User:Harrias/Cynwit

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Battle of Cynwit
Part of the Viking invasions of England
DateEarly 878
Location
Uncertain, probably in Devon or Somerset, in Wessex (now South West England)
Result West Saxon victory
Belligerents
West Saxons Vikings
Commanders and leaders
Odda, Ealdorman of Devon Ubba †

The Battle of Cynwit, also spelt Cynuit, was a battle fought in early 878 in Wessex between the West Saxons and the Vikings. The location of the battle is uncertain; a variety of places have been suggested, more prominent among which are Cannington Hill in Somerset and Countisbury Hill in Devon. The battle features in Asser's Life of King Alfred, though the details are meagre. Most accounts describe a Viking attack from the Bristol Channel, led by Ubba. With a fleet of 23 ships, he landed on the north coast near a fortification known as Arx Cynuit, a repurposed Iron Age hillfort. The fort was considered to be impregnable other than from the east, and so Ubba settled down to establish a siege.

The Saxons, who had no water source within the fort, launched a dawn attack on the besieging army. Commanded by Odda, an ealdorman of Devon, the attack overwhelmed the Viking army, killed their leader, and captured the Raven banner, Hrefn. It was a rare victory over the Vikings for a Saxon army not commanded by Alfred the Great, and was followed shortly after by the Battle of Edington, where Alfred defeated Guthrum, which led to a treaty dividing England between the West Saxons and the Vikings.

Background[edit]

Viking incursions into the British Isles began during the late 8th century,[1] and initially consisted of seasonal raids along the coast, targeting weak sites of wealth, such as monasteries. From the middle of the 9th century, some of the raiders started to remain; wintering in coastal bases,[2] and during the 860s, the emphasis of the attacks switched from raiding to conquest.[3] A large force, known in Anglo-Saxon England as the Great Army, commanded by a coalition of Scandinavian kings and jarls, first arrived in East Anglia in 865.[4] Æthelred, the King of Wessex, and his brother, Alfred, led the West Saxons in a series of battles against the Great Army in support of the other kingdoms, but by 870, the Great Army had conquered two of the four kingdoms of England: East Anglia and Northumbria, while Mercia had negotiated a settlement with the Danes, which required it to pay tribute to the Danish leaders.[5]

In 870, a Danish army commanded by Halfdan Ragnarsson turned its attention on Wessex, and inflicted defeats on them at Reading, Basing, Meretun and Wilton. The fighting during this campaign particularly fierce, and Halfdan's army had suffered also suffered defeats: at Englefield and Ashdown.[6] Alfred, who had become king after his brothers death in April 871, successfully sued for peace, though historians are split on whether he paid the Danes off, or they accepted because the West Saxons provided more resistance than they had expected.[7][6] In the late 870s, another of the Danish kings, Guthrum led the attacks on Wessex. He held both Wareham and Exeter for a time, before launching a surprise attack on King Alfred at Chippenham in 878, which sent the Saxon king into hiding in the Somerset Levels.[8]

Prelude[edit]

Some historians believe the attack at Cynuit might have been part of a coordinated attack on King Alfred.

According to Asser's The Life of King Alfred, a Viking force operated in the Bristol Channel in the winter of 877–878; he says that this force had previously been raiding in Wales, and consisted of 23 ships.[9] The historian Stephen M. Lewis suggests that the force attacked Wessex to either support Guthrum's attacks, or "because they wanted to share in the spoils after King Alfred’s West Saxons were finally beaten".[10] The idea that that attack was made in coordination with Guthrum's manoeuvres was also shared by the historian Derek Gore, who says that it probably happened after Alfred had fled Chippenham, possibly while he was in the Levels. If Alfred were already in the Levels, then an attack along the north Wessex could provide either a diversion, or allow the two armies to surround Alfred in a pincer manoeuvre.[11]

The leader of the Viking forces is generally recorded as being Ubba, a brother of two of the leaders of the Great Army, Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan.[12] In the "A" manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Viking leader is not named, and is merely referred to as "a brother of" Ivar and Halfdan. The earliest-known reference to Ubba as the leader of the force was made in the 1130s by Geoffrey Gaimar, an Anglo-Norman chronicler, in his Estoire des Engleis. Lewis disagrees with the claim that it was Ubba, pointing out that his last known activity in England had been in 869, and that Gaimar "was a romancer or an historical novelist rather than an historian."[13]

Asser says that some of Alfred's thegns and their followers were inside a fortification known as Arx (stronghold) Cynuit, in Devon. In Æthelweard's translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he places Odda, an ealdorman of Devon, as leader of the group. According to Asser, the citadel had been repurposed from an earlier building: Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge speculate that it had probably previously been a hillfort. Asser says that they had secured themselves within the fort for safety,[9] as it was "very secure from every direction except the east".[12] Gore questions why so much of the West Saxon army, and its leaders, were in such a location. He suggests a range of possibilities: that the nobles had land in that area, that they were acting as coast-guards, or that they were aware of the Viking force operating in the area.[9]

Battle[edit]

The Viking force landed, and as was typical of their tactics at the time, avoided directly attacking the stronghold. They established a siege, aiming to force the Saxons to surrender due to thirst or hunger.[12] Instead, once the Saxons ran out of water, they launched an attack of their own; they sallied out of their fort at dawn and stormed the Viking camp.[9] The attack overwhelmed the Vikings and killed their leader. According to Asser, 1,200 Vikings were killed,[14] a figure that would represent just over 50 men per ship.[15] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claims that 40 men from the leader's personal retinue, and 800 others were killed.[10] In his Doctoral thesis, Shane Mcleod points out that 840 men would give 36.5 men per ship, which is roughly consistent with the 32-man 9th-century Gokstad Ship.[16]

Location[edit]

Harrias/Cynwit is located in West Country
Countisbury
Countisbury
Cannington
Cannington
Castle Hill
Castle Hill
Exeter
Exeter
Athelney
Athelney
Chippenham
Chippenham
Kenwith Castle
Kenwith Castle
class=notpageimage|
Possible locations of Cynwit, with Exeter, Athelney and Chippenham marked for context

The location of Cynwit remains unknown, and has been the matter of academic debate for over 400 years.[9] The seventeenth-century topographer Thomas Westcote remarked that "as many places in [Devon] claim the honour of this victory, as cities in Greece for the birth of Homer".[17] Asser provided little description of the location beyond placing it in "Devonshire", and describing that the fortress was "made after our fashion";[14] meaning British, rather than Saxon.[18] His description of the fort as being "very safe from all sides except the eastern" has generally been interpreted to refer to the topography of the area.[14][9] Typically, it is supposed that the battle happened near the coast, as the Danes attacked from the Bristol Channel, but Richards Brooks says that the shallow draught of the Viking ships would have allowed them to sail up rivers to attack more inland targets.[12]

One of the more prevalent theories places the battle at the Iron Age hill fort on Wind Hill, Countisbury in north Devon. Brooks describes the site as "tactically consistent with Asser's account", though he says that it has been dismissed as phonetically impossible.[12] In contrast, the Survey of English Place-Names supports the etymological basis for Countisbury deriving from Cynuit.[19] In his commentary on Asser's text, Alfred Smyth says that if Asser's description of the location is accepted, then Countisbury is a likely location, but he urges caution on Asser's reliability, pointing out that his description of Wareham "is suspiciously similar".[20] Gore is cautious about locating the battle without knowing the motive behind it. He reasons that if the battle were part of a coordinated effort to surround Alfred, then landing in north Devon was strategically questionable, as it would require a long journey across Exmoor to reach the Somerset Levels.[21]

If the attack was ultimately targeting Alfred on the Levels, then Cannington Camp, another Iron Age hill fort near the mouth of the River Parrett in Somerset is considered an alternative site.[21] A Viking attack up the Parrett could reach all the way to Athelney, and Brooks suggests that "it is hard to resist the implication that Odda was stationed at the mouth of the river" to prevent an attack.[12] The etymology of Combwich is argued to fit with Cynuit,[12] though W. H. Stevenson, an editor of Asser's work, was forthright in his objection to this theory, saying: "Bishop Clifford's attempt to prove that Cynuit was Cannington Park in Somerset, is one of the wildest freaks in his astounding paper."[22] The modern historian Jeffrey James, who supports Countisbury as the location of the battle, does not believe that Cannington meets Asser's description, saying "the defences of Cannington Camp are not markedly secure from three sides".[23]

Westcote suggested that the battle took place at Kenwith Castle,[17] alternatively known as Henniborough or Henni Castle, near Bideford.[24] More recently in 2008, Nick Arnold, an author based in Devon, suggested that a hill fort on Castle Hill, near Beaford in Devon matched the description given by Asser.[25]

Aftermath[edit]

Although the battle was only briefly described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it is specifically mentioned that the Raven banner was captured during the battle.[26] This is the only war prize specifically mentioned in the chronicle.[15] According to the 12th-century manuscript, Annals of St Neots, the banner was said to have been made by three of Ubba's sister, and whether it flew in the wind was considered an omen of the result of the battle.[27] In The Earliest English Kings, D. P. Kirby suggests that the battle might have left Guthrum's forces overextended and thus exposed, leading to his later defeat at Battle of Edington.[28]

The battle in fiction[edit]

A version of the battle appears in The Marsh King, a children's historical novel by C. Walter Hodges, where its location is called "Kynwit". The story gives due credit to Odda for the victory, but the battle describes the Vikings making a night landing, and being defeated immediately upon landing.[29] The battle also features in Bernard Cornwell's novel The Last Kingdom. Cornwell ascribes the victory, as well as the killing of Ubba, to his fictional hero Uhtred, supported by forces commanded by Odda,[30] and it takes place in 877, rather than 878, for narrative purposes.[31]

Notes and references[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Black 1994, p. 24.
  2. ^ Hunter Blair 2003, pp. 62–63.
  3. ^ Brooks 2005, p. 54.
  4. ^ Brooks 1979, pp. 7–8.
  5. ^ Forte, Oram & Pedersen 2005, pp. 69–72.
  6. ^ a b Brooks 2005, pp. 60–63.
  7. ^ Forte, Oram & Pedersen 2005, pp. 72–73.
  8. ^ Starkey 2010, p. 48.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Gore 2016, p. 62.
  10. ^ a b Lewis 2016, p. 33.
  11. ^ Gore 2016, pp. 62–63.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Brooks 2005, p. 65.
  13. ^ Lewis 2016, pp. 33–34.
  14. ^ a b c Asser & Jane 1908, p. 40.
  15. ^ a b Brooks 2005, p. 66.
  16. ^ Mcleod 2011, p. 20.
  17. ^ a b Westcote 1845, p. 342.
  18. ^ Asser & Jane 1908, p. xxx.
  19. ^ "Countisbury". Survey of English Place-Names. English Place-Name Society. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  20. ^ Smyth 2002, p. 226.
  21. ^ a b Gore 2016, p. 63.
  22. ^ Greswell 1910, p. 38.
  23. ^ James 2013, p. 32.
  24. ^ "Kenwith Castle". Heritage Gateway. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  25. ^ Savill 2008.
  26. ^ Swanton 1998, pp. 75–77.
  27. ^ Swanton 1998, p. 77.
  28. ^ Kirby 2000, p. 175.
  29. ^ Walter Hodges 1970.
  30. ^ Cornwell 2005, pp. 296–324.
  31. ^ Cornwell 2005, p. 333.

Sources[edit]

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