(Jody Gray) During the Viking Age, there were battles for land and power, there was widespread looting; crops and livestock were destroyed. A good king was a skilled and courageous warrior who protected his people. The Catholic Church was on a mission to convert all pagans, to them, a good king was a devout Christian who supported their mission. Those who chronicled events were loyal to the king and the Church. Centuries later, historians and scholars created the terms of nationalism and patriotism. Words used to describe the “Praise-Poem” Battle of Brunanburh: evidence of the continuing attraction of the “warrior tradition” (romantic and heroic)- the dawning of a sense of nationality - a crisis in which a nation is involved - patriotic triumphalism.
(Wulfstan of Winchester) it came to pass that Athelstan, the most victorious king, passed away… after he had destroyed a hostile army of pagans in a great slaughter… his brother Edmund… was called “King of the English”. (Livingston) the battle was “the moment when Englishness came of age”...
I remember reading (in the aftermath of an attack on a village) that the “subjects” didn’t care who ruled them, they just wanted to be free of the killing and destruction of their land and livestock.
*Battle of Brunanburh, 937 [https://en.wikipedia.] Historical background. The battle was a culmination of the conflict between King Æthelstan and the northern kings. After Æthelstan had defeated the Vikings at York in 928, Constantine II, the Scottish King, recognised the threat posed by the House of Wessex to his own position, and began forging alliances with neighboring kingdoms to attempt a preemptive strike against Æthelstan. Constantine married his daughter to Amlaib mac Gofraid (aka Olaf Guthfrithsson), the Norse-Gael King of Dublin, who had claim to the throne of Northumbria, from which Æthelstan had expelled his father in 927. Thus, the invading army combined “Vikings, Scots, and Strathclyde Britons.” On the English side, Æthelstan was joined by his brother, the later King Edmund. In the ensuing battle, the combined forces of Wessex and Mercia won a decisive victory.
A “Praise-Poem” Battle of Brunanburh, was written and preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical record of events in Anglo-Saxon England which was kept from the late 9th to the mid-12th century. The poem records the Battle of Brunanburh, a battle fought in 937 between an English army and a combined army of Scots, Vikings, and Britons. The battle resulted in an English victory, celebrated by the poem in style and language like that of traditional Old English battle poetry. The poem is notable because of those traditional elements and has been praised for its authentic tone, but it is also remarkable for its fiercely nationalistic tone, which documents the development of a unified England ruled by the House of Wessex. The poem is a panegyric celebrating the victory of Æthelstan and Edmund I. -Panegyric, a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and undiscriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical.
The poem concludes by comparing the battle to those fought in earlier stages of English history: Never, before this, were more men in this island slain by the sword’s edge -as books and aged sages confirm -since Angles and Saxons sailed here from the east, sought the Britons over the wide seas, since those warsmiths hammered the Welsh, and earls, eager for glory, overran the land.
Style and tone. ...since the poem comes so late in the Old English period, it gives evidence of the continuing attraction of the “warrior tradition”... the battle reports “the dawning of a sense of nationality, ...a crisis in which a nation is involved.” ...relies on “uncomplicated patriotic triumphalism”... the poem builds on the “sense of ideological identity that the English had been given by Bede (a United church throughout England).” ...Accompanying the combatants are the usual “beasts of battle” found in other Old English poems -the wolf, the raven, and the eagle…
Battle. Sources, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon historian William of Malmesbury (English historian, 12 century). Annals of Clonmacnoise, 17th-century Early Modern English translation of a lost Irish chronicle, which covered events in Ireland from prehistory to AD 1408 (compilers, unknown). Egil’s Saga, an Icelandic saga on the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrimsson (served as a trusted warrior for Athelstan).
The name of the battle appears in various forms in early 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. Annals of Ulster (medieval Ireland).
The main source of information about the battle is the praise-poem Battle of Brunanburh in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. After travelling north through Mercia, Athelstan, his brother Edmund, and the combined Saxon army from Wessex and Mercia met the invading armies and attacked them. In a battle that lasted all day, the Saxons fought the invaders and finally forced them to break up and flee… According to the poem, the Saxons “split the shield-wall” and “hewed battle shields with the remnants of hammers… there lay many a warrior by spears destroyed; Northern men shot over shield, likewise Scottish as well, weary, war sated”. Wood states that all large battles were described in this manner… Olaf fled and sailed back to Dublin with the remnants of his army, and Constantine escaped to Scotland; Owen’s fate is not mentioned… Athelstan and Edmund victoriously returned to Wessex… exultant from battle… The Annals of Ulster (Ireland) describe the battle as “great, lamentable and horrible” and record that “several thousands of Norsemen… fell”. Among them five kings and seven earls from Olaf’s army. Constantine lost several friends and family members, including his son. The largest list of those killed in the battle is contained in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, which names several kings and princes. A large number of Saxons also died, including two of Athelstan's cousins, Alfic and Athelwin.
…Furthermore, while these sources might be seen as biased due to the national origin and underlying romantic and heroic narrative constructions of the battle from each side, some of the sources, such as the Chronicle work as points of reference to the more lyrical constructions presented in other popular narrative formats...
William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, which supposedly preserves an older Latin poem about the battle: “For because our king, bold and spirited in his youth, had retired from war long ago and languished in sluggish leisure, they defiled everything in their relentless plundering, afflicting the wretched fields with spreading fires. Verdant grass had withered on all the plains; diseased gran had mocked the prayers of the farmers; so great was the barbaric force of the footmen and riders, the charge of countless galloping steeds.” Malmesbury works to defend Athelstan from any charges of negligence by noting the defensive delays as a deliberate martial tactic and “the king purposefully held back so that he might defeat an already insolent foe in a more glorious manner.”
...According to Ethelweard (d. 998, witnessed charters in 955), in the Chronicle: “nine hundred years plus twenty-six more had passed from the glorious Incarnation of our Savior when the all-powerful King Athelstan assumed the crown of empire. Thirteen years later there was a massive battle against barbarians at Brunandun which is still called the ‘the great war’ to the present day by the common folk. The barbarian hordes were then overcome on all sides and they held sway no longer. Afterwards he drove them from the shores of the sea and Scots and Picts alike bent their necks. The fields of Britain were joined as one; everywhere there was peace and abundance in all things. No fleet has since moved against these shores and remained without the consent of the English.”
Wulfstan of Winchester also references the Battle in his Life of Saint Ethelwold: “Meanwhile it came to pass that Athelstan, the most victorious king, passed away in the fourth year after he had destroyed a hostile army of pagans in a great slaughter, and his brother Edmund assumed from him the guidance of the kingdom -Edmund was called “King of the English”.
Geoffrey of Gaimar, an Anglo-Norman chronicler, also recounts the battle: “after that reigned Edward’s son Athelstan. When he had reigned to the fourth year, he waged a battle against the Danes; and he defeated Guthfrith the king. After that he assembled a great army and into the sea issued a great fleet. Directly to Scotland he went; he harried that country well. One year later, no less no more, at Brunanburh he had the upper hand over the Scots, and over the men of Cumberland, over the Welsh, and over the Picts. There were so many slain I think it will be told forever”…
Aftermath. Athelstan’s decisive victory prevented the dissolution of England’s unity. Livingston wrote that the battle was “the moment when Englishness came of age” and “one of the most significant battles in the long history not just England but of the whole of the British Isles”...
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*Æthelstan [*https://en.wikipedia.] King of the Anglo-Saxons 924-927; King of the English 927-939 (until his death) -he became the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England after he conquered the remaining Viking kingdom, York.
On his coins and charters he is described as Rex totius Britanniae, or “King of the whole of Britain”. A gospel book he donated to Christ Church, Canterbury is inscribed “Æthelstan, king of the English and ruler of the whole of Britain with a devout mind and gave this book to the primatial see of Canterbury, to the church dedicated to Christ”. In charters from 931 he is “king of the English, elevated by the right hand of the almighty to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain”... Foreign contemporaries described him in panegyrical terms…The Annals of Ulster described him as the “pillar of the dignity of the western world”... Michael Wood titled an essay, “The Making of King Æthelstan’s Empire: an English Charlemagne?”, and described him as “the most powerful ruler that Britain had seen since the Romans”. In the view of Veronica Ortenberg, he was “the most powerful ruler in Europe “with an army that had repeatedly defeated the Vikings; continental rulers saw him as a Carolingian emperor, who “was clearly treated as the new Charlemagne”. She wrote: Wessex kings carried an aura of power and success, which made them increasingly powerful in the 920s, while most Continental houses were in military trouble and engaged in internecine warfare. While the civil wars and the Viking attacks on the Continent had spelled the end of the unity of the Carolingian empire, which had already disintegrated into separate kingdoms, military success had enabled Æthelstan to triumph at home and to attempt to go beyond the reputation of a great heroic dynasty of warrior kings, in order to develop a Carolingian ideology of kingship.
Notes (background). 9th-century West Saxon kings before Alfred the Great are generally described by historians as kings of Wessex or of the West Saxons. In the 880s Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, accepted West Saxon lordship, and Alfred then adopted a new title, king of the Anglo-Saxons, representing his conception of a new polity of all the English people who were not under Viking rule. This endured until 927, when Æthelstan conquered Viking York, and adopted the title rex anglorum (king of the English), in recognition of his rule over the whole of England. The term “Englalonde” (England) came into use in the late 10th or early 11th century.
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King Æthelstan was buried in the Malmesbury Abbey -he had died in Gloucester in Oct. 939 -other kings were buried at Winchester, but Æthelstan chose not to honor the city associated with opposition to his rule. His bones were lost during the Reformation (the abbey was closed at the Dissolution of Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII), but he is commemorated by an empty 15th-century tomb. William of Malmesbury described Æthelstan as fair-haired "as I have seen for myself in his remains, beautifully intertwined with gold threads".
*Historians: Bede (7th century), Ethelweard (10th century), William of Malmesbury (12th century), John of Worcester (12th century), Michael Wood (1979), Michael Livingston (2011). See, *BP: Historians, European History. http://indextoblogposts. * (Historians, England)
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