CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
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Brigantian Celts into the forest of Helmet, which at that time covered most of the West Riding.5 Throughout the 6th century A. D. these Britons held the land westward of the forest so that they had a line of retreat into Lancashire and North Wales. On his grandson Edwin's conquest of Helmet, soon after A. D. 616, the way was open for adventurers up the rivers and the Anglian warriors began to enter the Calder Valley, advancing along the uplands that skirted the river.
Such names as Walshaw and Walsden, Anglo-Saxon for foreigners and den for
deep valley, indicate that there were sufficient Celts still in the area
and it appeared to the early English settlers that the district was full
of strange Celtic people.
Judging by traces of the Anglian field system of acre strips and their place
names, Tons, Leys and Worths, clues to where they lived, the dales were well
settled quite far up. The prevalence of these affixes between Midgley
in Calderdale and Keighley and Bingley in Airedale is significant. The
native Britons or Romanised Celts who survived the onslaught of these Anglian
invaders and fled to the hills and moors of the West Riding must either have
amalgamated with them or perished in dreary isolation.
These newcomers from Germany, Holland and Scandinavia later brought with
them their own crafts and skills to mingle with such occupations as the Romans
left. Sheep and cattle of the largest size there were in the valleys,
and the wool and the hides would be used for clothing. Where the invaders
settled they cleared the woods (Leys) and enclosed the homesteads (Worths
and tons). They had common ploughlands and common pastures and many
of the towns, villages and hamlets , including Midgley no doubt, as well
as forms of local government and Yorkshire speech in its dialect form, grew
from this time.
In A. D. 625 their King Edwin married a Kentish princess, who was a Christian
and brought the Roman missionary Paulinus to convert the Angles. He sent
missionary priests to the folk of the Yorkshire dales and churches sprang
up, so that the middle of the seventh century may be taken as the end of
the Pagan period that followed the Roman withdrawal. Unfortunately a
period of petty wars in which Edwin was defeated and killed by Penda of Mercia6
and Cadwallon of Wales at Hatfield, A. D. 633, largely destroyed the work
of Paulinus. Heathen Penda in turn was defeated and slain near Leeds in 654
by Oswy of Bernicia and Deira A. D. 642 - 655. Meanwhile Oswald A.
D. 634 - 642 before succumbing to Penda had invited monks from lona to settle
at Lindisfarne, and so Christianity survived.
A feature of the Anglian Christianity was the establishment of monasteries
and several were founded in Yorkshire, such as that at Whitby and another
by St Wilfrid at Ripon where the remains form the crypt under- the present
Minster- which I have visited. The missionary priests who went over
the whole country carried "rood staffs" of wood which were long staffs with
a cross at the head. These were set up in the midst of a group of villages
and people came to the spot for the preaching and ministration of the priest.
These were the beginnings of the parishes which for a long time were very
large including, as some still do, a large number of villages. Most
of the present parishes originated in the splitting up of these ancient Anglian
parishes served by an itinerant priest and marked by a preaching cross and
a burial ground.
With the introduction of Christianity Angles and Britons lived side by side
and peaceful development took place. Pockets of native Britons no doubt
survived in out of the way areas and were members of the Celtic Church founded
by the missionaries. It was a Celtic custom to mark some important
places with a rough stone pillar and there is a combination of this idea
with that of the "rood cross". There are only few traces of the Celtic
Church in West Yorkshire. There are the Dewsbury crosses, including
the famous Paulinus cross, in the south. The llkley and Otley crosses
may mark an area of Wharfedale which came under the missionary influence
of St Willrid of Ripon.
Towards the end of the Eighth and at the beginning of the Ninth century and
recurring for upwards of two centuries, the raids first by the Danes and
later the Norwegans, both of whom were commonly known as the Vikings,
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became more numerous and daring.7 Attracted by the wealth
of the Anglian monasteries, the DanishVikings looted and destroyed that at
Lindisfarne on the sixth day of the Ides of January in A. D. 793. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives an exciting account of the beginning of this
new attack in the North. Alcuin of York who had been sent by Offa of
Mercia to the Court of Charlemagne at the latter's request to teach the Frankish
nobles, wrote of this catastrophe
"Never before in the 350 years that we and our forefathers have dwelt in
this fair land has such horror appeared in Britain as this we have just suffered
from the heathen".
The monastery of Jarrow was ravaged the following year.
During this Ninth century the farsighted, far-faring, rapacious Vikings had
first penetrated the Orkney Islands that were admirably situated to serve
the strategy of naval power, as witness the importance of Scapa Flow in this
20th century. From there they had reached Ireland and founded a capital
at Dublin. One of these Vikings to come West - over - sea into Orkney was
Ragnar Lodbrok, Hairybreeks, whose terrible sons Halfdan, Ubbi and Ivar,
nicknamed the Boneless, began the subsequent invasion which, despite the
valour of King Alfred and the stubbornness of Wessex, left a great part of
England under Danish rule.
In A. D. 866 a great Danish army wintered in East Anglia and one of its leaders,
Ivar the Boneless, marched into Deira the following year and captured York.
Certain monasteries were ravaged and for a time the religion of Thor and
Odin triumphed over that of Christ. In 871 Ivar became King of all
the Vikings in Ireland and Britain, being succeeded on his death a few years
later by his brother Halfdan as King of York, and by his compatriot Olaf's
son as King of Dublin. Halfdan warred for the possession of Mercia and Wessex,
fighting several pitched battles against Alfred the Great, who defeated him
at Ashdown, near Reading. Returning to York he divided the lands of
Deira amongst his followers, who began systematically to cultivate them.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says for 876 that
"in that year- Healfdene shared out the land of the Northumbrians and they
proceeded to plough it and to support themselves".
With the settlement the monks who had escaped from Lindisfarne with the bones
of St Cuthbert came to Durham where his great cathedral was eventually built.
The Bys, Royds, Thorpes and Wicks e.g. Raventhrop and Sowerby in Calderdale
are plentiful where the newcomers stayed.
The Vikings were originally adventurers who had not yet been occluded by
the massive emotions of nationalism.8 There was no prejudice
against a man because he was a Dane or Englishman, Scot or Norwegian, Irish,
Welsh or Icelandic. They were addicted to fighting and plundering.
The pugnacity of their temper must have been supported by a physical constitution
of the utmost hardihood - a tiger's complement of swift self-healing muscle
and their physical strength was not inhibited by their minds' occupation with
thoughts of pain. Our awareness of pain has increased 'par-i passu'
with scientific discovery of the means to alleviate pain. In the heroic age
of the north, when analgesics were unknown, the 'grands blesses'
of a battle could make stoical comment on the loss of a leg or an arm that
is quite incompatible with our sensitivities. Physical toughness and
the prevailing philosophy of courage must, in a multitude of nameless men,
have fortified one another- to give them a true vocation for war. There
is moreover no evidence that any one was much afraid of death in battle,
the sure entrance to Valhalla.
The Danish Vikings colonised the County so thoroughly that their land divisions,
their courts, and their social organisations superseded those of the Angles
with whom they had at last settled down peaceably. York became the
capital of a state ruled by Viking kings, who for nearly a hundred years
resisted the efforts of Saxon Wessex to subdue them. Even after their
kingdom had been reduced to a vassal state under Edred of Wessex in A. D.
954, the old defiant sirit flared up from time to time, until Wiliam the
Conqueror cowed it
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by his relentless harrying of the North in A. D. 1069. But this is to anticipate
events.
Under the Danes Yorkshire was divided into Thridings, the term being perpetuated
in the present North, East and the West Ridings. Each was represented
by a third of the members of the Thing or Shire court that met at York, which
is in none of them but forms its own conclave at the junction of all three.
Each thriding also had its own court. The thridings were divided into
small hundreds containing twelve carucates or ploughlands held by a hundred
families, and large hundreds containing 120 carucates, a carucate being the
extent of land ploughed by eight oxen in one season, or some 120 acres, and
thus an eighth of a carucate was known as a bovate.
Another Viking adnimistrative division was the Wapentake of which the West Riding contained eleven. Each wapentake had its own court and central meeting place where the freemen inhabitants met to grasp the weapons of the king's representatives in token of fealty in peace and war. Smaller local courts within the wapentake were known as Things. Every wick, ham, stead or ton was largely self-governed as the neighbours, or nigh-boors, were mutually pledged. Ten free families had a court of self-government called a ty-thing. Ty means ten and thing or ding means a court or moot. These moots were always held in the open-air either under a stately tree or on some rock or mound or low hill. Folk-moots or meetings is the old term for a town's meeting and was used by Saxon and Norseman. The Witanmoot was the national parliament. Later the Norman feudal system crippled the moots by coupling them with the Manor Courts.
Midgley itself fell within Morley Wapentake, which included roughly the
land between the Calder and Aire Rivers. Between Aire and Wharfe was
the Skirack Wapentake, including such places we shall mention as Bingley and
Leeds (Loidis). At Thingley or Tingley near Wakefield and at Headingley, Leeds,
may still be seen the Shireoak (shire-ack) or meeting places of these Wapentakes
respectively. Immediately south of the Calder was Agbridg Wapentake, and
here at Almondbury near Huddersfield was a Royal Seat in the beginning of
Saxon times, having a church built by Paulinus. Nearby this village is a
steep hill whereon are the ruins of an ancient fortification.9
The top, a little below the brow. is surrounded by a deep, rude oval fosse,
with earth thrown up on its outer edge, and with traces of a second rampart
on its, inner. This was probably a British hill fort, but a quadrangular
enclosure with rounded corners seems after-wards to have been formed in it
that may possibly be due to the Romans. In mediaeval times the Lacys
had a castle here, but nothing of this remains.
For more than fifty years a struggle dragged on between the Vikings of York
and those of Dublin. intensified by the antagonism of the Norwegians who
dominated Dublin and the Danes who dominated Yorkshire. Halfdan's successor
Guthred or Knut became a Christian, no dotibt following the example of Guthrum,
king of the southern Danelaw, after his defeat by Alfred, and the christianisation
of the Yorkshire Danes must date from about this time.
In 918 the throne of York was seized by Ragnveld and his Norsemen of Dublin.
This event alarmed the Christian Danes of Yorkshire, who resented both his
paganism and his Norwegian followers. Ragnveld was soon obliged to
render homage to Edward of Saxon Wessex, who had in A. D, 901 succeeded his
father Alfred the Great. Edward the Elder (901 - 925) and his sister
Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians, completed their father Alfred's work In
conquering the Danelagh and recovering England for the English, During
the tenth century the Anglo-Saxon monarchy was further entrenched by the
development of foreign policy under Athelstan (925 - 940) through the ever
present common danger from the Danes. His sisters married Otto the
Great, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the Simple, King of the Franks, and
Hugh the Great, Duke of Paris.
Inevitably the growing Anglo-Saxon power induced a hostile combination of
Scots, Welsh and Danes which was put down at Brunanburgh in 937, and thus
the Viking Kngdom of Yorkshire became for a time part of a loosely united
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England. Eric Bloodaxe to whom Athelstan had entrusted the vassal
state of Northumbria was actually the last Viking King of York for, when he
was killed in an attempt to break away by leading a rising of the Danes in
954, Edred of Wessex finally assumed control and installed Oslac (OswuIf)
with the rank of Earl of Northumbria, and not that of king.
During the peace that Alfred and his seed strove to maintain for roughly a
hundred years, every encouragement was given to learning, religion and civilisation
which had suffered greatly through the Danish attacks. In Alfred's
reign the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was begun, scholars were
invited to his court and Bede's Ecclesiastical History was translated.10
Forts, 'burhs' or towns were built, and a navy and a fyrd were organised
in the struggle against the Danes. T
here were outstanding helpers in the process, not least being Dunstan, who
was Archbishop of Canterbury 960 - 988 under Edgar the Pacific. Unfortunately
the old royal stock became exhausted in Ethelred the Unready - the Redeless,
the man who lacked good advice.
Under the Vikings York attained an importance as great as any it had enjoyed
since Roman times. Once more this was due to its position, for fleets
of longships from Denmark and Norway could anchor under its walls.
To this day York bears the stamp of its former Viking inhabitants to a far
greater extent than that of its Roman founders. Its name is directly
derived from that of the Vikings, Yorvick, and its old street names are of
Viking origin. Yorkshire shows more traces of Danish occupation than
other parts of England in dialect, in the political division into ridings
and wapentakes , in place names, and in the physical characteristics of the
people.
The Norwegians, Norse Vikings, also colonised Yorkshire under the Dublin kings
at York. The majority came from western Scotland, Man and above all
Ireland via the irish Sea estuaries, penetrating the Pennines for instance
from Ribble to Aire through the Gap, and crossing the watershed to settle
in the dalehead 'outback', taking the Anglian and Danish leavings. It
is doubtful whether they found many people living in these parts when they
arrived, for the earlier Anglian and Danish invaders from the East were not
accustomed to the mountain lands. As good pastoral men the latter turned
up their noses at the uninviting territory and turned back to the flatter
and more congenial lands. The Norsemen set up their sheep walks in
upland country not too unlike their own. A strong element of Norse
settled at the head of the dales. This colonisation is revealed by
the prevalence of Norwegian names for natural features such as Gill (ravine),
Foss or Force (waterfall), Slack (shallow valley), Fell (mountain), Thwaite
or Royd (clearing), Seat, Holme (island in Scandinavia) or field that might
be irrigated by a stream, hence Mytholmroyd.
The last phase, the hundred years preceding the arrival of the final invader
William the Conqueror in 1066, may be cursorily passed over. When Eadred
of Saxon Wessex overcame Yorkshire in 954 he made Oswulf of Bamborough the
first Earl of Northumbria, and there were ten before the Norman Conquest.
The Anglo-Saxon monarchy attained its highest point of power under Edred's
successor Edgar the Pacific who was "Caesar totius Britanniae".
The seeds of decay were probably sown in his pacific reign, when a considerable
measure of local government was given to various parts of the country.
The growing power of the great nobles, the Ealdormen, and the continuance
of local jealousy, especially between Mercia and Wessex, were sure to lead
to disunion under a weak king such as Ethelred II, the Unready, in the face
of renewed Danish attacks.
Several million pounds, in terms of modern money, were levied (Danegeld) to
hire a mercenary army of Danes to fight their own countrymen and later as
a bribe to induce them to withdraw from England. All in vain, for Sweyn
of Denmark became king in 1013 despite the gallant resistance of Edmund Ironside,
the Unready's son and successor. On the death of these two the former's
son Canute became King of all England including Northumbria (1016 - 1035).11
However, on his passing, the Saxon Codwin, the Kingmaker, assumed power till
his death in 1053 when his son Harold ably carried on.
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The last of the Earls of Northumbria was Tosti, son of Earl Godwin and
brother of Harold who succeeded Edward the Confessor early in 1066. Tosti's
rule was so brutal that Harold banished him, whereupon he allied himself with
Harald Hardradi, King of Norway, the Landwaster and doughtiest of all the
Vikings. The latter descended upon the Yorkshire coast with 300 ships,
utterly defeated the English Earls sent against him and entered York in triumph.
He then withdrew his forces to Stamford Bridge to meet the expected attack
of Tosti's brother Harold. In Harold the last of the Saxon Kings of
England,the Landwaster met his match. By a forced march Harold entered
York in the. silence of the night and, before daybreak, pressed on to Stamford
Bridge wherea fierce battle ensued and both Hardradi and Tosti were slain
(1066 A. D.) Immediately Harold had to hasten back to face and be defeated
by William of Normandy who had landed in the south.
Thus ended the epic history of the Viking invasions of Yorkshire. Had Tosti
not been a tyrant, had Harold not banished him, had Hardradi not invaded
the land, had Harold's army not been worn and weakened by rapid marching
and desperate fighting and had the fyrd remained behind the palisades at
Hastings and not been enticed out by the Normans feigning retreat, Harold
might have presented an unconquerable front to William despite the latter's
more disciplined feudal followers, bowmen and mailclad knights. In that event
his wish for a peaceful reign as recorded in the single word Pax imprinted
on his coins, might have come to pass, and England might have remained English
to the core. Of course it is a trite commonplace to say that history
is full of these ifs and buts which are the very mechanism of inexorable
Fate. As it was, flame and sword had done their worst during all this
al most uninterrupted warring and the country was in a deplorable state.
This cursory survey of our origins shows that the blood of the English people
has been richly mixed, The blond and the dark strains of ancient Britain
had been well stirred before the Romans came. The golden Angles and
Saxons and the red Jutes Danes and Norsemen were subsequently baked in the
pie.
Finally came the Normans. who were none else than Northmen settled and interbred with the more ancient dwellers of Northern Gaul.12 William the Conqueror was the son (bastard) of Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy, and a tanner's daughter. Robert was descended from the outlaw Viking Rolf or Rollo who landed in Normandy and compelled Charles the Simple, King of France, to give him land enough, about Rouen and the estuary of the Seine, for the hazardous beginning of a dukedom A. D. 911. The father of Roilo was Rognvald the first Earl of Orkney. He as the first of his family to win a title to land within the isles of Britain and became the precursor as well as the progenitor of all her kings for nine hundred years
2. Cerdic laid the foundation of the Saxon Kingdom of Wessex A.D. 519. The last of the Cerdingas was Edward the Confessor 1042-1066.
3. Compare the 'Lebensraum' urge of the German Empire 1870 onwards- for trade and prestige.
4. Bernicia from the Tees to the Forth with its capital at Bamborough, south of Tweed mouth.
5. Helmet or Elmet. Edwain or Eadwin first took the capital, Loidis [Leeds]. Speight p.60
6. Northumbria was weakened by jealousy between Bernicia and Deira hence the Anglian srttlement of of Mercia expanded in central England to reach its peak under Offa. Lichfield was an archbishopric until 803. It was confirmed by the Bishop of Lichfield during World War I.
7. The strongly Anglian West Riding must have felt great bitterness at the invasions of the ruthless Norsemen. Jarrow near Tynemouth, Lindisfarne, Holy Island south of Tweed mouth.
8. Obstinate national pride was seen in the prolongation of the Hundred Years War in France, vide text page 23 and footnote 17 Chapter 5.
9. Almondbury was no doubt the town of the Brigantian Queen Cartimandua see p. 9 above. Witanmoot Council for Witenagemot.
10. Alfred encouraged writing in the vernacular. The last of his line, Edward the Confessor, owing to his upbringing on the Continent favoured the appointment of Norman clergy versed in Latin. Vandals violated Alfred's tomb in the 16th C.
11. Godwin had married Gytha, Canute's cousin. He supported first Harthacnut,
son of Canute and Emma, widow of Aethelred the Redeless, secondly Harold Harefoot,
illegitimate son of Canute, and finally on their deaths, Edward the Confessor
1042-66, last surviving son of Aethelred's second marriage.
On the accession of Ethelred II, who could not tell good redes from bad,
there was no reason whatsoever why England should not have beaten off the
enemy with ease, but the tragedies 'inter alia' of the enigmatical "Massacre
of St. Brice's Day" Nov. 12 1002 and the treachery of Eadric Streona, Ethelred's
favourite and eorldorman of Mercia tell their own bad story and merely played
into the hands of Sweyn and the Danes. Ethelred's original evil genius was
reputedly his mother Elfryth
12. England was not really united until the Norman Conquest. Wales was
not conquered properly until later and Scotland later still!
The tendency to disunion previously was due to the creation of the great
earldoms and their jealousy. The Northumbrians and Mercians failed to help
Harold at Hastings, and the feebleness of the later kings of the line of
Cerdic. The appearance of Halley's Comet in 1066 frightened the superstitious
people. It is recorded in the Bayeaux tapestry. William's claim was based
upon alleged promises of the succession by the pro-Norman Edward the Confessor,
and by Harold under duress. The invasion was a crusade approved by Pope Alexander
II.
While I was in London in 1968 I called on Henry Salt Q.C., sometime Fellow
of Trinity College, Cambridge and his wife Hope M.B. Ch.B. at 4, Grays Inn
Square. He was our head boy at Newcastle under Lyme and was later wounded
in the leg at Passchendaele in 1917, the same year as Capt. Henry Coward,
formerly one of my Form masters at Newcastle was killed at Arras. Henry Salt
kindly 'vetted' these early chapters. He wrote to me as follows last year
while mentioning his retirement as judge of the Durham County Palatine Court
and the award of D.C.L. by Durham University 'honoris causa', which was conferred
'in absentia' owing to his illness at the time.
"Dear Kaffir, Little did we lads at Newcastle [Staffs.] in 1913 think
that this nickname, conferred on you 'honoris causa' and affectionately, would
ever come to be a possible stumbling block of offence 50 years on : and thank
God it never has in your case because you have always kept your tincture
of English schoolboy humour. So I can safely continue to address you..."
Newcastle's first Headmaster, Francis Elliott Kichener from Rugby, was also
a Fellow of Trinity. In the Mathematical tripos of 1861 he was placed 12th
Wrangler and in the Classical Tripos 1st Senior Optime.
ADDENDUM
End of Chapter 3 page 17
William's invasion was in the nature of a "crusade" approved by Pope Alexander
II and based on alleged promises of the succession by pro-Norman Edward the
Confessor, and by Harold under duress. Before his death Edward apparently
aquiesced to Harold's exhaltation but in any event that was the right of
the Witan who duly elected Harold.
| %%%%%%%END OF MIDGLEYANA CHAPTER 3 %%%%%% |
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