch in all history to have received the appellation "the Great," comes from Life of Alfred by his Bishop Asser. It is a work of incomparable worth in its account of English history. During the reign of Elizabeth I, it was also decided that the Annals of St. Neots were also the work of Asser, and thus an authoritative source was given to many legends concerning the English king that appeared in the Annals. The strength of his Wessex Kingdom made it the ideal center for the resistance of Alfred to the Danish plans of conquest.
Before Alfred, the Danes had been relatively unopposed. They came in a huge fleet to London in 851 to destroy the army of Mercia and capture Canterbury, only to receive their first check at the hands of Aethelstan of Wessex. But this time, instead of sailing home with their booty, the Danish seamen and soldiers stayed the winter on the Isle of Thanet on the Thames where the men of Hengist had come ashore centuries earlier. Like their Saxon predecessors, the Danes showed that they had come to stay.
It was not too long before the Danes had become firmly entrenched seemingly everywhere they chose in England (many of the invaders came from Norway and Sweden as well as Denmark). They had begun their deprivations with the devastation of Lindisfarne in 793, and the next hundred years saw army after army crossing the North Sea, first to find treasure, and then to take over good, productive farm lands upon which to raise their families. Outside Wessex, their ships were able to penetrate far inland; they sailed with impunity up the Dee, Humber, Ribble, Tyne, Medway and Thames, and founded their communities wherever the rivers met the sea.
In the West, Aethelwulf succeeded Egbert continuing his father's role as protector of the English people. He was succeeded by Aethelred, who continued to hold his lands against the ever-increasing host of the Danes, now firmly in control of Northumbria, including York. In 867, the Danes also made incursions into Mercia and had conquered all of East Anglia. Of all the English kingdoms, Wessex now stood almost alone. Armies under Aethelred and the young Alfred fought the Danes to a standstill, neither side claiming complete victory, but the borders of Wessex remained secure.
warfare against the foreign occupiers of his kingdom; it wasn't long before the men of Wessex were ready to reassert themselves.
The turning point took place in 878. From the Chronicle, we learn of the decisive event that took place at Edington (Ethandune), when Alfred "fought with the whole force of the Danes and put them to flight, and rode after them to their fortifications and besieged them a fortnight. Then the Danes gave him hostages as security, and swore great oaths that they would leave his kingdom; and they promised him that their king should receive baptism. And they carried out their promises..." Wessex had been saved.
Alfred's successes were partly due to his building up the West Saxon navy into a fleet that could not only meet the Danes on equal terms, but defeat them in battle. According to the Chronicle of 896, when the enemy attacked the south coast of Wessex "with the warships which they had built many years before," Alfred "bade build long ships against the Danish warships: they were nearly twice as long as the others: some had sixty oars, some more: they were both swifter and steadier and higher than the others. They were built neither on the Frisian pattern nor on the Danish, but as it seemed to the king that they might be most serviceable." The Chronicle also records one of his victories in 882, though he was later defeated by a large Danish force of the mouth of the River Stour. Alfred also fortified the key English towns.
East Anglia and Southern Mercia remained in Danish hands. In 896, however, Alfred occupied London, giving the first indication that the lands which had lately passed under Danish control might be reclaimed. His success made him the obvious leader of all those who, in any part of the country, wished for a reversal of the disasters, and it was immediately followed by a general recognition of his lordship. In the words of the Chronicle, "all the English people submitted to Alfred except those who were under the power of the Danes." Furthermore, the city of London, on the southeastern edge of Mercia became a national symbol of English defiance. Its capture made Alfred truly the first king of England.
Alfred's greatness lay not so much in his defeat of the Danes but in his other major accomplishments, of which historians write glowingly and are generally listed as four: his uniform code of laws for the good order of the kingdom; his restoration of the monastic life of the Church, which had been severely disrupted by the arrival of the Norsemen; his enthusiastic patronage of the arts and learning; and the respect that he gained on the Continent of Europe for himself and his kingdom.
Ancient World, as well as De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius. Outside Wessex, however, most of England remained under Dane Law, ruled by Scandinavian kings.
Had Alfred been defeated, all of England would have passed under the rule of the Danish kings; the future identity of the English people as a separate island nation would have been very much in question. As it was, however, the occupation of London by the King of Wessex marked a new stage in the advancement of the English people towards political unity, the acceptance of his overlordship expressed a feeling that he stood for interests common to the whole English race.
The treaty with King Guthrum that followed Alfred's capture of London delineated a frontier between England and Danes, a frontier that even today is reflected in a North-South divide. The phrase "except those who were under the power of the Danes" is very significant, however, for it includes all of England outside Wessex and much of Mercia. Much of the task of winning back these lands passed to Alfred's son Edward the Elder, who became King of Wessex in 899. Before the end of his reign, every Danish colony south of the River Humber had become annexed to Wessex.
The Chronicle reports that the Scottish King and people, all the people of Wales, all the people in Mercia and all those who dwelt in Northumbria submitted to him "whether English, or Danish, or Northmen, or others, the king of the Strathclyde Welsh, and all the Strathclyde Welsh." They all recognized Edward's authority and agreed to respect his territories and to attack his enemies. The creation of this simple bond between Edward and the rulers of every established state in the Island of Britain thus gave to the West Saxon monarchy a new range and dignity which greatly strengthened its claim to sovereignty in England.
During Edward's reign, there were advances made in the administration of law, some of these in the king's favor. For example, some of his measures strengthened royal authority; the Kings' Writ, dating back to the time of Ine, was enforced to punish attacks on the king's dignity and privilege. Wherever the king had enjoined or prohibited a certain course by express orders, failure to obey made the offender liable to pay the heavy fines proscribed. Use of the Writ was responsible for an unparalleled growth of the King's official responsibility for the enforcement of law and order.
Under Edward, the Crown was no longer seen as a remote providence, under which the moots (law courts) worked in independence, but as an institution which had come to intervene, to watch over the workings of the law, and to punish those who rebeled. Edward further ordered that the hundred courts were to meet every four weeks under a king's reeve for the administration of customary law.
limited number of recognized centers. One of Edward's laws prohibited trade outside a port, and ordered that all transactions be attested to by the portreeve or by other trusty men.
The significance of the above is clear. By the end of Edward's reign, it is probable that every place of trade which was more than a purely local market was surrounded by at least rudimentary fortifications. The normal "port" of the king's time was also a borough, and the urgency with which Edward commanded traders to resort to it explained its military importance. A derelict "port" was a weak point in the national defenses and the era saw a rapid rise in boroughs that combined military and commercial factors.
Edward the Elder died in 924, to be succeeded by his son Aethelstan, recognized as King in Wessex and probably in Mercia independently of his election in Wessex. He took the important and strategic city of York from the Danes, and thus, under conditions which no one could have foreseen, a king supreme in southern England came to rule in York. He soon extended his influence further, and the western and northern kings of Britain and the Welsh princes came to regard him as their lord. Though Alfred and Edward the Elder had been forced to watch the continental scene from the outside, Aethelstan won prestige and influence in contemporary Europe that resulted from his position as heir to the one western kingdom which had emerged in greater strength from the Danish wars.
At the Battle of Brunanburgh in 937, the site of which has never been satisfactorily determined, Aethelstan won a great victory for his English army over a combined force of Danes, Scots and Irish. At his death, however, new threats faced the new King Edmund. Danish control of the five great boroughs of Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby and Stamford -- all in the Midlands -- created an effective barrier between Northumbria and Wessex. Edmund acted. Taking an army north, he retook the five boroughs for the English and drove out two Danish kings from Northumbria. In the truly Viking city of York, however, Eric Bloodaxe had set himself up as an independent king. Wessex remained the stronghold of the English during the next twenty years of increasing Viking attacks, but when King Edgar was slain by supporters of his brother Ethelred, disaster came to the whole country.
Once again, the Danish fleets and armies seemed unstoppable. They were found in northeastern England, northwestern England, Wales, Devon and Cornwall. Ethelred could only achieve peace by buying off the Danes, a move that backfired for it only led to more raids, more slaughter and more Danish settlement. Following the example of Alfred, Ethelred then managed to get the Danish leader Anlaf baptized at Andover, but only at the enormous cost of the complete depletion of the treasury of England. Anlaf could only laugh at his good fortune. Ethelred's weakness in dealing with the Danish leaders have earned him the title of "the unready," (rede-less) the one who lacked good counsel.
command of a great army to his son Cnut, Sweyn marched on and conquered Winchester and Oxford and forced Ethelred to flee to France, only returning to England upon the death of Sweyn in the year 1003. More fighting continued under Edmund, who succeeded his father Ethelred by appointment of the citizens of London, anxious to be led by one who was called Edmund Ironside on account of his great strength. Edmund won many important victories, but the strength of the Danes forced him to make peace with Cnut, and at Alney, it was agreed that Edmund should be King of Wessex and Cnut of Mercia. Upon Edmund's death, that same year, Cnut became king of all England. Formally taking the reins of power in 1017, he married Ethelred's widow that same year.
Meanwhile, there had been important developments in the administration of English law that would have profound effects upon the future legal system. Changing social conditions led to Aethelstan issuing many new laws. He had to deal in legislation with lords who "maintained" their men in defiance of right and justice. Under Edgar, who became King in Wessex in 954, a semblance of order was restored, and England was made secure at least temporarily. It is recorded that eight kings in Britain came to him on a single day to acknowledge his supremacy. He was the first English King to recognize in legislation that the Danish east of England was no longer a conquered province, but an integral part of the English realm.
Legal customs from the Scandinavian North were practiced throughout the eastern counties of England; villages were combined into local divisions for the administration of justice. These divisions were known as wapentakes. The word first appeared when Edgar refered in general terms to the buying and selling of goods in a borough or a wapentake. There seems to have been no essential difference of function between the courts of the wapentake and those of the more familiar hundred. Under Ethelred, the wapentake court appeared as the fundamental unit in the organization of justice throughout the territory of the five boroughs. The authority of a ruler universally regarded as king of England was placed over the local courts.
The most interesting feature of the organization was the aristocratic jury of presentment which initiated the prosecution of suspected persons in the court of the wapentake. In what is known as the Wantage Code of Ethelred, one passage states that the twelve leading thegns in each wapentake were to go out from the court and swear that they would neither accuse the innocent nor protect the guilty. Thus the sworn jury, hitherto unknown to English law, came into being in a most important document in English legal history. The fate of the suspect, however, was still settled by ordeal, not by the judgment of the thegns who presented them.
