Early medieval armies: campaigning range

In an earlier post, I reviewed the limited evidence on the size of early medieval armies and came to the conclusion that they appear to have been quite small, numbered in scores or perhaps hundreds.

Small-scale armies might be expected to engage in small-scale warfare, such as internal quarrels or border raids and skirmishes not too far from home. What do we know about the campaigning range of early medieval armies?

Evidence

The following battles are mentioned in either Bede or Annales Cambriae between 550 and 700, and a location and/or the participants can be identified or inferred.

Battle of Arderydd
Date: 573 (Annales Cambriae)
Known participants: Gwenddoleu son of Ceidio (territory unknown); Peredur and Gurci (territory possibly York, as discussed in an earlier post)
Location: Uncertain, traditionally placed at Arthuret House near Longtown in Cumbria (see earlier post for evidence and discussion)

Battle of Degsastan
Date: 603 (Bede Book I Ch. 34)
Known participants: Aethelferth of Bernica; Aidan mac Gabran of Dal Riada (Bede Book I Ch. 34)
Location: Unknown; however the territories of Bernicia and Dal Riada are a fair way apart (see sketch map).

Battle of Caer Legion/Legacastir
Date: 613 (Annales Cambriae; see earlier post for discussion)
Known participants: Aethelferth of Bernicia (Bede, Book II Ch 2); Selyf ap Cynan of Powys (Annales Cambriae)
Location: Chester

Battle on the east bank of the river Idle in Mercian territory
Date: 617 (Bede Book II Ch. 12)
Known participants: Aethelferth of Bernicia; Eadwine of Deira; Raedwald of the East Angles and his son Raegenhere (Bede Book II Ch. 12)
Location: Probably Bawtry, since the River Idle flows north-south there and hence has an east bank

Campaign of Eadwine of Deira/Northumbria against the West Saxons
Date: 627 (Bede Book II Ch. 9)
Known participants: Eadwine of Deira/Northumbria; Cuichelm of the West Saxons (Bede Book II Ch. 9)
Location: Unknown*; however, the territories of Northumbria and the West Saxons are separated by a couple of hundred miles

Battle of Haethfelth
Date: 12 October 633 (Bede Book II Ch. 20)
Known participants: Eadwine of Deira/Northumbria; Penda of Mercia; Cadwallon of Gwynedd (Bede Book II Ch. 20)
Location: Usually located at Hatfield Chase near Doncaster

Battle of Hefenfelth or Denisesburn
Date: 634 (Bede Book III Ch. 1-2)
Known participants: Oswald of Bernicia/Northumbria; Cadwallon of Gwynedd (Bede Book III Ch. 1)
Location: Near Hexham (Bede Book III Ch. 2)

Battle of Maserfelth (Bede) / Maes Cogwy (Historia Brittonum, Annales Cambriae)
Date: 5 August 642 (Bede Book III Ch.9)
Known participants: Oswald of Bernicia/Northumbria; Penda of Mercia (Bede Book III Ch.9)
Location: Unknown. Traditionally located at Oswestry on the basis of the place name (“Oswald’s Tree”), though this is not certain.

Battle between Mercia and the East Angles
Date: 635 (Bede Book III Ch. 18)
Known participants: Penda of Mercia, Sigbert and Egric of the East Angles
Location: Unknown. East Anglia and Mercia may well have shared a border by then (depending on the position of the Middle Angles, who occupied a territory between Mercia and East Anglia and who were a sub-kingdom of Mercia in the 650s)

Battle of Winwaed (Bede) / Campus Gai (Annales Cambriae)
Date: 15 November 655 (Bede Book III Ch. 24)
Known participants: Oswy of Bernicia/Northumbria; Penda of Mercia (Bede Book III Ch. 24)
Location: Near Leeds. Penda had campaigned as far as Bebbanburgh in Northumbria some time earlier, as Bede mentions this casually as the background to a miracle story (Bede Book III Ch. 16).

Battle of the Trent
Date: 679 (Bede Book IV Ch. 21)
Known participants: Ecgfrith of Northumbria and his brother Aelfwine; Aethelwald of Mercia (Bede Book IV Ch. 21)
Location: Near the River Trent (Bede Book IV Ch. 21).

Battle of Nechtansmere (Bede) / Lin Garan (Historia Brittonum) / Dun Nechtan (Annals of Ulster)
Date: 20 May 685 (Bede Book IV Ch. 26)
Known participants: Ecgfrith of Northumbria; Bridei king of the Picts (Bede Book IV Ch. 21; the name of the king of the Picts is given in Historia Brittonum Ch. 57)
Location: In Pictish territory. The exact location is uncertain; the two leading candidates are Dunnichen in Angus and Dunachton in Badenoch (see Wikipedia)


Interpretation

Three of the battles in the list were fought at unknown locations (Degsastan, the battle between Northumbria and the West Saxons, the battle between the East Angles and Mercia). The battle between the East Angles and Mercia may have been fought between neighbouring kingdoms with a shared border. If we take the heartland of the kingdom of East Anglia to be King Raedwald’s home near modern Rendlesham in Suffolk, and the heartland of the kingdom of Mercia to be modern Tamworth, they are separated by about 120 miles as the crow flies. If the battle was fought near the halfway point – its location is not recorded – each army would have had to travel about 60 miles. This is a non-trivial distance to walk, or even to ride on horseback, but it isn’t vast. Bernicia and Dal Riada are separated by a similar distance. Northumbria and the West Saxon kingdoms are further apart – York to Winchester is about 200 miles, Bamburgh to Winchester is over 300 miles – so we can reasonably infer that in this battle at least one army had travelled a considerable distance from their home territory.

The battle of the Trent and the battle of Winwaed were fought between Mercia and Northumbria, who may have been neighbouring territories by then (depending on what had happened to the kingdoms that previously occupied the Leeds and North Midlands areas). Northumbria had more or less united Bernicia and Deira by the time of these two battles and so had become quite a large territory, extending from at least Bamburgh in the north to at least the York area in the south, a distance of around 130 miles or so. While warriors from the York area would not have had to travel far to a battle near Leeds (only twenty miles or so) or along the northern stretch of the Trent, any component of the army that had started from Bamburgh would have covered well over a hundred miles, and possibly anything up to two hundred miles from Bamburgh to the middle or upper Trent. From Mercia, the upper and middle Trent is very close at hand, only a few dozen miles from Tamworth, but Leeds or the northern Trent is more like 60 to 90 miles.

Maserfelth may also have been fought on or near a shared border, depending on its location. If it was in the Makerfield area near Wigan it may have been in a border zone between Mercia and Northumbria, although it would still have been 150 miles or so from Bamburgh and something like 90 miles from Tamworth. If Maserfelth was Oswestry, then Oswald of Northumbria was anything up to 200 miles from home.

If Arderydd/Arthuret was fought at its traditional location near Longtown in Cumbria, and if Peredur’s traditional association with York is correct (two ‘ifs’), then Peredur was about 100 miles from home at the battle.

At Caerlegion/Chester, Selyf of Powys may have been on his home ground if Chester was part of the territory of Powys, and in any case had not had to travel far. Aethelferth of Bernicia, however, was nearly 200 miles from the heartland of his territory at Bebbanburgh (modern Bamburgh).

At the battle on the east bank of the Idle, Raedwald of the East Angles was about 130 miles from his heartland at Rendlesham in what is now Suffolk, and Aethelferth was 160 miles from Bebbanburgh. Eadwine of Deira was in exile at Raedwald’s court at the time, so may have travelled to the battle with Raedwald.

At Haethfelth, Cadwallon of Gwynedd was about 140 miles from his territory (taking Degannwy, near Conwy, as the heartland of Gwynedd; the distance is greater if you take Anglesey as the core of Gwynedd).

At Hefenfelth, Cadwallon of Gwynedd was around 200 miles from his territory, and had been in Northumbria for a year according to Bede (Book III Ch. 1). Oswald of Northumbria had been in exile on Iona and had presumably travelled from there, also about 200 miles, to reclaim his patrimony.

Either of the leading candidate locations for Nechtansmere is a long way from home for Ecgfrith of Northumbria; both are about 150 miles from Bamburgh (travelling by land via Stirling).

So, of the twelve battles in the list, we can say with reasonable certainty that in five of them (Caerlegion, the Idle, Haethfelth, Hefenfaelth and Nechtansmere) at least one of the participating forces had had to travel 130 to 200 miles from the heartland of its territory to the battle site. This does not necessarily imply that every member of the army had travelled the full distance, as the distance from the closest region of the relevant kingdom could be a good deal less than the distance from its nominal heartland, and an army might operate in allied or subject territories beyond its own borders.

The battles in the list are most unlikely to be a representative sample. They are those which at least one chronicler thought worth recording and that have come down to us, so they probably represent battles that were considered especially significant or noteworthy at the time. Bede’s casual reference to Penda’s otherwise unrecorded campaign in Northumbria, mentioned in passing as the background to a miracle story, indicates that not all warfare was recorded. Long-distance campaigns may have been particularly worthy of note and thus especially likely to be recorded, in which case this would be a very biased sample. (Not that we are likely to get a better one).

Nevertheless, it does demonstrate that at least some early medieval kingdoms could field an army a considerable distance from their core territories, and in the case of Cadwallon of Gwynedd and his campaign against Northumbria, could do so for an extended time (over a year). It is not possible to say whether this was commonplace, unusual or exceptional, but it was clearly possible.

Sketch map showing the approximate locations of the various kingdoms here.

Map links

Bamburgh
Bawtry
Chester
Dunachton, Badenoch
Dunnichen, Angus
Hatfield Chase
Hexham
Iona
Leeds
Longtown, Cumbria
Makerfield
Oswestry
Rendlesham
Tamworth
York




References
Annales Cambriae, available online
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Historia Brittonum, available online
Annals of Ulster, available online


*There’s a legend that the battle took place in Derbyshire, but as this location depends on a pun in modern English, I have severe doubts as to its veracity.

Early medieval armies: numbers

There are plenty of mentions of battles and skirmishes in surviving early medieval documentary sources, ranging from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History to Brittonic poetry such as Y Gododdin. Unfortunately, there are no detailed descriptions, and certainly no equivalent of accounting records or payment rolls that would show how many soldiers were involved. Can we make even an approximate estimate of the likely numbers involved?

Evidence

Laws of Ine

Old English original:

Ðeofas we hatað oð .vii. men; from .vii. hloð oð .xxxv.; siððan bið here.

--Laws of Ine, available online

Modern English translation:

13. §1. We use the term "thieves" if the number of men does not exceed seven, "band of marauders" [or "war-band"] for a number between seven and thirty-five. Anything beyond this is an "army" [here]

--Regia Anglorum website

Ine was a king of the West Saxons. He succeeded to the throne in 688 when his predecessor Caedwalla abdicated and went on pilgrimage to Rome, and ruled for 37 years according to Bede (Ecclesiastical History Book V Ch. 7). Ine’s law code thus dates to the period between 688 and 725.

The Fight at Finnsburh

Never have sixty swordmen in a set fight
Borne themselves more bravely

--Translated in Alexander (1991)

The ‘sixty swordmen’ are followers of the Danish king Hnaef, attacked in a hall at night by their enemies. The date is uncertain (if indeed the incident is historical and not legendary). However, one of the participants is the (legendary?) warrior Hengest. If (a big if) he is to be equated with the Hengest who came to Britain at Vortigern’s invitation in the mid-fifth century, the date of the Fight at Finnsburh would be somewhat before Hengest’s removal to Britain.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

A.D. 784. This year Cyneheard slew King Cynewulf, and was slain
himself, and eighty-four men with him.

--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, available online

An earlier entry in the Chronicle for the year 755 refers to the same incident (there positioned at the beginning of King Cynewulf’s reign, whereas here it is in its more or less* correct chronological position at the end of his reign). Unlike the Chronicle’s usual laconic entries, the 755 entry reads like a condensed form of a saga. Cyneheard, who was a kinsman of King Cynewulf and had some grievance against him, had killed Cynewulf and made a bid to become King of the West Saxons himself. The 755 entry makes it clear that all Cyneheard’s followers chose to fight and die with him, indicating that 84 men was the size of Cyneheard’s army.

Welsh Triads

Three Faithful War Bands

The War-Band of Cadwallawn, when they were fettered; and the War-Band of Gafran son of Aeddan, at the time of his complete disappearance; and the War-Band of Gwenddolau son of Ceidiaw at Ar(f)derydd, who continued the battle for a fortnight and a month after their lord was slain. The number of each one of the War-Bands was twenty-one hundred men

--Red Book of Hergest, available online

Y Gododdin

Three hundred gold-torqued men
[…]
Three hundred spirited horses
That charged with them
The thirty and the three hundred
Alas! They did not return

--Y Gododdin, stanza B1.9, translated by Koch (1997)

Historia Brittonum

The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself, and in all the wars he emerged as victor.

--Historia Brittonum ch. 56, available online

Interpretation

It seems fairly clear that early medieval armies were not large, numbering a few dozen or a few hundred. All the early English sources give figures of less than 100:

• 35 or more (Ine’s law code, approximately 688-725)


• 60 (Fight at Finnsburh, date uncertain, maybe mid-fifth century)


• 84 (Cyneheard’s army in his attempt to seize the throne of Wessex, approximately 786)

These are broadly consistent with the sort of numbers that might have constituted one or a few ship’s crews of the period. The large Sutton Hoo ship buried in Mound 1 had between 20 and 40 oars – as the tholes had only survived in places along the gunwale the exact number is unknown - and Martin Carver suggests the most likely number is 28, seven pairs each fore and aft of the mast (Carver 1998 p.171). As there would presumably have been people on board who did not row (e.g. the helmsman) the total crew would be more than the number of oarsmen. A ship’s crew is a natural unit for a warband; in Beowulf, the hero and his followers sail in a single ship to Denmark to fight the monster Grendel. Taking Martin Carver’s estimate of 28 rowers for the Sutton Hoo ship and adding on a few non-rowers would come to something resembling the 35-man upper limit for a warband in Ine’s law code. A smaller ship would be consistent with a smaller warband. More than one ship, or a big ship carrying a significant number of extra warriors, would qualify as an army.

If warbands were typically 35 men or fewer, this does not preclude engagements involving larger numbers. Larger armies could have been assembled from multiple warbands, co-operating (to a greater or lesser degree) under a chief leader. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History gives several hints that could be consistent with this type of ‘modular’ organisation. For example, at the Battle of Winwaed in 655, Bede describes Penda’s army as thirty times greater than the army of Oswy and Alchfrid of Northumbria and “...comprised of thirty battle-hardened legions under famous commanders” (Book III Ch. 24). This is consistent with the idea that Oswy and his son Alchfrid between them commanded a single warband, presumably the royal retainers, while Penda had assembled a group of thirty warbands each of similar size. At the Battle of Degsastan in 603 Aethelferth of Bernicia defeated Aidan of Dal Riada, but “...Aethelferth’s brother Theodbald and all his following were killed” (Book I Ch.34). This is consistent with Theodbald leading an independent or semi-independent unit, whose fortune in the battle differed from that of the unit(s) under Aethelferth’s command.

The Brittonic sources suggest somewhat larger numbers, at 300 and 2100, respectively. Both are multiples of 300, which may indicate that they owe as much to poetic convention as to a muster roll. Nevertheless, they presumably give an idea of the sort of numbers that sounded reasonable to the intended audience. Y Gododdin presents elegies to fallen heroes from a variety of kingdoms, which would be consistent with a ‘modular’ alliance made up of multiple independent warbands under joint leadership, as suggested above. The Three Faithful Warbands triad claims that 2100 men comprised a single warband, a far larger number than any of the other sources. However, the Triads survive in a medieval manuscript which may have had numbers mis-copied over the years, or the numbers may have been increased to reflect medieval poets’ ideas about the expected size for an army.

Arthur’s (legendary?) battle at Badon has by far the largest number in any of the sources, at 960 casualties, implying that unless the casualty rate was 100% – surely an impossible feat even for the (legendary?) King Arthur – the number of participants was presumably considerably higher. The number itself may reflect poetic convention, miscopying or plain exaggeration. However, it is roughly three times the number of the doomed company of Y Gododdin, which would be consistent with Badon being regarded (in poetic convention and popular culture at least) as a battle of unusual size and importance. There is no indication of the size of the Arthurian force that inflicted the 960 casualties – assuming that Arthur had an army with him, and was not a superhero who despatched them all single-handed.

The limited documentary evidence available appears consistent with fairly small numbers for armies in the early medieval period, of the order of magnitude of a few dozen or a few hundred, perhaps organised as independent or semi-independent warbands which could be assembled into a larger army under a common leader as occasion demanded.


References

Alexander M (translator). The earliest English poems. Penguin Classics, 1991, ISBN 978-0-140-44594-7.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, available online
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
Historia Brittonum ch. 56, available online
Koch JT. The Gododdin of Aneirin. Text and context from Dark-Age North Britain. University of Wales Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7083-1374-4
Laws of Ine, available online in Old English
Red Book of Hergest, available online




*’More or less’ because the 755 entry says that Cynewulf reigned 31 winters, which would place the fatal fight in 786 rather than 784.