Iron Age Stafford

Searching for the Stafford Burh – Part II

There are over a 1,000 known archaeological sites within this area of Staffordshire, ranging from Bronze Age burial mounds, Iron Age hillforts, Roman camps and documentary references to Anglo Saxon churches but surprisingly little evidence of activity in Stafford before the Late Saxon period.

Ancient Trackways
In Searching for the Stafford Burh - Part I we established that Æthelflæd,The Lady of the Mercians, included Stafford in the network of West Mercian burhs because it was roughly equidistant between the burh sites of Tamworth and Bridgnorth and situated in a naturally defended site surrounded by the river Sow or marshland on three sites, with a neck of land, formed from deposits of Mercian mudstone overlain by fluvio-glacial gravels left by melting ice sheets, extending from the north into the town centre. The etymology of the place-name is usually explained as the 'ford' by the 'landing place' (staithe). But this is a contradiction in terms; you ford a river at the shallowest point and a landing place, as in a quay or dock, is the deepest point.

The town and the landscape are shaped by water, the floodplain almost entirely surrounds the town
centre; the areas to the west and east are still largely wetland areas in the modern townscape. The natural defences of the land here combined with a postulated Roman road following a firm neck of land running through the centre of the town on the north-south axis, crossing the Sow at the southern end of the high street, providing a more satisfactory explanation for the meaning of the name of the town; “the causeway (firm ground) through the marsh.”  

However, it has been suggested (Horovitz, 2003) that the “causeway” element of the place-name may have referred to a prehistoric trackway departing the town along the line of the medieval Eastgate in the direction of the modern Lammascote Road.

Stafford 1610

Maps from the medieval period show three main routes into the town; the route passing through the town from north to south, speculated as having been Roman in origin; the eastern route out of the town, following the Lammascote Road, believed to have been a causeway over the floodplain marshes. There appears to have been no major route to the west of the town in the medieval period.  However, the presence of a castle during the 11th century within the early town at Castle Hill, by Broad Eye, suggests a westward route may have once existed.

North of the medieval East Gate a large fish pond was created through the construction of a dam which has probably survived as the line of the modern eastward route out of the town centre. This eastern causeway at the southern end of the King's Pool (King's poole Medes), first referenced in 1157 AD, was almost certainly created from one of the marsh areas. An excavation in the 1970s identified the line of the causeway or a road comprising sandstone rubble and cobbles. By the mid 13th century a ‘bridge of the king’s pool’ is recorded suggesting there was a road over the dam which created the pool. The pool may have been initially constructed to power a mill located to the east of the town. Recent investigations at North Walls and the King’s Pool have uncovered evidence for hemp and flax, suggesting a medieval industry was sited here to take advantage of the necessary still waters (EUS, 2011).

Indeed, today Kingsmead Marsh is a designated Local Nature Reserve (LNR) made up of two main sections of marshland, situated between North Walls and the busy A34 dual carriageway (Queensway). The Lammascote Drain runs diagonally from NW to SE across the site with the Pearl Brook forming the north-eastern perimeter of the site. There are also a series of small drainage ditches that cut across the marsh. The Sandyford (Marston) Brook, a tributary of the Pearl Brook, runs through the Astonfields Balancing Lakes, originally wet meadowland but now a series of pools situated on the north-eastern edge of Stafford constructed in the 1970's for flood defence, controlling the amount of water flowing down the into the town centre.

The 1610 map of Stafford clearly depicts the town gates and walls which appear to have been constructed of both stone and timber. These defensive features have survived as place-names in the town into modern times, South Walls, North Walls, Eastgate Street, Greengate Street and Foregate Street. In 1644, during the Civil War, the King's Pool meadows and other land around Stafford was deliberately flooded to improve the defences of the town. The town walls suffered much damage by Cromwell's Parliamentarian forces and by the early 1670s the walls were said to be in ruins.

Evidence for the Iron Age in Stafford
In addition to the neck of land extending from the north into the town centre, it has been suggested (Horovitz, 2003) that a causeway across the wet and marshy area on the eastside of the town beyond the site of the later medieval East Gate, long pre-dates the Anglo-Saxon period, and may have been constructed in the Iron Age.

In 2002, during construction of a new petrol filling station at the ASDA superstore site next to the Queensway, situated immediately on the north bank of the Sow, three worked timbers with pointed ends were discovered. These three timbers have been interpreted as piles, either supporting a prehistoric raised trackway or a containment wall along the riverbank, and radiometrically dated to the Iron Age. If the “the causeway through the marsh” is the correct etymology for Stafford it has been suggested (Horovitz, 2003) that it may well refer to this Iron Age causeway leading east away from the town along the line of the modern Lammascote Road. This route may have persisted and developed into the medieval dam across the King's Pool as discussed above.

Evidence of Iron Age activity has been found in the town, centred around the site of St Mary’s Church; grain processing at St Mary's Grove (Carver, 2010), and traces of a possible Iron-Age hut found in the lowest levels during the excavation of St. Bertelin's chapel on the west end of St Mary's (Horovitz, 2003), combined with environmental evidence from pollen analysis of sediment at King's Pool indicates that the first forest clearance was in the late Neolithic period, with further human impact in the Bronze Age, accompanied by agriculture in the early Iron Age (EUS, 2011), supporting the case for prehistoric activity in the area. In addition, two red deer antler picks were found close together along the northern edge of Lammascote Road (the King's Pool side) in peat at depths of some 10' and 15'. (Horovitz, 2003)

The Sweet Track is the one of the earliest known causeways in the world, constructed  c.3800 BC and part of a network of ancient trackways that once crossed the Somerset Levels. The causeway was constructed of crossed wooden poles, driven into waterlogged soil supporting a walkway consisting of planks of oak, laid end-to-end. The basic design survived well into the Iron Age. The conjectured causeway at the eastern exit of the town was probably of similar construction.

However, it is difficult to accept that the route of this causeway may represent the topographical feature from which the 'ford' element in the place-name is derived, surviving from prehistoric times. Further, a causeway of prehistoric origins is far from being archaeologically proven. Given this information are there any further clues in the etymology of the place-name?

>> A Roman Road in Stafford?


© Edward Watson 2013
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References
Martin Carver - Anglo-Saxon Stafford. Archaeological Investigations 1954-2004. Field Reports On-line, 2010.
David Horovitz - A Survey and Analysis of the Place-Names of Staffordshire, 2003.
Staffordshire County Council & English Heritage - Staffordshire Extensive Urban Survey (EUS), Stafford Historic Character Assessment, June 2009, Revised August 2011.

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Searching for the Stafford Burh

The Burh: Instrument of War
Following the decisive English victory over the Great Heathen Army of Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandun, probably the village of Edington in Wiltshire, in May 878 AD King Alfred had pushed on with the Anglo Saxon recovery and secured Wessex in the south. Guthrum was baptised three weeks after the battle and under the terms of the Treaty of Wedmore was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. The Danes were contained within what became known as the Danelaw and Wessex was to remain free of Danish control.

After his death in 899 AD Alfred's descendants continued with the plan to create one kingdom of all England and complete the recovery from the Danes. Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd, The Lady of the Mercians, took command of the left flank in the northward advance throughout English Mercia, while her brother Edward the Elder led the pincer movement on the right flank. The primary instrument of the war against the Danes was the burh, a fortification with provision for residence and trade, which was garrisoned by conscription from its local territory. The burhs were located at strategic points and along the Danelaw boundary at former Roman forts or fortified towns, or on new foundations that resembled Roman forts. Smaller sites were established at promontories or river junctions taking advantage of the local topography. Together the burhs created a formidable network of fortifications.

Many of the larger Wessex burhs were laid out to a uniform street grid indicating they were intended as towns, not just forts, from their inception, although in most cases it took perhaps another century or so for urban life to fully develop. It is expected that the Saxon towns in the Midlands, although less studied than their southern counterparts (Stafford being one of the most neglected), will be similar in design to those of Wessex. However, there was a distinct difference in the military campaigns; in Wessex it was largely defensive and consolidation, while north of the Thames it was an aggressive policy of recovery.

The history of the county town of Stafford begins with the Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 913 AD recording that Æthelflæd, Lady of Mercians, “before Lammas, built the stronghold at Stafford.” No doubt the natural defences in the crook of the River Sow was part of the attraction of Stafford to Æthelflæd; the town inhabits a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of that great Mercian river, the Trent. Earlier in the summer of that year Æthelflæd had gone with “all the Mercians to Tamworth and then built the stronghold there.” The Chronicle entry suggests that both burhs were constructed one after the other with the same Mercian engineers responsible for overseeing the layout and construction of the defences. The speed of construction suggests the burh defences at Stafford and Tamworth, consisting of outer ditch with an inner bank topped by wooden palisade, must have been thrown up in a matter of weeks.

It is a reasonable assumption that a settlement of sorts, with known defensive properties, existed at Stafford before the construction of the burh; it seems unlikely that The Lady of Mercians would select a vacant site for her fortification. But there is little evidence for activity at Stafford before the Late Saxon period and direct evidence of the burh itself has not been located to date. So what could have attracted King Alfred's daughter to include this unassuming location in Western Mercia in her system of burh defences?

At first glance Æthelflæd's choice of Stafford for a burh might not appear to be an obvious position for a military post but combined with the burhs at Bridgnorth and Tamworth, Stafford was clearly intended to defend not only the Midland Gap, the route of the Upper Trent between the southern end of the Pennines and the plateau of Cannock Chase, but also the principal and strategically important east-west route through the region, Watling Street Roman road, running to the south of Stafford.

Defending the important Severn crossing associated with pillaging Danish armies on at least two occasions, Bridgnorth, lies some 45 miles from Stafford. About 40 miles from Stafford is the Mercian royal site at Tamworth, situated on a broad spur at the junction of the rivers Anker and Tame, and formerly protected by a semicircle of marshland. Stafford was in a similar situation with natural defences of river and marsh on three sides and  roughly equidistant between Bridgnorth and Tamworth making it an ideal location for another burh.

As the site at Stafford is enclosed on three sides by watercourses or marshland it may have been selected by Æthelflæd as a burh site because a short barrier across the northern neck of land would be all that was required to create a strong defensible site: Æthelflæd's fortification may have been limited to a palisaded bank and ditch along that line, or may have reinforced an earlier Anglo-Saxon fortification. Yet the early burh is thought to have been located in the town centre and the line of this northern defence has not been found.

Apart from a tongue of land running into the centre from the north, the town lies on low ground surrounded by water-courses or water-logged ground on three sides, which even today still flood regularly. The wet and marshy ground surrounding Stafford provided a naturally defended site; indeed marshy ground provides far better defence than water or hill, possessing the potential to totally incapacitate an attacker attempting to cross it.

Boreholes and excavations in the area reveal the earliest deposits as Mercian mudstone overlain by fluvio-glacial gravels deposited at the end of the last ice-age by the melting ice sheet. These in turn were overlain by recent river alluvium, consisting of mud, loose brown gravelly, silty sand deposited by flowing water over the flood plain.

The historic core of Stafford lies within the valley of the river Sow, the floodplain almost entirely surrounding the town centre, except for the route to the north, with the line of the medieval town walls tracing the limit of the gravel. The town is effectively surrounded by the Sow to the west and south, and the Pearl Brook and a large wetland area, close to the centre of the current town, to the east.

Topography of Stafford

Many areas around the town are still subject to periodic flooding, and even areas within the town are still undrained marsh; the eastern boundary restricted by Kingsmead Marsh, remnant of a larger marsh area to the north and east of the town in Saxon times, much reduced in size today but still largely a wetland area and designated Local Nature Reserve in the modern townscape defined by the line of the modern town centre A34 by-pass, Queensway. To the northwest of the town there is still a large area of marshland stretching from beyond the Sow at Broad Eye to junction 14 of the M6 motorway, near Cresswell,  which is still subject to regular flooding. Doxey Marshes is now a nature reserve, designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSI), and managed by the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust.

The Causeway Through the Marsh
No doubt the natural defences in the crook of the River Sow was part of the attraction to Æthelflæd. The watery enclosure is reflected in the placename. The earliest documentary spellings for Stafford appears as Staef-forda, Staefford, Staffordaburh and Stadford, and in its respective abbreviated forms on Anglo Saxon coins (a mint was established at Stafford under Æthelstan who reigned 924-939); and as 'Statford' in the Domesday Book, 1086, where it is listed as one of seven walled towns.

Inhabiting a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, 'Stafford', we are told, means the 'ford' at 'the landing place.' The accepted etymology of the placename is that the first element 'Staff' is derived from Old English 'staeth,' meaning 'the landing place, or wharf' and the 'ford' element is well known as a shallow river crossing, that can typically be waded on foot. The placename is therefore generally accepted as meaning 'the landing place, or wharf, at the ford'.

It has been suggested that Stafford is the highest point of the River Sow that was navigable, with some traffic along the river at an early date, so it seems a reasonable argument that there would have been a wharf, or landing place there. However, the Sow is a narrow, shallow river and it is difficult to imagine it carrying anything much larger than simple log boats. Furthermore, there appears to be little documentary or other evidence for water-borne commerce in the town in the past. The River Sow Navigation was a short waterway link constructed to connect the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal to a coal wharf in the centre of Stafford. It opened in 1816 with a single lock connecting the Sow to the canal, and closed in the 1920s, much too late to have any bearing on the placename.

However, you ford a river at its lowest, shallow point, and a wharf would be the deepest point; fully laden river craft sit low in the water. Clearly, the meaning of the placename 'Stafford' is not as straightforward as it appears: 'the wharf by the ford' is evidently a contradiction of terms.

The 'landing place' etymology appears to be derived from the Old English word 'stæp', an uncommon place-name element. Further, the OE term used in place-names for inland ports is usually 'hyth'. As long ago as the early 17th century the antiquarian Simon Degge argued that: `... the true etymology is Stadeford, that is the strand, shore or bank of a ford, and we find it in Doomesday Booke writ Stadford.' This concurs with the usual meaning of the word 'stæp' as 'a shore, river-bank; land bordering on water'.

The use of 'stæp' in the sense of 'landing-place' is not otherwise evidenced until the 14th century, whereas the Stafford placename is much earlier as evidenced by Anglo Saxons coins as noted above. Clearly identifying 'stæp' with 'landing place' is questionable and an alternative should be sort; places containing this element are often found in topographically inappropriate situations and may in fact refer to settlements in marshland where communications were limited to log boat for much of the year. As we have seen above, the early topography of Stafford is not incompatible with that meaning.

Stafford town centre

The town centre is aligned on a north-south axis, Gaolgate Street to Greengate Street, between the North (Fore) and South (Green) Gates, and is thought to have been so aligned since at least the layout of the original Saxon burh, but probably much earlier. This ancient trackway through the centre of the town crosses the Sow on the south side of the town at Green Bridge, into modern Bridge Street. If the word 'ford' in the name of Stafford was derived from a ford as in a shallow river crossing, then the crossing point of the Sow must have existed from a very early date, at least Roman or possibly earlier, where the north-south road exited the town at the place where the Green Bridge was later constructed.

However, there is another possibility. In OE the word 'ford' is often found where it is best translated as 'causeway'. The ford element is one of the most common topographical terms found in English place-names, and one of the earliest placename elements, recorded for at least nine places by 730 AD; Stafford may have been one of the earliest settlements in the region to acquire its English name, identifying 'the causeway through the marsh'. The causeway may refer to the broad peninsula of gravelly land running down into the centre of the town from the north, where it typically forms a route through the wetlands similar to the modern usage of the term for a raised up embankment across a body of water. It is very probable that in origin the name Stafford was derived from the descriptive term for a safe route of passage through the surrounding wetlands.

This is further supported by compound OE words which begin with the 'stæp' element and are often associated with stability and firmness, which reinforces the notion of a paved causeway on firm ground crossing a wetland environment. Therefore, it follows that the original name 'Stæpford' may have identified 'the firm ground or causeway through the marsh' and is perhaps associated with a suspected Roman road coming down from Blythe Bridge in north Staffordshire towards Pennocrucium in the south, running directly through Stafford on the same town centre north-south axis, crossing the river Sow at the southern end of the town.

Yet there is suggestive evidence for an even older trackway in the town.


© Edward Watson 2013
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/


Notes & References:
David Horovitz, A Survey and Analysis of the Place-Names of Staffordshire, 2003, pp.42-45.
David Hill, The Shiring of Mercia - again, pp.144-159, in N.J. Higham and D.H. Hill, editors, Edward the Elder: 899-924, Routledge, 2001.
Philip Rhatz, The Archaeology of West Mercian Towns, pp.107-130, in Mercian Studies, ed. Ann Dornier, Leicester University Press, 1977.
Sarah Zaluckyj, Mercia: The Anglo Saxon Kingdom of Central England, Logaston Press, 2011, pp.207-215.

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Staffordshire Heritage Day 2013 : Staffordshire 913

Staffordshire 913  are celebrating 1100 years of the founding of the Stafford Burh and planning a day of talks by experts on the Saxon period, including demonstrations by The Poor Cnichts of St Chad.

Æthelflæd and the Mercians at Stafford

Last month Stafford saw Big Burh Day celebrations in the Market Square and Victoria Park. Now Staffordshire Heritage Group, an umbrella organisation for history, archive and archaeology groups throughout the county, is organising its first Heritage Day on the theme of the town's Anglo Saxon origins. Following the success of its history fairs, held every two years, a day of talks has been set up for 7th September, at Castle Church Hall,  Newport Road, Stafford, ST16 1DP.

Stafford 913
Steve Dean, Principal Archaeologist of Staffordshire, will set the scene for the day by giving his ‘Stafford 913’ talk, describing the Burh of Stafford, including an update on the recent excavations and continuing progress on the Staffordshire Hoard restoration work.

The Poor Cnichts of St Chad
The Stafford based group, The Poor Cnichts of St Chad, a historical re-enactment group who work and re-create life in Britain in the 10th and 11th centuries, will describe life in Anglo-Saxon times through a talk and various artefacts, demonstrating trades and general way of life. (Cnichts with a 'C' - 'Cnight' is the Anglo Saxon spelling of Knight they say).

Made Worthy by Weapons: Warfare in the Time of the Hoard
After a buffet lunch and opportunity to examine artefacts and browse at the bookstall, Steve Pollington will deliver his talk ‘Made Worthy by Weapons: Warfare in the Time of the Hoard’ will present an overview of the social context of warfare in the pre-Christian and post-Conversion age, focusing on how and why people fought, what they fought with. Including a display of weaponry.

The Anglo-Saxon Landscape
Following a break for tea Della Hooke, from Birmingham University, an expert on Anglo-Saxon Landscape, will talk generally about her subject and offer an insight into Stafford’s relationship with its wider Anglo-Saxon landscape.


Tickets : £15.00, from Staffordshire Heritage Group. Price includes refreshments and lunch.
For a booking form and further information visit the website of the Staffordshire Heritage Group.

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King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons

As my home town of Stafford celebrates 1100 years since its founding by Æthelflæd, The Lady of Mercians this summer, it is with perfect timing that historian Michael Wood presents a new three-part series on BBC Four on the story of King Alfred the Great and his struggles against the Danes. Wood argues that Alfred and his descendants were England's most influential and important rulers.

In Michael Wood's television debut back in 1980 he focused on Alfred the Great as part of the series In Search Of The Dark Ages. Wood now returns to Alfred in a major three-part television series on BBC Four commencing next Tuesday 6th August at 9.00 pm. King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons examines the careers of King Alfred the Great, the Lady Æthelflæd, his daughter, and King Athelstan, his grandson and first king of all England.

Alfred the Great, probably the best-known Anglo-Saxon king, reigned 871–899, is famously remembered for burning the cakes. The son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, Alfred succeeded his three older brothers to the throne in 871. At that time, Danish invaders had conquered much of England, and Alfred struggled to prevent Wessex from succumbing to the same fate.

From his retreat to The Isle of Athelney in the Somerset marshes, Alfred launched the Anglo-Saxon recovery leading to the decisive victory over the Great Heathen Army of Guthrum at the Battle of Edington in May 878. King Alfred went on to establish towns, trade and coinage, reviving learning and literacy, laying the foundations of a single kingdom of 'all the English'.

Episode 1 – Alfred Of Wessex, 6 August 
The first episode of the series shows Alfred fighting a desperate guerrilla war from the marshes of Somerset leading to the battle at Edington.  Filmed on location from Reading to Rome, using original texts read in Old English, and interviews with leading scholars, Michael Wood describes a man who was ‘not just the greatest Briton, but one of the greatest rulers of any time or place’.

Episode 2 – The Lady Of The Mercians,  13 August
The second episode sees Alfred’s children continue the family plan to create a kingdom of all the English. The tale begins with a savage Civil War in a bleak decade of snow and famine, culminating in an epic victory over the Vikings near Wolverhampton in 910. The key figure in this episode is Alfred’s daughter Æthelflæd, the ruler of Mercia. Michael Wood recovers her story from a copy of a lost chronicle written in Mercia in her lifetime. One of the great forgotten figures in British history, Æthelflæd led armies, built fortresses, campaigned against the Danes and was a brilliant diplomat. Her fame spread across the British Isles, beloved by her warriors and her people she was known simply as 'The Lady of the Mercians’. Wood concludes that without her ‘England might never have happened’.

Episode 3 – Æthelstan: The First King Of England, 20 August.
In the third episode, Alfred’s grandson Æthelstan fulfils the family plan and creates a kingdom of all England. Here Wood tells of Æthelstan’s wars, his learning and his lawmaking and shows how he created a national coinage and traces the origin of the English Parliament to the king’s new assembly politics. But there’s also a dark side, with later legends that the king had his brother drowned at sea. In his last desperate struggle, Æthelstan defeated a huge invasion of Danes and Scots in what became known as the Anglo‐Saxon ‘Great War’. Wood argues, Æthelstan was one of the greatest English monarchs, and with his grandfather Alfred, his father Edward and his aunt Æthelflæd, a member of our most remarkable royal family, and ‘even more than the Tudors, the most gifted and influential rulers in British history’.

The statue of King Alfred the Great at the eastern end of The Broadway, 
Winchester, near to the site of the city's medieval East Gate, 
erected in 1899 to mark one thousand years since Alfred's death.

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Æthelflæd: The Making of a County Town

"913. Here God helping, Æthelflæd, Lady of Mercians, went with all the Mercians to Tamworth and then built the stronghold there early in the summer, and afterwards, before Lammas, that at Stafford.”1

July 2013 marks the 1,100 anniversary since Æthelflæd the Lady of the Mercians, daughter of King Alfred the Great, built fortifications at Stafford during the summer of 913 AD as a crucial part of the campaign for the recovery of England from the Danes.

The Norsemen Cometh
The Viking Age began dramatically in England on 8 June 793 when raiders  in longships from across the North Sea attacked and destroyed the abbey on the island of Lindisfarne. The sheer shock and awe of the devastation of Northumbria's Holy Island caused feelings of anxiety and terror throughout the Christian west and is now often taken as the beginning of the Viking Age. The Northumbrian scholar, Alcuin of York claimed, "Never before has such an atrocity been seen”.

Waves of Danish assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles continued until the autumn of 865 AD when the Great Heathen Army of Ivar Ragnarsson (The Boneless) invaded East Anglia and over-wintered there after they demanded and received tribute in exchange for a temporary peace. The Danes now seemed intent on settlement. The following year the Danes moved north and took York from the Northumbrians, renaming the city 'Jorvik'. The following year, 867, the Danes held out against a failed attempt by the Northumbrians to retake the city. Three years later they ventured into Wessex and put King Æthelred and Alfred to flight at Reading. By 875 the Danes had ventured deep inside of Alfred’s Kingdom of Wessex and settled in Dorset.

In 884 Alfred made a treaty with the Danish leader Guthrum, which established the boundaries of the Danelaw; an area of England which effectively permitted Danish self-rule and the laws of the "Danes" held sway over "West Saxon law" and "Mercian law".

The term has been extended by historians for the 'Danelaw' to be a geographical area of northern and eastern England comprising some 15 shires from Yorkshire to Essex, including the east Midlands, north of a demarcation line running roughly from London to Chester. However, the Treaty provided opportunity for Alfred to consolidate his power in Wessex with his son and daughter Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians.

The Lady of the Mercians
In a series of campaigns in the 910s, Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd conquered Danish territories in the Midlands and East Anglia. Æthelflæd is documented in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle as being responsible for constructing several burhs along the boundary territory of the Danelaw.

The Old English word burh meaning a fortified and walled enclosure containing several households, could be anything from a large stockade to a fortified town, and has since developed further into the larger administrative areas known as Boroughs.

Wikimedia Commons 

The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw were the main towns of Danish Mercia in the East Midlands. These were Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. They began as the fortified burhs of five Danish armies who settled the area and ruled as a Danish 'Jarldom'. With the exception of Stamford they later become county towns, administrative centres of their respective Shires.

These five fortified towns became particularly important in the reconquest of the Danelaw by the English under Æthelflæd of Mercia and Edward the Elder of Wessex during 916 and 917. The area was subsequently ruled by the Earls of Mercia. Æthelflæd recoverd two of the Five Boroughs (Derby and Leicester). These attacks were probably launched from the burhs in the West Midlands established by the Lady of the Mercians; Bromesberrow, Stafford, Tamworth, Warwick, and Runcorn.

Æthelflæd first appears n the Anglo Saxon Chronicle in 909:2 

“Here the Mercians and West Saxons fought against the raiding-army near Tettenhall on 6 August and had the victory. And the same year Æthelflæd built Bremesburh.”3

After harrying through Mercia, the raiding-army crossed the Severn into the west country. On crossing back over the Severn bridge at Bridgnorth the Danes were attacked by Mercians and West Saxons who gained a great victory at Woden's Field (Wednesfield, just three miles to the east of Tettenhall) killing three Viking kings, including Eowils and Healfdan, who with other jarls and noblemen were 'hastened to the hall of the infernal one.'4

This decisive battle reads like a total massacre of the Danes, with their chiefs and kings being slaughtered in a great Mercian victory led by Æthelred and his wife Æthelflæda with troops of Edward the Elder. It opened the way for the expansion of Wessex into the Danish east Mercia & East Anglia; the Northumbrian Danes effectively subdued, never to recover, ultimately paving the way for Edward's son Æthelstan to become the first ever King of all England after recovering York in 927. The English Viking Age came to a close in 1066 when Harald Hardrada landed with an army with ambitions of taking York and the English crown with it. He was defeated and killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.

A year after Tettenhall Æthelred, leader of the Mercians, was dead. Hereafter, Æthelflæd is referred to as 'The Lady of the Mercans', seemingly a title accorded only after the ealdorman's death.5 Æthelflæd is recorded as building a stronghold at Scergeat 6 and Bridgnorth in 912. The following year she “went with all the Mercians to Tamworth and then built the stronghold there early in the summer, and afterwards, before Lammas, that at Stafford.”

In 914 Æthelflæd constructed the strongholds at Eddisbury and Warwick. The following year constructed the fortifications at Chirbury (Shropshre), Weardbyrg (possibly Warburton on the south bank of the Mersey) and completed Runcorn before mid-winter. In 916 “Æthelflæd sent an army into Wales and broke down Brecon Mere”. The next year, the Chronicle records that Æthelflæd took possession of the stronghold of Derby. By 918 Æthelflæd had made further in-roads into the The Five Boroughs and took control the stronghold of Leicester and ejected the raiding-parties there.

It seems York was her next target, as the Chronicle records the people there had pledged their allegiance to the Lady of the Mercians, but 12 days before mid-summer she suddenly died at Tamworth, “the eighth year of her rightful Lordship over Mercia.” It appears her daughter, Ælfwynn, took control of Mercia for a short period after her death; three weeks before Christmas she was led into Wessex and all but disappears from the historical record. A Charter (S 535) of 948 records a grant of 6 hides at Wickhambreux, Kent, by King Eadred to “Ælfwyn, a religious woman”, which, if the same person as seems likely, may indicate that she had entered holy orders.

The Æthelflæd Monument at Tamworth.
The 'Lady of the Mercians' with her nephew Æthelstan

The young Æthelstan spent much of his time at the Mercian court of his aunt and uncle, Æthelflæd and Æthelred; the young prince no doubt gained much military experience during the Mercian campaigns recovering the Danelaw. In 925 Æthelstan gave a charter of privileges to St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, where Æthelred and Æthelflæd, The Lady of the Mercians were buried in the east side-chapel of St Peter's Church.

The role Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians, played in the recovery of England from the Danes should not be underestimated; she was a true warrior queen.


See also: King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons (Michael Wood TV Series)

© Edward Watson 2013
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

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Notes & References

1. Michael Swanton, trans & ed, The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Dent 1997. (Abingdon ms C)
2. Ibid. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle (Worcester ms D). The Abingdon ms C gives the year as 910.
3. Ibid. p.95. Possibly Bromesberrow, near Ledbury.
4. Ibid. fn p.95.
5. Ibid. p.96.
6. Ibid. Literally 'boundary gap' at an unidentified site.

Stafford 913-2013

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Stafford Big Burh Day

A celebration of 1,100 years since Æthelflæd the Lady of the Mercians, daughter of King Alfred the Great, fortified Stafford as a defended settlement, or 'burh'.

 
Saturday 6 July 2013

Storytelling Parade

From 11am - Stafford Town Centre

Part of the Big Burh Day celebrations will be a colourful 'storytelling' parade where 1,100 years of Stafford's history will be recreated by a Celebration Pageant involving community groups, organisations and businesses parading through the town in elaborate costumes showing off Stafford’s rich heritage.

Stafford Ancient High House

The parade will set off at 11am and wind through Stafford Town Centre, taking approximately 45 minutes to complete.

There is an opportunity for the public to take part in the celebration and help to tell the story of Stafford from the founding of the burh in 913, to last year's Olympic Torch Relay. Two stone plinths will also be unveiled marking Stafford’s 1,100 birthday and Queen Elizabeth II memorable visit in 2006.

Following the Storytelling parade in the morning and afternoon's local music showcase, Stafford's Big Burh Day will finish with a free celebratory music concert in Market Square.

Plan of Stafford in 1610 - John Speede

See:

St Bertelin's Chapel

The Location of the Stafford burh

A Roman Road in Stafford?

Iron Age Stafford

Searching for the Stafford burh

Æthelflæd: The Making of a County Town

King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons (TV Mini-Series)

Staffordshire Heritage Day: Stafford 913

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Copyright © 2013 Edward Watson

http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

The Giant's Cauldron

Merlin and Stonehenge
Part VI

In the stories of Preiddeu Annwn, Culhwch and Olwen and The Second Branch of the Mabinogion we see the common theme of a raid on the Otherworld (Ireland) involving a magic cauldron and release of an exalted prisoner, with only seven returning in two of the tales. But we are searching for the theft of a stone circle, not a cauldron.

Is Geoffrey's translation of the Latin 'chorea gigantum' as the 'Giant's Dance' correct?
Geoffrey claims to have translated a book from the native British tongue into Latin which had been previously translated from Latin by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. If ever there was a recipe for a literary disaster it was here. It certainly wouldn't be the only occasion that Geoffrey mistranslated a name; did he get the name of the Giant's Dance wrong?

The Welsh name for Stonehenge is 'Cor Y Cewri' which is rendered as 'Chorea gigantum' in Medieval Latin by Geoffrey or literally 'The Giants's Choir' in English. Antiquarians, such as John Wood and John Smith, used the name 'Choir Gaur'. In Stonehenge, A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids, William Stukeley said, "I had rather chuse to think choir gaur in Welsh, truly means, the great church; the cathedral, in our way of speaking." Indeed, poetic licence permits some variation; this is typically translated as the Giants Dance, Round, Circle or Ring. One seems at liberty to take your pick.

Whereas I am certainly no etymologist, and the issue requires an expert opinion, I suggest an alternative name, which would fit with the stories of Preiddeu Annwn, Culhwch and Olwen and The Second Branch of the Mabinogion; is it possible the correct translation of 'the Giant's Dance' should in fact be the 'giants cauldron.'

Before the suggestion is dismissed out of hand, consider that the Middle Irish word for cauldron is "Coiri," with "coire" and "caere" as alternate spellings. Afterall, according to Geoffrey, the stone circle came from Mount Killaraus in Ireland and we can justifiably expect an original Gaelic name for the monument. Let's look at one or two examples.

Pobull Fhìnn

One of the most distinctive features of the Outer Hebrides is the prevalence of the Gaelic language, brought to Scotland by colonists from Ireland towards the days of the end of the Roman Empire in Britain. By 500 AD the Gaels had established their Kingdom of Dàl Riada, centred on what is now Argyll in southwest Scotland which became known as Earra Ghàidheal, "the coastland of the Gael."

Today a stone circle on  Machrie Moor on the Isle of Arran, Inner Hedrides, is called Fingal's Cauldron Seat or 'Suidhe Coire Fhionn' in Gaelic. The inner circle, 37.9ft in diameter, is made up of eight stones which is remarkably close to the inner bluestone feature at Stonehenge

The site consists of two concentric rings of eight and fifteen granite boulders and is the largest of the stone circles at the prehistoric ceremonial site of Machrie Moor. During excavation in 1861 an empty cist, probably a robbed burial,was found in the centre of the circles. The name 'Fingal's Cauldron Seat' is said to refer to the legendary warrior and giant Fingal, boiling up his cauldron on the inner circle's stones. A stone within the circle has a hole through it, where Fingal is said to have tethered his dogs Bran and Scaolain, while he ate a meal within the inner ring.

Pobull Fhìnn is a stone circle on the Isle of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. The stones are also known as Sòrnach Coir' Fhìnn, or 'the fireplace of Fionn's cauldron.' Near Kensaleyre in Skye we find Sòrnaichean Coir Fhìnn, 'the fireplaces of Fionn's cauldron.' Coire Fhìnn, or 'Fionn's cauldron' was used to cook the deer that he and his fellow hunters had killed.

The legendary Gaelic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, known in English as Finn McCool the hunter-warrior of Irish mythology, also occurs in  Manx and Scottish mythologies. These ancient cooking places in wild areas are known as 'fulachta' and often attributed to Finn and his men. These sites in the Hedrides are immediately reminiscent of  the Arthur dining sites in Wales and south-west England such as Ffynnon Cegin Arthur, ‘The Spring of Arthur’s Kitchen’, in Cardiganshire; Crochan Arthur, Arthur’s Pot or Cauldron near to Arthur’s Table in Carmarthenshire; Arthur's Oven, Dartmoor; ‘Arthur’s Cups and Saucers’ at Tintagel; ‘Arthur’s Troughs’ on Bodmin Moor.

A 'giant's cauldron' fits perfectly with these landscape features associated with mythological characters Arthur and Finn, and also makes sense of the  the stories of Preiddeu Annwn, Culhwch and Olwen and The Second Branch of the Mabinogion as Geoffrey's sources for the raid on Ireland to retrieve the stone circle.

Did Geoffrey get the name of the Giant's Dance right?


Copyright © 2013 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

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