Anglo-Saxon armies

[Patrick Waterson]

If we look at generally accepted figures for the population of England (from a quick internet trawl through various locations), Roman Britain is assessed as something like 4 million, and this drops to 1-2 million for Anglo-Saxon times.

Taking the lower figure (to be on the safe side), and assessing the number of men of military age as 20% of the population and the number of men in prime condition as 10%, we get a mobilisation potential of 100,000-200,000 men.  The limiting factor is not so much population as organisation, and to cut a long digression short I feel we can with reasonable safety conclude that the size of a muster will be of a breadth and depth proportionate to a perceived threat.  Whereas a five-ship Viking raid could be met by a muster of a couple of hundred house-troops, a massive Norse incursion leagued with every Scot who could carry a weapon would prompt a comprehensive and thorough mobilisation perhaps amounting to tens of thousands.

Not every man from every kingdom would arrive: some would remain to garrison key points or attend to other duties, and a sizeable servile proportion would not be entrusted with weapons (although they could drive carts and/or carry food for the fighting men) but we could expect the majority of the male fighting population to turn out and be committed to what everyone seems to have envisaged as a decisive campaign.

Logistics is often raised as an apparently insurmountable barrier to the gathering of large armies: this seems to me to be a misconception, as Saxon practice appears to have been to appoint a day and place for the muster and then move swiftly to engage the foe (cf. Alfred's Ethandun campaign - muster at Egbert's Stone, move to Iley Oak, fight at Edington).  For a brief campaign of this nature, men would bring their own supplies, obviating logistical problems - provided the campaign was brief.

Naturally, there would be time and distance constraints: men from Wessex would have a longer and harder time getting to Lancashire than men of Mercia.  Yet with determination it could be done, albeit not as swiftly as Harold Godwinson's five-day march from York to Hastings.  With each contingent providing - and carrying - its own supplies for perhaps a 40-day campaign (for the more remote contingents at least half of this would involve getting to and from the campaign locale) there would be little need to rely on the resources of the locality, although one could expect these resources, notably livestock, to be gathered to deny them to the enemy, and consumed if contingents' integral supplies began to run short.

Given the above, I see no reason why Brunanburgh need have less than 20,000 per side, and could potentially have had much more.

[tadamson]

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

Well I'm late to the party again...:-)

#1 is a legal definition, it mattered because it changed penalties and consequences for those involved.

#2 is effectively a coup.  Remember Temuljin started his first war with 7 warriors, nobody thinks that Mongol armies were small!

England was rich, by the time the main kingdoms had coalesced it was considered one of the richest parts of Western Europe. One of the primary drivers for all the claimants in 1066 was that the winner would be catapulted to wealth and glory.

Also look at Alfred's changes, large numbers of troops were available when properly organised and supplied.

Tom.

[John GL]

Just what I was saying, Tom - see my analogy with the Riot Act which had a similar purpose and effect (such as the death penalty).  I'm just peeved that these two irrelevances are still trotted out as evidence for "small armies"!

[aligern]

The debate is not really dependent upon the two  examples cited.  It is really more of a debate between those who believe in elite armies of the hundreds to low thousands as opposed to armies of many thousands.
For me, the reconciliation between the two views comes from the 'five hide system' which I doubt as a 'system', but which expresses the needs of the later Anglo Saxon state. What the king wanted was one man in five to come to the host with a horse, a mailshirt, probably a servant and supplies for the campaign. Clearly just an army of thegns would be too few, but calling out every free man with spear and shield would produce an unwieldy mass of ineffective ill mounted and ill equipped warriors.  So yes there could be large numbers of fyrd for burgh service and they might suffice behind walls, but facing the Vikings in the open needed mobility, speed, mailshirts and swords.
So Patrick might well be right that there were 200,000 potential warriors in England in Late A/S times, but there would only be 40,000 men who counted because only they had the requisite kit.

Roy

[Erpingham]

Patrick's reasoning to reach his theoretical military capacity is sound enough but the number of effectives, as Roy says, would be lower.  However, we still stuggle with how many of those effectives would be mobilised for a campaign.  On the numbers game, we should note that Norman England had a similar theoretical military capacity as late A/S England, yet actual numbers involved in campaigns rarely reached five figures and was often in the hundreds - just because you had the manpower pool doesn't mean you used it.  The trouble, as we've already said about Brunanburh, is we are guessing and our guess hasn't much to go on.  Whether you think it had 10,000 or 20,000 a side depends on how big you think Early Medieval battles were.  I'll always tend towards the smaller end, Patrick likes as many in his battles as he can make a case for
As to the elite warfare model of the begin of the Early Middle Ages (aka Dark Ages), it really needs a much wider discussion of the evidence.  I think we are all agreed that there was a lot of comitatus/hearthtroop activity which did involve small forces.  The difficulty is that some would suggest this never scaled up, whereas others would hold that wider mobilisations of the free farmers led to larger battles.

[aligern]

It is very difficult to get to numbers. I think the site that I referred us to has 18% of Early Saxon graves with weapons, but that is  not an incontestable number. Some of those graves are old men, some are children. Weapons might indicate free status (almost certainly do)  but weapons might well have been supplied to graves of fit men who never fought unless the village was attacked or we might be looking at the settlements of the better off and slaves etc were just not buried in the same place. For example subject Britons operating a woodland or a pastoral hill economy.

On the continent the barbarians manage to have quite big battles .
The Ostro Goths manage to fight a Roman force of 20-25000 in 552 AD.  The Franks manage to send to Italy in 553 a force that troubles that same Roman force (maybe minus the Lombards, but plus some reinforcement).
These same Ostrogoths campaigned against the Franks and we could presume had sufficient force parity to defeat them and save the remnant on the Visigoth territory in Gaul. The Visigoths hang on in Spain and later hold off Frankish invasions. We may presume them also capable of being in the 20,000 league.  The Vandal number of 80,000 crossing to Africa isn't quite certain, but it is a more substantial straw to clutch than most. That would give the Vandals a potential of 20,000 warriors.
In Britain there are  contradictory trends.
One the one hand there are seven kingdoms and earlier many more (and later fewer of course)
Britain is smaller than Italy or Gaul or Spain. It is less likely to produce economic surplus to maintain a professional army like the Goth armies.
However, the invaders in Britain are nearer the soil and more likely to be self supporting than on the continent.
That might suggest that Britain/England has quite a lot of lowly equipped warriors, but much fewer elite full timers than the VIth cent Mediterranean kingdoms?  So in Italy we have a Goth army in 530 of tops 30,000 with a lot of elite mounted, but in Britain 40,000 Germans but only a small elite proportion?
Roy

[aligern]

http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/system/files/Lucerna31.pdf

Based upon the above discovery of a Visigothic brooch in Kent I am immediately putting in for a unit of Goth cavalry to bolster the rather wooden ranks of the Saxons.
Roy:-))

[Duncan Head]

Remember John Morris' theory about Arthur giving refuge to the Visigothic Atlantic fleet after they lost Gaul? All based on the name "Theodoric" cropping up in one Welsh text, IIRC. Maybe this is just a hello from some Gothic sailor.

[aligern]

The distribution of the brooches is quite instructive. There are three groups:
Septimania and the Toulouse district,  Central Spain and Normandy .
The two former areas are classically those of Visigothic settlement, but that logic does not really explain NW Gaul and from that area finds in Kent and Sussex are logical  Of course there is the possibility that these brooches represent a fashion item  but they do not appear in any numbers in other than Visigothic areas. There is a possibility that that they represent either Goths who move into Gaul in the fifth century under one of Theoderic the Great's uncles or Goths who do not move from Gaul after Clovis victory at Vouille and might even be resettled by him further North where they can both watch the Bretons and be watched.
The last possibility is that they represent someone such as the Taifali . The map in the article not being on a sufficient scale to tell whether it is showing finds near Tiffauges.
That these things turn up in Kent could be a matter of trade or quite possibly as Duncan says, a sailor relocating from Bordeaux, or just dying whilst on a trip from there to trade in Kent.
Roy

[Erpingham]

That these things turn up in Kent could be a matter of trade or quite possibly as Duncan says, a sailor relocating from Bordeaux, or just dying whilst on a trip from there to trade in Kent.

Or something picked up on a trip to the continent   It is one of those artefacts that do speak of continued connection of the communities in the South with what is going on in Europe at the time.

[aligern]

So we have a Kentish Jute joining a mercenary band that hires out to fight for Clovis at Vouille and hen returns home wearing a brooch that he took off a dead Vidigoth, campaigns against Arthur and is wounded, dies upon returning to Kent.
Sounds like Jim Webster's njkext book.
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

There is of course a simpler explanation ...

The year is AD 509.  A Visigothic fleet is ordered to sail for Brittany in order to spark a rising against Clovis, who is attacking the Visigoth kingdom.  Mistaking their orders, they land in Britain and attempt to raise a revolt there instead.  Tokens are exchanged between the leader of the Visigoth fleet and the leader of the British revolt, the British brooch being subsequently lost to history and the Visigothic brooch being taken by a British warrior from the corpse of the leader of the revolt, and subsequently traded to a Kentish courtesan in return for special favours. 

Actually, given the distribution of this style of brooch in the distinctly non-Visigothic area of Syagrius' northern Gallic 'kingdom', we might wonder whether the original style was late Romano-Gallic and subsequently borrowed by Syagrius' Visigothic allies.

Distribution map: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2006/02/20/visigoth-kent?oo=0

Some Visigothic jewellery here: http://pinterest.com/vikingr0se/goths-ostrogoths-visigoths/

My knowledge of decorative jewellery is pretty appalling, but might someone else be able to judge whether there is any mileage in the Visigoths borrowing rather than originating this particular style?

[Erpingham]

There is of course a simpler explanation ...

The year is AD 509.  A Visigothic fleet is ordered to sail for Brittany in order to spark a rising against Clovis, who is attacking the Visigoth kingdom.  Mistaking their orders, they land in Britain and attempt to raise a revolt there instead.  Tokens are exchanged between the leader of the Visigoth fleet and the leader of the British revolt, the British brooch being subsequently lost to history and the Visigothic brooch being taken by a British warrior from the corpse of the leader of the revolt, and subsequently traded to a Kentish courtesan in return for special favours. 

Aha.  Patrick Waterson is actually the alias of Bernard Cornwell

[barry carter]

.......or Sir Walter Scott.........But I digress, the discussion on the armies at Hastings in "The battle of Hastings 1066" M K Lawson, Tempus, 2002, is thought provoking. At least with Hastings we have a rough idea of where it was fought.

BC.
 
 

[aligern]

Is Lawson the one that believes that the Anglo Saxons have loose order infantry types? I have seen elsewhere that one can possibly interpret the Bayeux Tapestry as showing different orders of deployment.
There is some evidence that Harold re-equipped troops , possibly Huscarls, for the 1063 expedition against Gruffyd of Wales with leather armour so as to be more rapid in their pursuit of the Welsh. That could imply that some A/S operated this way and provided a model?

Roy