Anglo-Saxon Mercia focused on Cheshire and surrounding area
The
history of Cheshire and wider Mercia during the Anglo-Saxon period
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The Bakers of Highfields Story
The Story of the Dods and Bakers and of Highfields,
Fenton House and Hasfield Court. A journey through the history of Cheshire and
Staffordshire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who retained his lands after the
Conquest, pottery at Stoke on Trent, an encounter with Elgar, and the history
of an Elizabethan manor house at Audlem |
The family tree of the Bakers of Highfields |
The Family Tree of the Dods, predecessors to the
Bakers of Highfields |
The Bakers of
Fenton House and Hasfield Court
The Family Tree of the pottery Bakers of Stoke on Trent |
The Family Tree of the Bellyse Family |
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The genealogy of the family of James Hall, linked to
the Baker family through marriage to Arthur Baker |
Headlines of are
in brown.
Dates are in red.
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blue.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Context and local
history are in purple.
400 CE
Following the withdrawal of the
Romans, small rural farming communities farmed the land before the region fell
under the control of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. The local population
lived in small, self-sufficient agricultural hamlets and farmsteads,
cultivating the land and fishing in the river.
Those who still wished to cling to
the vestiges of the Roman past, and in particular to
Christianity, would have to head west. Here, in what is now Wales and Cornwall,
were the hills and forests that Gildas said had offered the Britons refuge. These lands remained literate and
amphoras of imported wine and olive oil from the fifth and early sixth century
were found at Tintagel. Yet only a few got to indulge in the pretence that
they were still part of the Roman elite. King Arthur was the fiction of
Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century. He first appeared in the ninth
century as a dux bellorum, leader of battles. The Battle
of Badon Hill, sometimes associated with Arthur, may have been an early sixth
century encounter between Britons and Saxons. (The Anglo Saxons, A History of
the Beginnings of England, Marc Morris, 2021,
page 39 to 41). Though Gildas lived at
a time of relative peace, he agonised over what he saw as a continuing military
threat to the Britons from their Germanic neighbours, and he paid tribute to
those Britons who gained some military success against them under the leadership
of Ambrosious Aurelianus, naming specifically a
victory at Mount Baden, fought in the year of Gildas’ birth, 43 years before. (The Earliest English Kings, D P Kirby, 2000, page 14; De
Exidio, chapters 25 and 26)
A leader of the Britons, Ambrosius
Aurelianus, was thus credited with organising and leading the native British
resistance against the invading Anglo-Saxons. He is a crucial figure in the
transition from Roman Britain to the post-Roman era and is considered by many scholars
to be a primary inspiration for the legendary King Arthur.
The Battle of Badon was depicted
as a decisive, though historically murky, late fifth to early sixth century
victory for the Romano-Britons against invading Anglo-Saxons, halting their
expansion for decades and ushering in a period of peace often linked to the
legend of King Arthur, possibly against Saxon forces led by figures like Cerdic
or Ælle.
The area of modern Cheshire was originally inhabited
by the Celtic Cornovii tribe before later
falling under the control of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. Parts of
western Cheshire may have overlapped with or bordered the territory of the
neighbouring Celtic Deceangli tribe based in
north-east Wales. The region spent time
under sub-Roman / Brythonic control, with links to Welsh kingdoms like Powys
before Anglo-Saxon expansion.
600 CE
Nevertheless, over the sixth and
seventh centuries, Germanic invaders expanded westward. As Mercia expanded westward
from its core in the Midlands during the seventh century, it incorporated the
area of modern Cheshire, assimilating or displacing the native Brittonic
populations.
616 CE
In around 616 CE, King Æthelfrith
of Northumbria won a decisive victory at the Battle of Chester.
A contingent of about 1,200
Christian monks from the nearby monastery of Bangor-is-y-Coed
arrived at the battlefield to fast and pray for a Welsh victory. When King Æthelfrith spotted them standing
apart from the warriors, he reasoned that even though they were unarmed, they
were actively fighting against him with their prayers. He ordered his forces to
attack the monks first, slaughtering almost all of them before turning his army
onto the main Welsh forces. The Northumbrians
overwhelmingly defeated the Brittonic coalition. The battle resulted in the
deaths of several prominent Welsh leaders, including Selyf
Sarffgadau, King of Powys and Cadwal Crysban,
leader of Rhôs. Modern archaeological excavations at
Heronbridge, just south of Chester, have uncovered a mass grave of battle
casualties that historians widely tie directly to this conflict.
The second battle which Bede
describes was fought at the opposite end of Æthelfrith sphere of interest, at
the place he calls the City of the Legions, Legacæstir, against the Britons of Gwynedd, North Wales, in
615 or 616. Bede allows his hostility to the Britons to show through in writing
of the cowardice of the British warlord Brocmail and
his men who turned tail, thus allowing the slaughter of monks from the
monastery of Bangor who had come to observe the battle. (Northumbria AD 367-867, Max Adams and Colm O’Brien,
2025, page 59).
The victory drove a permanent
physical wedge between the Celtic Britons of Wales and those of Yr Hen Ogledd, The Old North, effectively cutting off the
Celtic Britons of Wales from those in the north, and allowing Northumbria to
claim early authority over the lands extending north of the River Mersey.
It solidified the western
expansion and absolute dominance of Northumbrian power during the early seventh
century.
What Æthelfrith had achieved was a
position of authority in the north analogous to Rædwald’s over the eastern
Angles and their immediate neighbours (The Earliest English Kings, D P
Kirby, 2000, page 61).
The only material traces of the
period from Chester are a few sherds of amphorae; dating perhaps from the 5th
or 6th century and found within the legionary fortress, they are similar in form
to vessels from other high-status sub-Roman sites in western Britain. After 616
even such exiguous evidence is lacking. All that can safely be said is that,
despite the Northumbrian victory, Chester and its environs soon passed under
Mercian domination, and that a 12th-century tradition that one of the city's
two early minsters, St. John's, was founded by the Mercian king Æthelred in the
late 7th century may therefore have something to commend it. The church's
extramural site, its close association with the Anglo-Saxon bishops of
Lichfield, and the burial rights which it shared with the other early minster,
St. Werburgh's, all tend to confirm its antiquity. The church was presumably a
prominent building, and its clergy and their households an important
constituent of the population; its location may show that settlement had moved
away from the legionary fortress. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County of
Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and Topography,
ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History Online, pages 16 to
33).
633 CE
Although Northumbrian dominance
continued until the Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793 CE, the fortunes of the
competing kingdoms ebbed and flowed. The Northumbrian Edwin was killed at Hæthfelth,
the Battle of Hatfield Chase, near Doncaster, along with his son Osfrith, on 12
October 633 CE by the combined Mercian and Welsh forces under Cadwallon ap
Cadfan of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia. Mercia
was coalescing in the early seventh century into a powerful kingdom in the
midlands.
634 CE
The competing dynasty of Æthelfrith’s son Oswald returned from exile in Dal Riata (north west Scotland) probably by sea via the Solway Firth
and Rheged, and defeated and killed Cadwallon at Caelestis
campus, the Battle at Heavenfield, near the later
site of Hexham and united Northumbria once more (Ecclesiastical History, Bede, Book 3, Chapter 2). Bede tells of a vision of St
Columba on the night before the battle. This was a world of miracles, where
such were of significance. Oswald’s army probably approached Cadwallon’s army
along the Roman Wall at Corbridge attacking an unprepared army at dawn, forcing
them to flee until they were overwhelmed at a river crossing where Cadwallon
was cut down. He erased the shame of defeat and devastation at Cadwallon’s
hands and restored the northern kingdom to its former glory and primacy (The Anglo Saxons, A History of
the Beginnings of England, Marc Morris, 2021,
page 77, see also Northumbria AD 367-867, Max Adams and Colm O’Brien,
2025, page 97). Oswald was also a
Christian king, but one trained in the Celtic traditions of Iona.
642 CE
Mercia’s rise to dominance in the
mid-to-late seventh century under powerful pagan kings like Penda reshaped the political
landscape. Mercia relentlessly pushed its frontiers north and west.
The Northumbrian Oswald was killed
at the Battle of Maserfield by Penda, King of Mercia
on 5 August 642 CE. It started as a fatal campaign to strike at an alliance
between Penda of Mercia and King Cynddylan of Powys. Oswald, king of the
Northumbrians, was slain by Penda, king of the Southumbrians,
at Mirfield, on the fifth day of August; and his body was buried at Bardney
(Anglo
Saxon Chronicle).
Mercia was the last of the major
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to emerge. Its name derives from mierce,
or march, reflecting that they were a border people between the Britons and the
Anglo Saxon kingdoms.
The culminating battle was at Maserfelth (possibly at Oswestry in the Welsh
mountains, though this was far from Northumbrian territory) when Oswald was
killed, perhaps by Penda himself. Oswald’s army was completely
destroyed and the victory over Northumberland was absolute. There was
not even anyone left to protect the King’s dead body whose people were deprived
of the important ritual of the burial of their king. Penda celebrated by
placing Oswald’s hands and head on stakes. Mercia’s power was in the
ascendancy.
Oswald was venerated as a saint
after his death. His last stand gave immediate rise to a popular cult. Oswald’s
brother Oswiu brought up Oswald’s infant son, Œthelwald, and a year after Oswald’s
death, returned to the scene of the battle with an armed force and took
Oswald’s bleached remains away with him. This was a risky enterprise deep into
Mercian territory. Oswald’s martyrdom quickly become a
popular cult. Within a short time strange events began
to occur. The miraculous was part of everyday life. In time the popular cult
became a cult of royal saints.
The first consequence of the
battle of Maserfelth was that Penda was left as sole king
of the Mercians, without question the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to
have emerged in the midlands. A second consequence was that the northern Humbrian confederacy fragmented when, as the Historia
Brittonum records, Penda separated the southumbrians
from the Northumbrians, and Oswald’s brother, Oswiu was able to assume royal
power only among the Bernicians. This constituted a further major dislocation
of the northern Anglian hegemony and seriously destabilised the dynastic situation
within Deira and Bernicia. (The Earliest English Kings, D P
Kirby, 2000, page 77).
651 CE
Oswiu began to use his Lindisfarne
bishops to assist him in establishing overlordship in the Mercian corelands. Christianity afforded kings a new form of
patronage through sponsoring a client king in baptism, as king Oswald had found
with king Cynegils of Wessex. Oswiu, perhaps militarily weak in his first years
and having to deploy subtle methods tools of diplomacy, summoned king Sigeberht
of the East Saxons to his hall at Ad Murum, there to be baptised by Bishop
Finan. (Ecclesiastical History,
Bede, Book 3, Chapter 22; Northumbria AD 367-867, Max Adams and Colm O’Brien,
2025, page 131).
653 CE
In a thawing of relations with
Mercia, Oswiu’s daughter Ealflæd had married Pæda one of Penda’s sons, who converted to Christianity and
in 653 CE Oswiu’s son Alhfrith had married Cyneburh, Penda’s daughter,
suggesting a wary truce between Mercia and Northumbria by this time. Pæda was baptised by Finan, Aidan’s successor in
Lindisfarne, so Mercia had not turned southward to Canterbury for
ecclesiastical direction.
655 CE
By 655 CE any thawing of
relationships between Mercia and Northumbria had ended. Penda had steadily
grown in power. The Mercians attacked Northumbria for a third time with an army
of enormous scale according to Bede comprising 30 legions, including those of
kingdoms subdued to ally with Penda, such as East Anglia. It is not clear what gave
rise to the breakdown of relations between Mercia and Northumbria, but it may
have been driven by Oswiu’s expansionist ambitions, especially to dominate the
northern Britons. Penda seems to have devastated the Northumbrian lands north
to the Forth. It seems that Oswiu sued for peace in return for a very
significant hoard of treasure which, although Bede denied it (since Oswiu later
reneged on the deal), Penda seems to have accepted since he retired to the area
around Leeds. (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book 3, Chapter
24). It was there that Oswiu
led a surprise attack on Penda.
It is possible that the hoard of
treasure may be the Staffordshire Hoard discovered at Hammerwich
in 2009 (The Anglo Saxons, A
History of the Beginnings of England,
Marc Morris, 2021, page 82 to 83).
In 655 CE, Oswiu killed Penda at
the Battle of the Winwaed on the River Went, which gave
the Northumbrian King control the Kingdom of Mercia. The Battle of the Winwead was fought on 15 November 655 between King Penda of
Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death.
The battle took place on the River Went between Castleford and Doncaster, an
area prone to flooding. Penda’s forces considerably outnumbered Oswiu’s. Oswiu
launched a decisive attack at dawn and the Mercians
were driven back to the swollen river from where there was no escape. Hundreds drowned
in a disastrous encounter for the Mercians. (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book 3, Chapter
24). Oswiu subjected the
Picts to his rule.
The outcome was transformative for
Oswiu. It removed Penda and broke the Mercian aggression that had troubled
Northumbria since the death of Edwin twenty years previously. It also put an
end to any Strathclyde or Pictish incursions from the
north and, above all, established Oswiu as the dominant force of his age. (Northumbria AD 367-867, Max Adams and Colm O’Brien,
2025, page 136).
According to Bede, the battle
marked the effective demise of Anglo-Saxon paganism. It marked a temporary
Northumbrian ascendency.
Penda was the last great pagan
king of Anglo-Saxon England. Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and now
Mercia were now Christian and only minor kingdoms such as Sussex and Essex
remained pagan for a generation longer.
Oswiu ruled over Mercia until 658
CE, which he divided. He ruled northern Mercia directly and placed Penda’s son Paeda as king of its southern part (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book 3, Chapter
24). He appointed Diuma as
bishop of Mercia, Lindsey and Middle Anglia. He also subjected the Picts to his
rule.
658 CE
The Northumbrian Oswiu plundered
Mercia. A rebellion by Mercian ealdermen expelled Northumbrian
governors and made Wulfhere, son of Penda, king (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book 3, Chapter
24). Although this counter
coup restricted Oswiu’s power in Mercia, Wulfhere appointed a series of
Northumbrian bishops in Mercia so Oswiu retained some
influence through soft power.
679 CE
As a boy, the Northumbrian king
Ecgfrith had been a hostage in the household of Queen Cynewise
of Mercia, and had survived after Penda’s death, having developed an
understanding of the Mercian court and political complexities.
Despite initial success, by 679 CE
Ecgfrith influence in the Midlands was unravelling. Ecgfrith’s younger brother,
Ælfwine was killed in battle against the Mercians at
the Battle of the Trent in 679. Bede wrote In
the ninth year of the reign of King Ecgfrith (in 679), a great battle was
fought between him and Æthelred, king of the Mercians, near the river Trent,
and Ælfwine, brother to King Ecgfrith, was slain, a
youth about eighteen years of age, and much beloved by both provinces; for King
Æthelred had married his sister Osthryth. There was now
reason to expect a more bloody war, and more lasting enmity between those kings
and their fierce nations; but Theodore, the bishop, beloved of God, relying on
the Divine aid, by his wholesome admonitions wholly extinguished the dangerous
fire that was breaking out; so that the kings and their people on both sides were
appeased, and no man was put to death, but only the due mulct paid to the king
who was the avenger for the death of his brother; and this peace continued long
after between those kings and between their kingdoms. (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book 4, Chapter
21). Lindsey was lost to
Northumbria. Theodore oversaw a peace treaty.
700 CE
Although in the early 8th century Bede
called Chester a city, civitas, and clearly knew of it as a Roman place, he
said nothing about later activity there. Nevertheless, despite the silence of the documentary
sources, the site's enduring importance suggests that some form of occupation
may have continued after the Roman army left. The legionary fortress had
acquired an increasingly significant civilian role in the last century of its existence, and may have remained the focus of some kind of
territorial unit. By the time of the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith's victory
over the British in 616, Chester was in territory associated with the British
kingdom of Powys and was perhaps the seat of a branch of the royal dynasty of the
Cadelling, whose representatives were prominent in
the battle. The fact that a little later, lands to the south, in Shropshire,
were in the hands of a different dynasty suggests that the Cadelling
who fought at Chester were confined to Cheshire and north Wales, and hence
likely to have made use of the fortress. Under their rule, too, the area was
ecclesiastically important. The city was probably the scene of a synod of the
British Church shortly after 600, and just to the south there seems to have
been an early mother church at Eccleston. Further south was the great monastery
of Bangor (Flintshire), c 1,200 of whose monks were allegedly slaughtered by
the Northumbrians at the battle of Chester as they prayed for a British victory. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
716 CE
After the death of the Mercian King Ceolred, the
childless grandson of Penda, the Mercians chose as his successor, a grandson of
Penda’s brother, Eowa, called Ædelbald who rapidly established his authority over
a disparate people in the midlands and ruled for 41 years. The heart of royal
governing stability in England was switching southward. This was a period of
settlement and economic expansion through patronage and coercion and when
necessary, by suppression and warfare. There was a period of economic boom
between 710 to 740 CE, with coinage particularly from Frisia, reflecting
international trade.
Bede ended his History summarising
that by 731 CE the land south of the Humber was subject to Ædelbald
of Mercia; Ceolwulf reigned in Northumbria; the Picts were at peace with the
English nations; the Scots (Irish) of Dal Riata were content with their own
kingdom and the Britons continued to oppose the English nations with their
wicked lewdness. This reflected an increasing feeling of kinship between the
Anglo-Saxon folk, and a growing sense of alienation from the Britons, which
synthesised in the writings of Bede. In these favourable times of peace and
calm, many of the Northumbrians, as well of the nobility as private persons,
laying aside their weapons, and receiving the tonsure, desire rather both for
themselves and their children to take upon them monastic vows, than to practise
the pursuit of war. What will be the end hereof, the next age will see. This is
for the present the state of all Britain; about two hundred and eighty-five
years after the coming of the English into Britain. (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book
5, Chapter 23). In
reality the history was a continuing one, and Bede’s summary was
premature.
The years that followed saw the ascendancy of a new
powerhouse in Mercia, with the reigns of Ædelfrid and
Offa spanning eight decades from 716 to 796 CE, contemporary with a period of
eleven Northumbrian Kings with many of them meeting violent ends. This was a period
of significant cultural achievements in Mercia, with London emerging as an
international emporium. The Thames, Trent, and Severn emerged as principal
highways of commerce. The period saw significant achievements in the south
including Offa’s Dyke and silver coinage; and sophisticated machinery of
government; though with no surviving Chronicle, as would later narrate the rise
of Wessex.
757 CE
After the Romans had abandoned Britain, London had fallen
into ruin. The ruins may not have been occupied until St Augustine’s mission in
the sixth century after which the bishop of the East Saxons, Mellitus
established himself in the deserted city, drawn by its classical associations.
These were mysterious places, the work of giants. At about this time a new
settlement was established about a kilometre west of the Roman town of
Londinium, and it became known as Lundenwic. (see map
at Britain in the Middle Ages, An Archaeological
History, Francis Pryor, 2007, page 165).
This settlement had seen rapid expansion in the mid seventh century, fuelled by
international trade. By the 670s there was a new wharf along the Strand. The
new settlement thrived as it was located in a place
able to capitalise on the industry of agricultural hinterlands fed by the
Thames, and a route to the Continent downstream on the same river. By the early
eighth century, Mercia was dominating its control of Lundenwic,
particularly in the time of its King Æthelbald (716 to 757 CE). This was the
source of Mercia’s dominance. Bede recorded that by 731 CE all the kings south
of the Humber were subject to Æthelbald’s authority.
In 757 CE Æthelbald was killed in a civil war and Offa
(ruled 757 to 796 CE) became king of Mercia and dominated the southern
kingdoms, establishing Offa’s Dyke as a barrier to the non Anglo-Saxon British lands of the west. His
dominance never extended to Northumbria, though he gave his daughter Ælfflæd in marriage to the Northumbrian King Æthelred I in
792 CE.
Ædelbald of Mercia was murdered by his household guard. Beornred seized the throne but was defeated by Ædelbald’s cousin Offa. Offa consolidated his power within
the Mercian heartland of the Midlands before expanding his influence into Kent
and Sussex.
758 CE
By the mid eighth century Mercia was growing in
ascendancy. There was an evolving English identity.
Between 758 to 770 CE, Offa consolidated his control over
Midland tribal groups such as the Hwicce and Magonsæte, and
exerted early influence over Sussex and Kent. The Hwicce’s territory was
broadly the area of later Worcestershire. The Magonsæte
tribe covered an area roughly equivalent to modern-day Herefordshire and
Shropshire along the Welsh border.
776 CE
Offa decisively defeated the men of Kent at the Battle
of Otford, establishing clear Mercian dominance over the region.
779 CE
Offa defeated King Cynewulf of Wessex at the Battle of
Bensington in Oxfordshire, reclaiming disputed border
territories.
784 CE
Offa campaigned against the Welsh kingdoms, pushing
back boundaries and initiating the construction of Offa’s Dyke.
The reason that Offa built his dyke as a defence
against the Britons and not the Northumbrians, East Anglians or West Saxons was
that despite their differences and occasional violent episodes, by this date
the people in these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms regarded themselves as a single ethnic
group, a group that we can reasonably start to describe as ‘English’. The word
of course derives from Angli, or Angles, which had
earlier signified the settler peoples to the north of the Thames – the East
Angles, the Mercians and the Northumbrians, but increasingly during the eighth
century people were using Angli as a general term to
describe all the Germanic speaking peoples in Britain, including those who at
other times had been referred to as Saxons and Jutes. Bede, for example,
sometimes used Angli in a narrow sense, in reference
to the people of Northumbria. But he more frequently employed the phrase gens
Anglorum to mean something like ‘the English people’, not least in the title of
his most famous work, the Ecclesiastical History of the English people,
completed in 731. (The Anglo Saxons, A
History of the Beginnings of England,
Marc Morris, 2021, page 165). It was not however entirely a one way direction in the evolution of the Angle and Saxon badges
and Saxon came to mean the same thing and the phrase Anglo-Saxon therefore
later evolved as a catch all to describe the folk Germanic peoples of this
period. Mercians, Saxons and Northumbrians were increasingly feeling a sense of
kinship, whilst growing less well disposed to the Britons in the west. The
barbarian Germanic incomers had long regarded the indigenous Romano-British
people as inferior with little to copy, a people of low status. The Germanic speakers
across Europe often referred to old Roman communities as walas,
or foreigners, in English waelas, a synonym
for walh meaning slave, and the name taken by
Wales derived from this root. A clear linguistic and religious divide sharpened
the hostility between the Anglo Saxons and the Britons. When Æthelfrith of
Northumbria massacred the British monks of Bangor-Is-Coed
near Chester in 614 CE, Bede had little sympathy, dismissing the Britons who
oppose the English through their inbred hatred and the whole state of the
catholic church through their incorrect Easter and their evil customs (Ecclesiastical
History, Bede, Book
2, Chapter 2).
785 CE
Offa asserted direct authority through charters in
Kent. The exiled Kentish noble Egbert fled to the Frankish court.
787 CE
The first recorded Viking were recorded in England.
Offa held a council and had his son, Ecgfrith, consecrated as co-king. This was
the first recorded royal coronation in England.
789 CE
In 789 CE, Charlemagne proposed a
marriage between his son and one of Offa's daughters. Offa countered by
demanding that Charlemagne’s daughter, Bertha, marry his own son and heir,
Ecgfrith. Charlemagne was deeply insulted by this attempt to bargain on equal
footing and broke off diplomatic contact. Offa had established the Mercian
Supremacy, dominating southern England and styling
himself as Rex Anglorum, King of the English. He began behaving like an imperial
equal to Charlemagne rather than a lesser regional ruler, which Charlemagne
found unacceptable. Charlemagne viewed the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms almost as
satellite states. A unified England under a powerful King Offa threatened
Frankish influence across the English Channel.
King Beorhtric of Wessex married
Offa's daughter, Eadburh, cementing a West Saxon alliance.
792 CE
Offa travelled to Rome to
strengthen ties with the Papacy.
King Æthelred I of Northumbria
married Offa's daughter, Ælfflæd.
793 CE
Offa founded St Albans Abbey and
annexed East Anglia after the execution/death of its king, Æthelberht.
796 CE
In 796 when Charlemagne and Offa
signed a formal peace and commercial treaty to protect pilgrims and merchants,
shortly before Offa's death that same year.
Offa died on 29 July 796 CE. His
son Ecgfrith succeeded him but ruled for less than five months before dying,
leading to the eventual fracturing of Mercian supremacy.
The Kingdom of Mercia gradually lost
its dominant power and was eventually absorbed into Wessex. Regional leaders
and rival kingdoms such as Kent, which quickly revolted, broke free from
Mercian overlordship.
Coenwulf, who reigned from 796 to
821 CE, restored some stability and temporary power, but the absolute supremacy
of Offa's era was gone.
866 CE
The Scandinavian Great Heathen
Army turned its primary attention southwards again and it marched into Mercian
lands, wintering around Nottingham. Mercia appealed to their recent rivals Wessex
for help. The Mercians supported by Wessex though could not dislodge the
invaders.
874 CE
The Great Heathen Army turned
their attention back to Mercia and occupied the church at Repton, burying their
own dead there, and incorporating the church into a defensive stronghold. This
was the fall of Mercia.
Differences arose amongst the
Scandinavian armies who split, buying Alfred of Wessex some time.
875 CE
Attacks on Wessex nevertheless continued.
The Vikings seized Wareham in Dorset, and later Exeter, but were confronted by
Alfred who took hostages from them. They withdrew to Mercia.
877 CE
Scandinavians began to settle
lands in Mercia permanently.
879 CE
The annexing of Mercia and the
further evolution of the idea of an English race
The Vikings had occupied much of
eastern Mercia and Alfred seems to have replaced Ceolwulf of Mercia by annexing
the western part of Mercia into Wessex, perhaps resulting from a negotiation
with Guthrum over the partition of Mercia. Alfred seems to have persuaded the
people of Mercia that they were not being absorbed into Wessex as Kent, Sussex,
Surrey and Cornwall had been, but rather that they were being united by their
common ethnicity.
When Alfred started to refer to a united kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons he was not expressing a
new idea. It had been envisioned in Northumbria in the seventh century. The old
rivalry between Mercia and Wessex was fading and since 867 CE a common currency
was being adopted with coins minted in London and Canterbury. As he started to
use the style King of the Anglo Saxons, he made a statement of the unity of Angelcynn.
The idea of an English ethnicity
had emerged in the golden age of Northumbria in the preceding two centuries.
The idea was now picked up by Alfred. In his dealing with Guthrum, he spoke of ealles Angeleynnes witan, all the councillors of the English
and Angelcynn began to be used more frequently
on coinage, which also started to refer to Alfred as Rex Anglorum. From
882 CE Asser described Alfred as Angulsaxonum
rex. The idea of Englishness, born in Northumbria, was used by Alfred for a
political purpose, to persuade Mercia and others being subsumed within a
Greater Wessex, that they were all part of the Kingdom of the Anglo Saxons.
889 CE
Æthelflæd, the eldest child of
King Alfred the Great of Wessex and Queen Ealhswith, married Æthelred, Lord of
the Mercians, cementing a vital political and military alliance between Wessex
and Mercia against the Vikings.
Due to his illness Æthelflæd was ruling as the Lady of the Mercians.
893 CE
In 893 Vikings raided Chester,
then 'a deserted city in Wirral'. (Two Saxon Chrons.
ed. C. Plummer and J. Earle, i. 87-8; A.-S. Chron.
iii, ed. J. M. Bately, pp. xxv-xxxiv, 58) Although that description has
led to the assumption that the site was waste from the 7th to the early 10th century,
it need not be so interpreted. The raid, which culminated in the Danes'
occupying the city and being besieged there for two days while the English
ravaged the surrounding districts, may well have been prompted by an awareness
of the city's growing economic and strategic importance, lying as it did near a
direct route between the already closely linked Scandinavian kingdoms of Dublin
and York. In any case, such desertion as there was can have been only
temporary. The area south of the legionary fortress was occupied by the late
9th century; in particular, a site at Lower Bridge Street has yielded the
remains of a small sunken-featured hut, a late 9th-century brooch, and sherds
of a Carolingian jar imported from northern France. Moreover, from c 890
Chester is the most likely site of a mint known to have operated in north-west
Mercia. By then, therefore, the city was presumably a place of some importance.
(Early medieval Chester
400-1230, in A History of the
County of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
899 CE
Alfred died on 26 October 899 CE,
after a reign of 28 years, leaving his kingdom to his son Edward the Elder. By
now the term King of the Anglo Saxons was in regular use. Alfred was king over
all the Anglo Saxon kingdoms except the parts subject
to Danish rule. Alfred had maintained control of Wessex and annexed Mercia west
of Watling Street but everything north and east of Watling Street, was still
part of the Danelaw. He was therefore not the first king over all of England.
The lands north of Watling Street however were beyond his realm. Yet his
defence of the southern realm from the Scandinavian threat was remarkable.
907 CE
Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians,
fortified the strategic frontier town of Chester, extending English Mercia's
control northward and establishing a base against Northumbrian Danes.
The history of medieval Chester can be said to begin only in 907 with the refortification of the site by the ruler of Mercia, King Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd (Two Saxon Chrons. i. 94) The background to that event was the establishment of a Hiberno-Norse community in Wirral after its expulsion from Dublin in 902. It seems that the exiles, led by Hingamund, were granted land in Wirral by Æthelflæd and her husband Æthelred but soon afterwards cast covetous eyes on the wealth of Chester, only to be repulsed by the great army which she assembled in the city. The story, although preserved only in a late source, has been shown to be reliable in essentials, and confirms that any desertion of the city was temporary.
Evidence of late Anglo-Saxon
occupation in the form of sherds of the locally produced pottery known to archaeologists
as Chester ware has been found throughout the town, both within the legionary
fortress, especially near the main central complexes and the Northgate, and
further south between the fortress and the river.
Between 907 and 921 further forts
were built over an area which stretched from north-east Wales to Manchester.
Chester thus became the focus of complex garrisoning arrangements, initially to
monitor Viking settlement. Cestrians may at first have welcomed Æthelflæd: she was half Mercian and had married Æthelred
(d. 911), the ruler (patricius) of Mercia, whose
origins are unknown but who was almost certainly
descended from the Mercian kings.
The new burh of Chester was also the centre
of important ecclesiastical developments. Late and unreliable traditions
alleged that the body of St. Werburg was carried to Chester in 875 and
installed in a minster refounded in her honour. The
minster undoubtedly existed by 958, and on balance it seems likely that Æthelflæd was responsible for the translation and
refoundation after 907, since she had engaged in similar activities elsewhere.
By the 13th century St. Werburgh's was closely associated with the cult of St.
Oswald, also favoured by Æthelflæd and perhaps also introduced by her to
Chester. The installation of such respected Mercian relics suggests that the
burh was regarded not simply as a garrisoned fortress but as a major centre of
authority, the focus of attempts to conciliate local resentment of the West Saxon
incomers.
Chester was well placed to take
advantage of local traffic along the Dee and, more importantly, long-distance
seaborne trade. From the 10th century onwards it developed connexions with
Ireland and with Scandinavian settlements all round
the Irish Sea. The importance which the Norse of Dublin, for example, attached
to the link is apparent in their attempts to set up fortified quaysides,
harbours, and navigation points along the north Welsh coast to ease the journey
between the two ports. Chester almost certainly contained a sizeable
Hiberno-Norse community involved in the Irish trade, located south of the
legionary fortress in the quarter next to the early harbour where the clearest
evidence for pre-Conquest settlement has been found.
(Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
911 CE
Æthelflæd, the Lady of the
Mercians, continued to rule Mercia after her husband died in 911 CE. She
formally assumed sole sovereign rule as Myrcna
hlæfdige (Lady of the Mercians) rather than
losing authority to Wessex.
912 CE
Æthelflæd, the Lady of the
Mercians constructed fortified strongholds, burhs, at Bridgnorth and Shergate to secure Mercian borders and control river
crossings.
913 to
915 CE
Æthelflæd expanded her defensive network of
fortified settlements, ordering the construction of new burhs including
Stafford (913 CE), Tamworth (913 CE), Warwick (914 CE), and Bredon.
916 CE
Æthelflæd dispatched a punitive military
expedition into Wales, storming Brycheiniog, Brecknock, and capturing
the Welsh king's wife after the slaying of an Mercian
abbot.
917 CE
Æthelflæd led her army to a major tactical
breakthrough, capturing the Viking-held borough of Derby, one of the primary Danelaw
strongholds.
918 CE
Æthelflæd received the peaceful surrender
of the Viking burh of Leicester and successfully negotiated the
submission of the Danish population of York.
On 12 June 918 Æthelflæd
died unexpectedly at her royal estate in Tamworth, Staffordshire. Her body was
transported to Gloucester to be buried beside her husband at St. Oswald’s
Priory.
Æthelflæd’s daughter, Ælfwynn, briefly
succeeded her as Lady of the Mercians before Æthelflæd’s
brother, King Edward the Elder, stripped Ælfwynn of
power and directly annexed Mercia into Wessex.
After Æthelflæd's
death in 918, however, her brother King Edward the Elder seized and imprisoned
the Mercian heir Ælfwynn, Æthelred and Æthelflæd's daughter. That coup d'état, essentially a West
Saxon takeover of the remains of Mercia, was clearly much resented. The king's
visits to Cheshire and north Wales in 919 and 921, which resulted in the
building of three new burhs, may well have been as much to suppress the
consequent local unrest as to deal with the Vikings. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
924 CE
Edward the Elder died on 17 July
924 CE on the royal estate at Farndon-on-Dee shortly after marching to Cheshire
to put down a joint revolt by Mercians and Welshmen at Chester. Some historical
accounts suggest he may have succumbed to wounds received during or around
these military operations.
Eventually, in 924, the men of
Chester revolted in alliance with the Welsh. Edward went again to the
North-West, took and garrisoned the city, but died shortly afterwards near by at Farndon. At the time Chester was thus clearly
seen as a military centre of great importance, whose contacts with the
Hiberno-Norse and north Wales rendered it particularly sensitive. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
The accession of Æthelstan in 924 restored the burh's fortunes. The king,
who had been brought up at the court of his aunt Æthelflæd, was popular with and
well disposed towards his Mercian subjects. During his reign Chester retained
its strategic significance because of its command over the route to Dublin and
its proximity to Wales, whose princes' relations with the West Saxons were
always ambiguous.
927 CE
Æthelstan of Wessex invaded the
Scandinavian York. He thereby united the Kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and
Northumbria. This was probably a military invasion by Æthelstan
who marched north and destroyed the Scandinavian stronghold at York. There followed
an important meeting at Eamont Bridge near Penrith, near ancient earthworks of
King Arthur’s round table and Mayburgh Henge, between
the rivers Lowther and Eamont, where roads converged from all directions. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records that kings from across
Britain converged here on 27 July 927 CE at a meeting which is generally taken
to be the founding of the Kingdom of England.
Æthelstan maintained control over his homelands
of Wessex and Mercia by itineration (itinerant travel directly across his lands), but adopted a new approach to governing the new
territories further away. He called on the rulers of those lands to attend him
at increasingly large royal assemblies. The charters increasingly comprised
long lists of names of former rulers now reduced to subreguli, or
sub-kings. Some were so large that they must have been held in the open air.
They were also a means of demonstrating Æthelstan’s majesty
to his newly enlarged realm.
937 CE
In 937 Chester may well have
sheltered Æthelstan before his victory over the Scots
and the Dublin Norsemen at 'Brunanburh' (probably nearby Bromborough), and it
was again crucially placed in 942 when there was collusion between the Welsh
and the Scandinavian kingdom of York during King Edmund's campaign against the
latter. (Early medieval Chester
400-1230, in A History of the
County of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
955 CE
Eadred of Wessex died on 23
November 955 CE. He was succeeded by his older brother Edmund’s 15 year old son, Eadwig. His reign was degenerate and
divisive. Somehow influenced by a Mercian faction, Eadwig ejected the advisers
of his predecessor, including the ancient Queen mother Eadgifu and the
influential nobleman Æthelstan Half King (so called
for his powerful position in the court). Dunstan’s estates were seized and he
was exiled.
His regime was unstable and
massive tracts of land were granted during his reign to attempt to buy
political support. The kingdom almost reached a point of civil war.
957 CE
The tide turned under the
influence of a crystallisation of opposition to the new king’s approach. Out of
the chaos, a great council in 957 CE divided the kingdom, so that Eadred controlled
Wessex, but his younger brother Edgar became king of Mercia and Northumbria. It
looked possible at this stage that Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria would once
again go in separate directions.
973 CE
The rise of a local or at least
Mercian ealdorman and the Mercian particularism fostered by Ælfhere
meant that increasingly Chester lay on the fringes of royal authority. That was
a further reason for the insignificant role assigned to its mint in the centralizing
measures of 973. Nevertheless, Chester was still a significant place, the scene
of a notable expression of Edgar's imperial ambitions, the celebrated encounter
with a group of Scots, Welsh, and Scandinavian rulers at which he was allegedly
rowed on the Dee in token of submission. The sources differ about the number
and identities of those involved, but it seems likely that Edgar did indeed
take his fleet to Chester, where he met eight princes, including the kings of
Scots and Strathclyde, the king of Gwynedd and other Welshmen, and the king of
the Isles and another Norse ruler, perhaps from Wales or Cumbria. Although the
account of the rowing from Edgar's palace on the Dee to the church of St. John
and back appears only in post-Conquest sources, there was clearly a naval
element in the ceremony. Taking place soon after Edgar's belated coronation at
Bath in 973, it was undoubtedly a special occasion, although whether it was
viewed by all the participants as a long-term submission to imperial authority
is debatable. Probably it set the seal on a more ad hoc relationship, a pact
between parties interested in keeping Scandinavian raiders out of the Irish
Sea. As such, the episode illustrated the city's ambivalent position. Although
an important harbour and naval base, it was relatively remote from the
heartlands of English royal power, and hence a suitable setting for encounters
with other ruling princes. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
978 CE
Edward the Martyr was killed under
suspicious circumstances in 978 CE. Edward had travelled to Corfe in Devon to
visit Æthelred and his mother Ælfthryth. As he approached he was met by a band of armed men who pulled him
off his horse and murdered him. He was buried at Wareham, without ceremony. He
soon became a martyr. It was Æthelred, Ælfthryth and Æthelwold who were the beneficiaries of the event.
Ælfthryth and Æthelwold
with the Mercian ealderman, Ælfhere
ruled on behalf of the twelve year old boy, as
regents. Ælfhere, the powerful and anti-monastic
Ealdorman of Mercia, served as a dominant regent during the young king's early
years
Æthelred was given a bad reputation
after his death, from ominous portents of his failings from the time of his
baptism. The Unready was a mis interpretation of his nickname, the unraed, meaning badly advised, a pun on his name Æthelred,
which meant noble counsel. His reputation arose because Scandinavian raids
returned during his reign, and he failed to deal with them with the same
efficiency as his ancestor, Alfred. Yet he ruled for 38 years, one of the
longest of the Anglo Saxon period.
Chester's economic fluctuations in
the 10th century were accompanied by changes in the local administration, most
notably by the rise of strong local ealdormen whose interest in the city
eventually eclipsed that of the king. Such figures could be expected to take
considerable profits not only from customs and tolls levied in the city but
also from the mint.
(Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
The rural landscape was also
changing. In Mercia and Wessex this started to occur by the ninth century, but
in Kent and East Anglia, it sometimes did not occur until the eleventh century
or later. It was driven by peaceful conditions which started to be felt in
Northumbria after 954 CE with the expulsion of the Scandinavian kings. It was also
driven by a growing population.
Previously the elite class (kings,
ealdermen, bishops and abbots) had held vast estates,
with people living in small, isolated settlements making renders to their
overlord. From about the 980s CE, these overlords were splitting up their
estates and granting smaller ones to their dependants, so that smaller
lordships emerged. This resulted in farmers moving closer together forming
communities that were the early villages. This resulted in greater cooperation,
with the purchase of communal plough beats and the overlords provided them with
new technology such as watermills to save the daily grind by hand in return for
payment. These new villages were often named after their creator.
More prosperous landowners started
to build long ranges, divided internally into halls, and some even with a
second floor. Private churches also started to appear.
There were opportunities for the
elite class to reorder the landscape. The focus of agriculture in more difficult
times was on pigs, sheep and cattle, with the more arduous task of growing
crops being more restricted. With the growth of villages, common land was
converted for arable use, in time leading to the open field system of the later
medieval period.
(The Anglo Saxons, A History of the Beginnings of
England, Marc Morris, 2021,
page 321 to 324).
The roots of the open field system
lay in the Late Saxon Period when earlier settlements, which were dispersed and
surrounded by their own fields, were replaced with larger centralised villages
with open field systems. This was a parish based
system of arable farming, involving two or three large open fields which were
subdivided into small strips of about half an acre each. Groups of these strips
were referred to as furlongs. The arable land of the open fields was managed
by common agreement among the tenants, each of whom would have possession of several
strips and furlongs scattered through the open fields. Disputes were settled at
the manorial court, where the tenants also met to decide which furlongs were to
remain farrow and where animals could be grazed. It was realised that grazing,
manuring and leaving land fallow were important if the arable land was to be
rested to regain its fertility and minimise plant diseases. Animals were also
grazed in the woods and on open pasture, often on heavier clay land around the
fringes of the parish. The arable land was closest to the village, and was
usually the best drained, lightest and most fertile ground. The big drawback to
the system was the fact that individual holdings were so widely dispersed, but
as time passed there was a tendency to rationalise them into groups of
furlongs. After the Black Death, this process gathered pace as land became more
freely available and the rules governing the open field system grew less rigid.
In practice the system varied from place to place. (Britain in the Middle Ages, An
Archaeological History, Francis Pryor, 2007,
page 119).
980 CE
Chester was the administrative as
well as the military centre for the district involved in its maintenance as a
royal fortress. Above all, it was the site of the court for a shire which may
have originated in the early 10th century and certainly existed by 980. The
area involved was large: it presumably comprised the 12 hundreds of Cheshire
listed in the Domesday Survey, and possibly for a while included south
Lancashire as well. The city had an important mint, whose activities, at least
in the earlier 10th century, were almost certainly supervised by royal
officials, and whose exceptional productivity is a clear indication that
Chester mattered to kings. Its fortunes mirrored those of the city. Having
flourished under Æthelflæd, when it produced coins of distinctive north-western
design, it reverted to more standard types when Edward the Elder took over,
probably because of the intrusion of new moneyers from the South. Under
Æthelstan, when coins first had a securely identifiable Chester mint-signature,
a distinctive type was again issued, one which eschewed the portrait head of
the alien West Saxon kings. Remarkably, the mint then became the most prolific
centre of coin production in England, rivalling London in importance. (Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County of
Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and Topography,
ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History Online, pages 16 to
33).
983 CE
Ælfhere died and was succeeded by his
brother-in-law, Ælfric Cild,
as Ealdorman of Mercia.
985 CE
Ælfric Cild
was exiled for treason at a royal assembly in Cirencester. To curb the immense power
of the region, King Æthelred split the central administration and left the
title of Ealdorman of Mercia vacant for over two decades
1007
Seeking to centralise control
amidst fresh, intensifying Viking raids, King Æthelred reunited the region of
Mercia and appointed the fiercely ambitious Eadric Streona
as Ealdorman of Mercia. Eadric cemented his status by marrying the king's
daughter, Ealdgyth.
1015
During a grand council at the
important Mercian border town of Oxford, Eadric Streona
treacherously murdered Sigeferth and Morcar,
prominent thegns of the Seven Boroughs, sparking political chaos.
1016
1016 was a year of shifting
allegiances. Eadric Streona defected to the invading
Danish prince, Cnut, taking a massive Mercian fleet with him. Following the
death of King Æthelred, England was briefly divided between Cnut and Edmund
Ironside, with Cnut ruling Mercia. After Edmund's suspicious death later that
year, Cnut claimed the entire English Crown.
1017
King Cnut restructured England into
four great provincial earldoms, Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia.
Eadric Streona was initially confirmed as Earl of
Mercia, but Cnut had him executed for his untrustworthiness later that winter.
Leofwine was appointed to oversee parts of the region.
1023 to
1032
Leofric, son of Leofwine, was
elevated to Earl of Mercia. Alongside his famous wife, Godiva, Leofric became
a legendary patron of Mercian religious houses such as Coventry
and ruled the region with stability for nearly three decades.
Godiva’s Old English name was Gōdgifu, meaning "God's gift". She
lived from around 1004 to somewhere between 1066 and 1086. She was married to Leofric, Earl
of Mercia, a powerful and wealthy women. She and her husband were major
landowners who generously funded churches and monasteries, most notably
founding a large Benedictine monastery in Coventry in 1043. She was mentioned
in the Domesday Book. According to tradition, Leofric imposed heavy, oppressive
taxes, including the heregeld, on the people of Coventry. Godiva
repeatedly begged him to reduce the burden. Exasperated by her constant pleas,
Leofric jokingly or mockingly declared he would lower the taxes only if she
rode through the town's marketplace completely naked. Expecting his modest wife
to refuse, Godiva took him up on the challenge. She instructed the townspeople
to stay indoors with their doors and windows bolted, then rode through the
streets covered only by her long, flowing hair. Leofric kept his word and did
not impose the taxes. The story first appeared in the Chronicle of Roger of
Wendover, a St Albans monk who wrote it down more than 100 years after Godiva's
death. (The
City of Coventry: The legend of Lady Godiva, in A History of the County of
Warwick: Volume 8, the City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick, edited by W
B Stephens, London, 1969).
1051
A political crisis erupted between
Edward the Confessor and the over powerful House of Godwine. Earl
Leofric deployed the Mercian military to support the King, preventing a
full-scale civil war and forcing the Godwines
into temporary exile.
1057
Earl Leofric died and was buried
in Coventry. He was succeeded by his son, Ælfgar, as
Earl of Mercia.
1058
Earl Ælfgar
was outlawed by King Edward under murky charges of treason. He swiftly formed
an alliance with the Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn and a Norwegian fleet, and successfully invaded the Midlands to reclaim his
earldom by force.
1062
Ælfgar died and his young son, Edwin,
succeeded him as Earl of Mercia.
1065
The Northumbrians revolted against
their unpopular ruler, Tostig Godwinson. Earl Edwin and his brother Morcar, who
was chosen as the new Earl of Northumbria, led a combined Northern-Mercian army
down to Northampton to force King Edward to exile Tostig.
1066
On 20 September 1066, Earl Edwin
of Mercia and Earl Morcar of Northumbria led their
forces against an invading Viking army at the Battle of Fulford. The brothers
suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Harald Hardrada.
On 25 September 1066, the new
English King Harold Godwinson gained a decisive victory for over an invading
Norwegian army led by King Harald Hardrada and the English king's traitorous
brother, Tostig Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
On 14 October 1066, still
recovering from their heavy casualties at Fulford, Edwin and his Mercian levies
failed to arrive in time to support Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.
In December 1066, following
Harold's death, Edwin and Morcar reluctantly
submitted to William the Conqueror at Berkhamsted, marking the definitive
collapse of Anglo-Saxon Mercia and the beginning of its absorption into Norman
England.
By 1066 Chester was a prosperous town
with a population of perhaps 2,500-3,000. Rendering a farm of £45 and three
timber of marten pelts (i.e. 120 skins), together with an additional payment
from the moneyers, it was assessed as a half hundred including the adjacent
townships of Handbridge, Newton by Chester, 'Lee' (Overleigh
and Netherleigh), and 'Redcliff', expressly said to
be 'outside the city' but taxed with it. The city had its own laws and customs,
administered by its hundredal court, over which presided 12 judges or doomsmen
(iudices civitatis) drawn from the men of king, earl,
and bishop, and liable to fines payable to the king and earl for failure to
attend. The judges have been regarded as evidence of Scandinavian influence on
the city's institutions and equated with the 'lawmen' (lagemen
or iudices) of certain boroughs in the Danelaw. There
is, however, no indication that they enjoyed the same status as the lawmen, who
had extensive properties and judicial privileges. Indeed
the laws of Chester, which were recorded in Domesday Book in exceptional
detail, suggest that, as in other western towns dominated by a great local
magnate, the status of its citizens was comparatively low. They were obliged to
pay 10s. on taking up land in the city, and were also
liable to heavy fines for failure to pay gavel or rent and for other
misdemeanours.
Late Anglo-Saxon Chester was in
the hands of three lords, king, earl, and bishop, who all owned houses there. The
earl was particularly influential, a reflection of his very powerful position
in Cheshire as a whole. In contrast with those towns where he was simply
allocated the normal third share of a fixed farm, in Chester he was entitled to
a variety of renders and was represented by an agent, a reeve (praepositus or minister) who seems to have had similar
status to the king's representative: his peace was protected from infringement
by the same fine of 40s. as that of the king's reeve. The earl's reeve took a
third of the forfeitures for criminal offences, a third of the payments for
evasions of the tolls, and a third of the tolls themselves. The earl also
received a third of the farm and his due share of the various payments made by
the city's seven moneyers. The 12 doomsmen who presided over the city court
were drawn from his men as well as the king's. Apart from the king's larger
share of the forfeitures, tolls, and renders, the only expression of royal
superiority appears to have been his right of pre-emption of marten furs.
(Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
1069
Chester's close ties with the earls
of Mercia led to its involvement in the rising of 1069-70. In 1069 the men of
Chester in alliance with Eadric the wild and the Welsh besieged Shrewsbury. The
Conqueror, then at York, responded by crossing the Pennines and bringing his
army to Chester, where he built a castle. Resistance collapsed and Earl Edwin
was soon replaced by a Fleming, Gherbod. Identified
as a centre of disaffection, the city was dealt with severely. The construction
of William I's motte and bailey castle south-west of the legionary fortress
almost certainly entailed considerable destruction; when Earl Hugh received the
city, probably in 1071, the value of the farm had been reduced by a third to
£30 and it was described as 'greatly wasted'. Of 487 houses standing in 1066,
205 had been lost and were perhaps not rebuilt before 1086. The increase in the
farm of the city under Earl Hugh to £70 and a mark of gold (about its preConquest level) perhaps indicates more burdensome
exactions rather than returning prosperity.
(Early medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County
of Chester: Volume 5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and
Topography, ed. C P Lewis, A T Thacker (London, 2003), British History
Online, pages 16 to
33).
Bibliography
Bu'lock, J.D. (1972), Pre-Conquest
Cheshire, 383-1066, Volume 3 of the History of Cheshire series. *
Lewis, CP and Thacker, AT (editors) (2003), Early
medieval Chester 400-1230, in A History of the County of Chester: Volume
5 Part 1, the City of Chester: General History and Topography, London,
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