Monthly Blog Post - December

Here we are already in December, in Old English Ærra Gēola "Before Yule", or "First Yule".

This year 1st December falls on a Sunday, or in Old English, Sunnandæg. I don't think any of this really requires a translation, especially when we remember that often-times a 'g' is soft, like a 'y' and so it's easy to see how Gēola becomes Yule, and dæg becomes day.

Christmas, too, is easy enough: Cristes Mæsse.

There's not a great deal of information about how Christmas was celebrated, but one thought always makes me smile - imagine if the Anglo-Saxons had a similar routine to that of modern times, where offspring and their partners take it in turns to visit parents for the festive period. I'm thinking in particular about the families of Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Northumbria in the seventh century. It really would have been the perfect set up (let's leave aside the fact that of the extended families, Penda alone was a pagan) as three of Penda's children married into Oswiu's family.

His daughter Cyneburh married Alhfrith of Northumbria, while his son Peada married Alhfrith's sister Alhflæd, and then at some point their half-sister Osthryth married Penda's youngest son, Æthelred. On the face of it you'd think these two families would get along tremendously well but no, sadly not. If you've read my novels about Penda's family, Cometh the Hour and The Sins of the Father, you'll know that this was not the case at all and that two of those marriages ended when one partner was murdered. In case you haven't read them, I'll not give any spoilers here!

Of course while I'm mentioning my books, I should also add that you can read more about the lives of Penda and his family in my history of Mercia, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and those murders are discussed in greater detail in my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge, which will be out in February.

The new book does feature one particularly brutal incident which took place just around Christmas-time: in 780, two ealdormen burnt the king’s patrician, Beorn, in Seletun on 24 December. Was Beorn in his hall, gathered with his family and sitting down at a feast? He was accused by one chronicler of 'unjust severity' but we are not told the exact nature of his perceived crimes.

Of course, December isn't just about Christmas, which let's face it seems to begin in October or November these days. We can still sometimes experience snow, although it seems to happen less often these days. The Old English word for snow was snaw so again, not a huge difference. 

December 13th is St Lucy's or St Lucia's Day and, according to the Old English Martyrology, she was threatened that if she did not renounce her Christian faith, she would be sent to a house of ill-repute and dishonoured until she was dead. But she refused to move and though she was pushed and pulled, stood her ground. She was eventually then bound with ropes and the order was give for her to be stabbed in the stomach with a sword. Still she did not waver, and prophesied that the governor would die that day, and indeed he was led to Rome and sentenced to death by the senate. Lucy herself did not die before a priest had arrived to give her the Eucharist. In some later accounts, her eyes were gouged out before she was executed but were miraculously restored before she was buried.

14th-Century Image of St Lucia/Lucy

A grim story. One wonders how the Romans must have shaken their heads at such obstinate and staunch unwavering faith. Before the Gregorian calendar reform in 1752, her feast day occurred on the shortest day of the year (hence the saying “Lucy light, Lucy light, shortest day and longest night”) *

In December we also have the Winter Solstice, or Midwinter, which was also another term for Christmas. 

There is limited information concerning how Christmas was celebrated. We can surmise by the lack of daylight that 'indoors' started calling and when working days were shorter then more pleasant activities - feasting, drinking, story-telling - would be more prevalent. How much was available to eat though?

Food was seasonal, so much would be dried or preserved and there would be no fresh dairy produce as such animals were 'dry' throughout the winter months. We might imagine that at such special feasts, there was fresh meat - hunted wild boar perhaps. There is evidence that wine was produced and drunk in 'England' at the time, along with ale and of course, mead. (I like to be authentic, but I've tried mead numerous times and still don't like it much!) 

We could also picture the scop (pronounced shop) playing tunes on a lyre, singing songs, or reciting poetry. A sense of belonging was important to the culture, where hearth really did mean home. Such gatherings would emphasise this sense of community.

In a recent online lecture, Professor John Blair made the point that a culture which produced such items as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Staffordshire Hoard would not have lived in plain, timber buildings. Yes, they were made of wood, but we must surely imagine those buildings with carvings and paintings and wall-hangings (which would help to insulate) and so more than likely greenery would be brought inside to decorate the hall at this time of year.

Candlelight was not a choice back then, of course, and those candles might have been made of smelly tallow or sweeter beeswax.

Obviously the Anglo-Saxon era straddles the conversion to Christianity, but the assumed differences between pagan and Christian 'yule' celebrations would provide too much content for a short blog post.

And that just leads me to say that whether or not you celebrate Christmas, or any other midwinter festival or festival of light, I hope that at some point during the dark days you can draw near the fire and gather with friends and/or family.

*https://www.almanac.com/content/month-of-december-holidays-facts-folklore

Anglo-Saxons in the Scottish Court: Joining up the Dots

Often, fiction has been the lure for me to explore aspects of history which take me sideways, rather than back or forth from my favourite period.

I was reading Queen Hereafter, by Susan Fraser King, which tells the story of Margaret of Scotland. She was English, a member of the Anglo-Saxon royal house whose rule was brought to an abrupt end by the events of 1066. 

Margaret is portrayed as fervently religious. Reading the book, I wondered if the author's suggestion is that she was an obsessive compulsive? If so, it's an interesting proposition. Margaret was certainly revered for her religious observance, but on the other hand, was there anything inherently untoward about someone being devout, in those times?

Margaret arriving in Scotland - attribution

I love it when things all fall into place - and it was at this point that they did so, spectacularly. At the same moment as I began reading the chapter in which Margaret arrives at Dunfermline, I found out that our summer holiday booking was for Fife, in Scotland, and we were going to be staying just a few miles outside Dunfermline, where Margaret was buried.

The medieval abbey, founded by Margaret
and rebuilt by her son, David

Margaret's grandfather was Edmund Ironside, the son of Æthelred the Unready who fought, and nearly beat, Cnut. When Cnut became king, Edmund's son, Edward, was exiled, and Margaret was born in Hungary. 

In 1057 her father was recalled to England, being the heir to Edward the Confessor, who was childless and, at this stage, it seemed inevitable that he would remain so. However, Margaret's father died almost immediately upon arrival in England. Her brother, Edgar, became a figurehead for uprising in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings. Margaret, her siblings, and their mother fled north, initially to Northumbria.

There is some dispute as to when and how they ended up in Scotland. The chronicler Simeon of Durham recorded in 1070 that "King Malcolm, with the consent of his relatives, took in marriage Edgar's sister, Margaret, a woman noble by royal ascent." Others place the date of Margaret and Edgar's arrival in Scotland as 1068.

Malcom Canmore's Tower - Pittencrieff Park, Dunfermline 

What I did know about Margaret was that she was canonised, for her piety, charity and strict observance of the Catholic faith. I had never really joined up the dots though, for her new husband, Malcolm III, also known as Malcolm Canmore, is the same Malcolm who appears in that Scottish play ~ it was this Malcolm who slew Macbeth.

A statue of Margaret in the cave where she
is known to have prayed

The descendants of Malcolm III and Margaret dominated the Scottish monarchy for the next two hundred years, although their reigns were not without challenges.

Malcolm's own journey to the throne was a bloody one. The Annals of England and Ireland are in agreement that Macbeth was put to flight by Malcolm in 1054, and later sources agreed with Shakespeare that this battle took place at Dunsinan. Malcolm killed Macbeth near Aberdeen, at Lumphanan on 15th August 1057, and I just happened to be at Malcolm's power base of Dunfermline/Edinburgh on 15th August this year, 960 years later!

It's a possibility that although Macbeth was killed, his army might in fact have been victorious, because Malcolm was still not considered king.

Macbeth at Dunsinane - John Martin
(Public Domain image)

Macbeth's stepson, Lulach, reigned for a short while but was also killed by Malcolm. The Chronicle of Melrose reported that "[Lulach] fell by the arms of the same Malcolm. The man met his fate at Essie, in Strathbogie."

Even so, Malcolm's slaying of Macbeth and Lulach did not eradicate all rivals to the Scottish throne. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's entry for 1078 tells us that "In this year King Malcolm captured the mother of Maelslæta and all his best men, and all his treasures, and his live-stock, and he himself escaped with difficulty."

Maelslæta, or Máel Snechtai, was Lulach's son, and was, according to the Irish Annals, the king of Moray. These same annals record, enigmatically, that Malcolm's son Donald, by his first wife, died 'unhappily' in 1085. Was this retribution for the attack on Máel Snechtai?

Malcolm and his eldest son by Margaret, Edward, were killed at the Battle of Alnwick in 1093, fighting against Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, and it seems that Margaret died of a broken heart, just a few months later.

Her relics drew huge numbers of pilgrims to Dunfermline abbey until the Reformation, 'when heretics stole into the Kingdome, trampled underfoot all divine and human lawes and seized the sacred moveables on [Dunfermline] Church.'

Margaret's Shrine

A couple of years after my visit to Dunfermline, after I'd completed my book Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, I was commissioned to write a book focusing on the women of the period. My research for Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England saw me returning to Margaret's story, to study in depth the primary sources for her life, and in particular that written by her own confessor. And as I mention in the book, it was Margaret who, despite never having lived in England, brought the House of Wessex and the House of Normandy together, when her daughter married Henry I.

[all photos by and copyright of the author] 

For more about Margaret's connections, you can also see this wonderful website: https://www.allaboutedinburgh.co.uk/

Crowland Abbey

Back in November 2023, as Storm Ciarán was raging, I drove most of the length of England to visit Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire, a place which looks from some photos to be a ruin, but is actually still a working parish church. I was greeted as a guest of the priest of Deeping St James, a parish nearby (Reverend Mark conducts services as there is currently no priest in charge at Crowland) and the church wardens (Laura was my contact and made me feel super welcome).

I was there because Crowland has a remarkable history. Anyone who has read Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom will know that I've written about St Guthlac, who began his adult life as a Mercian warrior and then went to Crowland to live out his days as a hermit. He was frequently visited there by a young exile who, when fortunes were reversed, became one of the most successful of all the Mercian kings: Æthelbald (716-757)

Guthlac was born around 674 and the author of his Life, Felix, said that he was of royal Mercian stock and that his father was Penwalh of the Middle Angles (an area under Mercian control). Guthlac began his adult life as a warrior and we are told that he spent time fighting in Wales and on the Mercian/Welsh border, and was for a time an exile among the Welsh (Britons) and learned their language. Perhaps he was there as a hostage. At some point he gave deep thought to his lifestyle and when he was twenty he took up the religious life, first as a monk at Repton* and then as a hermit at Crowland. It was here he was visited by the young royal Mercian exile, Æthelbald, who told him how he had been chased 'hither and thither' by the incumbent king of Mercia. Another visitor was Guthlac's sister, Pega, who received a bad press from some sources who claimed she had tempted him from his path. I wrote about her in my book Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

The quatrefoil showing images from Guthlac's life

Recently though my thoughts have turned once again to Crowland, because I refer to it several times in the new book I've just written: Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge. Guthlac's visitor and friend Æthelbald was, as I said, a powerful and successful king but his reign ended in the worst way, for he was set upon and killed by his own men. It speaks volumes for the murky world of power politics and the succession that he'd begun his reign having been driven away by the incumbent and then was murdered at the end of it.

His is not the only murder story that contains reference to Crowland, however, and I'll get to those. But first, a little  general history of the place.

Crowland Abbey's website tells us that the abbey was a monastery of the Benedictine Order. It's often said that it was founded in memory of St Guthlac early in the eighth century by his friend, King Æthelbald but the assumption of this is based on fourteenth-century forgers. ** The abbey was completely destroyed and most of the community killed by the Danes in 866. It was refounded during the reign of King Eadred*** but was destroyed by fire in 1091, but rebuilt about twenty years later. Sadly it was burned down again in 1170, but it enjoyed peace and prosperity thereafter until the Dissolution of the Monasteries during Henry VIII's reign. 

The abbey's website also says that, 'At the time of the Dissolution the abbot was John Welles, or Bridges, who with his twenty-seven monks subscribed to the Royal Supremacy in 1534, and five years later surrendered his house to the king... The site and buildings were granted in Edward VI’s reign to Edward Lord Clinton, and afterwards came into the possession of the Hunter family. The remains of the abbey were fortified by the Royalists in 1643, and besieged and taken by Cromwell in May of that year.'

As you can see from my photos, the ruins are picturesque and the abbey church still intact. But the abbey is not the only interesting edifice in Crowland. Just a very short walk into the village itself brings you to a bridge which crosses... nothing.

No, it's not some kind of folly. The bridge is mentioned by King Æthelbald in the foundation charter for the abbey in 716 (S82) though of course the surviving bridge dates from much later. It originally crossed the River Welland but when the water course was re-routed in the seventeenth century which left the bridge literally high and dry. Its shape is interesting as it is a three-way arch bridge, built to cross not only the Welland but one of its tributaries.

Photo by Thorvaldsson: Accreditation Link

Crowland has been in the news recently as archaeologists continue to excavate and examine the historic sites. There is an excellent article published earlier in 2024 which gives a summary of the recent work:

Sacred Landscapes and Deep Time: Mobility, Memory, and Monasticism on Crowland, by Duncan W Wright and Hugh Willmott.

But let's return to the abbey itself, and my primary reason for visiting. Its history was reportedly preserved in the annals known as the Croyland Chronicle, begun by one of its abbots, Ingulf, though the earlier section accredited to him is widely believed to be a forgery. But from Ingulf's history we get details of a Viking attack which left most of the community there dead or dying, and though we have no corroborating evidence, the date does seem to tie in with the known Viking activity in the area at the time. I got to 'meet' one of the possible victims, but I'll save the photos of that for the new book! (I can tell you, it was quite the experience, and very moving.)

After Æthelbald's assassination in 757, another man ruled briefly before being 'dislodged' by perhaps the most famous (or should that be notorious?) Mercian king: Offa. He was accused - in some sources with the connivance or even at the urging of his wife - of murdering the king of East Anglia, who had visited Offa's court in the hope of marrying one of his daughters. When the visiting king was slain, his grieving would-be fiancée took herself to Crowland.

One of the last stories in my forthcoming book concerns a man who survived the Norman Conquest and rebelled against William. He was Earl Waltheof, and according to the chronicles he was buried at Crowland.

It's rare to be able to visit a site with connections to the Anglo-Saxon era, and to have so many people of note associated with one place is extra special (there's rumours of links to Hereward the Wake, too, but that's perhaps for another blog post!)

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England is available for pre-order from the publisher HERE and from Amazon HERE or wherever you buy your books. It will be released in the UK on Feb 15 2025

*See my post about the Viking camp and the Anglo-Saxon crypt at Repton HERE

**See Bertram Colgrave's Translation of Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, preface

***For an overview of Eadred's reign you can read my chapter on his rule in Kings and Queens: 1200 Years of English and British Monarchs, edited by Iain Dale and published by Hodder & Stoughton

You can hear a folk song about the attack on the abbey HERE

All photos by and copyright of Annie Whitehead unless otherwise stated.