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‘A Conflict of Banners’
The Battle of Brunanburh 937AD.
(2). British Early Medieval Battles No. 3
by Guy Halsall
Miniature Wargames No. 28, September 1985.
The Campaign of 937.
The campaign of 937 began late in the year. It will have taken some time before the various contingents of Constantine II’s Scottish army could be mustered. Moreover, Olaf Guthfrithsson was still in Ireland in August, when he defeated the men of Limerick. When the Scottish army had assembled it moved south, crossed the border and began to harry the northern lands. It may have been joined at this point by Eugenius of Strathclyde and his Welsh troops. Both William of Malmesbury and Egil’s Saga agree that the allies plundered their way into England for some time. Smyth (1979) argues that the pillage would not have started until after the allies had left York since such violence would have alienated the potential Anglo-Scandinavian allies of that area, only recently conquered by Athelstan. However, I find it hard to believe that the ‘Barbarians’, as William calls the Scots, could have been kept under control for so long. More importantly, we are in an age which predates organised supply lines. The army would have had to forage for itself. In connection with the discussion of the battle site in part I, I cannot see the allies getting much further south than York. If ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and his -men only reached Derby in the ’45, it seems unlikely that Constantine could have led his forces as far as Huntingdonshire, as Smyth claims. Eventually the allies reached the kingdom of York and probably entered the city itself. It may, in fact, have been here, only twenty or so miles from Leeds, then the border of Strathclyde, that Eugenius’ warriors joined the host.
Let us pause here to consider ‘Florence’ of Worcester’s statement that Olaf of Dublin brought his fleet into the Humber. This may be true but there are reasons for questioning it. Past writers have suggested the following:
1) ‘Florence’ was misled by gifts which Athelstan made to the monks of Beverley during his 933 campaign against the Scots.
2) He was mistaken about the identity of the Viking leader who may have been Anlaf (or Olaf) Sihtricsson.
1) is more likely than 2) but I would add two further suggestions. Firstly, ‘Florence’ could have confused the 937 with Olaf’s known Humber landing of 940. Secondly, I would suggest that perhaps the Vikings who landed in the Humber in 937 (if any did so) were Orcadians and Islesmen sailing south in touch with the Scottish army. If Orcadians were involved in the campaign, as is possible, this would be their quickest route into England. The Islesmen, the king of whom is recorded as being killed at Brunanburh in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, may have mustered at the same time as the kind of Scots, their ally. I would suggest that Constantine mustered his troops and began his attack before Olaf was ready to sail. It took Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Scots exactly one month to march from Carlisle to Derby. Assuming a similar march rate for the Scots of 937, to move from Scone to York will have taken at least seven weeks. To commit his army to an invasion only when Olaf was prepared, that is in mid August, would have been to commit his warriors to a winter campaign miles from their homes. He must have set out at the beginning of August at the latest, hoping that Olaf would be able to join him later. If the Islesmen were ready at the same time, they could have sailed up the Clyde, carried their ships across to the Forth and thence sailed down the coast to the Humber, thus supporting Constantine. I should now say why I believe that Olaf Guthfrithsson did not sail into the Humber. He was in Dublin in mid-August raising his army. Would he, so late in the season, and in terrific winds according to the Annals of Inisfallen, have sailed north, up the Clyde, then dragged his ships overland to the Forth and then sailed 250 miles south to the Humber and York when he could have sailed almost due east to the Wirral within a day’? In this period the simplest course of action always has an advantage over more complicated strategies. Moreover, Chester was opposed to the House of Wessex. Had not Athelstan’s father, Kin g Edward, died on the way back from suppressing a revolt of the people of Chester, who were ‘in alliance with the Britons’?(1) The Wirral made a find base in which to disembark his forces, muster dissatisfied Anglo-Scandinavians and await events.
What was Athelstan doing? The poet quoted by Malmesbury accuses him of spending ‘slow leisure hours’ whilst the allies ravaged his kingdom. The king may indeed not have taken the invasion seriously at first, but it is not characteristic of a man such as Athelstan to neglect his royal duty once the danger was known. He was probably raising a large force to annihilate his enemies. It also made sound sense to watch the course of events. Scottish ravages in the north will have alienated the rebellious people of that area from the allied cause, especially since Olaf, their would-be king, came in alliance with the ‘old enemy’. It is perhaps significant that in this year, during the greatest attack yet faced by the House of Wessex, we hear of no northern rebellion, yet three years later, when Olaf invaded without Scottish help the northerners did rise in revolt. Athelstan will have known that Olaf was preparing to attack. It would have been rash to attack the northern allies before Olaf had landed. Having raised his army, he probably moved to the Anglo—Danish towns of the Danelaw, perhaps to Derby, to keep equidistant from the allies in the kingdom of York and the threatened west coast. Eventually, Olaf landed, the northern allies moved west to meet him in the Wirral and Athelstan led his army north-west swiftly. Some time, probably in late September, he caught the allies in the confines of the peninsula.
The Battle
On the field of Brunanburh, it has been claimed that both armies formed two divisions. It should be said that this deployment (stated as fact in Heath’s Armies of the Dark Ages) rests exclusively upon the testimony of the dubious Egil’s Saga. There is in fact nothing in the ‘Song of Brunanburh‘ which firmly supports the bipartite division. This said, however, for present purposes we have nothing better to go on. Let us conclude that the armies may each have formed two divisions. Following the phrase of the ‘Song’, ‘The Mercians refused not hard conflict to any men . . . with Olaf,’ we may, in the absence of any stronger evidence, follow the trend and claim, albeit tenuously. That a division of Mercians faced one of Vikings, whilst one of West Saxons faced one of Scots and Welsh. Egil’s Saga says that Athelstan commanded the division opposite the Vikings. It should also be said that from the line of the ‘Song’ which says ‘the West Saxons with mounted companies kept up the pursuit of the hostile peoples’ we might postulate that in fact the Mercian division (the larger of the two?) faced both allied forces and that the West Saxon division was held in reserve behind it. In diagram C I have tried to reconcile both deployments.
The commanders of the English army included the king himself: Prince Edmund, his sixteen year old brother; his two half cousins, Aelfwine and Aethelwine; Bishop Waerstan of Sherborne; Bishop Theodred of London; Odo, later archbishop of Canterbury; perhaps another prelate and at least two, probably more, Ealdormen. Egil’s Saga records that Thorolf Skallagrimsson led a force of 360 Norse mercenaries in Athelstan’s army, alongside his brother Egil. Allied leaders included Constantine II of Scotland, his son Cellach, Olaf Guthfrithsson, Eugenius of Strathclyde, King Gebeachan of the Isles, two Gall-Gael chieftains and five other named Viking leaders. Anlaf Sihtricsson may have been present (two of his brothers are listed as having been killed), as may King Idwal of Gwynedd(2). Turning to army size, I would suggest about 4000 men for Constantine’s forces. Again using the ’45 as a comparison, we see that the Jacobites had only about 4000 men left when they reached Derby. Barrow, in Robert the Bruce, argues coherently that in 1314 at Bannockburn the Scots could only field about 6-8000 men and that was for a campaign on home territory. To take contemporary accounts at face value and put Scottish medieval forces in the 20-40,000 bracket, as has been done recently (‘Northallerton’ in MW 20, for example) is, for socio-economic reasons as well as military, wishful thinking. Welsh forces (including, perhaps, those of Idwal of Gwynedd) I put at around 1,500, though they could have been slightly more numerous. Strathclyde was not a densely populated region. The combined Scandinavian forces again probably totalled around 4,500 men, after being swelled by Anglo-Danes of York and Chester, some of whom would certainly have tagged on to Olaf’s army. Simeon of Durham mentions 615 shiploads of Vikings(3). This would, at the average ratio of about fifty men per ship, give over 30,000 men! The figure is undoubtedly an exaggeration but perhaps indicates that the army was ‘large’. In current theory, 4500 men under 9-10 named leaders is large for a Viking force from the British Isles. The total allied army was, I would suggest, in the region of 10,000 men — for the tenth century a ‘Grande Armée’ indeed!
On Athelstan’s side, William of Malmesbury‘s poet mentions 100,000 men. We need not take this literally, and indeed it was probably not meant to be. The figure was probably simply meant to imply a very large host by the standards of the day. Nine high nobles are mentioned in the English army. Ian Greenwood’s article ‘(Iynewulf and Cyneheard)’ in MW 11 showed that an ealdorman could be expected to raise eighty four men. On this ratio we can see that, with the no doubt larger bodyguard of the king, the number of such ‘retinue’ troops can have totalled 800 men or more. Probably only half of these will have been truly ‘guard’ quality troops. To the rest we must add the 360 Norse (the number has an authentic ring to it) and the shire levies of Mercia and Wessex — and probably, as Smyth says, of 500 men for the Fyrd. Taking this as typical and assuming that Athelstan took less than the maximum from each shire we might suggest that the average shire levy raised in 937 was about 400 men. Let as also assume that Athelstan had raised troops from all the shires except those of the south-west and Danish Mercia. This would leave about seventeen counties, yielding 6,800 men. Allowing for desertion and the fact that some troops may have been left to watch York and Gwynedd, let us settle for a round 6,000 men. Add to this our 400 ‘retinue levies’, 400 ‘guards’ and 360 Norse. finally a local force of about 1,500 ‘Great Fyrd’ was included in my calculations, making the final total a little over 8,500 men — another large army for the age.
The battle opened with a dawn attack by the allies. Egil’s Saga and William of Malmesbury agree on this. We can imagine the wild Highlanders, hardy Picts and Scots, sturdy men of the Lake District and of Strathclyde proper, ferocious Gall-Gael, lithe Irishmen and tough Vikings rushing like a multicoloured, glistening sea upon the English troops. The English rallied and a fierce fight ensued. The Bishop of Sherbourne was killed early on, allegedly by Olaf’s own hand.
‘The field grew dark with the blood of men from the time when the sun . . . moved over the earth in the hours of the morning, until that noble creation sank at its setting. There lay many a man destroyed by the spears, many a northern warrior shot over his shield; and likewise many a Scot lay weary, sated with battle’ (The Song of Brunanburh).
Evidently it was a long hard struggle. Athelstan lost his sword in the thick of it, according to later legend, and had it ‘miraculously’ replaced. Eventually, according to Egil’s Saga - and the essence of its story may well be correct, the Scots and Welsh broke (they were probably the least well armoured troops) and the West Saxons swung in on the unshielded flank of the Viking division. After a stiff fight this also broke in rout. The allied army was destroyed.
‘The whole day long the West Saxons with mounted companies kept up the pursuit of the hostile peoples, grievously they cut down the fugitives from behind with their whetted swords . . . five young kings lay on the field of battle, slain by the swords, and also seven of Olaf’s earls, and a countless host of seamen and Scots. There the prince of the Norsemen was put to flight, driven perforce to the prow of his ship with a small company; the vessel pressed on in the water, the king set out over the yellow flood and saved his life. There also the aged Constantine, the hoary haired warrior, driven north to his own land by flight. He had no reasons to exult in that crossing of swords. He was shorn of his kinsmen and deprived of his friends at that meeting place, bereaved in the battle, and he left his young son on the field of slaughter, brought low by wounds in the battle . . . They had no reason to gloat with the remnants of their armies that they were superior in warlike deeds on the field of battle, in the conflict of banners, the meeting of spears, the encounter of men and the crossing of weapons, after they had contended on the field of slaughter with the sons of Edward.’ (The Song of Brunanburh).
Allied losses were therefore crippling and may have included Eugenius of Strathclyde, Gebeachan and the Gall-Gael leaders. English casualties were not light either. Aelfwine and Aethelwine were amongst the fallen as were bishop Waerstan and another bishop, two ealdormen, Thorolf Skallagrimsson and a ‘multitude’ of lesser men. The invasion was shattered, however, and England saved from a period of chaos like that of the early years of Alfred’s reign.
Conclusion
What did the frightful carnage wrought at Brunanburh achieve? The short answer to this vital question must, unfortunately, be ‘very little’. England had, it is true, been saved from a large scale invasion but one wonders how much further the bloodied allies could have reach had they won, particularly in winter. Probably the worst that could have occurred would have been the reaction of the independent kingdom of York, perhaps also of Danish Mercia and a renewed period of raid and counter-raid in the midlands. Olaf probably wanted no more than this. Three years later, when he invaded again, this was indeed what happened. It was to take fourteen more years of hard fighting for Athelstan’s half brothers and successors, Edmund I and Ealdred, before the last Viking King of York, Erik Blood-Axe, was killed by the ruler of the Isle of Man, and Northumbria became part of England for ever.
As for the characters of our story, Athelstan reigned in peace for two more years, the senior political figure in the Europe of his time, to die on 23rd October 939. His brother Edmund succeeded him and reigned until he was killed in a pointless brawl in 946. Constantine II lived on to reign until 943, his forty-three year reign being one of the longest in Scottish history. Olaf, as we have seen, invaded again in 940 and restored the Kingdom of York, only to die on a raid into English Northumbria in late 941. His cousin Anlaf Sihtricsson succeeded him as the penultimate King of York, was expelled by Blood-Axe and survived to reign in Dublin until 980 when, following a catastrophic defeat by the Irish at Tara, he ‘saw the light’, renounced his crown and died a monk the following year.
Wargaming the Battle
Before looking at the main engagement, what other wargaming possibilities are offered by the events of 937. Obviously this period would make a good campaign with room for plenty of players. The umpire would take the role of the volatile citizens of York. Remember that Dyfed and Gwynedd were enemies, the former being Anglophile, the latter very much Anglophobe. An allied council of war following a victory at Brunanburh would make an interesting ‘committee game’, with various conflicting plans. Again the routers versus pursuers/late comers skirmish game which I suggested for Nechtansmere (ultimately from an idea in Featherstone’s Skirmish Wargaming) could be tried, as could one of Arthur Harman’s ‘night wargames’ in which a Scot fleeing through a wood is chased by several English warriors.
To the battle itself, the suggested terrain and general deployment is shown in Diagram C, the break-down of the divisions in Diagram D. A river or sea shore with boats may be included on the Viking side of the table or on one of the flanks. Alternatively, the actual terrain around Bromborough could be used.
In my reconstruction, the allied army was made up thus (remember this is a completely theoretical break-down):
Code Men Figures Type comments V. ‘Celtic’ Division A 1200 60 ‘Pictish’ Spearmen Unarmoured irregulars with long spears (two units of thirty). B 600 30 ‘Dal Riada’ Scot Semi-regular levies in leather armour, with long spears. C 800 40 Lowland Spearmen Irregulars in leather or no armour, with medium spears. D 400 20 Lowland Thegns Irregulars in helmets and leather or mail body armour, with medium spears and swords. E 200 10 Highland Spearmen Unarmoured irregulars with long spears. F 300 15 Highland Javelinmen Unarmoured irregulars with javelins and swords. G 400 20 Scottish archers Unarmoured irregulars with bows. H 1000 50 Welsh Spearmen Irregulars in leather or no armour with long spears and swords. I 200 10 Welsh Teulu Semi-regular bodyguards in helmets and leather or mail body armour, with long spears and swords. J 200 10 Welsh archers Good, unarmoured irregulars with bows. W. Viking Division K 1000 50 Vikings Veteran irregulars in helmets and mail or leather body armour, with javelins, one-handed axes and swords. (2x25). L 800 40 Vikings Veteran irregulars in leather armour, with javelins, one-handed axes and swords. (two units of 20). M 200 10 Archers of the Shield Wall Good irregulars in leather armour, with bows, short spears and swords (mixed in with one unit of ‘L’). N 400 20 Gall-Gael Good unarmoured irregulars with long axes and javelins. O 1600 80 Lesser Scandinavians Irregulars in leather or no armour, with short spears. (2x40). P 400 20 Viking Archers Good unarmoured irregulars with bows. 9700 485
The Teulu are assumed to have fought on foot as there is no mention of cavalry in the battle, though there is in the campaign. Such troops are certain to have attended Eugenius and, if present, Idwal. Leaders should be placed with troops of the appropriate nationality. The English army was reconstructed as follows (see ‘The Battle’ above):
Code Men Figures Type Comments X. The Mercian Division 1 2000 100 Shire Levies Veteran semi-regulars in helmets and mail body armour with medium spears and swords. (5 units of 20). 2 1600 80 Shire Levies Veteran semi-regulars in leather armour with medium spears and swords (4x20). 3 300 15 Local levies Poor unarmoured irregulars with javelins. Y. Mounted Reserves 4 400 20 ‘Retinue Levies’ As ‘1’ above, but mounted. 5 200 10 Hearth Troops Veteran semi-regular mounted infantry in helmets and full mail, with medium spears, heavy throwing weapons & swords. Z. West Saxon Division 6 1600 80 Shire Levies As ‘1’ above. 7 200 10 Hearth troops As ‘S’ above. 8 200 10 Norwegians As allied ‘L’ above. 9 1000 50 Local Levies Poor, unarmoured irregulars with short spears. 10 200 10 Local Levies Poor, unarmoured irregulars with bows. 11 160 8 Norwegians As Allied ‘L’ above. 12 800 40 Shire Levies As ‘2’ above (2x20). 8660 433
Note: 1, 2, 4, 6 and 12 are what would conventionally be called ‘select fyrd’. 3, 9 and 10 are what would conventionally be called ‘great’ or ‘general’ fyrd.
Commanders can be placed anywhere except that the Bishop of Sherborne should be opposite the Vikings and Thorolf should be with ‘11’, Egil with ‘8’.
The allies should be given two moves’ head start to simulate their (none-too-effective) early attack. Let battle commence . . . .
Bibliography
Primary Sources
‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’. In Whitelock (ed) 1979.
Annals of Clonmacnoise. Edited by D. Murphy. Dublin 1896.
Annals of Inisfallen. Translated by S. Mae Airt. Dublin 1977.
Annals of Ulster. Translated by W. Hennessy. London 1887.
Armes Prydein. Translated by R. Bromwich and I. Williams. Dublin 1972.
Egil’s Saga. Translated by H. Palsson and P. Edwards. Harmondsworth (Penguin Classics) 1976.
‘The Chronicle of Fabius Ethelweard’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 2 Part 2.
‘Florence of Worcester’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 2 Part 1.
‘Geoffrey Gaimar’s History of the English’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 2 Part 2.
Heimskringla. Translated by E. Monsen. Cambridge 1932.
‘Ingulf of Crowland’s History’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 2 Part 2.
Nennius: The British History and the Welsh Annals. Ed. and trans. J. Morris Chichester 1980.
‘Simeon of Durham’s History of the Kings’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 3 Part 2.
‘Simeon of Durham’s History of the Church of Durham’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 3 Part 2.
‘William of Malmesbury‘s Concerning the Acts of the Kings of the English’. In Stevenson (trans) 1853-7 Vol 3 Part 1.
English Historical Documents Vol 1 (2nd edition) edited D. Whitelock. London 1979.
Church Historians of England. (5 Vols). G. Stevenson. London 1853-7.
Notes
1. Suggesting perhaps that Idwal of Gwynedd had been active in this area before.
2. As noted in part 1 of this article. Gwynedd’s involvement would have been a further argument in favour of a Wirral rendez-vous point and battle site.
3. ‘History of the Kings’ s.a. 937.
Further Reading
Barrow, G.W.S. Robert the Bruce. London 1965 (For parallels).
Campbell, A. The Battle of Brananbarh. London 1938.
O’Corrain, D. Ireland Before the Normans. Dublin 1972.
Davies, W. Wales in the Early Middle Ages. Leicester 1982.
Duncan, A.A.M. Scotland. The Making of the Kingdom. Edinburgh 1975.
Fisher, D.J.V. The Anglo-Saxon Age. Harlow 1973.
Heath, I. Armies of the Dark Ages. Worthing 1980 (2nd edition).
Hunter-Blair, P. Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge 1956.
Oman, C.W.C. England Before The Norman Conquest. (9th edition) London 1949.
Sawyer, P.H. From Roman Britain to Norman England. London 1978.
Srnyth, A.P. Scandinavian York and Dublin (Vol II). Dublin 1979.
Symth, A.P. Warlords and Holy Men. Scotland 400-1000. London 1984.
Stenton, F.M. Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edition). Oxford 1971.
Tomasson, K. & Buist, F. Battles of the ’45 London (for parallels).
Wood, M. In Search of the Dark Ages. London 1982.
