Wessex from 1000 AD

J.H. Bettey, J. H. Bettey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781138408067
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317871842
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The prehistory and early history of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Avon, and the city of Bristol.

Chapter 1

The Early Middle Ages: Conquest and Civil War

By the year 1000 central-southern England, the heartland of the kingdom of Wessex, was already an ancient, settled land, where the long centuries of work by prehistoric settlers, the efficiency of Romano-British farmers, Roman land-surveyors and road builders, and the efforts of Saxon pioneers had laid out the landscape with a framework of estates and villages, towns and parishes, administrative boundaries and ecclesiastical divisions. The roots of much of this framework are to be sought in Roman or even earlier estate boundaries and administrative units; many parish boundaries in Wessex correspond to the bounds of Anglo-Saxon land grants, and modern research increasingly shows the antiquity of manorial, parish, township and other divisions, and the persistence of land-units from prehistoric times (Gelling 1978: 191–214). Wessex had already been divided into shires, with a system of local administration through hundreds, before the end of the eighth century. Somerset was the territory of the people who were referred to by The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 845 as the Sumorsaete, who looked to Somerton as their administrative and military centre; Dorset had its centre at the old Roman provincial capital of Dorchester; Wiltshire was dependent upon Wilton, then the most important town in the shire with its wealthy Benedictine nunnery founded by King Alfred; Hamwic, the Saxon predecessor of Southampton, was the capital of Hampshire. The only one of the central-southern counties not to be named after the people of its principal town was Berkshire, which, according to Asser, the Welsh monk who wrote a biography of King Alfred and who was to become Bishop of Sherborne, was ‘called Bearrocscire, which district is so called from the Berroc wood where the box-tree grows most abundantly’. Wallingford, at a major crossing-point of the Thames, was for long the chief urban centre of Berkshire, although the Saxon shire court met in the open on a mound by the Ridgeway at Scutchamer Knob in East Hendred, high up on the Berkshire Downs.

By the year 1000 monastic houses at Glastonbury, Shaftesbury, Malmesbury, Abingdon, Winchester and several other places were already long-established institutions.

Place-name endings such as ‘ley’, ‘leigh’, ‘hay’ or ‘hurst’, signifying clearings or enclosures, already bore abundant witness to the inroads made by Saxon farmers upon the woodland cover of the region, although this slow laborious process of clearing was to continue throughout the Middle Ages. From the evidence of late Saxon charters and from royal and ecclesiastical estate records it is possible to obtain a picture of the landscape and settlement pattern of the region during the eleventh century, but even where documentary sources are lacking, the evidence of the landscape, the surviving pattern of fields and roads, boundaries and settlements, can be used to show how well-established most features of the landscape were by the time of the Norman conquest. For example, the typical pattern of parish and manorial boundaries to be found on the chalklands of Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire, with long narrow areas of land running across the valleys of the chalkland streams and extending far up on to the surrounding downland is clearly described in numerous Saxon charters, and is also marked by pre-Conquest boundaries often running continuously for several miles across the chalklands (Bonney 1976: 72–82; Taylor 1970: 51–66). Likewise in the Vale of Wrington on the borders of Somerset and Avon, where low-lying pastures rise up to the bleak carboniferous limestone slopes of Mendip, a whole series of clearly defined estates dating from the Roman period are recorded in charters of the tenth century, each carefully aligned across the Vale and evidently the result of deliberate, careful planning (Fowler 1972: 45–6, 132). Similar evidence of the antiquity and planned nature of parish, manorial and estate boundaries is to be found throughout the region and has obvious links with the complex pattern of boundaries marked by banks and ditches which can be discerned on the chalklands and which were already in existence in Wessex long before the coming of the Romans. All modern research continues to confirm that the arrangement of the Wessex landscape and its administrative divisions and estate boundaries had already been in existence for many centuries before the Norman Conquest, and that many of the settlements in Wessex are much older than was hitherto supposed (Bonney 1976).

The Towns

Evidence concerning the towns of Wessex during the century before the Norman Conquest comes from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and from the remarkable document known as the Burghal Hidage dating from the early years of the tenth century, which lists some thirty burhs or fortified places established by King Alfred before his death in 899. The burhs formed a defensive system for Wessex against Viking raids; some were on the sites of former Roman towns where defences were already available such as Winchester, Portchester, Bath and Dorchester; others were newly fortified, notably Wareham, between the rivers Frome and Piddle, where the impressive earth banks with which three sides of the town were surrounded are a dramatic survival. Wareham is the best place in the region to appreciate the defensive potential of Alfred’s system of burhs. Malmesbury was easily defended on its promontory overlooking the river Avon, while at Cricklade and Wallingford the burghal defences can still be seen, enclosing both towns with rectangular earthen banks, as at Wareham. Other burhs in the region included Southampton (Hamwic), Twynham, Watchet, Langport, Lyng and Wilton. The existence of the burhs and their surviving defences are themselves impressive evidence of the administrative system operating within the region, which could organise such complex and labour-intensive work and could arrange for the maintenance of such a defensive system (Hill 1969). By the year 1000 other towns and market-places were also important in Wessex. Bristol was established by the lowest bridge across the river Avon, and on a well-defended position above the point where the river Frome joined the Avon, providing a safe anchorage for ships, well inland from the mouth of the river. By the early eleventh century Bristol, which the Anglo-Saxon chronicler called ‘Brycgstow’ or ‘the holy place of the bridge’, had a mint and fortifications. Its inhabitants were engaged in overseas trade, notably with Ireland, and when in 1051 Earl Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and his sons, including Harold who was later to be King, revolted against Edward the Confessor, it was from Bristol that Harold and his brother Leofwine took ship and fled to Ireland. Possibly there was also at Bristol a religious community established across the river Frome where St Augustine’s monastery was later to be founded. Certainly there was an important ecclesiastical centre nearby at Westbury-on-Trym which was in existence at least by the ninth century (Dickinson 1976).

Archaeological evidence suggests that the port which was to develop into the later Southampton may have been the largest urban settlement in Wessex before the Viking invasions, but although it provided an admirably sheltered harbour between the rivers Test and Itchen and at the head of what is now Southampton Water, it was in a vulnerable position, open to raiders from the English Channel. It was ravaged by Viking attacks during the ninth and tenth centuries, and thereafter recovered only slowly, although it remained sufficiently important to give its name to the shire (Platt 1973; Hinton 1977).

The evidence of the Domesday Survey makes it clear that numerous other places in Wessex had some claim to be regarded as urban centres, or at least possessed markets and market traders and were thus differentiated from the surrounding rural settlements by the early eleventh century. There were traders outside the gates of the wealthy monastery at Abingdon, and no doubt other large monastic houses such as Glastonbury, Shaftesbury, Romsey and several others fostered the growth of trade by their presence, but it is not until Domesday that we have firm evidence. Bedwyn in Wiltshire developed as an urban centre during the tenth and eleventh centuries probably because of the proximity of the burh at Chisbury, since the hill-fort itself was too difficult of access to be useful as a market. Early in the tenth century Bishop Denewulf of Winchester bought privileges from the Crown which were to make Taunton a profitable market town as well as the centre of the rich Winchester estates in Somerset. Other places with some claim to be regarded as towns in the first half of the eleventh century include Andover, Basingstoke, Bruton, Crewkerne, Frome, Milborne Port, Amesbury, Calne, Chippenham and Warminster.

By far the most important of all the towns of Wessex in the century before the Norman Conquest was Winchester. The recent intensive programme of archaeological and historical investigation at Winchester has transformed our knowledge of this royal town of the West Saxon kings. It is clear that within the Roman defences a large and complex city had developed by the tenth century, with a regular lay-out of streets and lanes, and with numerous crafts and trades. Winchester was the largest of the Alfredian burhs, with a fortified area of 144 acres, and was the royal capital of Anglo-Saxon England. Cnut, his wife Emma and their son Harthacnut were all buried in the Old Minster at Winchester, and it was there that the line of English kings was restored by the coronation of Edward the Confessor on Easter Day, 1043 (Biddle 1976: 449–70). The still-operative system of Roman roads made Winchester the natural centre of communications over a wide area, and by the ninth century a stone bridge over the Itchen brought traffic from the east through the Roman gateway into the walled area of the city. The main entrance to the city from the west was also through a Roman gateway, and the road through the city linking the east and west gates is still the main street; the evidence of a tenth-century charter shows that the street was then already known as ‘Cheap Street’, that is ‘market’ street. Archaeological evidence reveals that this and other streets were being regularly surfaced during the tenth century, which must mean that there was a well-developed system of government in the city. By the eleventh century an important annual fair was already being held at Winchester and within the city was the principal royal palace of the Saxon kings and the major ecclesiastical centre in Wessex.

Plate 1.1 Winchester Cathedral. The longest cathedral in Europe, and a powerful reminder of Winchester’s status as the capital of Wessex and the royal centre of Anglo-Saxon England. The great Saxon church, the Old Minster, was demolished to make way for the Norman cathedral which was begun by Wakelin, the first Norman bishop, in 1079. The substantial remains of the Norman work are now overlaid by successive rebuildings and alterations, including the nave and west front which are illustrated here. The nave was remodelled during the fourteenth century, mainly under two notable bishops, William of Edington (Bishop 1346–66), and William of Wykeham (Bishop 1367–1404).

The rapid growth of the city during the tenth century is shown by the development of the built-up area within its walls and by the spread of suburbs beyond. By the time of the Norman Conquest there were ten or more parish churches as well as important monastic communities, and the range of crafts to be found could hardly have been matched in any other English city. Winchester formed a market and focus for a large area of the surrounding chalklands, and within its walls could be found workers in leather, wood, bronze and iron, moneyers, goldsmiths, jewellers, potters, artists and musicians. Winchester was also dominated by three great monastic foundations, whose buildings and precincts occupied more than a quarter of the area within the walls of the city. Here the kings of Wessex were crowned and here they were buried, while it was here that the remarkable reform of the Saxon Church during the tenth and early eleventh centuries was initiated and sustained (Biddle 1976).

The Pre-Conquest Church in Wessex

It was primarily from Wessex that the monastic revival and ecclesiastical reforms of the tenth and eleventh centuries sprang, for Dunstan – the originator of much of the reforming movement – was born in Somerset in c. 909 and educated at Glastonbury; he became Abbot of Glastonbury in 943 and Archbishop of Canterbury 960–988. At Glastonbury Dunstan created a strictly organised and tightly controlled community of monks, and the influence of this reformed monastic house soon spread throughout Wessex. The effect of the Church revival was seen in Wessex during the tenth and eleventh centuries in ecclesiastical art and architecture and in the great flowering of Saxon craftsmanship and artistic excellence which reached its peak in the productions of the Winchester school of artists. Something of the vigour and enthusiasm of this revival can still be felt in the fragments of work that remain, even though most of the Saxon architectural achievements of the eleventh century were swept away by the Norman conquerors to make way for churches in their own style. Thus the Old Minster at Winchester which had been rebuilt on a grand scale with an imposing tower during the years 971–994 was demolished to make way for the Norman cathedral. At Sherborne, Glastonbury and Bath large Saxon structures were replaced by Norman buildings, and there were numerous less dramatic examples of the replacement of recently built Saxon churches by new ones in the Norman style. Enough Saxon church architecture and stone-carving survives in Wessex, however, to show the freshness, liveliness and inventive genius of the buildings, sculpture and decoration produced by the Church revival. The most eloquent testimony to the vigour of the Church is at Breamore in the valley of the Hampshire Avon, mid-way between Salisbury and Ringwood. Above the entrance to this Saxon church is the figure of the crucified Christ, carved in stone, with body twisted in the agony of crucifixion, still a powerfully moving work of art in spite of the mutilation it received at the hands of reformers during the sixteenth century. Above an arch inside the church is the deeply-cut inscription HER SPVELAD SEO GECPYDRAEDNES DE ‘In this place the Word is revealed unto thee’ (Bettey and Taylor 1982: 14–27).

The most characteristic product of the Church revival in Wessex was the book-production and manuscript illumination which is associated above all with the school at Winchester. Here, from the middle of the tenth century onwards, works of the very highest quality were produced, able to rank with the finest output of contemporary continental craftsmanship. Among the best-known of these productions was the Benedictional of St Ethelwold, the most sumptuous of Anglo-Saxon books to be produced at Winchester, and the output also included missals, service books, psalters including chants and a form of musical notation known as ‘tropes’, lives of the saints, and the Liber Vitae produced at the New Minster between 1016 and 1020 which includes a famous drawing of the Last Judgement. The Church revival in Wessex also developed a new religious literature in the vernacular language, and in the works of Aelfric, addressed to laymen, Anglo-Saxon prose reached its highest point. Aelfric was a monk at the Old Minster at Winchester where he studied under Ethelwold. In 987 he went as novice-master to the new foundation at Cerne in Dorset, and in the seclusion and quiet of the monastery at Cerne he produced many of his principal works including Catholic Homilies, Lives of the Saints, devotional works, school books, and biblical translations, works which have established Aelfric as the most considerable scholar of the late Saxon Church (Wormald 1959).

In its teaching, literature, manuscript illumination, architecture, carving in stone, bone and ivory, metalwork, needlework, music and other ecclesiastical art the late Saxon Church in Wessex, and especially at Winchester, was superbly rich and vigorous, and showed beyond doubt the depth of the revival which had occurred in religious life (Godfrey 1962; Loyn 1962).

The Norman Conquest

Like the rest of England, Wessex was profoundly affected by the Norman victory at Hastings. In the ten weeks which elapsed between his victory at Hastings and his coronation in London, William marched his victorious army westward through Guildford and Basingstoke to Winchester which surrendered under the influence of Edith, the widow of Edward the Confessor, thence north to Wantage and eastward to the Thames at Wallingford where Archbishop Stigand, who had been one of Harold’s leading supporters, came and swore fealty to William. This great march of the invading Norman army during November and December 1066, in a wide circle around London, eventually intimidating the city into submission, may have been a masterly military tactic, but for the towns and villages along the route, the impact of the march was horrif...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of plates
• List of figures
• List of tables
• General preface
• A Regional History of England series
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Early Middle Ages: Conquest and Civil War
• Chapter 2 Economic Life, Society and the Church, 1066–1350
• Chapter 3 The Later Middle Ages, c. 1300–1500: Plague, Recession and Recovery
• Chapter 4 The Early Modern Period: Economic Development, Towns and Trade, 1500–1660
• Chapter 5 Religious Reform, Local Society, Government and the Civil War
• Chapter 6 Industrial Change and Urban Growth, 1660–1815
• Chapter 7 Expansion and Development during the Nineteenth Century
• Chapter 8 The Great War and Aftermath, 1914–1939
• Postscript: 1939–1974
• Bibliography
• Index