CHAPTER II

ANGLO-SAXON FORTIFICATIONS

We have pointed out in the preceding chapter that when it is asked whether the earthworks of the moated mound-and-court type were the work of the Anglo-Saxons, the question resolves itself into another, namely, Did the Anglo-Saxons build castles?

As far as we know, they did not; and although to prove a negative we can only bring negative evidence, that evidence appears to us to be very conclusive. But before we deal with it, we will try to find out what sort of fortifications the Anglo-Saxons actually did construct.

The first fortification which we read of in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is that of Bamborough, in Northumberland. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ tells us that in 547 Ida began to reign in Northumberland, and adds that he built "Bebbanburh," which was first enclosed with a hedge, and afterwards with a wall. Unfortunately this celebrated passage is merely the interpolation of a 12th-century scribe, and is consequently of no authority whatever,[18] though there is nothing improbable in the statement, and it is supported by Nennius.[19] Ida's grandson Ethelfrith gave this fortress to his wife Bebba, from whom it received the name of Bebbanburh, now Bamborough. It was built without doubt on the same lofty insulated rock where the castle now stands; for when it was attacked by Penda in 633, he found the situation so strong that it was impossible to storm it, and it was only by heaping up wood on the most accessible side that he was able to set fire to the wooden stockade.[20] Modern historians talk of this fort as a castle, but all the older authorities call it a town;[21] nor is there any mention of a castle at Bamborough till the reign of William II. The area of the basaltic headland of Bamborough covers 4-3/4 acres, a site large enough for a city of Ida's day. The church of St Peter was placed on the highest point. The castle which was built there in Norman times does not seem to have occupied at first more than a portion of this site,[22] though it is probable that eventually the townsmen were expelled from the rock, and that thus the modern town of Bamborough arose in the levels below. Although 4-3/4 acres may seem a small size for an _urbs_, it was certainly regarded as such, and was large enough to protect a considerable body of invaders.

Strange to say, this is the only record which we have of any fortress-building by the invading Saxons. Until we come to the time of Alfred, there is hardly an allusion to any fortification in use in Saxon times.[23] It is mentioned in 571 that the Saxons took four towns (_tunas_) of the Britons, and the apparent allusion to sieges seems to show that these British towns had some kind of fortification. The three _chesters_, which were taken by the Saxons in 577, Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, prove that some Roman cities still kept their defences. In 755 the slaughter of Cynewulf, king of the West Saxons, by the etheling Cyneard, is told with unusual detail by the _Chronicle_. The king was slain in a _bur_ (bower, or isolated women's chamber[24]), the door of which he attempted to defend; but this _bur_ was itself enclosed in a _burh_, the gates of which were locked by the etheling who had killed the king, and were defended until they were forced by the king's avengers. Here it seems to be doubtful whether the _burh_ was a town or a private enclosure resembling a stable-yard of modern times. The description of the storming of York by the Danes in 867 shows that the Roman walls of that city were still preserved. These passages are the solitary instances of fortifications in England mentioned by the _Chronicle_ before the time of Alfred.[25] The invasions of the Danes led at last to a great fortifying epoch, which preserved our country from being totally overwhelmed by those northern immigrants.

The little Saxon kingdom of Wessex was the germ of the British Empire. When Alfred came to the throne it had already absorbed the neighbouring kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and the issue hanging in the balance was whether this small English state would survive the desolating flood of pagan barbarism which had already overwhelmed the sister kingdoms of the Midlands and the North. It was given to Alfred to raise again the fallen standard of Christendom and civilisation, and to establish an English kingdom on so sound a basis that when, in later centuries, it successively became the prey of the Dane and the Norman, the English polity survived both conquests. The wisdom, energy, and steadfastness of King Alfred and his children and grandchildren were amongst the most important of the many factors which have helped to build up the great empire of Britain.

We are concerned here with only one of the measures by which Alfred and his family secured the triumph of Wessex in her mortal struggle with the Danes, the fortifications which they raised for the protection of their subjects. From the pages of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ we might be led to think that Alfred's son and daughter, Edward and Ethelfleda, were the chief builders of fortifications. But there is ample evidence that they only carried out a systematic purpose which had been initiated by Alfred. We know that Alfred was a great builder. "What shall I say," cries Asser, "of the cities and towns which he restored, and of others which he built which had never existed before! Of the royal halls and chambers, wonderfully built of stone and wood by his command!"[26] The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ notices the restoration of London (886),[27] about which two extant charters are more precise.[28] It also mentions the building of a work (geweorc) at Athelney, and another at Limene-muthan (doubtless a repair of the Roman fort at Lympne), and two works built by Alfred on the banks of the river Lea.[29] William of Malmesbury tells us that in his boyhood there was a stone in the nunnery of Shaftesbury which had been taken out of the walls of the town, which bore this inscription: "Anno dominicæ incarnationis Alfredus rex fecit hanc urbem, DCCCLXXX, regni sui VIII."[30] Ethelred, Alfred's son-in-law, built the _burh_ at Worcester in Alfred's lifetime, as a most interesting charter tells us.[31]

It may be safely assumed, then, that when Edward came to the throne he found Wessex well provided with defensive places, and that when he and his sister signalised their conquests in the Midlands by building strongholds at every fresh step of their advance, they were only carrying out the policy of their father.

At the time of Alfred's death, and the succession of Edward the Elder to the crown (901), Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred, was the wife of Ethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, who appears to have been a sort of under-king of that province.[32] On the death of Ethelred in 912,[33] Edward took possession of London and Oxford and "of all the lands which owed obedience thereto"--in other words, of that small portion of Eastern Mercia which was still in English hands; that is, not only the present Oxfordshire and Middlesex, but part of Herts, part of Bedfordshire, all Buckinghamshire, and the southern part of Northants. The Watling Street, which runs north-west from London to Shrewsbury, and thence north to Chester and Manchester, formed at that time the dividing line between the English and Danish rule.[34] It would seem from the course of the story that after Ethelred's death there was some arrangement between Ethelfleda and her brother, possibly due to the surrender of the territory mentioned above, which enabled her to rule English Mercia in greater independence than her husband had enjoyed. Up to this date we find Edward disposing of the _fyrd_ of Mercia;[35] this is not mentioned again in Ethelfleda's lifetime. Nothing is clearer, both from the _Chronicle_ and from Florence, than that the brother and sister each "did their own," to use an expressive provincial phrase. Ethelfleda goes her own way, subduing Western Mercia, while Edward pushes up through Eastern Mercia and Essex to complete the conquest of East Anglia. A certain concert may be observed in their movements, but they did not work in company.

The work of fortification begun in Alfred's reign had been continued by the restoration of the Roman walls of Chester in 908, by Ethelred and his wife; and Ethelfleda herself (possibly during the lingering illness which later chroniclers give to her husband) had built a _burh_ at Bremesbyrig. During the twelve years which elapsed between Ethelred's death and that of Edward in 924, the brother and sister built no less than twenty-seven _burhs_, giving a total of thirty, if we add Chester and Bremesbyrig, and Worcester, which was built in Alfred's reign. Now what was the nature of these fortifications, which the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ uniformly calls _burhs_?

There is really not the slightest difficulty in answering this question. The word is with us still; it is our word _borough_. It is true we have altered the meaning somewhat, because a borough means now an enfranchised town; but we must remember that it got that meaning because the fortified towns, the only ones which were called _burhs_ or _burgi_, were the first to be enfranchised, and while the fortifications have become less and less important, the franchise has become of supreme importance.

Bede, in the earliest times of our history, equated _burh_ with _urbs_, a city; Alfred in his _Orosius_ translates _civitas_ by _burh_;[36] the Anglo-Saxon gospels of the 11th century do the same;[36] and the confederacy of five Danish towns which existed in Mercia in the 10th century is called in contemporary records _fif burga_, the five boroughs.[37]

_Burh_ is a noun derived from the word _beorgan_, to protect. Undoubtedly its primitive meaning was that of a _protective enclosure_. As in the case of the words _tun_, _yard_, or _garth_, and _worth_ or _ward_, the sense of the word became extended from the protecting bulwark to the place protected. In this sense of a _fortified enclosure_, the word was naturally applied by the Anglo-Saxons to the prehistoric and British "camps" which they found in Britain, such as Cissbury. Moreover, it is clear that some kind of enclosure must have existed round every farmstead in Saxon times, if only as a protection against wolves. The illustrated Saxon manuscripts show that the hall in which the thane dwelt, the ladies' bower, the chapel and other buildings dependent on the hall, were enclosed in a stockade, and had gates which without doubt were closed at night.[38] This enclosure may have been called a _burh_, and the innumerable place-names in England ending in _borough_ or _bury_[39] seem to suggest that the _burh_ was often nothing more than a stockade, as in so many of these sites not a vestige of defensive works remains.[40] We may concede that the original meaning of an _enclosure_ was never entirely lost, and that it appears to be preserved in a few passages in the Anglo-Saxon laws. Thus Edmund speaks of _mine burh_ as an asylum, the violation of which brings its special punishment; and Ethelred II. ordains that every compurgation shall take place in _thaes kyninges byrig_; and the _Rectitudines Singularum Personum_ tells us that one of the duties of the geneat was to build for his lord, and to hedge his _burh_.[41] But it is absolutely clear that even in these cases a _burh_ was an enclosure and not a tump; and it is equally clear from the general use of the word that its main meaning was a _fortified town_. Athelstan ordains that there shall be a mint in every _burh_; and his laws show that already the _burh_ has its _gemot_ or meeting, and its _reeve_ or mayor.[42] He ordains that all _burhs_ are to be repaired fourteen days after Rogations, and that no market shall be held outside the town.[43] In the laws of Edgar's time not only the borough-moot and the borough-reeve are spoken of, but the _burh-waru_ or burgesses.[44] _Burh_ is contrasted with wapentake as town with country.[45]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--ANGLO-SAXON MS. OF PRUDENTIUS.

If we wish to multiply proofs that a _burh_ was the same thing as a borough, we can turn to the Anglo-Saxon illustrated manuscripts, and we shall find that they give us many pictures of _burhs_, and that in all cases they are fortified towns.[46] Finally, Florence of Worcester, one of the most careful of our early chroniclers, who lived when Anglo-Saxon was still a living language, and who must have known what a _burh_ meant, translates it by _urbs_ in nineteen cases out of twenty-six.[47] His authority alone is sufficient to settle this question, and we need no longer have any doubt that a _burh_ was the same thing which in mediæval Latin is called a _burgus_, that is a fortified town, and that our word _borough_ is lawfully descended from it.

It would not have been necessary to spend so much time on the history of the word _burh_ if this unfortunate word had not been made the subject of one of the strangest delusions which ever was imposed on the archæological world. We refer of course to the theory of the late Mr G. T. Clark, who contended in his _Mediæval Military Architecture_[48] that the moated mound of class (_e_), which we have described in our first chapter, was what the Anglo-Saxons called a _burh_. In other words, he maintained that the burhs were Saxon castles. It is one of the most extraordinary and inexplicable things in the history of English archæology that a man who was not in any sense an Anglo-Saxon scholar was allowed to affix an entirely new meaning to a very common Anglo-Saxon word, and that this meaning was at once accepted without question by historians who had made Anglo-Saxon history their special study! The present writer makes no pretensions to be an Anglo-Saxon scholar, but it is easy to pick out the word _burh_ in the _Chronicle_ and the Anglo-Saxon _Laws_, and to find out how the word is translated in the Latin chronicles; and this little exercise is sufficient in itself to prove the futility of Mr Clark's contention.

Sentiment perhaps had something to do with Mr Clark's remarkable success. There is an almost utter lack of tangible monuments of our national heroes; and therefore people who justly esteemed the labours of Alfred and his house were pleased when they were told that the mounds at Tamworth, Warwick, and elsewhere were the work of Ethelfleda, and that other mounds were the work of Edward the Elder. It did not occur to them that they were doing a great wrong to the memory of the children of Alfred in supposing them capable of building these little earthen and timber castles for their personal defence and that of their nobles, and leaving the mass of their people at the mercy of the Danes. Far other was the thought of Ethelfleda, when she and her husband built the borough of Worcester. As they expressed it in their memorable charter, it was not only for the defence of the bishop and the churches of Worcester, but "TO SHELTER ALL THE FOLK."[49] And we may be sure that the same idea lay at the founding of all the boroughs which were built by Alfred and by Edward and Ethelfleda. They were to be places where the whole countryside could take refuge during a Danish raid. The _Chronicle_ tells us in 894 how Alfred divided his forces into three parts, the duty of one part being to defend the boroughs; and from this time forth we constantly find the men of the boroughs doing good service against the Danes.[50] It was by defending and thus developing the boroughs of England that Alfred and his descendants saved England from the Danes.

Thus far we have seen that all the fortifications which we know to have been built by the Anglo-Saxons were the fortifications of society and not of the individual. We have heard nothing whatever of the private castle as an institution in Saxon times; and although this evidence is only negative, it appears to us to be entitled to much more weight than has hitherto been given to it. Some writers seem to think that the private castle was a modest little thing which was content to blush unseen. This is wholly to mistake the position of the private castle in history. Such a castle is not merely a social arrangement, it is a political institution of the highest importance. Where such castles exist, we are certain to hear of some of them, sooner or later, in the pages of history.

We can easily test this by comparing Anglo-Saxon history with Norman of the same period, after castles had arisen in Normandy. Who among Saxon nobles was more likely to possess a castle than the powerful Earl Godwin, and his independent sons? Yet when Godwin left the court of Edward the Confessor, because he would not obey the king's order to punish the men of Dover for insulting Count Eustace of Boulogne, we do not hear that he retired to his castle, or that his sons fortified their castles against the king; we only hear that they met together at Beverstone (a place where there was no castle before the 14th century)[51] and "arrayed themselves resolutely."[52] Neither do we hear of any castle belonging to the powerful Earl Siward of Northumbria, or Leofric, Earl of Mercia. And when Godwin returned triumphantly to England in 1052 we do not hear of any castles being restored to him.

Now let us contrast this piece of English history, as told by the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, with the Norman history of about the same period, the history of the rebellion of the Norman nobles against their young duke, William the Bastard. The first thing the nobles do is to put their castles into a state of defence. William has to take refuge in the castle of a faithful vassal, Hubert of Rye, until he can safely reach his own castle of Falaise. After the victory of Val-ès-Dunes, William had to reduce the castles which still held out, and then to order the destruction of all the castles which had been erected against him.[53]

Or let us contrast the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ of 1051 with that of 1088, when certain Norman barons and bishops in England conspired against the new king, William Rufus. The first thing told us is that each of the head conspirators "went to his castle, and manned it and victualled it." Then Bishop Geoffrey makes Bristol Castle the base of a series of plundering raids. Bishop Wulfstan, on the other hand, aids the cause of William by preventing an attempt of the rebels on the castle of Worcester. Roger Bigod throws himself into Norwich Castle, and harries the shire; Bishop Odo brings the plunder of Kent into his castle of Rochester. Finally the king's cause wins the day through the taking of the castles of Tonbridge, Pevensey, Rochester, and Durham.

If we reflect on the contrast which these narratives afford, it surely is difficult to avoid the conclusion that if the chronicler never mentions any Saxon castles it is because there were no Saxon castles to mention. Had Earl Godwin possessed a stronghold in which he could fortify himself, he would certainly have used it in 1051. And as the Norman favourites of Edward the Confessor had already begun to build castles in England, we can imagine no reason why Godwin did not do the same, except that such a step was impossible to a man who desired popularity amongst his countrymen. The Welshmen, we are told (that is the foreigners, the Normans), had erected a castle in Herefordshire among the people of Earl Sweyn, and had wrought all possible harm and disgrace to the king's men thereabout.[54] The language of the _Chronicle_ shows the unpopularity, to say the least of it, of this castle-building; and one of the conditions which Godwin, when posing as popular champion, wished to exact from the king, was that the _Frenchmen who were in the castle_ should be given up to him.[55] When Godwin returned from his exile, and the Normans took to flight, the chronicler tells us that some fled west to Pentecost's castle, some north to Robert's castle. Thus we learn that there were several castles in England belonging to the Norman favourites.

It is in connection with these Norman favourites that the word _castel_ appears for the first time in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. This is a fact of considerable importance in itself; and when we weigh it in connection with the expressions of dislike recorded above which become much more explicit and vehement after the Norman Conquest, we cannot but feel that Mr Freeman's conclusion, that the thing as well as the word was new, is highly probable.[56] For the hall of the Anglo-Saxon ealdorman or thane, even when enclosed in an earthwork or stockade, was a very different thing from the castle of a Norman noble. A castle is built by a man who lives among enemies, who distrusts his nearest neighbours as much as any foe from a distance. The Anglo-Saxon noble had no reason to distrust his neighbours, or to fortify himself against them. Later historians, who were familiar with the state of things in Norman times, tell us frequently of castles in the Saxon period; but it can generally be proved that they misunderstood their authorities. The genuine contemporary chroniclers of Saxon times never make the slightest allusion to a Saxon castle.

The word _castellum_, it is true, appears occasionally in Anglo-Saxon charters, but when it is used it clearly means a town. Thus Egbert of Kent says in 765: "Trado terram intra castelli moenia supranominati, id est Hrofescestri, unum viculum cum duobus jugeribus, etc.," where _castellum_ is evidently the city of Rochester.[57] Offa calls Wermund "episcopus castelli quod nominatur Hroffeceastre."[58] These instances can easily be multiplied. Mr W. H. Stevenson remarks that "in Old-English glosses, from the 8th century Corpus Glossary downwards, _castellum_ is glossed by _wic_, that is town."[59] In this sense no doubt we must interpret Asser's "castellum quod dicitur Werham."[60] Henry of Huntingdon probably meant a town when he says that Edward the Elder built at Hertford "castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum." He generally translates the _burh_ of the _Chronicle_ by _burgus_, and he shows that he had a correct idea of Edward's work when he says that at Buckingham Edward "fecit _vallum_ ex utraque parte aquæ"--where _vallum_ is a translation of _burh_. The difference between a _burh_ and a castle is very clearly expressed by the _Chronicle_ in 1092, when it says concerning the restoration of Carlisle on its conquest by William Rufus, "He repaired the borough (burh) and ordered the castle to be built."

The following is a table of the thirty boroughs built by Ethelfleda and Edward, arranged chronologically, which will show that we never find a _motte_, that is a moated mound, on the site of one of these boroughs unless a Norman castle-builder has been at work there subsequently. The weak point in Mr Clark's argument was that when he found a motte on a site which had once been Saxon, he did not stop to inquire what any subsequent builders might have done there, but at once assumed that the motte was Saxon. Of course, if we invariably found a motte at _every_ place where Edward or Ethelfleda are said to have built a _burh_, it would raise a strong presumption that mottes and burhs were the same thing. But out of the twenty-five burhs which can be identified, in only ten is there a motte on the same site; and in every case where a motte is found, except at Bakewell and Towcester, there is recorded proof of the existence of a Norman castle. In this list, the _burhs_ on both sides of the river at Hertford, Buckingham, and Nottingham are counted as two, because the very precise indications given in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ show that each _burh_ was a separate construction.

_Burhs of Ethelfleda._

Worcester 873-899 A motte and a Norman castle. Chester 908 A motte and a Norman castle. Bremesburh 911 Unidentified. Scærgate 913 Unidentified. Bridgenorth 913 No motte, but a Norman stone keep. Tamworth 914 A motte and a Norman castle. Stafford, N. of Sowe 914 No motte and no Norman castle. Eddisbury 915 No motte and no Norman castle. Warwick 915 A motte and a Norman castle. Cyricbyrig (Monk's Kirby) 916 No motte and no Norman castle. Weardbyrig 916 Unidentified. Runcorn 916 No motte; a mediæval castle (?).

_Burhs of Edward the Elder._

Hertford, N. of Lea 913 No motte and no Norman castle. Hertford, S. of Lea 913 A motte and a Norman castle. Witham 914 No motte and no Norman castle. Buckingham, S. of Ouse 915 No motte and no Norman castle. Buckingham, N. of Ouse 915 A motte and a Norman castle. Bedford, S. of Ouse 916 No motte and no Norman castle. Maldon 917 No motte and no Norman castle. Towcester 918 A motte. Wigingamere 918 Unidentified. Huntingdon 918 A motte and a Norman castle. Colchester 918 No motte; an early Norman keep. Cledemuthan 918 Unidentified. Stamford, S. of Welland 919 No motte and no Norman castle. Nottingham, N. of Trent 919 A motte and a Norman castle. Thelwall 920 No motte and no Norman castle. Manchester 920 No castle on the ancient site. Nottingham, S. of Trent 921 No motte and no Norman castle. Bakewell (near to) 921 A motte and bailey.

Out of this list of the _burhs_ of Ethelfleda and Edward, thirteen are mentioned as boroughs in Domesday Book;[61] and as we ought to subtract five from the list as unidentified, and also to reckon as one the boroughs built on two sides of the river, the whole number should be reduced to twenty-two. So that more than half the boroughs built by the children of Alfred continued to maintain their existence during the succeeding centuries, and in fact until the present day. But the others, for some reason or other, did not take root. Professor Maitland remarked that many of the boroughs of Edward's day became rotten boroughs before they were ripe;[62] and it is a proof of the difficulty of the task which the royal brethren undertook that, with the exception of Chester, none of the boroughs which they built in the north-western districts survived till Domesday. In all their boroughs, except Bakewell, the purpose of defending the great Roman roads and the main waterways is very apparent.

Our list is very far from being a complete list of all the Anglo-Saxon boroughs existing in Edward's day. In the document known as the "Burghal Hidage" we have another quite different list of thirty-two boroughs,[63] which, according to Professor Maitland, "sets forth certain arrangements made early in the 10th century for the defence of Wessex against the Danish inroads."[64] Five at least on the list are Roman chesters; twenty are mentioned as boroughs in Domesday Book. There are two among them which are of special interest, because there is reason to believe that the earthen ramparts which still surround them are of Saxon origin: Wallingford and Wareham. Both these fortifications are after the Roman pattern, the earthen banks forming a square with rounded corners.[65] See Fig. 3.

To complete our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon fortification, we ought to examine the places mentioned in Anglo-Saxon charters as royal seats, where possibly defensive works of some kind may have existed. Unfortunately we are unable to learn that there are any such works, except at one place, Bensington in Oxfordshire, where about a hundred years ago "a bank and trench, which seem to have been of a square form," were to be seen.[66]

[Illustration:FIG. 3. Wallingford, Berks. Wareham, Dorset.]

In the following chapter we shall deal in detail with such archæological remains as still exist of the boroughs of Edward and Ethelfleda, but here we will briefly summarise by anticipation the results to which that chapter will lead. We see that sites defensible by nature were often seized upon for fortification, as at Bamborough, Bridgenorth, and Eddisbury; but that this was by no means always the case, as a weak site, such as Witham, for example, was sometimes rendered defensible by works which appear to have fulfilled their purpose. In only one case (Witham) do we find an inner enclosure; and as it is of large size (9-1/2 acres) it is more probable that the outer enclosure was for cattle, than that the inner one was designed solely for the protection of the king and his court. We are not told of stone walls more than once (at Towcester); but the use of the word _timbrian_, which does not exclusively mean to build in wood,[67] does not preclude walls of stone in important places. In the square or oblong form, with rounded corners, we see the influence which Roman models exercised on eyes which still beheld them existing.

We see that the main idea of the borough was the same as that of the prehistoric or British "camp of refuge," in that it was intended for the defence of society and not of the individual. It was intended to be a place of refuge for the whole countryside. But it was also something much more than this, something which belongs to a much more advanced state of society than the hill-fort.[68] It was a town, a place where people were expected to live permanently and do their daily work. It provided a fostering seat for trade and manufactures, two of the chief factors in the history of civilisation. The men who kept watch and ward on the ramparts, or who sallied forth in their bands to fight the Danes, were the men who were slowly building up the prosperity of the stricken land of England. By studding the great highways of England with fortified towns, Alfred and his children were not only saving the kernel of the British Empire, they were laying the sure foundations of its future progress in the arts and habits of civilised life.

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