Burghal Hidage

The Burghal Hidage is an Anglo-Saxon document providing a list of Wessex's fortified burhs. It offers an unusually detailed picture of the network of burhs that Alfred the Great designed to defend his kingdom from the predations of Viking invaders. [Stenton, F. (1971). "Anglo-Saxon England". Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.] [ Hill, D., & Rumble, A. R. (eds.)(1996). "The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon fortifications". Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.]

Burhs and hides

Burhs were fortified towns or forts in Anglo-Saxon England, built as a defence against the Vikings, as well as being strategically offensive against positions held by the Vikings. The burhs of Wessex, listed in the Burghal Hidage, formed part of a system built by King Alfred, arguably in the years 878-9. Other burhs were built by Alfred's son Edward the Elder in his campaigns against the Vikings who were in control of much of Mercia as well as East Anglia. Alfred's daughter Aethelflaed, and her husband Aethelred, also built burhs in western Mercia. These became administrative centres which were related to the shiring of Mercia in the early 10th century.

Burhs had official status recognised by grants such as the right to mint coinage. In Wessex, these fortified communities were geographically distributed so that, in the period when the Burghal Hidage was compiled, everyone in Wessex lived within a day's march of a place of refuge.

Burhs were supported by the labour of the inhabitants of the burghal district, which was assessed by hides. In regions of medieval England outside the Danelaw, the hide was a unit of land defined according to its agricultural yield and taxable potential rather than its area. The areas of hides ranged from 15 to 30 modern acres (6 to 12 hectares). One hide was assumed to support one household. In wartime, five hides were expected to provide one fully armed soldier, and one man from every hide was to provide garrison duty for the burhs and to help in their initial construction and upkeep. The continued maintenance of the burhs, as well as ongoing garrison duty, was also probably supplied by those inhabitants of the new burhs which were planned by the king as new towns. In this way the economic and military functions of the larger burhs were closely interlinked.

Origins of the document

The current received view is that the existing document is dated to the reign of Alfred's son Edward. The list identifies 33 burhs, most founded during Alfred's reign. The view that the Burghal Hidage is of early 10th century date is based on the inclusion of Buckingham, which is sited not in Wessex but in eastern Mercia, and is first mentioned as being created as a burh by Edward the Elder in 914 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). Furthermore, Oxford, also in the document, is similarly in Mercia, and is not mentioned until 910 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). One explanation offered for its function is that it was created as a blue-print for the way that burhs were connected with hidation, originally worked out in Wessex, and applied to the situation in Mercia at that time. This received view has now been challenged from two directions – from the perspectives of the strategies involved [J Haslam, ‘King Alfred and the Vikings: strategies and tactics, 876-886AD’, "Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History" 13 (2005), 121-153.] , and a new interpretation of the coinage of King Alfred [M Blackburn, 'The London Mint in the Reign of Alfred', in M A S. Blackburn and D N Dumville (eds) "Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage in Southern England in the Ninth Century" (1998) pp. 105-23. S Keynes, 'King Alfred and the Mercians', in M.Blackburn & D.Dumville (eds) , "Kings, Currency and Alliances. History and Coinage in Southern England in the Ninth Century" (1998), 1-45.] .

The order of citation of the individual burhs in the document, in a clockwise circuit around Wessex rather than on a shire by shire basis, indicates that at the time of the original composition of the document all the burhs were seen as being part of a single system. The defining characteristic of this system is that these fortified sites would have all been built at one occasion to serve a single strategic end, in that the functions of all the individual components of the system complemented the functions of each of the others. It follows that it cannot have originated, for instance, as a core number to which others were added at a later date. By the early 10th century this system was already long out of date and overtaken by events. It is not likely therefore to have survived as a viable and effective system to be recorded as such in the Burghal Hidage after 914. There would, furthermore, have been no reason to add Buckingham to a system which by 914 was already redundant in the rapidly-evolving political situation of the times. There are therefore good grounds for suggesting that the system (and therefore the document which describes it) is considerably earlier in date.

Political and military context

It has long been recognised that the system of burhs recorded in the Burghal Hidage was the creation of King Alfred, the received view being that they were in place by the time of the second Viking invasions in the 890s (based on the evidence in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the existence of garrisons in many of them by this time), and that most of them were constructed in the 880s. However, the fact that nearly half the number of hides in the system were allocated to burhs on the northern border of Wessex with Mercia suggests a context for the creation of this system in the period when Mercia was occupied and controlled by the Vikings. This was the situation in the period from 874, when the Vikings at Repton installed Ceolwulf as king of Mercia to replace Burgred. The most probable context on strategic grounds is in the short period between 877 and 879, when Mercia was partitioned between Ceolwulf and Guthrum. The creation of this system by King Alfred can therefore best be seen as both an in-depth defence of Wessex against possible invasion of Viking forces (such as indeed happened in the period 875-early 878), and as a strategic offensive against the Vikings who controlled Mercia and London at that time.

Work on the minting patterns of the coinage of the period has shown that King Alfred was in control of London and the surrounding area until c.877, exactly the time when the Vikings are recorded as partitioning Mercia and taking control of its eastern extent. Thereafter the coins minted in London are in the name of the Mercian King Ceolwulf alone. After his decisive defeat of the Vikings at the battle of Edington in early 878, Alfred was once again able to take the offensive. His victory must have earned him wide acclaim. It is this juncture which seems the most appropriate time for the start of the planning and construction of the system of burhs recorded in the Burghal Hidage. Throughout 878 Guthrum’s Vikings were in control of Mercia and, arguably, London, with his base in Cirencester. The creation of burhs at Oxford and Buckingham at this time fits in with the likelihood that Alfred was able to regain control of this area which he had exercised before being deprived of it as a result of the Viking partition of 877, and their siting demonstrates that he was able to initiate a strategic offensive against the Vikings in Eastern Mercia and London. Alfred’s standing enabled him to impose a level of conscription on the population of his kingdom to construct the burhs, to act as garrisons behind their defences, and to serve in his new army, at a level which was probably not attained again until the Second World War.

The retreat of Guthrum and his band to East Anglia in late 879, and the similar retreat of the Viking army stationed at Fulham (just to the west of London) back to the Continent at the same time (both events recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), can be seen as a tactical response to the effectiveness of the strategic offensive posed by the construction of the Burghal system. The ratification of a mutually-agreed boundary to the east of London, in Alfred and Guthrum’s Treaty, between Guthrum’s new Viking kingdom of East Anglia and Alfred’s newly-won territory, can best be ascribed to this time. These developments gave Alfred control of London and its surrounding territory, which included a good length of the strategically-important Watling Street as it approached London. This interpretation is supported by the issue at this time of the special celebratory London Monogram coinage from the London mint, now under the control of Alfred, and by the issue at the same time of coins from Oxford and Gloucester in southern Mercia [M Blackburn, 'The London Mint in the Reign of Alfred', in M A S. Blackburn and D N Dumville (eds.) Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage in Southern England in the Ninth Century (1998) pp. 105-23.] .

The fact that the Burghal Hidage does not include London, only taken in late 879; that many of the burhs recorded in the document were of a temporary nature and were only replaced by more permanent fortified sites later on; and that its organisation reflects a strategic offensive against the Viking presence in Mercia and London, are factors which argue strongly that the Burghal Hidage is a prescriptive list describing a system which was in process of being planned and implemented before late 879. It is therefore likely to have originated in a context in which the logistics of the system and the means for its implementation and support were being worked out in practice on the ground. The fact that the construction of a burh at Buckingham by Alfred can be logically placed within this strategic scheme at this period (878-9), removes the necessity of having to place the creation of the original version of the Burghal Hidage after the first documentary mention of Buckingham in 914. Its composition can therefore be most appropriately placed in a West Saxon context, rather than one which relates to the formation of burhs and shires in Mercia in the early 10th century – to which situation it has no relevance.

In Wessex a number of the burhs which were part of the system recorded in the Burghal Hidage, and which were merely fortresses rather than fortified towns, were in many cases replaced at a later date by larger fortresses which were fortified towns. The received view of the date of this process is that this took place in the 920s or 930s (in the reign of Athelstan [: D Hill, 'Athelstan's urban reforms', Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 11, 173-185.] . More recently, arguments have been given which places these changes in the reign of Alfred, possibly in the 890s in response to the new Viking invasions [J Haslam, ‘King Alfred and the Vikings: strategies and tactics, 876-886AD’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 13, 121-153.] . Examples of this process can be seen in the replacement of Pilton by Barnstaple, and Halwell by Totnes and Kingsbridge in Devon [J Haslam, 'The towns of Devon' in J.Haslam (ed.) Anglo-Saxon Towns in Southern England, (Phillimore), pp. 249-283.]

List of burhs

This list shows the 33 burhs included in the existing document in order of hidage. Burhs that were probably added to the document after Alfred's time are shown in bold. The hidage for Exeter is thought to be too low, and likely an error.

Winchester	2400
Wallingford	2400
Warwick	2400
Southwark	1800
Wareham	1600
Buckingham	1600
Chichester	1500
Cricklade	1500
Wilton	1400
Oxford	1400
Lewes	1300
Malmesbury	1200
Worcester	1200
Sashes	1000
Bath	1000
Bridport	760
Exeter	734
Burpham	720
Shaftesbury	700
Chisbury	700
Langport	600
Eashing	600
Watchet	513
Hastings	500
Portchester	500
Twynam	470
Axbridge	400
Pilton	360
Eorpeburnan	324
Halwell	300
Southampton	150
Lydford	140
Lyng	100

ee also

* History of the English borough

External links

* [http://www.ogdoad.force9.co.uk/alfred/alfhidage.htm The Burghal Hidage]

References