Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (7 page)

The actual location of the battle is not known. Historians have suggested that it occurred at Dawstone in Liddesdale. But others have criticized this, saying the only reason for believing it is Dawstone is because of similar sounding words. Degsastan might come from Degga’s stone—perhaps corrupting to Dawstone in time. Equally, there has been a lot of discussion about stones and monoliths—of which there are hundreds in the region including the Lochmaben stone not far away in the Solway Firth and itself a location often used for mustering armies and militia in later centuries.

As a writer of historical fiction, a moment comes when you have to decide which way to jump. I was content to go with Dawstone when researching
Child of Loki
. I visited this place with my family when writing the novel. It is a remote location and, at first glance, seems an unlikely place for a great battle. It does, however, have some supporting evidence. Geographically, it occupies the watershed where rivers and streams flow away west and east and gives access to routes through the hills of the Scottish borders and Northern Pennines. Thus an army heading for Carlisle might just go that way.

Furthermore, archeological digs on the site in the early 20th century found evidence of iron weaponry and arrowheads in the area. There is even today in the southern valley the outlines of a circular fort, a settlement as well as a shallow ditch cutting across Dawstone Rig (the plateau). The top of the rig is littered with the vague remnants of stone cairns—possibly raised over the bodies of the fallen.

In the very old papers of a local archaeological society there is a record of a rather interesting monument which is now lost. There is a photo—of poor quality—of a black tombstone. It was supposed to be found in the south valley near the remains of old fortifications and a settlement. Could this indeed be the place where Theobald died as recorded by Bede?

The Battle of Degsastan features in
Child of Loki
which is the second in my
Northern Crown Series
which follows the history of the late 6th and early 7th centuries.

Anno Domini and the Venerable Bede

by Rosanne E. Lortz

In the year of our Lord
ANNO DOMINI

O
ver twenty centuries of
history have this phrase appended to them, but it has only been fifteen centuries since the system of dating was first devised, and only twelve centuries since the work of the Venerable Bede made it common usage in the Western world.

The Romans used the founding of Rome by the legendary figure Romulus, the year we now know as 753 B.C., as
year one
of their dating system. As the Roman Empire spread, this system of ordering time spread with it.

If Rome still ruled the world, the date on this essay would be the year 2765
ab urbe condita
(and these paragraphs would probably be written in Latin). But Rome went the way of the tyrannosaurus rex, and somewhere in that muddle we know as the Middle Ages, someone decided that time needed to be re-ordered. Someone decided that the founding of a little city on the banks of the Tiber would no longer be the focal point of history.

In A.D. 525, an abbot named Dionysus Exiguus, which translates as Dionysus the Humble, began transferring dates from the Roman system into a new system centered around
“the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Dionysus originated in Scythia (modern day Bulgaria or Romania), but had come to Rome to translate works of theology and compile collections of canon law.

Interestingly, Dionysus was no historian. His purpose for this new method of dating was to correctly calculate the date of Easter for the Christian calendar. Easter, unlike Christmas, is a moveable feast day and, according the First Council of Nicaea, was supposed to be celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox.

Dionysus’ goal was to write out yearly tables so that churches all around the world would know which Sunday to celebrate the holy day. To do this, he re-ordered time to begin year one with the birth of Christ—or what he thought was the birth of Christ, since we now know that Jesus of Nazareth was born in 3 or 4 B.C.

The Roman church adopted the tables but did not yet see how useful Dionysus’ system of dating could be for other things. Historians continued to use the regnal dates of Roman emperors to measure time and still counted up the years since the founding of the city of Rome.

Two hundred years later, a Northumbrian monk known as the Venerable Bede also became preoccupied with the question of when to celebrate Easter. It had been a subject of great dispute in Britain. The adherents of the Celtic church (those who had been evangelized by Columba and the monks from Ireland) often observed the holy day at a different time than the adherents of the Roman church (those who had been evangelized by the Roman missionary Augustine of Kent).

This might seem like a minor point of religious practice to us today, but imagine what it could mean for a kingdom when the king and his courtiers were celebrating the highest holy day of the church year while the queen and her followers were still fasting for Lent. It was a troubling mark of disunity, both religiously and politically.

The Synod of Whitby in 664, which occurred ten years before Bede’s birth, had ruled in favor of the Roman practice (the tables and method of calculation devised by Dionysus Exiguus). By Bede’s death in 735, almost the entire British church had accepted this method. But the controversy was still current enough in his lifetime for him to devote extensive portions of his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
to it.

Somewhere in his historical studies on the Easter controversy, Bede developed a keen interest in Dionysus Exiguus’ method of ordering time. He decided to use the new Anno Domini dating system for his
Ecclesiastical History
, and with this decision, he created a precedent for historians everywhere in the Western world.

It is a difficult matter to convert an entire society from one dating system to another. The numbers we have assigned to the past don’t like to pack up their tents and leave.

Several years ago, when I taught history to high school students, I asked them to pick the most important date in American history and make it year one. Most chose the Declaration of Independence, and with that as the focal point, they had to use their math skills to draw up a timeline of other important dates B.D.o.I and A.D.o.I (Before the Declaration of Independence and After the Declaration of Independence). It is a little mind boggling to realize that the numbers that were drilled into your head all your life (1066, 1215, 1776, 1914) don’t actually mean anything except in relation to the chosen focal point of history.

Despite the difficulty, Bede did a marvelous job of moving the Anglo-Saxon society from the old system of dating to the new one. In the
Ecclesiastical History
he initially used both systems side by side until his readers become acclimated to the change. In the second chapter of his book, Bede wrote:

Now Britain had never been visited by the Romans and was unknown to them until the time of Gaius Julius Caesar who, in the year of Rome 693, that is, in the year 60 before our Lord, was consul with Lucius Bibulus...

In the third chapter, Bede once again cited the Roman system and then followed it up with a time marker from the new system.

In the year of Rome 798 the Emperor Claudius, fourth after Augustus, wishing to prove that he was a benefactor to the State, sought to make war everywhere and to gain victories on every hand...He brought the war to an end in the fourth year of his reign, that is in the year of our Lord 46.

But by the fourth chapter, Bede had fully implemented the new system of Anno Domini and expected the reader to catch on accordingly.

In the year of our Lord 156 Marcus Antoninus Verus was made emperor...In the year of our Lord 189 Severus...became emperor...In the year of our Lord 286 Diocletian, the thirty-third after Augustus, was elected emperor...

Bede’s new use of the Anno Domini dating system spread gradually throughout Europe. By the beginning of the 800s, Alcuin had introduced it to Charlemagne’s court, and in 1422, Portugal became the last Roman Catholic country to adopt this system of reckoning time.

In 1700, Russia discovered that adopting the Anno Domini system was a requirement for westernization. In 1949, the People’s Republic of China jettisoned the old Chinese calendar in favor of the Western and international system.

To accommodate people from other religions, some recent historians have tried to alter the nomenclature of the Anno Domini system to B.C.E. (Before Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era). I suspect that Dionysus Exiguus would have been amused by this effort since even if the names change, the focal point still remains the same.

And once the focal point has been established, it is no easy thing to alter. Until we have a historian as enterprising and influential as the Venerable Bede, year one will stay exactly where it is—at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (give or take a few years).

Source

Bede.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Monarchy: The Early Middle Ages
—
House of Wessex

by Debra Brown

W
hen considering the monarchs of England, we will start with the Anglo-Sax
on kings of the Early Middle Ages—since most of the Romans left and King Arthur may or may not have existed. The earliest works mentioning Arthur are from centuries after he would have lived, and they do not call him a king. There is a stone from Tintagel Castle upon which is carved “
Artognou descendant of Patern
[us]
Colus made
[this].
”
Some have said that this may speak of Arthur, who it was claimed (again, centuries later) was conceived in Tintagel. A battle in which he is said to have fought has been recorded, but there is no mention of him in the writing. The most substantial evidence of Arthur’s existence is that where there is smoke, there must have been a fire. Yet, fictional characters can yield the same smoke.

At the turn of the 6th century, the area now known as England was divided into various kingdoms. Of note is pagan King Æthelberht of Kent who married Bertha, a Frankish Christian princess. This marriage brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon royal houses. Pope Gregory sent the monk Augustine. Æthelberht converted and thereafter claimed the divine right of kings.

King Offa of Mercia (who likely killed his predecessor) ruled 757-796 and brought Mercia to power over the other six kingdoms. He was ruthless and brought an end to their dynasties, including that of Æthelberht. He did claim to be Christian, though he was in conflict with the Church when his rulership or wishes were hampered.

Though Offa had a role in unifying England, his goal was his own personal power. Coins were struck with his image and were of better quality than the Frankish coins of the time. Offa’s Dyke was built, possibly by King Offa and probably to create a barrier and establish commanding views into Wales. The builder had considerable resources.

In the 780s King Egbert of Wessex was forced into exile by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric’s death in 802 Egbert returned and took back the throne. He took Northumbria and defeated the Danes at Hingston Down. He reigned until his death in 839 when he was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf.

Within twenty years of Offa’s death, England had reverted into smaller kingdoms and Viking invasions had begun. By the 860s, the Vikings had decided to stay.

King Æthelwulf of Wessex died in 855, leaving the throne to his four sons, one after the other. Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred all ruled for short periods of time, fighting the Danes. Their youngest brother became known as Alfred the Great; he was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.

Alfred took the throne at age twenty-two. He endured difficulties with the Vikings for some time, but in May 878 he rallied a force of men and won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs. He then trapped the Danes in their stronghold at Chippenham and their king Guthrum fulfilled his promise to leave Wessex.

Alfred reorganized the army to be ready at any time and built the first English Navy. He took London and its mint.

Alfred established a long law code which he determined to be just, taking parts of the Bible into account, and he considered judicial matters with care. He built
burhs
—fortified communities in which, rather than being a place of protection for a lord, the people lived under his patronage and protection. (The suffix “-bury” and the word “borough” come from
burh
.)

Alfred became the King of not just the West Saxons, but of the Anglo-Saxons. He translated a letter from Pope Gregory into the vernacular and sent it to his bishops, establishing himself as the religious head of the country.

Edward I the Elder succeeded his father Alfred in 899. His eldest sister Æthelflæd married Æthelred of Mercia and ruled in his place when he became ill. After her death, her daughter ruled for a short time before being supplanted by Edward. This union helped Edward to recapture the Midlands and Southeast of England from the Danes and drive them out. The princes of West Wales acknowledged Edward as their overlord, but he died in a Welsh-Mercian uprising against him.

Æthelstan succeeded Edward and reigned from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the first English king of several to be crowned on the King’s Stone at Kingston. In 927, he was recognized as overlord by the rulers of Northern England, some of which now includes southern parts of Scotland. Ten years later he defeated Scots, Welsh, and Viking forces at the Battle of Brunanburh and claimed the title “King of all Britain”. He never had a son, but his sisters married five European monarchs, adding to England’s wealth and prestige.

In 939, he was succeeded by his half-brother Edmund I, who subdued the Norse Vikings. The story goes that Edmund was murdered by Leofa, a thief whom he had once exiled. Leofa was instantly killed thereafter.

Eadred, another brother, ruled from 946 through 955, taking the throne at age sixteen. He faced off with former Norse king Eric Bloodaxe, so named after he’d bloodied his axe on his seven brothers—his people drove him into exile for the act. The Vikings had been ruling within the Roman walls of York since the 870s. Eadred threatened all of Northumbria, who then sided with him and drove out Bloodaxe, killing him in the war. Eadred died at age 25 from a digestive malady without a wife or children.

Eadwig (or Edwy), the sixteen year old son of Edmund I lived to the age of twenty, ruling from 955 to 959. The thanes of Mercia and Northumbria switched their allegiance to Eadwig’s younger brother Edgar. Edgar, who took over Mercia and Northumbria at age fourteen, doubted Eadwig’s qualifications. In 957, rather than see civil war, an agreement was reached by which the kingdom would be divided along the Thames, with Eadwig ruling Wessex and Kent in the south and Edgar ruling in the north.

Eadwig’s marriage was annulled by powerful church officials, although that was against the will of both husband and wife. On the day of the king’s Coronation Feast, Bishop Dunstan dragged King Eadwig away from the young woman. Dunstan claimed that they were too closely related, but they were less so than today’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip.