Gone Medieval - Rise of Wessex

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

In Gone Medieval’s special series exploring some of Anglo-Saxon Britain’s most influential kingdoms, we reach Wessex - the last kingdom left to stand against the Great Heathen Army. Under the command of Alfred the Great, Wessex achieved what no other kingdom could before it: victory against the Vikings.In this episode, Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Rob Gallagher, a historian of early medieval Britain, to explore the key figures of the Wessex ascendency and the legacy the kingdom left behind.This episode was edited by Ella Blaxill and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. It's 8870 and only one independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom remains as the Vikings continue their fierce advances across the British Isles. The Danish army has reached the border of the Kingdom of Wessex, the final frontier and their success looks almost inevitable. Despite the wealth and prosperity of the kingdom whose border they're about to cross, the fierce Viking warriors are feeling pretty confident after their hard-won victories over Northumbria and Mercia.

Faced with a marauding Viking army on their doorstep, and after little success in their previous clashes with the Danes, a certain nobleman called Alfred, remember that name, the brother of Ethelred, the then-king of Wessex, makes a crucial decision. He gathers their troops and retreats to the Berkshire Hills, where he hurriedly went about assembling local levies to join the fight against the Viking invaders, a desperate attempt to stave off their advances. With troops assembled, Alfred launches a daring attack

and commands his army to charge full pelt down the hill towards the enemy. On witnessing his brother's boldness, Ethelred orders his forces to follow suit and join the downhill onslaught. Call it a strike of genius, or call it madness. The move pays off. After a fierce and bloody battle, known as the Battle of Ashton, the Saxons stand victorious. The Danish leader Baxang lies dead on the battlefield,

and for the first time in the history of the angles, the advances of the Vikings have been halted. The foes will meet again, but for now, Wessex has won victory against the great heathen army. Welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Eleanor Yanaga, and this week, as we continue on our journey through the powerful kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, we reached the last kingdom standing, Wessex. Home to Alfred the Great, whose name you may have spotted on the battlefield, burner of cakes and builder of nation states. Taking its name from the West Saxons, the kingdom of Wessex enjoyed a long and prosperous reign, outliving even its powerful neighbors.

As the Vikings took territory on Britannia inch by inch, both Northumbria and Mercia fell to their force. Wessex, however, held forth and became the only kingdom capable of fighting off the Danes. So what did it take to build such a formidable kingdom? And how did the innovations and cultural impacts of Wessex contribute to the England we live in today? To walk us through the kingdom of Wessex, I'm joined by Rob Gallagher, who's in the process of crafting his book, writing the realm, the written word and the rise of Wessex, circa 830 to 920. Welcome to Gone Medieval, Rob.

Oh, I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for asking me. We've already covered some of the other members of the Heptarchy, so we've looked at Northumbria, we've looked at places like that, but we wanted to talk about Wessex specifically today. And I'm wondering, before we dive into the nitty-gritty of it, can you tell us something about the wider political landscape in Britain

before we get to the rise of Wessex. As you've already covered in previous episodes, one thing to remember about Britain in the early medieval period is that it's this collage of different kingdoms and polities of varying different sizes. And the political landscape is very dynamic and that we have different kingdoms more powerful at different points than others.

Not all of the kingdoms are flourishing at the same time. In terms of the kingdoms of Britain, you could split them up in terms of Celtic speaking versus the English, Germanic-speaking kingdoms, which is often how the historians approach it. And by Germanic, I mean the kingdoms that are speaking the Germanic language of Old English. So they're the ones that traditionally have been known as the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. And then the Celtic kingdoms, particularly in the southern half of Britain, are speaking a Britonic language. And that's the precursor to Welsh and Cornish.

So it's a multilingual landscape. It's very dynamic. And in terms of the big kingdoms, I think the ones that people will be most familiar with are the likes of Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia, and of course Wessex, which is the one that we're focusing on today. And geographically, Wessex is essentially the English kingdom in the southwest of Britain. The eastern half of it covers Hampshire and Wiltshire, and then the western goes all the way to Dorsetia. and Somerset. So it's a kingdom that's headed towards Cornwall, but is not in control of Devon or Cornwall until the 9th century, essentially. So this is a fairly large amount of land, and it's also really fertile. Like that's a nice piece of what is now England to control. So what is Wessex's political place in all of this in England before it comes to power? Is it reflected at all? I would imagine this is a fairly wealthy and prosperous bit of land. Yes, and one thing also is it has large amounts of coastline. I mean, if you compare it to somewhere like the Kingdom of Mercia, for example, if you look at the heartland of Mercer, it's relatively speaking landlocked, while Wessex, in comparison, has the advantage of easier access to the seas through that. One thing I should say is that when we're talking about the rise of Wessex, historians are normally talking about the first half of the 9th century. Prior to that, Wessex is certainly in the same time.

established kingdom in the 8th century and the 7th centuries. And in the 8th century, the period immediately preceding the rise, the increasing dominance of Wessex in southern Britain, Mercia is the most powerful kingdom. But Mercia never quite has direct control over Wessex. So it has its own kings throughout the period. It has a semblance of autonomy and independence to an extent that I think is greater than when you look at Mercy's relationship with this other neighboring kingdoms in the 8th century. I suppose that these relationships play a huge part of coming into any form of prominence. You've got really powerful kingdoms on your doorstep. There are very difficult relationships in between varying rulers.

My next question then is we say, oh, Wessex comes to prominence or Wessex comes to power, but it already existed. So what is it that in this? period makes us say that Wessex is emerging as a very prominent player within the political landscape? That's a really good question because the rise of Wessex isn't necessarily because Mercer is disappearing as a kingdom. People talk about the rise of Wessex. People normally say that the start of that, the turning point, is in the 820s. And in the 820s, particularly there is one very famous battle called the Battle of Elenden. We don't know exactly where Ellen was, but this is a big battle that took place between the West Saxon King and the Mercyon

King and the West Saxons win. And that is seen as the turning point in terms of which of these two kingdoms has some sort of overlordship over its neighbours, that is to say, the smaller kingdoms of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. So essentially those smaller kingdoms are then recognizing a new authority. How exactly that plays out in reality and what exactly that means, it's actually pretty difficult to work out. Most of our sources, when they're describing these submissions and this recognition of authority, they don't give as much detail, essentially. So what does that mean in practice and what does it actually mean for people's day-to-day lives? I suspect that in many cases that if you are in, sorry, for example, the fact that,

that you are now recognising West Saxon authority rather than Mercy may not have, if you're someone working in the fields, may not have had an immediate impact on your life. I think it's more in terms of the elites and who they are working with. But in terms of the rise of Wessex, mercy is still existing at this point in time. But you're quite right in saying that I think we're touching on the fact that the politics of these English kingdoms is to a large extent, at least the way we talk about it, in terms of their relationships with their neighbours. And in this period in the early 9th century, it looks like Wessex and Mercia are competing, and particularly in terms of the control of trade, I think will be a key one for them,

but also in terms of their relationship with the church, specifically the Archbishop of Canterbury. Now the Archbishop of Canterbury, as they're the head of the Church of England today, in the early medieval period, the most powerful churchmen in the English church. And we can see that they are working with the Mercy and Kings, but increasingly so, the West Saxon kings as we move into the later 830s onwards. So it's to do with trade, but also spiritual authority as well. One of the things that's quite interesting about the kingdom of Wessex is some of the really big names of early England come to us from Wessex. So I'm thinking, Alfred and I think, Alfred and I Stan. And these are guys that we've talked about really extensively on Gone Medieval. And people

really love these sort of names. But I think we tend to associate them more with an idea of Englishness than specifically Wessexness. Who are some of the other really interesting and notable rulers from Wessex? Because you get a lot in this period, right? Yeah, there are quite a few in the 9th century prior to Alfred. I think it's fair to say that Alfred's probably the most famous West Saxon king, but I'd say that to really understand him as a ruler and his reign, we need to understand what happens before him. And you're quite right in saying that there are a fair few West Saxon kings in the 9th century. Three of his brothers are actually king before him in relatively close succession to one another. But why I would say in terms of notable ones,

I think we need to be looking instead towards Alfred's father, who's called Athelwolf, and Alfred's grandfather, Edgebert, or otherwise maybe is Egbert. So Edgebert, so he is actually the first of this West Saxon royal dynasty. So he's not the first king of Wessex, but he's the first of this new dynasty. And he comes to power in 802, and he's king until 839. So he's king for 37 years, which is a pretty long time. In terms of what happens during his reign, the evidence is not amazing. We don't have a contemporary narrative source, and the charters that we have, the documents that record the donations that he's giving to people, are quite a complex body of material because not all of them are authentic, there are later forgeries within them.

So that is to say that in terms of reconstructing a detailed narrative for his long reign is difficult, but what we can deduce from all of it is that he clearly offered stability to, to his kingdom, and he was also militarily successful. So the Battle of Ellendon, which is in 825, against Bjorn Wolf, who's the king of Mercia, that is when we see, I suppose, Edgebert's reign in its clearest form, because that is recorded by later sources, because it's seen as this turning point. And so we know that soon after that, then we get the submission of these other neighbouring kingdoms to Edgebert. So he is crucial in establishing Wessex as a dominant and increasingly the dominant kingdom in southern Britain in the 9th century.

But this continues and is equally, if not arguably more so, continued by his son Athawolf. So Athwolf comes to power in 839. He immediately succeeds his father and he's king until 858. So again, we're dealing with considerable amount of time, a 19. years in this case. Similarly, the evidence is a bit murky for periods of his reign. Again, we don't have a contemporary narrative source written close to the king. But I would say that the evidence is a bit better than we have for Edgebert. And where it's clearest is when we're getting into the 850s. And the reason for this is because in 855, Atherwolf goes on this really

remarkable pilgrimage to Rome, which takes place across 855 and 856. And because this is so remarkable, this is something that contemporaries note and it's written down. So this is why we get an insight into Athawal's power and prestige at this point in time. So we know that he goes to Rome in 855, but just as important, if not more significant, is that on the way back from Rome, he then spends time in Francia at the court of the West Frankish king, Charles the Bald. And he's there for some time. The fact that he is welcomed there, he's hosted by the West Franks, clearly again reflects to the esteem that Atherwolf has.

But the most remarkable of all is that during that stay at Charles's court, it's decided that Atherwolf is going to marry Charles's daughter, Judith. Now Charles the Bald is the grandson of Charlotte. He is of that Carolingian dynasty, and it's pretty unusual for a Carolingian ruler to allow his daughter to marry. There's this sense that they want to contain the bloodline. So the fact that this marriage is arranged between Atherwolf and Judith is exceptional. It's something that, again, is reflecting that success of Atherwolf as a ruler. He's been recognised on the European stage.

And I think we can imagine also that when he brings Judith back to Wessex in 856, the shock that this would have sent round to people, some people would have been in awe of this political coup. Other people may have been unsettled by it, not least Atherwolf's sons, who were from his first marriage. You know, what happens if Judith has a child? That's going to mess things up completely for them. She doesn't have a child with him. But we can imagine the shock. But again, this is in four. our understanding of the broader context of Alfred's reign, those Carolingian connections being made prior to Alfred coming to the throne in the eight 70s, and he's inheriting a kingdom that is being recognized internationally at that point in time. So I would say the two most notable before Alfred are Edgbert, his grandfather, and then Arthur Wolf, his father. This is absolutely fascinating to be, because really here, I think what we can say, certainly the contributions in terms of, of the ascendancy of Wessex here, these are political on a European stage, on as big as you can get in

terms of the European theatre. And also religious as well, saying that you've got all the way to Rome is such a big deal at the time. So these are immensely important political achievements, really. Exactly. And I think it's important to remember that a trip to Rome isn't something that you do over a long weekend in the early medieval period on a low-budget airline. You need to plan ahead. and it's clearly something that had been planned well in advance. And one hint of this that we have is that the year before in 854, Athelwuf issues a series of charters to a surprisingly large number of his subjects in 854. And the sense, my reading of it at least, is that he's wanting to do good works

and sort of cleanse himself before this penitential journey to Rome. So it's something that definitely is planned, and there aren't many English rulers who go on Pilgrimich to Rome before Athel Wolf. He's not the first, but it's certainly unusual for people to be doing this, not least because it means that you're going to be away from your kingdom for months. That in stealth, I suppose, reflects, you could argue the confidence of Athawolf in his security and stability of his kingdom that he's allowed to do this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're worried that someone's going to come take your lands, you don't leave. for Rome, and then go start hanging around at Charles the Bold's court. You would need to get back immediately. You wouldn't be able to go woo a princess or anything like that.

Exactly. And actually, he maybe should have been a bit more careful. So the way that he arranged for the kingdom to run while he's away is that he splits the kingdom into two and gives one of his sons, half of the kingdom to look after and another son, another half of the kingdom. But we're told that when he comes back, one of those sons does not want to give the kingdom back to him. He does, and it seems to be a very short-lived, failed rebellion that doesn't come too much. But I do wonder, to what extent that rebellion was planned, or was it a reaction to Judith turning up?

That is a good question. It's not entirely clear. I certainly think that if I was somebody's son and you come home with a Carolingian princess, I would start feeling a little bit itchy about whether or not my place was safe. That's completely understandable, I would think. Exactly. I find Athawolf's reign fascinating, and I just wish we had more contemporary textual evidence from the kingdom itself. We don't have someone writing a biography of Athelwolf like we get for Alfred several decades later. And they do wonder how our perception of Athelwolf and Alfred in comparison would change if we had different surviving texts for us to play with.

With achievements like this and stories like this, you would think that we would know more about Athelwolf. this would bear writing down. So do you think that's just a function of time and, you know, the fact that we're just a little bit further back so sources aren't as good? Or is there some political reason why you wouldn't be noting, you know, the guy with a French princess and a journey to Rome under his belt a little bit more? Well, I suppose it's, in some ways, maybe this adds to how exceptional Alfred was in that if he is the one who commissioned these people to be writing stuff at his court. There is the question mark of maybe people were doing that at Athawals court as well and that material just hasn't survived. That is possible. But it might also be that

Alfred is more interested in his own image, at least when it comes to literary production than Athawolf was. And if Athelwolf had been more interested in that, then our understanding of his reign more generally would be quite different. So yes, it might be about survival of evidence, but But it might also be about how and where they're choosing to invest their resources. You know, are they interested in being patrons of literature? Speaking of Alfred here and his interest in patronage, you know, we can't get away from talking about Alfred at least a little bit when we're talking about Wessex. But I think that's also true of, you know, Edward the Elder or Aftelstan.

And so can you say a little bit about these incredibly impressive men who we're all obsessed with the shortest possible potted history of. of these guys? Alfred is, there are some commonalities with what comes before him. I would say that we can see that Alfred appreciates the, and Edward and even more so still, Athelstan, understand the importance of royal assemblies and assembly politics, the understanding of the value of public demonstrations of power and the importance of having people in the same space, physically, the elites demonstrating their consent to you. Similarly, Alfred, like Atherwolf before him and Edgbert, are military leaders as well. And Atherwolf has some successes against Vikings, I imagine we may

come back to, but so does Alfred as well, and similarly Edward as well, and Athelstan. So there are some commonalities. I think the difference really that sets Alfred apart is how his court becomes this international cosmopolitan space for cultural production on top of that. So then the legend of Alfred has grown because we have these remarkable texts that were written at his court, particularly in the later years of his reign in the 1990s. And I think that gives that sense of Alfred being particularly different from what comes before him in a way that I think it's worth to rethink that and be careful and caveat it to an extent. But in terms of what's happening politically during Alfred's Edward and Athelstone's reign in terms of what in the rise of

Wessex is this really fascinating rebrand of the kingdom. This first iteration of this rebrand takes place in probably the second half of the eight 80s and the eight 90s where we're finding that in contemporary texts Alfred is no longer being described as king of the West Saxons. Instead he's been called in Latin, Rex Anglo-Saxona. Rex means king in Latin, so he's king of the Anglo-Saxons. And what this seems to be is as his political dominion is expanding, and he has overlordship over-Mersia from the eight-80s onwards, is that it's not just, if you compare it to the political dominion

that Offer had had 100 years earlier over neighbouring kingdoms, often never rebrands himself. He's always King of the Mercians. Alfred is, I think, more sophisticated in some ways and that he wants to change the branding of his kingdom to go along with its expansion. And we can see that this continues with Edward. And then we get a second rebrand when it comes to Athelstern's reign.

And what we are seeing is increasing territorial control again with Edward and with Athelstan, pushing the borders of the kingdom northwards and eastwards. And then we see that Athelstan then starts to be called Rex Anglorum. So he's no longer king of the Anglo-Saxons. Instead, we might translate that as king of the English instead. And that happens particularly after he has control of Northumbria. So we can see that there is this expansion, which people are thinking critically about as contemporaries. They're thinking about, well, what is happening here? Yes, we have control over larger areas of land, but what do we want to do

with this? What is our political vision here? You're talking about this huge expansion of land. My God, we're into Northumbria now. Suddenly we have a concept of Englishness, that one can be a king of England. So how do we get to this point? Is this a result of military prowess, or is this just about creating the correct strategic alliances? Are we eating into these? kingdoms or are these kingdoms willingly coming along with Wessex? How do you get to be the king of the English? It is driven to a large extent by military successes, but these military successes are at the same time as, or rather, they're taking place after we're seeing internal collapse of these kingdoms anyway, particularly the 860s and the 870s is a really, really bad time for these

English kingdoms. The Northumbrian king, the East Angling Kings are killed. and Mercia, by the time we're getting into the 880s, there's no longer a mercy and king left, which is why Alfred's in his kingdom is sometimes described, particularly on TV and in novels, as the last kingdom. It's the last of these English kingdoms that is still operational by the time we get into the 880s. And this is going hand in hand, sort of the 870s, 880s onwards, with Scandinavian settlement in northern and eastern areas. So we're having influx of new people, new communities, but also institutional collapse as well. And within that very chaotic, very dynamic context, you can see how, I suppose, cynically, there are opportunities for expansion. What I don't

think is always clear is what the intentions and how well planned these developments were on the part of the West Saxon rulers. One caveat to all of this that I would say is that we don't get in the contemporary surviving texts from Alfred's Edwards or Athelstan's reigns, we don't get references to England. They are not being described as the king of England. Really, we don't start to get references to England until the late 10th and certainly the early 11th centuries when it's becoming an increasingly frequently referenced concept. So there is the question mark of what they're actually planning on doing here. Was Alfred ever intending looking as far as not? north of the Humbria to Northumbria. I don't think there's any evidence to suggest he was.

I think Athelstan, two generations later, you can argue that. So I think it's about military campaigns, but also bringing people on board as well. We're not seeing that communities are being wiped out in Mercia by Alfred's troops as far as we're aware, for example. And one thing I would say is about this concept of the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons is that we can see at Alfred's. Court, and then the Edwards, that there are people from Mercia present at these West Saxon Kings courts, and that there are a sense that there is buy-in from at least some people within these other historic kingdoms. And I'm sure that there would have been debates and huge disagreements. Other people would not be on board for this whatsoever, but it's not simply the case of

removing all of the elites of these areas, as far as we can tell. This kind of brings me to my next question. It's an Alfred specific question. We've been talking about how Alfred is this brilliant political mind and that he knows how to create great works that are going to sing his praises, so we still do. But one of the things I'm really obsessed with about Alfred is I love the Burr system that he creates, which is kind of a system of various urban fortresses that go throughout the kingdom.

Now, I'm obsessed with these because I'm a medieval history nerd. Am I wrong to think that these are really cool? Are these important in any way in terms of Wessex's ascendancy, you know, as it begins to creep into these other places? Or is this more of a symptom, I guess, of its power at this point? Yeah, that's a really good point. And one I probably should have mentioned already is the Burr system, as you've said. So Burr's an old English word essentially a fortification of some sort. You say urban, and some of them certainly do develop into urban centers of some significance.

but I think in their most primary fundamental form, some of them are not going to be big at all, their fortifications. And yes, we're seeing that Alfred understands the importance of fortifying settlements and having these at strategic places within his kingdom. And this is a policy that is continued not only by Edward, his son, but also his daughter, Athlflad. And we haven't mentioned Athelflad yet. But Athelflad is well known as the so-called Lady of the Merlewold.

And essentially she is in charge of Mercia while her brother is in charge of Wessex. And Edward does have a level of he is her overlord in terms of she is not called a queen within her documents. She isn't permitted that royal authority on the same level. But we do know that both Edward and Athelflad continued this fortification development of fortifying places that were clearly important strategically. And so the result of this is we are getting this network of fortifications throughout the kingdom. I think it's an open question about what exactly these were attended for beyond the fairly, I guess, obvious military value of having a fortification, a safehold, a stronghold that you can go to. But they do develop in different ways. So you've used the phrase urban and some of them do develop commercially as we're moving into the 10th and the 11th century.

Quite a few of them by the time getting into the mid-10th century are sites of mints, so coinage, not all of them, but a considerable number of them, are spaces for minting, but also spiritual centres as well, particularly in Mercer actually, with the burs that Athulfad is said to have constructed, that some of them we see the translation of saints' relics into the burr, into new churches. So thinking of these as focal points for that royal authority, which is in meharmes, with spiritual, religious, economic value as well. That is fascinating to me. I'm obsessed with relics and their use.

And, you know, there's no better way of saying this is a really important place than bringing in an actual relic. Because it does so many things, you know, people want to come see the relics. It is saying that this is also a special place that has a telephone line to a saint, essentially. There's so much that you can do with just one thing like that. And it's such a, I guess, a statement of political and religious

intent that it really underlines that these are meant to be foci. Yeah. And another element to how birds may have been important is in terms of the legal system as well, the administrative system, collecting taxes, enforcing law. We don't know the sites of Shire courts, for example, often, or where legal disputes were played out. And they may well have been within these centers. So again, thinking of them as multifaceted focal points for that royal authority. Well, speaking of royal authority, how does Wessex and its various kings navigate when they do have diplomatic conflicts with the other kingdoms? Before they get to the point where they're the kings of the English, how are they getting along with Mercia next door and these sorts of things? Yes, a dominant relationship as far as Wessex is.

is concerned because it doesn't have to look quite south. It has the English Channel, so they don't have to worry quite so much about that border. But it's the relationship with Mercia. There's the one that people talk about most. And I suppose is the most important arguably in terms of understanding which kingdom is dominant in southern Britain, at least within English-speaking communities. I guess the first quarter of the 9th century, and indeed when we get to the Battle of Ellendon in 825, it's easy to characterize it in terms of competition.

rivalry. But what's really interesting is that as we move into the middle decades of the 9th century, it's as much about collaboration between the two. And we can see this in various forms. We can see this in terms of how the coinage is being interchanged between the two kingdoms. We can also see this in marriage alliances. So, for example, in 853, King Burgred, who is the king of Mercia at that time, marries Athosweth, who is from the West Saxon royal dynasty. So the queen of Mercia is a West Saxon at that point in time. Similarly, a little later, 15 years later, Alfred, who isn't King yet, in 868, he marries a Mercian noblewoman called Yaleswit. So we're seeing marriage as an alliance strategy, just as we saw Athelwolf marrying the Carolingian Princess

Judith. But we also see it in terms of military campaigns, well. And our key source for that is a text or a family of text known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which isn't strictly contemporary with the mid-9th century. The earliest version of the Chronicle is compiled at unsurprisingly Alfred's Court in the early 1890s. But that tells us about the military activity. It's our key source for knowing which battles take place in the 9th century. So we know, for example, in 853, the Burgred, the King of Mercia, asks for help from the West Saxons in order to lead a military campaign against the Welsh. Similarly, 15 years later, we know that the West Saxons and Mercians together besiege a Viking army at Nottingham. And to really speak to the

entwinedness of this, both of those military campaigns are taking place the same year as two of those marriages that I mentioned. And you can imagine how the marriage diplomacy is part of wider negotiations between them. You know, we'll help you with that military campaign, but also I have a daughter that needs marrying, for example. But we're seeing them working together, I think primarily, I would say, because of a shared common enemy. And by the time we're getting into the mid-ninth century, that enemy first and foremost is the threat from Viking attack. Yeah, I mean, you've alluded to this. several times already. But Wessex is coming to rise up in its power and its strength. At a time when you're also really suddenly getting Viking attacks. So what are there specific Viking issues

for the Kingdom of Wessex? Because as you say, they dominate rather a lot of coastline, which leaves you a bit vulnerable now. Exactly. And so Wessex is in the southwest of Britain. You might not think it's the first port of call for Vikings if they're coming from Scandinavia, right? Northumbria, seems to be closer. But actually, in terms of recorded known Viking attacks, the earliest one in Britain, or at least in England that we know of, took place in Wessex, specifically at Portland in Dorset in probably the year 7-8-9. And so that was actually four years before the far more famous sacking of Lindisfar by Vikings. So from the late 8th century onwards, there is a threat of Viking attack. And we don't know much about what's going on in the opening decades of the 9th century

in terms of Viking attacks. But by the time we're getting into the 840s and certainly the 850s and even more so the 860s, this is very much a threat for Wessex as much as it is for the other kingdoms. As you say, there are coastlines, but also there are rivers. And the one thing that everyone knows about Vikings is that their ship technology is so good that they can penetrate inland along rivers just as much as coastlines. Just as an example, in year 851, we know that there is an army in Devon is Viking Vikings, but then later that year, another wave of Viking attack, supposedly 350 ships of Vikings arrive in the mouth of the Thames, storm both London and Canterbury. One thing to remember here is that Kent, which was a historic kingdom and independent

in the 8th century is now under West Saxon control. So storming Canterbury in Kent is a West Saxon concern, as much as it is a Kentish concern. So it certainly is alive and present danger for all of these people, including the West Saxons. And I think that is one context for understanding Ather Wolff's pilgrimage to Rome in 855, that act of penitence wanting to be a good Christian,

one of the many strategies that they're employing, to fight off this Viking, heathen, pagan threat. That is a really, really good point, because it is kind of existential, right? When you're a Christian kingdom, when you're being attacked by pagans and they do well, so this is a very canny move on the part of any sort of Christian ruler.

When you face an attack like this from the outside and from what is perceived to be as an enemy of Christianity as a whole, does that help to sort of consolidate Wessex as a kingdom because you can tell a really great story about that. You can tell a great story about Wessex as a Christian kingdom facing an onslaught of the terrible heretics and blah, blah, blah, blah. Or is this just, oh, no, there's Vikings in our backyard

and there's no way to play this? I think that's quite right in terms of, if you look at the contemporary texts, and I say contemporary, most of the texts are actually from Alfred's time, so not from the midnight century. But the way that they describe Vikings, It's not ethnically based. It's not geographically. Most of the time they're not, they don't say they're from Scandinavia. They're described in terms of their religion.

These are pagans. It says it explicitly. We are good Christians or we are Christians that need to be good. That is Alfred's probably number one message. And that is probably the single most important unifying message that Alfred and his West Saxon successors and predecessors have. We are are Christians, and it happens that we're the Last Kingdom standing at this point in the 890s. So follow us guys. We're the ones to protect you. That's a really good point, because to a certain extent, I don't want to denigrate the achievements of Alfred or any of these people who were doing huge political things, but they're kind of like, hey, it's the Last Kingdom standing, isn't it? There's a little bit of luck there. But one of the things about being

the last kingdom standing is we get these documents, right, that say, oh, King of the English. You establish the Burr system and say, here are ways that royal power is kind of looking in on all these different parts of the kingdom. I mean, I would argue that these are the sorts of things that end up shaping Englishness in the future. But am I going too far with that? Is this just kind of like, oh, well, the English people kind of saw that and they took off with it and they've got new things? Or am I too intent on finding Englishness in the past when I do that? It's a really good question. And what I would say is that you can,

and this is something that is an ongoing conversation amongst historians, to what extent was any idea of Englishness important during Alfred's reign, for example. So we know that several texts were translated supposedly Alfred's behest from Latin into Old English. Why was that done? Was that because there is this sense of a shared language? which is a unifying feature of Englishness. It's possible, but I think that there's also pragmatic reasons for that because not many people could read Latin at that point in time. But in terms of Englishness, one source where that was readily available for offering a model

for Englishness was Beads, Ecclesiastical History of the English people. Now, Beed, the venerable Beed, was a monk at Wyrmouth Jarrow in the first half of the 8th century. so as a Northumbrian monk in a completely different time and place. But we know that his great history of the English church is ecclesiastical history, the history of ecclesiastica again to Sanglorum in Latin. We know it's being read in the 9th century and the 10th century in other areas of what will become England. Not only that, it gets translated from Latin into Old English at some point in the 9th century. So there is a narrative there that often.

a shared history for these people in these different English-speaking kingdoms. But it's first and foremost about a shared English church. How far a sense of Englishness goes beyond that, I think, is where it gets difficult. And what I would say is that I think there's plenty of evidence to demonstrate that other identities continued and were important to people. I think we need to be open-minded as well about humans being, varied and complex in that one identity would be more important than another in a different context, depending on what benefit you most, I guess, and that sounds very cynical, but I think

thinking about how people, depending on the context, different variables will resonate more with one person. And also people would have disagreed. I imagine, for example, that there were people in Mercia who were keen on this idea of the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons by I imagine also that there are people who were vehemently against it as well. I think it's very likely that people were talking about this. No, it's not just us reflecting when it's asking these questions. This is, I think, one of these instances where the questions that we're asking actually probably do reflect to an extent some of the conversations that at least the elites at the court were having. You know, what do they envisage and who are we as a people? Rob, that's an absolutely profound thing to

think about and our connections to the past and how we're still rehashing these same conversations as our friends hundreds of years ago. And so I suppose with that philosophical idea, all that remains is for me to thank you once again so much for coming on and talking about this absolutely fascinating group of people. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you so much once again to Rob for joining me. And thank you all for listening. This has been Gone Medieval from History Hit. And if you like what you've heard, Don't forget to rate, review, follow the podcast, and tell your friends about it. If you fancy suggesting an episode, drop us an email at gone medieval at historyhit.com.

My co-host Matt Lewis will retake the Gone Medieval Throne on Friday, and as always, I'll see you again next Tuesday. Until next time.