A modern recreation of a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon warrior
A fyrd was a type of early Anglo-Saxonarmy that was mobilised from freemen or paid men to defend their Shire's lords estate, or from selected representatives to join a royal expedition. Service in the fyrd was usually of short duration and participants were expected to provide their own arms and provisions.
The composition of the fyrd evolved over the years, particularly as a reaction to raids and invasions by the Vikings. The system of defence and conscription was reorganised during the reign of Alfred the Great, who set up 33 fortified towns (or burhs) in his kingdom of Wessex. The amount of taxation required to maintain each town was laid down in a document known as the Burghal Hidage. Each lord had his individual holding of land assessed in hides. Based on his land holding, he had to contribute men and arms to maintain and defend the burhs. Non-compliance with this requirement could lead to severe penalties.
Ultimately the fyrd consisted of a nucleus of experienced soldiers that would be supplemented by ordinary villagers and farmers from the shires who would accompany their lords.
Definitions
The Germanic rulers in early medieval Britain relied upon the infantry supplied by a regional levy, or fyrd[1] and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[1] In Anglo-Saxon documents military service might be expressed as fyrd-faru, fyrd-færeld, fyrd-socn, or simply fyrd. The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire, in which all freemen had to serve. Those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land.[2] According to the laws of Ine:
If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service.[3]
It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom, however in the case of hit and run raids, particularly by Vikings, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough, so it was rarely summoned.
Historians are divided on whether or not the fyrd included thegns and mercenaries. Initially the force probably would have been entirely infantry. However, from Alfred's time there would have been a force of mounted infantry, who could gallop swiftly to any trouble spot, dismount, and drive off any raiding force.[1][4] Also, after Alfred's reorganisation there were two elements to his army. The first known as the select-fyrd was, most likely, a strictly royal force of mounted infantry consisting mainly of thegns and their retainers supported by earls and reeves. The second would be the local militia or general-fyrd responsible for the defence of the shire and borough district and would consist of freemen, such as small tenant farmers and their local thegns and reeves. In the 11th century the infantry was strengthened by the addition of an elite force of housecarls.[5][6] More recent research, however, suggests that there was only a select-fyrd, in which the mounted element was provided by Wessex.[7]
The Old English term that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle uses for the Danish Army is "here"; Ine of Wessex in his law code, issued in about 694, provides a definition of "here" as "an invading army or raiding party containing more than thirty-five men", yet the terms "here" and "fyrd" are used interchangeably in later sources in respect of the English militia.[1][8]
Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding; the so-called ‘common burdens' of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. Even when a landholder was granted exemptions from other royal services, these three duties were reserved. An example of this is in a charter of 858 where Æthelberht, King of Wessex, made an exchange of land with his thegn Wulflaf. It stipulates that Wulflaf's land should be free of all royal services and secular burdens except military service, the building of bridges, and fortress work.[2][9][10]
If anybody neglects the repair of fortresses or bridges or military service, he shall pay 120s. as compensation to the king in districts under the English law, and the amount fixed by existing regulations in the Danelaw...[2]
England had suffered raids by the Vikings from the late 8th century onwards, initially mainly on monasteries.[11] The first monastery to be raided was in 793 at Lindisfarne, off the north east coast, with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describing the Vikings as heathen men.[12] The raiding continued on and off until the 860s, when instead of raiding the Vikings changed their tactics and sent a great army to invade England. This army was described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a "Great Heathen Army".[13] The Danes were eventually defeated by Alfred the Great at the Battle of Edington in 878. This was followed closely by the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, under which England was divided up between the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex and the Vikings.[14] However, there continued to be a threat by another Danish army that was active on the continent. The rampaging Viking army on the continent encouraged Alfred to protect his Kingdom of Wessex. He built a navy, reorganised the army, established a cavalry, and set up a system of fortified towns known as burhs.[15][16]
Each element of the system was meant to remedy defects in the West Saxon military establishment exposed by Viking raids and invasions. If under the existing system he could not assemble forces quickly enough to intercept mobile Viking raiders, the obvious answer was to have a standing field force. If this entailed transforming the West Saxon fyrd from a sporadic levy of king's men and their retinues into a mounted standing army, so be it. If his kingdom lacked strongpoints to impede the progress of an enemy army, he would build them. If the enemy struck from the sea, he would counter them with his own naval power. To maintain the burhs, and the standing army, he set up a system of taxation and conscription that is recorded in a document, now known as the Burghal Hidage; thirty three fortified towns are listed along with their taxable value (known as hides). Characteristically, all of Alfred's innovations were firmly rooted in traditional West Saxon practice, drawing as they did upon the three ‘common burdens' that all holders of bookland and royal loanland owed the Crown. Where Alfred revealed his genius was in designing the field force and burhs to be parts of a coherent military system.[17][18]
Henry I of England, the Anglo-Norman king who promised at his coronation to restore the laws of Edward the Confessor and who married a Scottish princess with West Saxon royal forebears, called up the fyrd to supplement his feudal levies, as an army of all England, as Orderic Vitalis reports, to counter the abortive invasions of his brother Robert Curthose, both in the summer of 1101 and in autumn 1102.[20]
A view of early American military organization, considered the fyrd the abstract principle for the defense of colonial Virginia.[21]
Alfred the Great was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England.
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians ruled Mercia in the English Midlands from 911 until her death. She was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his wife Ealhswith.
The Danelaw was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian law. The term is first recorded in the early 11th century as Dena lage. The areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England, long occupied by Danes and other Norsemen.
Guthrum was King of East Anglia in the late 9th century. Originally a native of Denmark, he was one of the leaders of the "Great Summer Army" that arrived in Reading during April 871 to join forces with the Great Heathen Army, whose intentions were to conquer the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. The combined armies were successful in conquering the kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, and parts of Mercia, and overran Alfred the Great's Wessex, but were ultimately defeated by Alfred at the Battle of Edington in 878. The Danes retreated to their stronghold, where Alfred laid siege and eventually Guthrum surrendered.
The institution known as leiðangr, leidang (Norwegian), leding (Danish), ledung (Swedish), expeditio (Latin) or sometimes lething (English), was a form of conscription to organize coastal fleets for seasonal excursions and in defense of the realm typical for medieval Scandinavians and, later, a public levy of free farmers. In Anglo-Saxon England, a different system was used to achieve similar ends, and was known as the fyrd.
At the Battle of Edington, an army of the kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by the Dane Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May 878, resulting in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year. Primary sources locate the battle at "Eðandun". Until a scholarly consensus linked the battle site with the present-day village of Edington in Wiltshire, it was known as the Battle of Ethandun. This name continues to be used.
A housecarl was a non-servile manservant or household bodyguard in medieval Northern Europe.
Trinoda necessitas is a term used to refer to a "threefold tax" in Anglo-Saxon times. Subjects of an Anglo-Saxon king were required to yield three services: bridge-bote, burgh-bote, and fyrd-bote. Rulers very rarely exempted subjects from the trinoda necessitas, because these services were the lifeblood of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. After the Norman Conquest, exemptions from the trinoda necessitas became more common.
Æthelwold or Æthelwald was the younger of two known sons of Æthelred I, King of Wessex from 865 to 871. Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878.
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from soon after the end of Roman Britain until the Norman Conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan. It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century.
The Five Boroughs or The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw were the five main towns of Danish Mercia. These were Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. The first four later became county towns.
A burh or burg was an Anglo-Saxon fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts or Roman forts and employed materials from the original fortifications. As at Lundenburh, many were also situated on rivers: this facilitated internal lines of supply while aiming to restrict access to the interior of the kingdom for attackers in shallow-draught vessels such as longships.
The Great Heathen Army, also known as the Viking Great Army, was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum is a 9th-century peace agreement between Alfred of Wessex and Guthrum, the Viking ruler of East Anglia. It sets out the boundaries between Alfred and Guthrum's territories as well as agreements on peaceful trade, and the weregild value of its people.
The Burghal Hidage is an Anglo-Saxon document providing a list of over thirty fortified places (burhs), the majority being in the ancient Kingdom of Wessex, and the taxes assigned for their maintenance. The document, so named by Frederic William Maitland in 1897, survives in two versions of medieval and early modern date. Version A, Cotton Otho B.xi was badly damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731 but the body of the text survives in a transcript made by the antiquary Laurence Nowell in 1562. Version B survives as a composite part of seven further manuscripts, usually given the title De numero hydarum Anglie in Britannia. There are several discrepancies in the lists recorded in the two versions of the document: Version A includes references to Burpham, Wareham and Bridport but omits Shaftesbury and Barnstaple which are listed in Version B. Version B also names Worcester and Warwick in an appended list.
Viking activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Middle Ages, the 8th to the 11th centuries CE, when Scandinavians travelled to the British Isles to raid, conquer, settle and trade. They are generally referred to as Vikings, but some scholars debate whether the term Viking represented all Scandinavian settlers or just those who used violence.
The Battle of Buttington was fought in 893 between a Viking army and an alliance of Anglo-Saxons and Welsh.
The Battle of Chippenham was a January 878 battle between a Viking army led by Guthrum and an Anglo-Saxon army led by Alfred the Great. The Vikings forced Alfred to flee Chippenham and managed temporarily to gain control over most of Wessex.
The Battle of Benfleet was an 894 battle between the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons commanded by Edward the Elder and Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, the son and son-in-law of Alfred the Great respectively. The battle was part of a campaign started by the Vikings in 892 to raid and potentially occupy lands in England, having been defeated by the armies of France. As part of this campaign the invaders were supported by those Vikings who had settled in England following an earlier invasion launched in 865. The battle was a victory for the Anglo-Saxons who successfully captured a number of women and children, as well as capturing or destroying the Viking ships.
Government in Anglo-Saxon England covers English government during the Anglo-Saxon period from the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The section "Before unification" examines the development of the early petty kingdoms and their absorption by the Kingdom of Wessex in the 9th century. The remainder of the article describes both central and local government in the unified Kingdom of England. See Government in medieval England for developments after 1066.
↑ Lavelle. Alfred's Wars. p. xvi— The names select~ and general~ are attributed to the historian C. Warren Hollister. See American Historical Review 73 (1968). pp. 713-714.
↑ Attenborough. The laws of the earliest English kings. pp. 40-41 - We use the term thieves if the number of men does not exceed seven. A band of marauders for a number between seven and thirty five. Anything beyond that is a raid'.
↑ "Electronic Sawyer, Charter S.328". Wulflaf's land should be free of all royal services and secular burdens except military service, the building of bridges, and fortress work— absque expeditione sola pontium structura et arcium munitionbus....
↑ J. W. Fortescue (1899) A History of the British Army, volume I
↑ C. Warren Hollister, Henry I, 2001:159; cf. Hollister, Military Organization of Norman England, 1965:102-26.
↑ William L. Shea. (1983). The Virginia militia in the Seventeenth century. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780807111062.
Bibliography
Attenborough, F.L. Tr., ed. (1922). The laws of the earliest English kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beckett, Ian Frederick William (2011). Britain's Part-Time Soldiers: The Amateur Military Tradition: 1558–1945. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN9781848843950.
Hollister, C. Warren (1962). Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions on the Eve of the Norman Conquest. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lavelle, Ryan (2010). Alfred's Wars Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydel Press. ISBN978-1-84383-569-1.
Powicke, Michael (1962). Military Obligation in Medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Preston, Richard A; Wise, Sydney F; Werner, Herman O (1956). Men in Arms: A History of Warfare and Its Interrelationships with Western Society. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
Sawyer, Peter (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (3rded.). Oxford: OUP. ISBN0-19-285434-8.
Starkey, David (2004). The Monarchy of England Volume I. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN0-7011-7678-4.
Further reading
Dunkin, Sandra (2015). "Fyrd". In Cannon, John; Crowcroft, Robert (eds.). The Oxford Companion to British History (Seconded.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p.385. ISBN978-0-19-967783-2.
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