contents i Beyond the Burghal Hidage ii contents History of Warfare Editors Kelly DeVries Loyola University Maryland John France University of Wales, Swansea Michael S. Neiberg United States Army War College, Pennsylvania Frederick Schneid High Point University, North Carolina VOLUME 84 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw contents iii Beyond the Burghal Hidage Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence in the Viking Age By John Baker and Stuart Brookes LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 iv contents Cover illustration: Detail of the south gate of Portchester Castle: the Burghal Hidage stronghold of Portceastre established within the former Roman fort of Portus Adurni. ©Photograph by Stuart Brookes. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baker, John T., Ph. D. Beyond the Burghal Hidage : Anglo-Saxon civil defence in the Viking age / by John Baker and Stuart Brookes. pages cm. -- (History of warfare, ISSN 1385-7827 ; volume 84) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-24563-1 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-24605-8 (e-book) 1. Anglo-Saxons--England--Antiquities. 2. Anglo-Saxons--England--History. 3. Fortification-- England--History--To 1500. 4. Civil defense--England--History--To 1500. 5. Boroughs--England-- History--To 1500. 6. Hidage--History--To 1500. 7. Landscapes--England--History--To 1500. 8. Names, Geographical--England. 9. Landscape archaeology--England. 10. England--History, Military. I. Brookes, Stuart. II. Title. DA155.B35 2013 942.01'7--dc23 2012049302 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1385-7827 ISBN 978-90-04-24563-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24605-8 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. contents v CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  vii Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii xviii 1. Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence: Theory and Historical Context . . . . . .   1 Introduction: Why Study Civil Defence? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1 A Place for Civil Defence in State-Formation Theory . . . . . . . . .   8 Previous Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12 Historical Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15 Beyond the Burghal Hidage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  37 2. Characterizing Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence (Fortifications) . . . . . .  43 Introduction: Archaeological Correlates for Militarism . . . . . . . .  43 Middle Anglo-Saxon Defensive Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  49 Archaeological Evidence for Burghal Hidage Sites . . . . . . . . . . . .  64 Naming Anglo-Saxon Strongholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  90 Minor Defended Sites, Burgates, Turriform Churches, and  Anglo-Saxon Towers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 3. Characterizing Anglo-Saxon Civil Defence (Communications). . . 137 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Infrastructure and Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 The Venues of Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 4. The Kennet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Defensive Sites of the Kennet Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Roads and Intervisibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 vi contents 5. Connections and Obstructions: The Thames in Anglo-Saxon Military Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 The Strategic Landscape of the Thames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Conclusion: The Development of the Thames System . . . . . . . . . 327 6. The Defence of Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 The Evidence for Civil Defence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Conclusions and Wider Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 7. Civil Defence and the English State, 800–1016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Civil Defence: Strategy, Territoriality, and Royal Authority . . . . . 381 Wider Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 480 list of figures and tables vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures 1. Map of the strongholds listed in the Burghal Hidage (following Brooks (1996b) Warwick and Worcester are omitted) . . . . . . . . . .   7 2. Map of the case-study areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35 3. Map of large linear earthworks of the middle Anglo-Saxon pe- riod, and the location of the major political regions (digital elevation model source data: NASA/CGIAR SRTM) . . . . . . . . . . . .  45 4. Photo of Offa’s Dyke near Clun (image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  47 5. Model of the principal components of middle Anglo-Saxon “frontier defence” as known from archaeological and place- name evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48 6. Comparative sections across the defences of Mercian burhs . . . .  50 7. Comparative plans of the Mercian burhs of Tamworth, Winch- combe and Hereford. The evidence for the planform of defen- sive circuits at both Tamworth and Winchcombe remains highly speculative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  51 8. Photo of Old Sarum; a possible predecessor to the Burghal Hid- age stronghold of Wilton? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  53 9. Distribution of known middle Anglo-Saxon strongholds. By way of comparison the main distribution of Iron Age hillforts is also shown (after Cunliffe 2005, Fig. 4.3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  54 10. Anglo-Saxon Malmesbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  63 11. Anglo-Saxon Winchester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  67 12. Schematic reconstruction of the development of late Anglo- Saxon Worcester (after Baker and Holt 2004, fig. 14.1) . . . . . . . . .  71 13. Comparative sections across the late ninth-/early tenth-century defences of the West Saxon and Mercian burhs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  73 14. Comparative sections across the late tenth-/early eleventh-cen- tury burghal defences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  78 15. Archaeological evidence from the 1968 excavations and im- aginative reconstruction drawing of the Tamworth gatehouse. Reproduced from Gould 1969 (images reproduced with permis- sion from the South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  80 viii list of figures and tables 16. Photo of Portchester Watergate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  84 17. The areas of burhs, after Hill 1981, figs. 235 and 236 . . . . . . . . . . . .  87 18. Many of the characteristic features of de novo burhs are still vis- ible at Wallingford, including the substatial intra-mural open spaces of Bullcroft and Kinecroft in the western part of the town, the intra-mural road, and mural churches (in this case the pre-burh foundation of St Leonard’s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 19. The context of the stronghold at Buckingham, showing the dif- ferent fortifications of Edward the Elder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 20. Plan of Anglo-Saxon Portchester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 21. Photo of St Michael at the Northgate, Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 22. Photo of All Saints, Earls Barton (image courtesy of Pat Day) . . . 114 23. Models of warfare after Luttwak, showing A) Linear defence, B) Defence-in-Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 24. Map of Burghal Hidage strongholds, and the form that these take, after Hill (1996). Significant is the distinction between de- fensive sites for most of heartland Wessex, based on ready-made Roman and prehistoric strongholds, and frontiers to the south, north, and east, where the majority of de novo strongholds are sited. The transition from one system to the other is suggested by the close proximity of planned towns and earlier promontory forts listed in the Burghal Hidage at Barnstaple (Pilton Camp) and Totnes (Hallwell Camp; both De.), as well as Great Bedwyn/ Chisbury (Wi.) and Cricklade/Malmesbury (Wi.) discussed in Chapter 4. Undated, but possible early medieval, defences at Daws Castle (So.), Redhone or Bredy (Do.), and Mount Caburn (Sx), may provide further evidence of the same process . . . . . . . . 125 25. Comparative plans of manorial compounds: Goltho (Li.), Fac- combe Netherton (Ha.), Trowbridge (Wi.), and Earls Barton (Li.)  128 26a. and 26b. Comparative plans of major settlement modules of the rectilinear planform type (left: Marlborough, Wilton, Ave- bury (all Wi.), Lewes (Sx.), Barnstaple (Dv.), and Guildford (Sr.)) and curvilinear type (right: Old Cleeve (So.), Portchester (Sx.), Barton-upon-Humber (Li.), Bampton (Ox.), Lambourn (Be.), and Puxton (So.)) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 27. Comparative plans of de novo burghal towns: London, Ware- ham, Wallingford, Southampton, and Cricklade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 28. The Vikings in England 865–878. Significant is the close asso- ciation between the manoeuvres of the Vikings, principal roads (after Hill 1981, 166), and navigable waterways (after Edwards list of figures and tables ix and Hindle 1991) (digital elevation model source data: NASA/ CGIAR SRTM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 29. Distribution of here pæð and similar place-names (digital eleva- tion model source data: NASA/CGIAR SRTM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 30. Plan of Yatesbury showing the development of the village plan and street names. Note the location of the beacon platform on the western side of the enclosure (after Reynolds and Brookes 2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 31. Photo of the Ridgeway east of Avebury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 32. Section drawing across the Pilgrims’ Way at White Horse Stone excavated in advance of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Note the stratigraphical relationship between the second oldest route (9046) and the crossroad burial (9025) (image reproduced courtesy of High Speed 1 and the Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 33. Section across the herepath at Yatesbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 34. Strongholds recorded during the reign of Edward the Elder (899–924) (digital elevation model source data: NASA/CGIAR SRTM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 35. Topographical overview of Anglo-Saxon Southwark and Lon- don, showing the main late Anglo-Saxon features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 36. Graph of exemption clauses, data from Cooper 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . 163 37. Comparative plans of “double burhs” (after Rodwell 1993, fig. 44) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 38. Images of beacons lit to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen, 4 June 2012: bonfire beacon at Clarendon Park, near Salisbury (top. Image courtesy of Alex Langlands); the national beacon at Buckingham Palace (centre); view of beacons at Hillmark and East Knoyle from Clarendon Park (bottom. Im- age courtesy of Alex Langlands) (the distance from Clarendon Park to East Knoyle is 40km). During the Silver Jubilee celebra- tions in 1977, more than a hundred beacons – stretching from St Kilda to Dover – were strategically sited to relay the signal from Windsor. Accounts of the event record that the terminal beacon on Unst, Shetland Isles, was lit precisely one hour after the start of the beacon chain at Windsor (RICS 1977, 29) . . . . . . 182 39. Composite map of southern England showing the pattern of beacon networks suggested by previous scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 40. Photos of the views from Totternhoe (Bd.). Top: south-west to- wards Ivinghoe Beacon. bottom: north-east towards Watling Street . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194