Anglo-Saxon armies

[aligern]

A nice site at
http://www.millennia.f2s.com/nature.htm
Has some good information. If I had a doubt it would be that the author does take up evidence from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries (Ammianus to Saxo Grammaticus) and he does caveat this.  However, where his source material is contemporary he gives a good picture.

Roy

[Dave Knight]

Interesting - thanks Roy

[John GL]

The "small numbers" bit comes up again, with the usual pieces of evidence:

1  Ine's law defining more than 35 men as an "army".
2  Cynehard's attempted takeover of Wessex with 84 men.

I don't think these prove anything.  My favourite analogy for the first is the Riot Act, which defined a "riot" as involving more than 12 people; many riots involved thousands, sometimes tens of thousands as in London in 1780.  In the second case the atheling was attempting a coup, not conquest - assassinating the King at his hunting lodge.  I see no reason to doubt figures of a couple of thousand dead in major battles.

There's an important typo: the battle of Searobyrig (Salisbury) is recorded in the Chronicle under 552, not 522 AD.

Thanks for the link, anyway!

[aligern]

I tend to agree with you on numbers John. The Anglo Saxon Kingdoms covered an area that later supported 10,000 or so Norman knights (equivalent to mounted thegns with armour, horses, servants, . Let us suppose that they were a third of the available military and  that the potential was around 40,000  If there were seven kingdoms operating  at the time (OK it varies) then the average is going to be 6000 men. Both sides were likely to leave men at home to keep a defence, but then the  tea near the battle could supply free peasants who will have bolstered numbers. Of course the Heptarchy is not an equal division so I would suggest:

Wessex   9,000
Mercia     12,000
Northumbria 7,500
East Anglia    5,000
Kent             3,000
Essex           1,500
Sussex         2,000

Earlier on there are many smaller entities. At that time  (Arthur?) in say the VIth century then little kingdoms with a military potential of  300 'mounted' men and perhaps 1000 footmen would have been more normal.
all this stresses how important it was to make alliances.
Of course the military potential of kingdoms would vary according to where the battle was. I tend to think that this was important in producing battles on border points such as Ellendun where both sides could bring a large force. Invading deep into opposing territory would be more likely to restrict you to bringing only your best men. The need for alliances and the difficulty of then holding an invading force together explains why it was possible for Cadwallon and co to invade Northumbria, conquer it and then lose it again. 
Roy

[Erpingham]

The "small numbers" bit comes up again, with the usual pieces of evidence:

1  Ine's law defining more than 35 men as an "army".
2  Cynehard's attempted takeover of Wessex with 84 men.

I don't think these prove anything. 

I must admit, I went through Uni at the height of "the Vikings were half a dozen traders with a boat" period of looking at numbers, so I've always been cautious of the low numbers school.  However, I think the two examples do demonstrate that there was a context of low-level, small scale war.  Wasn't 300 men who rode to Catraeth?  If we do roll it forward into the Norman era, you see a similar pattern of actions between "armies" of hundreds.  Sometimes a few score men that you can gather quickly and move fast is more useful than waiting for the Fyrd to muster.  So, I'm happy with a lot of military actions involving 50-500 men in this period, though accepting Roy's argument that armies in the 1000s could be mustered with time and effort.

[aligern]

Hi Anthony,
I suspect that Cattraeth is in the period that I'd characterise as Arthurian where there are about 40 small kingdoms in the UK.  In that period assembling 300 mailed horsemen would indeed be a powerful strike force. Later in the mid seventh to eighth centuries I would expect to see much bigger armies when say Mercia took a swipe at Wessex. . I agree with you that lots of warfare would be small numbers of professionals against each other, but the British Isles is quite small and lowest estimates give a million people in the English part in the dark ages that gives 50,000 men on a military potential of 5% which seems sustainable, a village of say 150 people thus produces eight warriors.

Roy

[John GL]

Take a later, much better-documented period when the population of England probably wasn't much greater.  At Tewkesbury there were around 3,000 men a side, at Towton about ten times that number - battles of equal importance but fought in different circumstances.  Similar considerations would apply to 7th-10th century warfare, and the great battles of Anglo-Saxon England (Daegsastan, Chester, Winwaed, Ellandun, Ashdown, Ethandun, Brunanburh) are likely to have involved numbers somewhere within that range. 

I don't agree that the two examples cited give any evidence at all!  The numbers involved in an assassination attempt or armed robbery are no guide to the numbers taking part in a pitched battle.

All this reminds me of an early Slingshot article of mine: "Warfare of the Heptarchy" in Slingshot 91, 1980 (note the errata in the next issue).  I've done a lot of reading since then and haven't changed my views on this issue.

[Erpingham]

I don't agree that the two examples cited give any evidence at all!  The numbers involved in an assassination attempt or armed robbery are no guide to the numbers taking part in a pitched battle.

But they are evidence of the nature of warfare.  As we all know, pitched battles were a relatively small part of Early Medieval warfare.  Raids, skirmishes, hall burnings and so forth were the bread and butter work and these employed smaller groups. 

[John GL]

Sure - small-scale operations would (as always) have been the norm. but there were also instances of large armies clashing and providing material for the bards.

[aligern]

Anthony is the expert on it, but isn't Towton now held to be rather smaller than previously thought?

At a battle such as Brunanburh one side is an allied army of York Vikimgs, Irish Vikings, welsh Scots (or did they miss it?) against the strength of the united South and Midlands of England. That might manage 20,000 a side top whack I would have thought?
Roy

[John GL]

20,000 a side would make Brunanburh easily the biggest battle of the period in Britain, I think, but it must have been something approaching that mark.  The Scots were probably there.

Towton was definitely the biggest battle of the WotR; much hinges on whether one believes Edward IV's claim of 28,000 killed.  As he wrote this in a private letter citing the heralds' tally, I'm inclined to accept it.

[aligern]

Interestingly, one of the problems of fighting with all longbow armies and infantry armies is that the casualties tend to be high, partly because it is hader to get away. But also because you cannot win easily with manoeuvre, but must fight your way through, so high casualties makes sense.
That, of course would generally lead to fewer battles because the consequences of loss would be severe and even inners would be badly damaged.
Roy

[Erpingham]

If we accept the 28,000 figure as an estimate of the dead on the field (numbered by the heralds), then we could speculate on 60-80,000 men on the field of Towton.   England at the time is fairly productive, it hasn't been ruined by war, the social and political structures for mustering men are intact so a major effort by both sides is plausible.   

The trouble with estimating the size of armies at Brunanburh is where do you start?  We don't even know where it was, so we can't say how far armies needed to travel or what the likelyhood of sustaining themselves in the field was.  And was it fought by massed mobilisations of all the participants, or did some or all of them only take part in the form of a small (albeit perhaps high quality) allied contingent?

[John GL]

Yes, all we know about Brunanburh as that it was regarded at the time as a big and very decisive battle.  All the rest is guesswork - but there are hints.  The English King and his brother were there, with troops from Wessex and Mercia; their enemies included "a countless host" of Norsemen and a Scots army.  The dead included five kings and seven jarls.  "Never before in this island... was an army put to greater slaughter by the sword".  So it must have been thought a greater battle than Ashdown, Ethandune or any of the other battles of the previous century, of which there were many.  Given all that, each army must surely have been numbered in thousands rather than hundreds.

[Erpingham]

Given all that, each army must surely have been numbered in thousands rather than hundreds.

Agreed that that is a logical conclusion based on what we have.  As you say, it had a reputation as big and bloody.  We then get back to what we compare against.  If a "normal" battle was 2-3000 a side, a big battle could 5-6000.  I think I'd be looking at something in the 8-10,000 a side range but would stuggle to give a rationale except that, while it was a big action, assembling and maintaining the two armies would have been difficult (the majority of them being a long way from home).