THE SAXON SETTLEMENT OF ENGLAND
With the settlement of the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes in England, this book has no immediate concern, but it is worthy of note that having driven the British people westward into Wales and south-westward into Cornwall, they quickly spread over the greater part of England. Their weapons, their costumes, their jewellery, and, indeed, their general standard of civilization, are clearly reflected and illustrated by the contents of numerous cemeteries, which have been scientifically explored and examined. We know little of their houses or other buildings until the eleventh century, when we are aided by the actual remains of churches, the evidence of illuminated manuscripts and the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.”
There is, however, one fact which stands out quite clearly in an age which is remarkable for the obscurity of its historical evidence. This is that the Saxons, as a general rule, did not immediately occupy the ruins of Romano-British towns or houses. On the contrary, they seem to have avoided them, even to the extent of diverting the roads which originally passed through the towns. This is so marked that we can only infer that it was due to a superstitious dread of sites which had once been inhabited by the Romans. The site of the important Romano-British town of Silchester, although full of evidences of Roman occupation, and of intercourse with contemporary British population, has furnished absolutely no trace of Saxon habitation.
What was true of cities and towns and houses, was probably true of the coast fortresses upon which the Romans, particularly in the latter part of their occupation of Britain, had expended so much time and labour.
It is extremely doubtful whether the Saxons ever garrisoned the coast fortresses abandoned when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain. Numismatic evidence shows that there was an Anglo-Saxon mint at Lymne, the Portus Lemanus of the Romans, and possessing an important harbour. The coins minted there range from King Edgar’s time to that of Edward the Confessor, but there is reason to believe that the Roman site was deserted at an early period in the Saxon occupation, the neighbouring town of Hythe taking its place. Certain Saxon coins bearing the legend RIC, have been attributed to a mint at Richborough, but there is a good deal of doubt as to this identification. Coins of middle and late Saxon kings, as we might have expected, were minted at Canterbury, Rochester, Sandwich, and Dover, but generally speaking the evidence of Saxon coinage does not support the view that the purely coast fortresses of the Romans were ever used to any great extent by the Saxons.
The Saxons built burhs, or towns fortified with earthen ramparts, probably palisaded, in many parts of the kingdom, and the evidence for them will be found in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” but they were not castle-builders. They were a people with tribal instincts and traditions. They did not construct defensive dwellings for a single lord and his family and retainers; they expended their efforts rather on fortified towns for the protection of all their people.
Wareham, in Dorset, is generally believed to be an example of the fortified towns of the Anglo-Saxons. Sandwich, again, which retains considerable traces of mediaeval earthern ramparts, and was a port of great consequence in early times, was also probably fortified by the Anglo-Saxons. It is impossible to say whether any part of its earthwork defences are of that early period. Dover, Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, Colchester, and some other walled towns of Roman origin, appear, from archaeological evidence, to have had Anglo-Saxon populations, possibly of late date, when the Roman houses had disappeared and the dread of the Romans had become forgotten. It may be doubted whether the Saxons took advantage of the Roman walled defences.
As we have already pointed out, there are very few remains of purely defensive works belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period. For this reason the quadrangular moated site at Bayford, near Sittingbourne, in Kent, is of peculiar interest, because as Mr. Harold Sands, F.S.A.,[13] has pointed out, the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” mentions that King Alfred here threw up a “geweorc” in 893 in order to repel the inroads of the Danes under Bjorn-laernside, who had formed an encampment at a place called Milton, in Kemsley Downs on the opposite side of Milton Creek, a mile and a half north of Bayford Castle.
The incursions of the Danes and other raiders provided the Saxons with excellent opportunities for displaying their skill in defensive warfare, and brought into prominence a great man whose name must ever be held in honour as one of the bravest and most enlightened defenders of our shores. To King Alfred, commonly known in recent years as Alfred the Great, belongs the credit of having conceived the idea of destroying the enemy’s power at sea in order to secure the safety of our shores. He seems to have been the first man in our history to have grasped this great principle. He led this navy to action in person and so acquired the epithet of “the first English admiral.”
Early in his reign, King Alfred devoted his attention to the important question of his navy, and he brought it to such a condition of strength and proficiency as to defeat the Danish raiders, one of the greatest pests by which our shores were ever troubled.
DANISH INCURSIONS AND CAMPS
The coast-line of England is of curious complexity, and is long out of all proportion to that of any other great European nation, perhaps not even excepting Norway. Consequently its defence presents and always has presented problems of great difficulty. Much of the coast-line is rocky and dangerous even for friendly shipping. In other places, where cliffs are absent, shoals and sand-banks make navigation and landing difficult and dangerous. In looking back to the days when there were no artificial harbours and landing-places, one sees quite clearly that estuaries of rivers would have afforded the safest and most convenient places for landing. That such spots were selected is abundantly proved by tradition, history, and actual contemporary remains.
The Danes were quick to seize upon such favourable landing-places. They were provided with boats of great length and slight draught, and their operations were not limited, therefore, to the deeper rivers. During the latter years of the eighth century, and practically throughout the tenth, the Danish raids on Britain were numerous. In due course they established themselves on river-banks, and built permanent camps. According to the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Hasting constructed and occupied a camp at Shoebury for a short period in the year 894. The camp, or such part of it as now exists, has been described by Mr. Spurrell[14] as a Danish work. The place has been much destroyed by the inroads of the sea and the building of various military works, such as barracks, etc., but the plan can be made out, and as restored by Mr. Spurrell, may be described as an irregular quadrangle with rounded corners, and containing an area of about one third part of a square mile.
Another Danish camp was constructed the same year at Appledore, the Danes sailing or rowing up the river Rother. According to Somner[15] they discovered at Appledore a half-built fortress, but finding it insufficient for their needs they built a larger entrenchment on the same site.
FIG. 18. PLAN OF DANISH CAMP, SHOEBURY, ESSEX
Other places where the Danes settled were Benfleet, probably Swanscombe (although the existing remains of the camp belong probably to the Norman period); Bramber, Sussex; an earthwork surrounding East Mersea Church, Essex; and many other places. Here they constructed their camps and established their forces for long periods, using the adjacent rivers as channels for quickly putting to sea in their swiftly-moving boats when embarking on raiding excursions to the neighbouring coasts.
They raided Sheppey in 832, Kent, Canterbury and London in 851. In 876 they took Wareham, where are interesting earthen town-walls, perhaps of Saxon origin. During one or more of their raids in the Medway they penetrated as far as Rochester, which they pillaged. Sandwich and Canterbury suffered much from their visits in the eleventh century.
It may be noted that the favourite methods of the Danes when invading England was to enter the rivers so as to reach by that means populous towns and districts where they could seize valuable possessions. The monastic houses were their favourite prey, and few in England escaped injury or pillage at their hands.
The following extract from the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” gives a vivid picture of the doings of the Danes at the end of the tenth century:
“A.D. 999. In this year the army again came about into the Thames, and then went up along the Medway, and to Rochester. And then the Kentish force came against them, and they stoutly engaged together, but alas! that they too quickly gave way and fled; because they had not the support which they should have had. And the Danish had possession of the place of carnage; and then took horses and rode whithersoever they themselves would, and ruined and plundered almost all the West Kentish. Then the king with his ‘witan’ resolved that they should be opposed with a naval force, and also with a land force. But when the ships were ready, then they delayed from day to day, and harassed the poor people who lay in the ships; and ever as it should be forwarder, so was it later, from one time to another: and ever they let their foes’ army increase, and ever they receded from the sea, and ever they went forth after them. And then in the end neither the naval force nor the land force was productive of anything but the people’s distress, and a waste of money, and the emboldening of their foes.”
THE NORMAN INVASION OF ENGLAND
It is a remarkable fact that the greatest event in the whole history of foreign attack upon England, namely, the invasion under the leadership of William, Duke of Normandy, in 1066, excited less interest, and provoked less effective opposition than many other incidents of infinitely minor importance.
The invasion was not unexpected by any means. When tidings of the projected invasion reached England, the largest fleet and army ever seen in this country were being mobilized at Sandwich. Yet, when the Norman invaders actually arrived the English made practically no opposition at all. It appears that the crews of the navy were tired of being under arms so long, and went home; whilst the king was bound to go northward to put down the troubles in Yorkshire. Nothing was ready.
The Norman fleet consisted, according to various accounts, of from 696 to 1,000 vessels. It can hardly be described as a navy, because the ships were too small to carry much more than the men and their arms: there was no room for provisions, and when on the 28 September 1066, the invaders landed in Pevensey Bay they encountered no opposition. In the Battle of Hastings the English forces were protected within palisaded entrenchments, but the result of the conflict was a decisive defeat.
The Normans having secured a foot-hold in the country, commenced at once to make their tenure secure, and to establish their power. This they accomplished with wonderful skill and success.
NORMAN COAST CASTLES
The castles first built in England by the Normans consisted of palisaded earthworks, the main feature being a lofty but truncated mound encircled by a deep ditch, and closely related to it were generally two courts or baileys. They were built in such situations as would command rivers and important roads, and so dominate the English people. Usually the castles of this period were built just within the boundaries of walled towns. The relation of the Tower to the City of London affords an excellent example of this arrangement.
Primarily the purpose of the Norman castle was to complete the work begun at the Battle of Hastings of subjugating the native population of England, and it is believed that castles of this type were employed for this purpose, because of the ease and rapidity with which they could be thrown up. Castles of this type were erected in England, not only after the Norman Conquest but also before it, and at one time the idea was generally held that they represented the usual and normal species of defence employed in Saxon times. The late G. T. Clark, who was a pioneer in the scientific study of English and Welsh castles, considered that these works were the actual burhs of the Anglo-Saxons, so often mentioned in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.” The theory was generally accepted for some years, but in due course doubts were cast upon it by the researches of Dr. J. Horace Round, Mrs. E. S. Armitage and others. It is now generally held that those examples of this type of defence which are known to have been constructed before the Conquest were built under the influence of Edward the Confessor’s Norman friends. England at that time was following the fashions of Normandy; but the great majority of defences of this type were built, probably, very soon after the Norman Conquest, and under the direct influence of the Norman Conquerors. It is worthy of note that numerous examples exist to this day in Normandy, and some, with the characteristic palisaded mound, are represented in the Bayeux tapestry.
In many cases the earthwork castles as first built were, in due course, rebuilt in stone, the top of the mound being capped by a shell-keep and the other eminences being surmounted and reinforced by walls. Another type of keep, generally square in plan and of great strength and size, was built, as at Dover, Rochester, Canterbury, London, etc.; but such massive structures required firm foundations, and they were always built on undisturbed sites. These two kinds of keeps practically determine the two types into which the Norman castles built in England naturally fall.
A fairly large proportion of those Norman castles which may be considered to have been built for coast defence, have been constructed in such a way as to take advantage of pre-existing Roman castra. Porchester is an admirable specimen. Here the north-western portion of the Roman enclosure has been cut off by Norman walls so as to form the inner bailey, whilst the remainder has been converted into the outer bailey. Pevensey, London, Rochester, Colchester, Cardiff and Lancaster are other excellent examples.
In passing, it may be noted, that at Reculver and Porchester, the parish church has been built, doubtless for safety, within the walls of the castrum; whilst at Pevensey two parish churches have been erected sufficiently near the castrum to suggest that the sites were selected with a view to securing protection.
The regular castles of masonry erected during the reign of Henry II, a great castle-building period, although very important as military works, were not in the main built for the defence of the coast. But it is necessary to bear in mind that in ancient times river-courses, even far from the sea-coast, were subject in a peculiar degree to the incursions of the enemy, and the great Norman keeps of Canterbury, Rochester, and the White Tower of London, although situated far from the sea-coast, played an important part in the defence of the coast. At Porchester, Pevensey, Hastings, Folkestone and Dover, the relation between the Norman castles and the coast defences was much more intimate.
