Battle of Brunanburh
|Battle of Brunanburh|
|Part of the Viking invasions of England|
|Kingdom of England||Kingdom of Dublin
Kingdom of Alba
Kingdom of Strathclyde
|Commanders and leaders|
|Æthelstan of England
Edmund I of England
|Olaf III Guthfrithson
Constantine II of Scotland
Owen I of Strathclyde
|approx. 15,000||approx. 15,000|
|Casualties and losses|
|Unknown||Much of the army; Several Jarls; Five Petty kings; Cellach, Son of the king of Scotland|
The Battle of Brunanburh was an English victory in 937 by the army of Æthelstan, King of England, and his half-brother Edmund over the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, the Norse–Gael King of Dublin; Constantine II, King of Alba; and Owen I, King of Strathclyde. Though relatively little known today, it was called "the greatest single battle in Anglo-Saxon history before the Battle of Hastings."
Mention of the battle is made in dozens of sources, in Old English, Latin, Irish, Welsh, Icelandic, and Middle English, and there are many later accounts or responses to the battle, including those by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Jorge Luis Borges. A contemporary record of the battle is found in the Old English poem Battle of Brunanburh, preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Michael Livingston, editor of The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook (2011), claims that Brunanburh marks "the moment when Englishness came of age." The site of the battle is not known, though modern scholarship, including Livingston's book, suggests that somewhere in the Wirral Peninsula is likely.
Livingston identified at least 53 medieval sources containing references to the battle, including important accounts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the writings of Anglo-Norman historian William of Malmesbury, the Annals of Clonmacnoise, and Snorri Sturluson's Egils saga, whose antihero, mercenary berserker and skald Egill Skallagrimsson, served as a trusted warrior for Æthelstan.
After Æthelstan defeated the Vikings at York in 927, King Constantine of Scotland, King Hywel Dda of Deheubarth, Ealdred of Bamburgh, and King Owain of Strathclyde (or Morgan ap Owain of Gwent)[a] accepted Æthelstan's overlordship at Eamont, near Penrith. He was proclaimed King of the English, and a period of relative peace followed.
Æthelstan's successful invasion of Scotland in 934 was suggested by John of Worcester to be the result of King Constantine's breaking of this treaty. Though they had all been enemies in living memory, the threat of Æthelstan was enough to bring together an alliance between the king of Dublin, Olaf Guthfrithsson; the Scottish King Constantine II; and Owen of Strathclyde. Livingston points out that to come together "they had agreed to set aside whatever political, cultural, historical, and even religious differences they might have had in order to achieve one common purpose: to destroy Æthelstan."
After defeating a rival Norse king whose name is recorded in Old Irish documents as Amlaíb Cenncairech at Limerick in August 937, Olaf Guthfrithsson crossed the Irish Sea with his army to join the forces of Constantine and Owen, suggesting that the Battle of Brunanburh probably occurred in early October of that year.
Livingston theorises that the invading allied armies entered England in two waves: Constantine and Owen came from the north, possibly engaging in some early skirmishes with forces loyal to Æthelstan as they followed the Roman road across the Lancashire plains between Carlisle and Manchester, with Olaf's forces joining him on the way. It is possible, Livingston speculates, that the eventual battle site at Brunanburh[b] was then chosen in an agreement with Æthelstan: "there would be one fight, and to the victor went England."
The medieval records of the battle are too elusive to trace the course of the battle with any certainty, but the sources consistently describe it as a massive engagement, and bloody even within the context of warfare in the Middle Ages.
The famous poem about the battle in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the deaths of five kings and seven earls among Æthelstan's enemies, along with (or among them) Constantine's son:
- Five lay still
- on that battlefield – young kings
- by swords put to sleep – and seven also
- of Anlaf’s earls, countless of the army,
- of sailors and Scotsmen. There was put to flight
- the Northmen’s chief, driven by need
- to the ship’s prow with a little band.
- He shoved the ship to sea. The king disappeared
- on the dark flood. His own life he saved.
- So there also the old one came in flight
- to his home in the north; Constantine,
- that hoary-haired warrior, had no cause to exult
- at the meeting of swords: he was shorn of his kin,
- deprived of his friends on the field,
- bereft in the fray, and his son behind
- on the place of slaughter, with wounds ground to pieces,
- too young in battle.
- Then the dark raven with horned beak,
- and the livid toad, the eagle and kite,
- the hound and wolf in mottled hue,
- were long refreshed by these delicacies.
- In this land no greater war was ever waged,
- nor did such a slaughter ever surpass that one.
The Annals of Ulster describes the battle similarly:
- A huge war, lamentable and horrible, was cruelly waged between the Saxons and Norsemen. Many thousands of Norsemen beyond number died although King Anlaf escaped with a few men. While a great number of the Saxons also fell on the other side, Æthelstan, king of the Saxons, was enriched by the great victory.
The location of the battle appears in various forms in the sources: Brunanburh (in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or the chronicle of John of Worcester, or in accounts derived from them), Brunandune (Aethelweard), Brunnanwerc or Bruneford or Weondune (Symeon of Durham and accounts derived from him), Brunefeld or Bruneford (William of Malmesbury and accounts derived from him), Duinbrunde (Scottish traditions), Brun (Welsh traditions), plaines of othlynn (Annals of Clonmacnoise), and Vinheithr (Egil's Saga), among others.
The name of Bromborough, a settlement in the Wirral, may be derived from Old English Brunanburh (meaning 'Brun's fort'). While the location will probably never be known with certainty, additional evidence has been claimed associating Brunanburh with Bromborough, taken from evidence of history, folklore studies, and literature. According to Michael Livingston, the case for a location in the Wirral has strong support among current historians. Additional onomastic arguments have been used to connect Dingesmere (a location associated with the battle in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) with Thingwall in Wirral, in order to strengthen the Brunanburh-Bromborough link. Because the earliest sources in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle locate the battle as taking place "ymbe Brunanburh" ("around Brunanburh"), numerous locations on the Wirral near Bromborough have been put forward as the site of the battle, including the Brackenwood Golf Course in Bebington, Wirral (formerly within Bromborough parish).
Though many scholars today appear to have accepted a "near Bromborough" location, dozens of sites for the battle have been suggested in the past. Paul Hill has identified over thirty possibilities, some of which are still defended by critics. Michael Wood published an article in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal criticising the case for Bromborough and suggesting a site near the river Went in South Yorkshire. Philologist Andrew Breeze argued for Lanchester, considering that the etymological case for Bromborough is flawed. Kevin Halloran, who has had several articles on the period published in leading academic journals, argued for a location in southern Scotland and has made a number of detailed criticisms of the Bromborough case. Tim Clarkson has published a number of books on Strathclyde and has suggested that the logistical capacity of the northern kingdoms of Alba and Strathclyde would not have supported a campaign as far south as the Wirral.
These alternatives include:
- Laughton-en-le-Morthen or Laughton Common - South Yorkshire
- Additional sites in Merseyside:
- Sites in Northumberland
- Burnswark in Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland
- Tinsley Wood in South Yorkshire
- Near the Humber in Yorkshire/Lincolnshire
- Axminster in Devon.
- Sites in Lancashire:
- Livesay. The Livesay Historical Society says that the names Livesay and Livesey came from the common Anglo-Saxon personal name Lēofsige (which means "beloved victory" or "he whose victory is beloved"), and that that name refers to the Battle of Brunaburh; but see Livesey#Etymology.
- Burnley. In 1856, Burnley Grammar School master and antiquary, Thomas T. Wilkinson, published a paper suggesting the moors above Burnley as the site of the battle, noting that the town stands on the River Brun. Local folklore told of a great battle at Saxifield during the Heptarchy, re-enforced by the occasional discovery of apparently human bones and iron arrowheads. The village of Worsthorne also had a tradition that the Danes constructed defences when a battle was fought on the moor that bears the same name, and that five kings were buried under tumuli apparent in the area.
- Although he couldn't categorically identify a burh by the Brun, he referenced the work of Thomas Dunham Whitaker listing what he felt was a large number of earthworks. Some such as Castercliff, Twist Castle and Ringstones Camp, he thought of Roman origin, but showed the historical significance of the area. Others like an entrenchments on Broad Bank hill at Burwains farm , and Bonfire hill , a possible camp on Shelfield hill  around the site of the Victorian Walton Spire, and dykes at Saxifield, Thieveley, Ree Lees, and Broadclough near Bacup, he felt indicated military activity during the period. He also showed that the Heasandford area of the town is named for a ford of the River Brun on an ancient trans-pennine route known locally as the long causeway, but in part as the Danes road. He equated the estate of Emmott with Eamot the site of a treaty following the victory at York, the Swinden valley with Weondune, and Worsthorne with bishop Wærstan who supposedly died fighting for Æthelstan. He also suggested that local place names like Winewall, Daneshouse, and Warcock hill could be significant and that the Cuerdale Hoard represented a Danish war chest lost as a result of the battle.
- His work was subsequently referenced and expanded by a number of local authors. New information was added including that around this time, the land between the rivers Ribble and Mersey had been re-conquered from Danish Northumbria and held by the crown until the Norman conquest. And although most of the sites mentioned have since been classified as much older, the story still interests some today.
- In addition, Brunanburh is also named ‘Wendune’ by Symeon of Durham, the Wen- element remaining in the village of Winwall, next to the battlefield (near Colne) & the name ‘Vinheath’ given by Egil’s Saga. Both ‘heath’ & ‘dune’ relate to the wide, raised land that the field lies on, as the word "dun" is 'consistently used for a low hill with a fairly extensive summit which provided a good settlement-site in open country' (Margaret Gelling). One name for the battle, on ‘The Plains of Othlynn (Annals of Clonmacnoise) connects to the Domesday Book’s Othlei, for Otley, whose lands stretched at least as far as Ilkley, a few short miles from the field.
Æthelstan's defeat of the combined Norse-Celtic force facing him confirmed England as a fully unified kingdom. However, he was militarily weakened and the battle effectively forced all constituent parts of the British Isles to consolidate in the positions they occupy today.
The Battle of Brunanburh still has a great deal of influence in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, 200 miles (320 km) south of any probable site. The townsfolk of Malmesbury fought for King Æthelstan, and he granted them five hides (600 acres (2.4 km2)) of land and gave them all freemen status. This status and the organisation formed then exists today, as the Warden and Freemen of Malmesbury, and Athelstan is remembered in their ceremonies. When Æthelstan died, his body was transported from Gloucester to Malmesbury for burial.
- Brunanburgh: Birthplace of Englishness 'found', BBC News, 20 December 2004, retrieved 7 December 2007
- Alfred Smyth, Scandinavian York and Dublin (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987), 2.62.
- For discussion of these and many other retellings, see Joanne Parker, 'Brunanburh and the Victorian Imagination', in The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook, ed. Livingston (2011), pp. 385–407.
- Michael Livingston, 'The Roads to Brunanburh', in The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook, ed. Livingston (University of Exeter Press, 2011), p. 1.
- Livingston (2011), 'Preface', pp. xi–xii.
- Foot, 2011, p. 162, n. 15; Woolf, 2007, p. 151; Charles-Edwards, p. 511-512
- Higham, p. 190; Foot, 2011, p. 20
- Foot, p. 20
- Foot, 2011, pp. 164–165; Woolf, 2007, pp. 158–165
- "h2g2 - The Battle of Brunanburh, 937 AD". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-12.
- Livingston (2011), p. 11.
- Livingston (2011), p. 14.
- Livingston (2011), pp. 15–16
- Livingston (2011), p. 18.
- Wendover. Flowers of History. p. 249
- Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum. Tr. Greenway. pp. 313-315
- Mac Airt, Seán and Gearóid Mac Niocaill (eds and trs.). The Annals of Ulster pp. 386-387
- 'The Battle of Brunanburh (Version A)', trans. Livingston, in Livingston (2011), pp. 41, 43
- Æthelweard, Chronicle, trans. Scott Thompson Smith, quoted in Livingston (2011), p. 49.
- Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English, trans. Scott Thompson Smith, quoted in Livingston (2011), p. 63
- Annals of Ulster, trans. Scott Thompson Smith, in The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook, ed. Livingston (2011), p. 145.
- Livingston (2011), pp. 20–23.
- A summary of these spellings is provided in Paul Cavill, 'The Place-Name Debate', in Livingston (2011), pp. 329–30
- See, for instance, Stephen Harding, 'Wirral: Folklore and Locations', and Richard Coates, 'The Sociolinguistic Context for Brunanburh', in Livingston (2011), pp. 351–64 and 365-84
- Livingston (2011), p. 19.
- Cavill, in Livingston (2011), pp. 327–49
- Birthplace of Englishness 'found'. BBC News Online (URL accessed 27 August 2006).
- Paul Hill, The Age of Athelstan: Britain's Forgotten History (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), pp. 141–42.
- "Battle of Brunanburh". UK Battlefields Trust. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
- Michael Wood, In Search of England (London: Viking, 1999) pp. 203–21.
- Lawrence Snell. The Suppression of the Religious Foundations of Devon and Cornwall (1966).
- "LivesayName". Lhsociety.org. Retrieved 2012-11-12.
- Wilkinson, Thomas T (1857), Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Volume 9, pp. 21–41, retrieved 2012-05-15
- Monument No. 45325 (45325). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Burwains camp (46151). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Monument No. 45311 (45311). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Monument No. 45251 (45251). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Monument No. 45212 (45212). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Red Lees Intrenchments (45332). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Monument No. 45222 (45222). PastScape. English Heritage. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Partington, S W (1909), The Danes in Lancashire and Yorkshire, pp. 28–43, retrieved 2012-05-15
- Newbigging, Thomas (1893), History of the Forest of Rossendale, pp. 9–21, retrieved 2012-05-15
- "Was epic Anglo-Saxon battle fought in Burnley?". Burnley Express. 9 August 2011. Retrieved 2012-05-15.
- Livingston (2011), pp. 24–26
- Paul Hill, The Age of Athelstan, p. 33.
- Warden and Freemen of Malmesbury. Athelstan Museum. Retrieved 7 December 2012
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. D. Dumville and S. Keynes, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Collaborative Edition. 8 vols. Cambridge, 1983; tr. Michael J. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. 2nd ed. London, 2000.
- The Battle of Brunanburh (Old English poem), ed. Alistair Campbell, The Battle of Brunanburh. London: Heinemann, 1938.
- Æthelweard, Chronicon, ed. and tr. Alistair Campbell, The Chronicle of Æthelweard. London, 1961.
- William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and tr. R.A.B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum. The History of the English Kings. OMT. 2 vols: vol 1. Oxford, 1998.
- Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and tr. D.E. Greenway, Henry Archdeacon of Huntingdon. Historia Anglorum. The History of the English People. OMT. Oxford, 1996.
- Annals of Ulster, ed. and tr. Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, The Annals of Ulster (to AD 1131). Dublin, 1983.
- Annals of the Four Masters, ed. and tr. John O’Donovan. Annála Rioghachta Éireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters. 7 vols. Royal Irish Academy. Dublin, 1848–51.
- Egils saga, ed. Finnur Jónsson, Egils saga Skallagrímssonar. Halle, 1894; tr. Herman Pálsson and Paul Edwards, Egil's Saga. Harmondsworth, 1976.
- Roger of Wendover. Flowers of History. Volume 1 tr. J. A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn 1849.
- An Oxford History of England, Volume 2: Anglo Saxon England
- Charles Hardwick, Ancient Battle-fields in Lancashire (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., Stationers' Hall Court, 1882)
- Peter Marren, Battles of the Dark Ages (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2006)
- Michael Livingston, ed., The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook (University of Exeter Press, 2011)
- Higham, N. J. (1993). The Kingdom of Northumbria: AD 350–1100. Alan Sutton. ISBN 0-86299-730-5.
- Foot, Sarah (2011). Æthelstan: the first king of England. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12535-1.
- Woolf, Alex (2007). From Pictland to Alba: 789–1070. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978 0 7486 1233 8.
- Charles-Edwards, T. M. (2013). Wales and the Britons 350–1064. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821731-2.
- Breeze, Andrew (1999). "The Battle of Brunanburh and Welsh tradition". Neophilologicus 83: 479–82. doi:10.1023/A:1004398614393.
- Campbell, Alistair (1970-03-17). "Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History". Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture. Viking Society for Northern Research. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
- Cavill, Paul; Stephen Harding and Judith Jesch (2004). "Revisiting Dingesmere". Journal of the English Place Name Society 36: 25–38.
- Foot, Sarah, "Where English becomes British: Rethinking Contexts for Brunanburh," in Barrow, Julia; Andrew Wareham (2008). Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 127–44.
- Halloran, Kevin (2005). "The Brunanburh Campaign: A Reappraisal". Scottish Historical Review 84 (2): 133–48. doi:10.3366/shr.2005.84.2.133.
- Higham, Nicholas J., "The Context of Brunanburh" in Rumble, A.R.; A.D. Mills (1997). Names, Places, People. An Onomastic Miscellany in Memory of John McNeal Dodgson. Stamford: Paul Watkins. pp. 144–56.
- Livingston, Michael (2011). The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0-85989-863-8.
- Niles, J.D. (1987). "Skaldic Technique in Brunanburh" 59. Scandinavian Studies. pp. 356–66.
- Orton, P. (1994). "On the Transmission and Phonology of The Battle of Brunanburh" 24. LSE. pp. 1–28.
- Wood, Michael (1980). "Brunanburh Revisited". Saga Book of the Viking Society for Northern Research 20 (3): 200–217.
- "Tinsley Wood," in Wood, Michael (1999). In Search of England. London. pp. 203–21.
- Text of the poem "Battle of Brunanburh", including Anglo-Saxon version, modern English translation, and Tennyson's version
- Short documentary produced by C Bebenezer about aural traditions and the possible Burnley location of the battle