THE BATTLE THAT DEFINED BRITAIN
We talk to Michael Livingston about the Battle of Brunanburh and the hunt to find where this pivotal conflict took place
The history of Britain is defined by war, with numerous conflicts proving to be significant turning points in the history of the islands. From Hastings in 1066 to World War II, all have shaped the development of the Britain we know today. Yet there is one battle whose role was just as crucial but is rarely spoken about outside of historical circles. The Battle of Brunanburh is little-known but has an air of mystery all its own. Michael Livingston, the author of Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England, explains why Brunanburh deserves to be remembered alongside Hastings and Bosworth as a definitive point in British history.
What was the lead up to the Battle of Brunanburh?
Brunanburh was a battle fought in 937 between the growing realm of the English (who were led by King Athelstan) and an absolutely massive alliance of Scots, Britons and Vikings. Traditionally, these had all been enemies with each other but for this moment in 937 they banded together to end England once and for all. Athelstan had taken control of York from the hands of the Vikings and in 934 had marched an army deep into Scotland. It was clear nobody was in a position to take him on individually, as it were. We don’t know all the details, but these three kings decided to set aside their differences and say: ‘We can kill each other next year, but this year let’s kill the English!’ So they all got together to do this. This was a fight for nothing less than the survival of England.
What were the key events of the battle?
The first key event was the fact that they had to get their armies together, which was an extraordinary achievement in and of itself, and they were able to establish a beachhead. Next, they moved into English territories. Athelstan at that point came out to meet them and the battle took place. We don’t know a lot of details. We know that it was an all-day battle (which is rare, most battles didn’t last that long) and we also know that it took place somewhere that was called Brunanburh. It does occasionally go by other names in other sources, but that’s the main name that sticks to it. We also know that the English won when the shieldwall of the allied forces was broken. The allies were then forced to retreat to the sea and the English cut them down all the way to the shore. For generations afterwards Brunanburh was referred to only as the ‘great battle’, it didn’t even have to be
named. You would just say the great battle, and people knew what you meant because it had been such a terrifying threat.
Who was Egil Skallagrimsson and what was his role in the battle’s history?
He was a warrior and a poet, and he was fantastic at both of these things. He was great at killing a lot of people and writing a terrific poem about it. In the great saga of his life, Egil’s Saga, he actually fights in a battle called Vinheithr. That was a huge battle, which involved Scots, Vikings and King Athelstan. It has long been believed that this was synonymous with the Battle of Brunanburh, but I’m not so sure. It fits much of what we know about Brunaburh but it doesn’t fit everything. I think it’s actually a mash-up of several other conflicts with Brunanburh, like a remix of an old song. It has taken Brunanburh and welded into it a myriad of other conflicts, like a greatest hits. But Egil’s story is closely tied to the Brunanburh myth as a result of this, so I use him as a figure to allow us to get closer to what it would have been like on the battlefield, which was a horror none of us can fully appreciate.
What would you say were some of the biggest consequences of the battle?
The biggest impact was that England survived. This was the battle where England comes of age, having faced an absolutely existential threat. This was a threat to its very existence, to its survival as a nation, and it made it through. Even more than that, Athelstan’s victory set the precedent for what constituted England itself; a map of his England after Brunanburh is remarkably close to a map of what England is today. This was a battle that gave England a chance to actually survive to the present day – it all could have been lost.
The location of the battlefield seems to be a point of debate. Why is this?
In one sense, I wish I knew! As a military historian I understand wanting to know where something happened, because that helps me understand how it happened. However, for a lot of folks, Brunanburh inspires passions at a much deeper level. They have a truly personal investment in locating it. I think, in the end, Brunanburh is a mystery and a puzzle. We’ve got all the pieces, but we don’t have the picture, and people are drawn to that kind of thing. A lot of the communications I get are from people who have become invested in their picture of the battle that they’ve made, and they want to be right about that. As a researcher, however, I don’t want to be right, I want to get it right, which are rather different things.
What can you tell us about some of the contemporary attempts to find the battlefield?
In 2011, I led a multinational team of experts in putting together what was called the Brunanburh casebook. To use the puzzle metaphor, we attempted to put all the pieces that we had in one box, all the available facts, in one place. Having done this, we then wanted to show how we thought it went together, what our picture was. As part of that we stated where we thought the Battlefield could be located and put an ‘X’ on the map, right in the middle of the Wirral Valley. We weren’t the first to suggest that but we brought new information and new confidence, though we still lacked actual physical proof. Wirral Archaeology is a project that has done an absolutely great job of putting actual spades into the ground and finding out what’s beneath. They have found some truly intriguing artefacts that might relate to a battle in the 10th century that involved English and Viking fighters, and there’s not many things that fit that bill quite like Brunanburh does. So the work may still be at an early stage but it is looking very good. If they are truly en route to finding the site right now that gives us a chance to understand not only the battle itself, but 10th century warfare too. It’s an exciting time.
What inspired you to retell the story?
I’d wanted to return to Brunanburh since writing the casebook in 2011. I was initially drawn to the story due to the fascinating mysteries surrounding it. Here’s this amazing battle, for which we have a beautiful, beautiful poem in Old English, and yet we still know so little about it. Realising this, I wanted to know more. After the casebook I knew I wanted to come back to it but I was spurred into doing it now for really two reasons. One was talking with Bernard Cornwell [author of historical fiction such as The Last Kingdom] about the battle. He wanted to know what else
I had that I hadn’t published on the web. The second thing was
spending some time with the Wirral Archaeology folks, seeing the artefacts that they were pulling out of the ground and thinking about ways that supported the conclusion that this is where the battle happened. I felt like this was a good time to tell this story. I hoped to bring awareness of this amazingly impactful moment in English history to a wider audience that had probably never heard of it.
How do you go about researching a battle about which so little is known?
In the intelligence services here in the United States, we engage in what’s called all-source analysis. If you’re trying to locate a threat, you bring every thread of information available to you and weave it together to identify that threat. Writing about Brunanburh is the same thing. The case that I make in Never Greater Slaughter is built on history and chronicles and the kind of thing that everybody uses. But it’s also built on linguistics, poetics and some remarkable work that’s been done using regional DNA analysis. It uses LIDAR technology, which is an absolutely extraordinary tool that utilises satellite technology to more or less erase the vegetation on a landscape so you can dial back 1,000 years to try and figure out what this landscape looked like in 937 and how this dictates what an army could or couldn’t do. My students are always kind laughing at me because I’ll get all excited about title charts or something because any scrap of information is additional. It may be that little snippet which is the key that allows us to fit everything together. It’s a pain and I’m sometimes jealous of my colleagues who are working on things they’ve got video for, which must be just marvellous! I’m dealing with something that has so little information but when you put all these scraps and puzzle pieces together it’s quite remarkable how much we can understand about the past.
Given the level of intense research, was writing the book a long process?
As far as getting all the material was concerned, it was at least a decade in the making. The actual writing of the book was a very short process and took just a couple of months. What
I was working with was a much, much bigger pool of information than previously and I was also very fortunate that I had the ability to call upon Wirral Archaeology and ask about their latest finds. They would pull something out of the ground and send me a picture of it. I also worked with a number of researchers around the world on the Brunanburh casebook and so I had a veritable army of people who wanted to see this story told and were willing to do anything they could to help me do it. I can only hope that I told it well and that it will bring to light this remarkable moment in English history.
"THIS WAS A FIGHT FOR NOTHING LESS THAN THE SURVIVAL OF ENGLAND"