King Alfred and the Vikings - strategies and tactics, 876-886 AD.

by Jeremy Haslam

PART II - The Burghal Hidage - a reassessment

In this paper the writer offers a reassessment of the date of the Burghal Hidage document, its historical and military context and its function. It is argued that the main List of the Burghal Hidage was composed at the time of the construction of a system of fortresses built by King Alfred in Wessex in 878-9, a proposition set out in the previous part of this paper. It is also argued that the Calculation appended to Version A (1) was not only composed very soon after, but was also intended as an aid to the development of new defensive sites in Wessex in the 880s. Although Nicholas Brooks has warned of the dangers of neat solutions to interpretations of the Burghal Hidage (1996b: 137), the writer believes that the assumption that the surviving sources cannot permit coherent and precise reconstructions of past events and processes surrounding the composition of the document obscures the possibility of recognising significant conjunctions (as well as disjunctions) in the evidence as a whole.

In the earlier part of this paper the writer argued the hypothesis that in the period 878-late 879 king Alfred implemented a general military strategy which was designed to permanently remove the threat to Wessex posed by the Viking forces in Mercia. It was suggested that, as a result of his victory at Edington against Guthrum's army in May 878, Alfred was able to construct a system of fortresses all around greater Wessex (which at the time included a part of eastern Mercia) in a crash building programme of unprecedented scale. While individual fortresses played different roles in the implementation of this strategy, the fortresses on the northern side of Wessex were so positioned as to create an offensive system which countered the direct threats posed by the Viking presence in Mercia, and specifically the two Viking armies stationed at Cirencester and Fulham on the borders of Wessex from the summer of 878. These measures were completed by late 879 to a degree which forced the withdrawal of these two armies from Mercia - Guthrum's army retreating to East Anglia behind (east of) an agreed boundary described in the contemporary Treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, the Fulham army sailing back to the Continent in search of more rewarding prospects. The crux of the argument already put forward is that the strategy which resulted in the construction of the system of fortresses in Wessex and eastern Mercia, which system is described in the Burghal Hidage document, best fits this particular set of historical circumstances, and provides the best explanation for the fundamental volte-face implied by these two outcomes, which are so contrary both to the behaviour of the Viking armies in the previous few years and to their own long-term goals.

There is however a degree of apparent circularity about these arguments which it is necessary to address, since it is important to respect and work within the limits of legitimate inference. Neither the Burghal Hidage document itself, nor any evidence from the fortresses listed in it, gives any direct support either for the hypothesis of the construction of the system in the period 878-9, or for the contemporaneity of the document. The dating of neither the fortresses nor the document can be inferred from the other (although, as will be shown below, both often are). This has of course allowed the development of the current paradigm (see below) which views the origin of the document itself as having little or nothing to do with the genesis of the system it describes. It is important to realise however that without the evidence of this document neither the association of the fortresses in a system, nor the strategies indicated by the existence of this system, could be reasonably inferred from the remains of the fortresses alone - for a few of which there is anyway no physical trace, for some of which there is no certainty about their precise location, and for most of which there is no independent evidence of date.

There are several significant observations that can be made about the document itself. Firstly, as David Hill pointed out some time ago (Hill 1969), one of its most remarkable aspects lies in the systematic order of citation of the fortresses in the List in a clockwise circuit. Secondly, Buckingham and Oxford, not in Wessex proper, were also included as an integral part of this circuit. Thirdly, it is also remarkable that the Burghal Hidage is not a direct transcription from the primary lists of fortresses based on the shires which have been postulated elsewhere (Hinton 1996; Brooks 1996b). Not only does it not list the fortresses in shire order; it also disregards any ranking of the fortresses within each shire by the size of their hidage assessments, which might be expected in separately-produced shire lists. The citation of the circuit is therefore the primary factor in its composition. While this shows that the List is secondary to the process of the construction of the individual fortresses themselves, and cannot therefore be a prescriptive planning brief, it also demonstrates that it had some wider purpose than being merely a transcription of separate lists of shire totals prepared for administrative convenience.

The most important conclusion which can be drawn from these observations is that at the time of the composition of the Burghal Hidage this series of fortifications was regarded as a single system, in the sense that the functions of each of the fortresses complemented those of all the others. All the fortresses included in this system, whether they were reused fortified sites of an earlier period or built anew for the purpose, were therefore designed to achieve a single goal - i.e. to implement a single overall strategic concept and to ensure a single outcome (2). By maintaining as its priority the rational order of citation around Wessex its author was not only making a statement that the fortresses functioned as a self-contained and workable military system; he was also announcing the implementation of a set of important strategy decisions which had implications for the whole of greater Wessex. This in turn leads to the inference that the version which can be reconstructed from the two remaining versions is likely to be complete - that it contains no additions and that no places have been omitted (3). This overall purpose is discussed further below.

There are other indications that the List in the Burghal Hidage is complete, in the sense that it never included any arrangements for the defence of Kent. These are brought out from attempts to locate the unidentified Eorpeburnan, the first place in the List. A number of writers have reached the conclusion that it must have been located near the eastern borders of Sussex (eg Dodgson 1996: 99). In 1964 Nicholas Brooks argued for an equation of Eorpeburnan with the fortress stormed by the Vikings in their raid on south-western Kent in 892, though leaving open its precise location (1964: 81-6), a suggestion he has repeated more recently (1996b: 137). This identification was reinforced by Brian Davison (1972), who proposed the identity of Eorpeburnan both with the fortress stormed in 892 and with Castle Toll, near Appledore - though without discussing the significance of the fact that the latter lay in Kent rather than Sussex. Without extending this discussion of these identifications, it is important for the present thesis to arrive at a view as to whether Eorpeburnan could or could not have been in Kent. If it could, then there is no reason for it to have been located in the far south-western corner of the county: it could logically have been anywhere. Allowing Eorpeburnan to have been located in Kent therefore gives no certain support to the identifications proposed by either Brooks or Davison. If, however, Eorpeburnan could not have been in Kent, then its identification with Castle Toll must be abandoned (4).

There are several positive reasons for believing that Eorpeburnan must have been situated in Sussex rather than in Kent. If it had been anywhere in Kent, it has to be explained why other fortresses in the shire - such as Canterbury and Rochester - were excluded from the List. It is clear from recent work (eg Hinton 1996; Brooks 1996b - and further below) that the Burghal Hidage List is a compilation of hidages based on the long-established hidage totals of the separate shires. Since it is inherently unlikely that the systematic protection given to Wessex by the burghal system would not also have been extended to Kent, it must be concluded that these fortresses in Kent, with their own separate assessments, have for some reason always been treated separately, rather than being severed from a once complete List of fortresses which originally included them. It is of course possible that the shire assessment on which arrangements for the defence of Kent would have been based was not available to the compilers of the Burghal Hidage document. But this would posit an unacceptable degree of ignorance or inefficiency that contrasts with the creation of the highly organised and efficient system in Wessex which underlies the compilation of the main List. It is therefore likely that the fortresses in Kent, if indeed they formed a coherent system for that shire, were not originally part of the system of fortresses in Wessex.

A solution to the problem of why the Kent fortresses were not included in the Wessex system would be to suggest that by the time the Wessex fortresses were constructed a separate system of garrisoned fortresses had already been established in Kent. The account in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle shows that Kent was repeatedly subjected to Viking raids from the early 840s until the last-mentioned episode in 865, in which year all of the eastern part of the shire was ravaged, in spite of a 'peace' bought by the 'people of Kent' (Whitelock 1979: 187-91). Since it is clear that the 'people of Kent' were quite capable of acting as a body (and doubtless raising the necessary payments) in their attempts to contain the Viking threat, it would be not unreasonable to suggest that Kent was provided with a system of fortresses in the later 860s subsequent to these raids, and that this system was able to prevent any further sporadic raids by the Vikings by the deployment of the same tactics that king Alfred was later able to use so successfully in Wessex - viz, the construction of a strategically coherent system of fortified and permanently garrisoned places. It seems particularly significant that this would place this suggested Kentish system at a time when Kent had become firmly within the hegemony of the West Saxon Kings - in particular of Aethelbert, Alfred's eldest brother (Keynes 1993b: 128-30), and at a time when the West Saxon Kingdom itself was furnished with some effective fortresses of a kind and the military organisation to implement their defence. It would have been only a short step for Alfred to have seen this system of fortresses in Kent as a model and a prototype (as well as having the Carolingian examples in mind - Smyth 1995:141-2) and to have applied the lessons learnt from it to the whole of Wessex as soon as conditions allowed him to do so.

The main premise in this paper is that the system of fortresses described in the List in the Burghal Hidage, which is complete, reflects in a unique way the strategies which were implemented by king Alfred in the period 878-9, and that the creation of this system is inappropriate to other times or situations in which different strategies were being pursued. The writer has already argued that the most pressing need in the period after Alfred's victory at Edington was to ensure that the two Viking armies poised on the borders of Wessex at Cirencester and at Fulham were to be prevented from attacking Wessex again, and that to this end they should be forced to leave Mercia altogether. As shown in the first part of this paper, the 8 fortresses in the northern part of the system described in the Burghal Hidage were not only placed so as to make sure that this particular outcome was achieved, but were also given proportionately far more resources in terms of hides and therefore manpower than the other 22. The allocation of these resources to the northern part of Wessex (plus Oxford and Buckingham) would be inappropriate to the period after late 879, when the Vikings had left Mercia for good, and when king Alfred was in control of both Wessex and Mercia (the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons'). This strategic significance applies in particular to the fortress at Buckingham (discussed further below), which was arguably built to provide a military backing to ensure that the Vikings held to the agreed boundary recorded in Alfred and Guthrum's Treaty, behind which Guthrum's army retreated. Since this outcome was - by the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - achieved in late 879, then it must be inferred not only that the implementation of this strategy was effective, but also that the system by which this strategy was implemented, of which Buckingham was an integral part, was appropriate only to this time rather than to any other.

This does not by itself demonstrate that the composition of the List in the Burghal Hidage must have been contemporary with the system it describes. However, a further consideration that supports this inference is that many of the fortresses which comprise the List are of a temporary or "emergency" nature. There are 12 such places (42% of the total of 31 places mentioned in the List), whose hidages comprise around 23% of the total number recorded (5). The inclusion of these forts in the overall system, most of which reused earlier fortifications, shows that the scheme described in the Burghal Hidage was hurriedly put together to fulfil the widest and most effective strategic role within a finite allocation of resources. In the context of the 880s, when the Viking threat was no longer as pressing as it was in the period 878-9, the isolated nature of these fortresses would have meant that their upkeep and garrisoning would have been unlikely to have been maintained - a factor graphically described by Nicholas Brooks (1996b: 144-5). Furthermore, if these 'emergency' fortresses were built and garrisoned to implement a strategy which was soon superseded by its own success, the integrity of the original system is unlikely to have been sustained much beyond the circumstances which brought it into being. Since all the fortresses were perceived as being a unified military system at the time of the composition of the List of the Burghal Hidage, the document must therefore be contemporary with the circumstances in which the system was still performing its military and strategic roles - i.e. in 879 or possibly 880.

There is, furthermore, some evidence that these isolated fortresses were soon replaced by small fortified market centres which were rather more conveniently situated as places with a local if not regional 'central place' function, and which demonstrate the implementation of a more developed defensive strategy. Although there are few indications as to when exactly these places developed, the writer suggested nearly twenty years ago (1984: 262-7,276-9) that these new fortified urban centres - and others not directly or obviously replacing the Burghal Hidage fortresses - were built by king Edward the Elder as part of a radical new defensive policy in southern England in the first decade of the 10th century. However, it seems more probable that once the immediate Viking threat to Wessex had passed in late 879 (at least for the time being), king Alfred himself encouraged the development of new defended urban centres on more accessible sites which effectively replaced the 'emergency' forts of the Burghal Hidage. These appear to have expanded and consolidated aspects of the internal and coastal defensive policies seen in many of the sites in the initial scheme of the Burghal Hidage (6).

The siting and character of some of these places is relevant to the arguments about the context of the List of the Burghal Hidage. The period after 879 was relatively free from the immediate threat of invasion by Viking forces. However, the detailed record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of the subsequent exploits of the Fulham army (of 878-9) on the Continent testifies to the concern, if not fear, in royal circles of the consequences of a return of this or any other ship-borne army. One of the strategies shown by the Burghal Hidage system was the siting of several fortresses in positions where the fortress and an associated bridge would have prevented access by Viking warships up the larger rivers, as well as controlling river crossings. The widespread deployment at this period of defended sites showing the military association of a fortress and bridge has been emphasised by both Brooks (1971) and Abels (1988: 72). A number of small forts of the initial Burghal Hidage system (of which the two at Pilton and Halwell in Devon are good examples) were too far from rivers to have been an effective defence against Viking ship-borne armies. Not only would it have been impractical to have maintained garrisons in these forts on a long-term basis; but also any garrison in them would have been unable to prevent Viking warships from sailing up the nearby rivers or estuaries. The forts could have served only as refuges, or at best rallying points for the local militia, in the event of such an attack. Alfred would therefore have found it necessary to develop a more appropriate strategy for the long-term defence of Wessex in the face of the perceived threat of renewed Viking attack from the sea.

There are therefore sound prima facie reasons for arguing that the new populated defensive sites on navigable rivers and river estuaries associated with bridges would have replaced the small unpopulated forts at an early stage in this general process - ie in the 880s, rather than the early 10th century as argued earlier by the writer (1984: 262-7), or in the 930s, as argued by David Hill (Hill 2000 - see note 6 above). Thus the populated fortress at Totnes associated with a defensive bridge would have replaced the isolated fort at Halwell, and, in a precisely similar way, Barnstaple would have replaced Pilton (Haslam 1984: 252-6, 259-67). The systematic development of these defended places, with permanent inhabitants occupying burgages, would have been an essential part of the economic revival in the 880s shown by the restoration of a pure silver currency after the battle of Edington in 878 (Maddicot 1989: 14-17; Blackburn 1998). It would also have constituted an upgraded system of permanently-garrisoned fortifications which would have had the effect of demonstrating to the Vikings the inadvisability of attack from the sea.

It has been widely accepted that it was this lull in direct Viking hostilities in the 880s which provided the opportunity to address the needs of the defence of Wessex by the building of the Burghal Hidage system of fortresses, and that the Chronicle's reference in 892 to a half-built fortress occupied by a few peasants, combined with Asser's reference in 893 (ch. 91) to uncompleted fortresses, implies that this system was perhaps not even completed by this date (eg Keynes & Lapidge 1983: 23-5, n.16, 212). But the alternative thesis proposed here would imply that it was the ongoing development of this secondary series of more securely-sited fortified places built in many new sites in Wessex in the 880s which helped to discourage Viking attentions, and which prevented the renewed Viking invasions of the 890s from achieving much lasting success. The view that these secondary fortified sites such as Totnes and Barnstaple were not developed until the "calmer days of the mid-10th century" (Abels 1988: 69) cannot be accepted - both because at this time, when the Viking threat was a receding memory, they would not have been needed, because defensive considerations governed their layout and location - specifically the strategic use of the burh-bridge combination to counter the Viking threat. Asser's observation could have referred to one of these uncompleted secondary sites, and his more general remarks about the many towns which Alfred had constructed could as equally well have referred to the widespread development of the secondary centres in the period from 880 as to the primary places in the Burghal Hidage List.

This line of argument does not of course mean that there were no fortresses in Wessex before this time. Alfred himself oversaw the construction of one at Athelney in the early months of 878; and a fort at Arx Cynuit (Countisbury) in North Devon was used successfully against a Viking force which stormed it in early 878. With these exceptions, and the possibly isolated example of Wichester, there is no evidence for the existence of large newly-created fortresses on new sites in Wessex prior to 878-9. It is commonly believed that Wareham was fortified before the Vikings came on the scene in 877 (e.g. Smyth 1995:68), though there is no evidence for this in the archaeological findings. There are no grounds for believing that Reading and Chippenham were fortified before being used as fortresses by the Vikings. It seems likely therefore that these three non-Roman places used by the Vikings were newly fortified by them for their own purposes. It is one thing to have the institutional framework in place (royal rights to fortress-work, bridge-work etc), but quite another to infer from this the existence of a particular fortress (such as Wareham), several fortresses, or even a system of fortresses. On the other hand, it is possible - indeed probable - that some of the small so-called 'emergency' forts of the Burghal Hidage (all, like Countisbury, probably reused earlier fortifications), as well as others, were in use before 878-9 as rallying places for the local fyrd in times of emergency, and that some of these customary places were then absorbed into the more organised system created later, which was set out in the Burghal Hidage list.

The general model presented here is that the system of fortresses listed in the Burghal Hidage was only one stage in the construction of an expanding series of fortresses and fortified towns by the king in the 880s and 890s (and by his son Edward the Elder in the early 10th century) in response to the need to provide more securely defended places against the changing Viking threats. This must be seen as part of a wider developing process, which can be characterised as occurring in three phases: a) forts of various types were possibly utilised and maintained in an organised way by the local populations from the 860s or possibly earlier; b) the incorporation of some of these into a system created by royal command in 878-9, which also included newly laid out urban or proto-urban places, which was listed in the Burghal Hidage; c) the creation of new fortified settlements in the 880s and 890s which were laid out to combine the functions of defence by permanent garrisons, settlement, administration and trade. This process can be argued as having involved the replacement of the more isolated and less permanent elements in this system, as well as the creation of new places on new sites. With this latter phase should be included the ongoing internal organisation and development of the larger places of the previous phase. The writer has also argued (forthcoming a:Part 3>the historical setting) that this augmentation of the defensive capability of Wessex by the addition of new sites is to be associated with the replacement of the perhaps decaying turf or timber revetted banks of some of them with new stone walls in the 890s (shown in the archaeological record at Cricklade, Lydford, Wareham, Wallingford and Christchurch), and that this can be associated with an exactly similar programme in some (possibly all) of the major fortresses in Mercia at the same time (attested archaeologically at Hereford and Oxford).

As well as being an essential part of the defence of the kingdom, these new, usually urban, fortresses represented on the one hand a means of exercising and augmenting royal power and control, and on the other, a way of developing the resources of the kingdom as an income-generating resource, a policy which had already begun with the larger Burghal Hidage sites (Abels 1998: 215-8). As with the earlier fortresses, the defence and upkeep of these secondary places must have involved the whole population through a similar method of hidage assessments, though put on a sounder basis by the economic interests of their inhabitants. The creation of all of them would have involved a local reorganisation of the pre-existing County hidage allocations, which would in some cases have been directly inherited from the Burghal Hidage arrangements but must in other cases have involved a more radical readjustment.

An illustration of the problem of understanding how the hidage figures were adjusted to the development of the secondary sites in the 880s is shown by Dorchester, Dorset, which in the writer's view can best be interpreted as being planned and laid out as a new fortified urban centre in this secondary phase. As David Hinton points out (1996: 153-4), the expected hidage assessment of Dorchester would have been much the same as the combined totals of Bredy/Brydian and Shaftesbury in Dorset in the primary List of the Burghal Hidage. However, it seems most likely that an original fort at Bredy was replaced by the fortified town at Bridport in the secondary phase of reorganisation - though there are some differences of opinion on the matter (Keen 1984: 234; Hill 1996d: 192-3, Brooks 1996b: n.32, 147-8). Since there is no reason to believe that either Bridport or Shaftesbury was abandoned at any stage, and since both would have needed manpower resources for the upkeep and garrisoning of their defences through the 880s and beyond, the suggestion that their combined hidage allocations were transferred to Dorchester merely creates two more problems. It is therefore a puzzle as to where Dorchester obtained the extra hidage resources within the fixed assessment of the shire.

One answer to this is that some or all of the manpower requirements for the upkeep of the defences of some of these places were provided by the new populations within their defences. This could explain how for instance under-resourced Exeter could have functioned effectively as a garrisoned town; or how a number of places in the List in the Burghal Hidage (eg Wallingford and Wareham,) were given a hidage assessment which ensured the upkeep of only a part of the complete circuit of defences from the resources of their surrounding districts. The river sides of these fortresses, if a distinct entity, could therefore have been the special responsibility of the new inhabitants of the town, the burhwaru. The possibility that the upkeep of the enlarged defences of Oxford were supported in part by internal 'mural mansions' (Brooks 1996: 142-3) is a pointer as to how this could have been arranged.

In short, it seems probable that in many cases the Burghal Hidage List gives only the shire assessments, and leaves out the burh contributions. That there was a radical reorganisation of the original arrangements described in the List seems to be required by the fact that, as Nicholas Brooks has pointed out (1979: 20), a not insignificant proportion of the population living in the country must have migrated to the new fortified towns in this period. It is inconceivable that the 'gift' by the king of a plot of land (which would have become an estate in miniature) to an aspiring townsman in the king's fortress, with all its attendant privileges, would not have required reciprocal responsibilities for the defence of that fortress, which might well not have shown up in a more general hidage assessment. By creating centres of population within these fortifications (whether by stick or by carrot), king Alfred took the radical step of ensuring their upkeep on a permanent basis. The Burghal Hidage therefore marks a new stage in which the responsibilities for the upkeep of the fortifications was to devolve more closely upon the men of the town, the burhwaru, rather than the men of the shire.

In summary, the view put forward here postulates, firstly, the rapid construction of the system of fortresses in 878-9, recorded in the contemporary List of the Burghal Hidage, which system was built, probably using earlier elements, to implement a combined defensive and offensive strategy for greater Wessex; and secondly, the equally rapid decline of this as a unified military system when the strategy which brought it into being proved so successful in achieving its intended outcome - viz: the removal of the Viking armies from Mercia so that they no longer directly threatened Wessex. It is also argued, however, that some of the same strategic goals as are shown in the Burghal Hidage were more fully implemented in the 880s and 890s (and probably into the early 10th century) by the development all over Wessex of new defended market centres at new sites which were more advantageously positioned from both a strategic and trading point of view. The Burghal Hidage document therefore captures a specific window in this unfolding process, which represents the stage at which the primary fortresses were about to give way to the secondary fortified markets.

Since this overall view about the date and context of the Burghal Hidage is clearly at variance with generally accepted opinion, several aspects of this dissonance require further discussion. These are: 1) the received weight of historical opinion; 2) the origin and context of the fortresses at both Buckingham and Oxford; and 3) the question of Portchester.

Earlier views

The weight of widely-accepted opinion and interpretation concerning the origin of the Burghal Hidage, which places it firmly at some point in the second decade of the 10th century, is truly immense. It has become fossilised into one of the most static and persistent paradigms in the whole field of early medieval history (e.g. Dumville 1992: 24-7; Smyth 1995: 135; Hill 1996a). This is graphically emphasised by the very first sentence of the introduction to the most recent book devoted to a discussion of the Burghal Hidage and the Wessex fortresses:

"The Burghal Hidage is the name given in 1897 by W.F.Maitland to a document composed in the early tenth century" (Hill & Rumble 1996: 1).

In one stroke the writers establish a) the content of the paradigm, b) the authority (unimpeachable and longstanding), and c) the fact that the paradigm has now reached the status of received historical truth, in the presence of whose throne potential dissidents have little hope of a hearing. The assumption has been that the document is a palimpsest in which some additions could have been made to the original number of fortresses of Alfredian origin (e.g. Keynes 1993a: n.119, 26-7; Brooks 1996b: 137-8), with the corollary that others could have been removed from it. This interpretation has been so widely accepted for such a long time that it has prevented any serious discussion of the case that the List in the Burghal Hidage (without its appendices) is a unitary document whose original version is more-or-less contemporary with the creation of the system it describes (7).

There are however several considerations which together cast some doubt on the received paradigm. Part of its inherent problem is that there has been a confusion of primary and secondary contexts for the origin of the document. In calling attention to the prescriptive character of the 'conversion formula' or Calculation in the appendix of version A, Richard Abels has concluded that the Burghal Hidage is "a summary of West Saxon practice compiled by Edward the Elder to aid the extension of the system into Mercia" (1988: 75). This view has also been championed for many years by David Hill and others (Hill 1969; 92; Biddle & Hill 1971; Biddle 1976: 126; Hill 1996c; Hill 2001). Hill has argued that since "the thrust of the document is towards enabling new [hidage] assessments to be made on the basis of wall length" its origin must be sought in the process of the shiring of Mercia around AD919 (Hill 1996c: 96). He suggests that it was "drawn up in Wessex from assessments and measurements made in the shires, checked to see if it would have worked, roughly, from the Wessex shires (hence the list) and then applied to Mercia as a basis for its shiring when Wessex took over control of that country in 919" (ibid: 96).

In particular, Hill argues (ibid: 96-7) that the equivalence of the Burghal Hidage figure of 1200 hides for Worcester with the length of the defences as determined by excavation, the County Hidage figure (1200), the Domesday Hundreds (12), and the Domesday hides (1189) shows that "the Burghal Hidage lies behind the calculation of the area to be dependent on the west Mercian fortifications and therefore the shiring of Mercia" - notwithstanding the clearly documented origins of the fortifications of Worcester some 30 years earlier (Whitelock 1979: 540-1). This theme is further expanded in his paper of 2001, in which he discusses the hidages needed to support the defences of the major shire towns of western Mercia. As a result of this analysis he reinforces the conclusion drawn above, that "the Burghal Hidage was a document derived from the survey undertaken in Wessex for the purpose of carrying out the shiring of Mercia in a relatively systematic way" (Hill 2001: 158). It must be said however that Hill's basic argument about the equivalence of the hides, hidages and lengths of the defences (where the latter "fit") in western Mercia is entirely circular. The equivalence of these figures (certainly very clear in the case of Worcester) is not in itself evidence that the Burghal Hidage - or any other one of the sources - is the progenitor of any of the others.

More fundamentally, these arguments ignore the fact that by the 10th century the principle of the responsibility of the inhabitants of surrounding areas for the upkeep of the fortresses was already a practice of some antiquity in both western Mercia and Wessex (Brooks 1971). The record of fortress-building in the Mercian Register in the period 907-19, as well as the evidence of the Worcester charter of the 890s (Whitelock 1979: 540-1), shows that Aethelred and Aethelflaed had been busy building fortresses in Mercia for nearly 30 years before Aethelflaed's death in 919. None of these fortresses could have been conceived, let alone built, without having had a hidage assessment to enable the available human resources to be allocated to its construction and manning. By the time Edward the Elder took control of Mercia in 919, there must already have existed a well-established hidage system relating to the needs of its overall defence. It is therefore quite improbable that the suggested organisation of shires in c.919 around the major fortresses would have involved the imposition of new assessments, either selectively on individual fortresses or generally on the whole of Mercia. This means, for instance, that Worcester's assessment of 1200 hides would have been in place by the time of the creation of its defences in the 890s, if not earlier. In the context of c.919 the Appendix to version B would therefore merely have been stating the long-established assessment (8).

The conclusion that the Burghal Hidage would have been created to implement this process in Mercia must therefore be questioned. This is especially so in view of the fact that the Calculation appended to version A says nothing about burghal territories or regions or shires, but is all to do with wall lengths and hides and manpower resources. The unlikleyhood of this is further emphasised by the disparity (pointed out above) between on the one hand the Burghal Hidage fortresses seen as a unified system, reflecting a strategic concept which is appropriate to one period in Wessex, and on the other hand the fortresses in Mercia, which at no time constituted a system but rather formed a disparate and non-contemporary series, the individual elements of which were created to implement a quite different set of political and military strategies. The Burghal Hidage List must therefore be seen as a particular manifestation of an ancient and universal practice, rather than the blueprint for the practice itself. That the Burghal Hidage assessments were based on long-established County hidages in Wessex has already been argued elsewhere (Brooks 1996b; Hinton 1996). There is unlikely therefore to have been any connection between the origin of the Burghal Hidage and the origin of any system or programme of hidation or cadastral reorganisation, in either Wessex or Mercia. It must be concluded that the shiring of Mercia, if indeed it can be placed in the period immediately after 919, was an internal affair which involved a rearrangement, rather than a change, of long-established hidage assessments, for the establishment of which the Burghal Hidage document would have been simply irrelevant.

The basic premise of both Professor Abels and Dr Hill, that the Burghal Hidage List plus the Calculation provided the model for new arrangements in Mercia, can, furthermore, be questioned on other grounds. As both Abels and Hill point out, the Calculation is not a means for estimating wall lengths from hidages but rather hidages from wall lengths (Abels 1988: 75; Hill 1996c:93). Hill concludes from this that the document enabled "new assessments to be made on the basis of wall length" (ibid.), and that it therefore had a more general prescriptive value beyond its context as an attachment to the List of Wessex fortresses. But this line of argument ignores the practicalities of the relationship between hidages and the creation of defences, already alluded to above. Since the establishment of a length of wall would have required a prior hidage assessment to determine both the source and the use of the manpower resources with which it was constructed, maintained and manned, it seems doubtful whether there would have been any room for subsequent reassessment.

However, the calculation of the hidages from wall lengths is only half the story, for the first and last clauses of the Calculation in fact show how the hidage figures were then used to work out the numbers of men required to construct and garrison the defences for a given wall length, using the formula

1 man can be supplied from 1 hide, the resources of 4 hides support 1 pole length of wall, therefore 1 pole requires 4 men.

An assessment based on hidages alone would have been meaningless unless it was understood how the hidages converted to manpower. The goal of the Calculation was therefore not the assessment of hides needed for a particular defensive circuit (which would anyway have had hides allocated to it before its construction), but rather the estimation of the number of men needed for a given situation. The conversion of hides to wall-lengths (and perhaps wall-lengths to hides) might be a priority for present-day archaeologists. But for the 9th-century ealdormen and thegns the most pressing day-to-day concern would have been to know how many men could be called on to do the work, where they would come from, and how this workforce could best be organised and distributed. The Calculation was therefore conceived - and indeed set out - as a 'ready reckoner', which enabled any of the three factors of wall-length, hidage and manpower resources to be calculated from the other two. Hill's thesis that the Calculation is "intended to explain how new assessments of fortifications are to be added" is possibly part of the story (see below), but his conclusion that it was therefore "used for calculating the hides to be attached to the Mercian fortifications of Worcester and Warwick, which means that it was in use after 919 …" (ibid) cannot be sustained. This is quite apart from the fact that there is no independent evidence that the Calculation, appended to Version A, had anything to do with Warwick and Worcester, whose hidages are appended to Version B. It is furthermore difficult to see the relevance of the List, which does not even mention wall lengths, to a situation in Mercia where already established wall lengths were supposed to have formed the basis of a new hidage assessment.

Thirdly, a difficulty with this 'late' interpretation of the origin of the Burghal Hidage document as "a summary of West Saxon practice" originating at any time in the period 914-919 is that it requires the acceptance of the proposition that all the fortresses were working together as a functioning system, in exactly the same way, some 30 or 40 years after they were first built. Not only was this system supposed to have continued in use well after the death of Alfred into the period in which Edward the Elder - as well as Aethelflaed and Aethelred in Mercia - were building whole series of new and larger urban fortresses of their own, but Hill's hypothesis also requires that the shire lists of the fortresses had survived in their original form into this later period (9). It also raises the problem, dicussed below, of why Buckingham in particular was included as part of the system which was supposedly first recorded at this time. Arguments have already been given above which show that the integrity of this system is unlikely to have been maintained much beyond the creation of the system itself, though of course the majority of places in the system survived because of their developing urban, administrative and other functions. In particular, it is argued above that the inclusion in the List of the temporary or 'emergency' forts indicates that the list is more-or-less contemporary with the origination of the system as a whole, including Buckingham, discussed further below. Again, the relevance of the Wessex system as a model for the entirely different circumstances of the early 10th century in Mercia must therefore be questioned.

In summary, a document which listed a group of fortresses as a military system set up to meet particular strategic goals - which were arguably appropriate to the context of c.879 in Wessex - would be unlikely, for a number of different reasons, to have been applicable to a quite different situation in another kingdom which was significantly later in date, was not even a system, and had no equivalent or even comparable military or strategic purpose. There is thus a total and seemingly unbridgeable disparity between on the one hand the appropriateness of the system to the context of the late 870s, and on the other hand the context of c.919 in which the document was supposedly written down for the first time. The fossilisation of the contents of a document, albeit in this case in incomplete variants, is a much more acceptable proposition than the continued use of the Wessex system of fortresses which must have soon become outmoded by the very success of the strategy it was designed to implement. It must be concluded that neither the original List nor the Calculation of the Burghal Hidage would have had anything to do with the defensive or administrative arrangements in western Mercia, at any period.

Buckingham and Oxford

A major difficulty with the acceptance of a context earlier than 914 for the composition of the Burghal Hidage has always been the inclusion of Buckingham. Since this is first referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in that year as being a place where king Edward stayed and built two fortresses, it has almost universally been taken for granted by generations of historians that the fortress at Buckingham was newly constructed in this year (10). This appears to be based on the questionable premise that an event or process in the past cannot be accepted as being earlier than its first mention in documents. Thus Professor Whitelock states bluntly that "The document .. known as the Burghal Hidage is not earlier than 914, since it includes Buckingham" (1979:33). However, it has already been argued in detail in print by the writer (Haslam 1997: 125 n.23 ) that this reference in the Chronicle neither states nor implies in any way that a fortress at Buckingham (the presumed one of the pair) was newly constructed by Edward at this time. It is therefore as plausible to accept (in the absence of any archaeological evidence) that there was an Alfredian fortress at Buckingham, thus supplying a reason why the king and his army went there in the first place, as to suggest that it was first built in 914. There are therefore no grounds for arguing that the composition of the original Burghal Hidage must by this evidence be no earlier than the early 10th century.

This difficulty with Buckingham was discussed nearly 40 years ago by Nicholas Brooks (1964), who regarded it as an 'anomaly', a) in lying north of the Thames (in presumed distinction to Oxford, which also lies north of the Thames but rather nearer to it), and b) in belonging to "the system of burhs planned by Edward and Aethelflaed" rather than in the context of "the defence of the south" [ie Wessex proper]. However, he did allow that most of the fortresses in the main part of the list were earlier in origin, and that there could well have been an earlier draft of the Burghal Hidage, to which "a few burhs, completed later, were added … in the reign of Edward the Elder" (1964: 86-7). In a more expanded discussion of the problem more than 30 years later, however, Brooks still sees Buckingham as an "anomaly in the List" for exactly the same reasons (1996a: 90), reinforcing this conclusion by pointing out that the entry for Buckingham in the B version is itself anomalous. Though he allows for the outside possibility that there could have been a fortress at Buckingham before 914, he concludes that it is an addition after 914 to an original list and introduces the possibility that it was a replacement for Sashes. It naturally follows from this conclusion that the Burghal Hidage is a palimpsest. If it is accepted that Buckingham represents "an isolated piece of updating" (ibid), then none of the other fortresses in the Lists can necessarily be assumed to have been part of the original system.

Brooks also raises the question why, if Buckingham was part of the original system, "there should be no plausible permutation of the hidage figures which includes Buckingham and produces a total of 27,071". This line of reasoning is however entirely circular. It is generated by, and dependent upon, the premise that Buckingham is in fact anomalous, and cannot therefore be taken as evidence for this premise. The exclusion of Buckingham from the original List on this basis is merely an easy way out of a particular difficulty with the figures. Since there are other arguments, given below, which support the view that Buckingham is not anomalous, then it must be concluded that this discrepancy is not Buckingham's problem - the disparity in totals has to have some other explanation which has nothing to do with the inclusion of Buckingham.

Furthermore, the concept of an 'anomaly' in the text is somewhat relative. There are other anomalies in the text, both between the two versions A and B, and between different versions of B, which are more than merely variations in the hidage figures for particular places. These relate to entries (or the lack of them) for Burpham, Shaftesbury, Wareham and Brydian (omitted in either version A or B), and Hastings, Lewes, and Chichester (omitted in different MSS of version B) (Rumble 1996: 38). It is a matter of opinion therefore as to whether the entry for Buckingham is 'more anomalous' than these other instances to a degree which demonstrates that it is not an original component of the List. However, the argument already made above needs to be reiterated, that the perception of the textual context of Buckingham as being significantly 'more anomalous' than these other anomalies appears to be dependent on the underlying premise that it is in fact a later addition to an earlier list. It is not therefore evidence for this premise.

Brooks' arguments raise other problems. If Buckingham is a later insertion, then by the same token Oxford should be excluded from the original canon, reflecting the 'anomalous' position of both Oxford and Buckingham as the two fortresses on the Mercian side of the boundary with Wessex, which ran along the Thames. To exclude Buckingham, and not Oxford, from the 'original' text appears therefore to be juggling with the evidence to make it fit the hypothesis: it merely emphasises the anomalous position of Oxford as being the only place in the List in Mercia to the north of the Thames. Furthermore, the acceptance of the hypothesis of the later insertion of Buckingham into an original document as an "isolated piece of updating" (Brooks 1996a:90) requires an explanation as to why it was 'updated' at all; why, of all the fortresses built by Edward the Elder which are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the period 911-17 Buckingham alone was included; and why all these others were apparently systematically excluded. Since Buckingham is included in its rightful place as part of the circuit in the List, this omission in turn also begs the question as to why the particular grouping of fortresses which included Buckingham, and not another one which included other fortresses built in the period 911-17, was then treated in the document as a unified system. It also brings to the fore the argument made above that in 914 there would have been little reason to add an isolated fortress to a document which sets out a system which was already 30 years out of date, especially since the new fortress at Buckingham of 914 was part of an entirely different series of Mercian fortresses whose components were constructed over a period of six or seven years. In short, the easy assumption that Buckingham is a later addition to an earlier list raises more problems than it solves.

There are therefore two rather different strands in these inferences about the date of the document - a) that the Burghal Hidage cannot be earlier than 914, the year in which Edward the Elder built a fortress at Buckingham, and b) that Buckingham is an insertion into a largely earlier list. All discussion about the date, context and function of the Burghal Hidage has in the past come back to the underlying premise that a fortress at Buckingham could not have been part of the original scheme of Alfred's defence of Wessex. If on the other hand Buckingham were to be regarded as part of the original scheme, it would, as Brooks has pointed out, be necessary to find "an appropriate historical explanation" for its inclusion (ibid: 89).

The crux of the arguments already put forward by the writer is that the construction of a fortress at Buckingham would have been an essential element in the implementation of the strategy which was aimed at forcing the two Viking armies from Mercia - the successful outcome of which is documented as occurring in late 879. It is argued that it would have played a vital part in the reinforcement of the northern part of the boundary agreed between Alfred and Guthrum to the east and north of London, behind (to the east of) which the latter's army was arguably forced to retreat at that time. It would also have served to reinforce the strategic control of the corridor of Watling Street, one of the principle routes connecting north and east Mercia with London, which the establishment of this boundary was designed to give to Alfred. As argued in the earlier part of this paper, it was in an area of eastern Mercia (in effect, the present area of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) of which Alfred, as the only Saxon party to have signed the Treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, is likely to have taken control at the time as a result of the demise or overthrow of Ceolwulf. In other words, without the establishment of the fortress at Buckingham, Alfred would not have been able to have controlled the integrity of the northern part of the boundary which he had established as the western limit of Guthrum's territory in East Anglia. It would, as Alfred Smyth neatly puts it (1995: 139), have been vital in "holding down a conquered territory". Seen from this standpoint it is therefore not an anomaly in a list of fortresses drawn up in around 879. Rather, it is this particular time which provides the only plausible context in which Buckingham would have played an essential role in the system of fortresses listed in the Burghal Hidage. In short - and contrary to what has been almost universally accepted - it is the inclusion of Buckingham in the List of the Burghal Hidage which provides one of the key factors which supports the hypothesis of the origin of the system in the period 878-9, but which generates the most problems for the generally-held hypothesis of its origin in the early 10th century (11).

The question of the origin of Oxford clearly bears on the same question. If, as is argued by the writer, the area of eastern Mercia represented by the later shires of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire was taken over by king Alfred in the period before late 879, the siting of a fortress at Oxford at this period would make good tactical sense. Not the least of the reasons would have been its siting on the point where an important north-south routeway, which was of considerable importance in the middle Saxon period (Blair 1994: 87-92), crossed the river Thames. Recent opinion appears however to be divided on the question of its origin. While there is plenty of evidence to show that Oxford was an important central place from the Middle Saxon period (Blair, ibid), archaeologists working in the town favour (with some equivocation) an early 10th century origin for the layout of the fortress (eg Hassall 1986: 116; 1987: 15; Durham & others 1983; Durham 1994: 482), while the present writer has entertained the possibility of its origin as a fortress built as part of an earlier Mercian system by Offa, a century earlier than Alfred (Haslam 1987). A Mercian context for its construction - i.e. by Aethelred and/or Aethelflaed in the late 880s or early 890s - has however recently been put forward by Blair (1994: 99-101), to explain the existence of the coinage of Alfred - a hypothesis taken up by Reynolds (1999: 90-1). The archaeological evidence for the construction of the defences (Hassall 1987: 17; Blair 1994:148-9; Durham et al:1983) shows close similarities to that at Cricklade, where a turf-revetted bank of probably Alfredian origin was replaced by a massive stone wall along the whole length of the front of the bank in arguably the last decade of the 9th century (Haslam 2003). However, the numismatic evidence, discussed by Blackburn (1998:111), shows that the mint at Oxford was producing coins at the same time as the celebratory issues produced by Alfred in both London and Gloucester soon after the Vikings left Mercia in late 879 (see below). As has been discussed in the earlier part of this paper, this shows that Oxford is likely to have been 'refounded' by Alfred as a fortified urban place in probably the spring or early summer of 879 (after the demise of Ceolwulf), and that it was included with Buckingham within the Wessex system to further Alfred's defensive and offensive strategies against the Vikings in eastern Mercia and in London at the time.

A further reason has been advanced by some writers for placing the origins of the Burghal Hidage in the time-slot of 911-19 is the belief that the only plausible context in which fortresses at Oxford and Buckingham could have been constructed by the West Saxons was the occasion when Edward the Elder took control of the lands belonging to Oxford and London in 910 on the death of Aethelred of Mercia (ASC, sa) (Chadwick 1905: 204-19, a view repeated by Robertson - 1939: 494, and more recently by Hassall - 1986: 116 and Smyth - 1995: 135). This argument however seems to miss the point that the same context that saw king Alfred in control of the lands to the west of the boundary in Alfred and Guthrum's Treaty must also have been suitable for the construction of the two fortresses by king Alfred. Even given the traditional dating of the Treaty to 886 (see above) - and it obviously cannot be later than Guthrum's death in 890 - this clearly undermines this line of argument, especially since the Chronicle shows that Alfred was in control of London in 886. The 'solution' offered above is that the control of the area of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and the construction of the two fortresses at Oxford and Buckingham by Alfred were necessary preconditions for the signing of the Treaty, and that all of these factors best fit the earlier context of mid or late 879.

Portchester

The inclusion of Portchester in the original system of Alfredian fortresses has also posed some problems, in that the Roman fortress and its estate was only acquired by the king from the bishop of Winchester in 904. This has been interpreted as being one element in a policy on the part of Edward the Elder to consolidate the defensive arrangements for the south coast against further Viking attack (Fleming 1985; Dumville 1992a). However, this does not necessarily mean, as Tait (1936: **) and Stenton (1971: 265) have suggested, that it was the first time that the Roman fortress at Portchester was used for this purpose. Since all landowners, including bishops, were liable for military obligations which included fortress work and garrison duty (Brooks 1971), it would have been perfectly feasible for king Alfred to have required the bishop of Winchester to have put in hand the arrangements for the defence of Portchester without requiring the king to have owned the site himself (12). It seems likely that this would have been part of some quid pro quo for privileges given to the bishop in the division of assets attending the fortification of Winchester, in the manner documented in a similar process at Worcester in the 890s.

Conclusion - the date and function of the Burghal Hidage List and the Calculation.

In conclusion, it can be argued that there are no inherent problems in regarding the original version of the List of the Burghal Hidage as being more or less contemporary with a primary system of fortresses arguably constructed by king Alfred in the period May 878 - August 879. There are, furthermore, some features in it, such as the inclusion of Buckingham and the exclusion of London as well as other early 10th century fortresses, which positively support this early date for its origin. It is also of some importance that there are two instances where a place mentioned in the Burghal Hidage can be shown to have existed in c.879-80 in a historical context which implies a date of foundation not long before. The evidence has been discussed above of the new mint of king Alfred at Oxford of c.879-80, from which a date for the foundation of the urban fortress of around 879 can be reasonably inferred, based on the date that Alfred is likely to have taken control of Mercia. Secondly, the evidence of the stone inscription of c.880 from a gateway of Shaftesbury has been discussed by Keynes (1998: 38 & further refs, notes 41, 43), and illustrated by David Sturdy (1995: 189). This existence of this stone demonstrates that the gateway was in place by 880 (which year began in late 879), and, using the calculations about the speed of construction of the defences given above, shows that the fortifications were therefore likely to have been constructed in the previous year or so. The fact that these two places were an integral part of the unitary system of fortresses constructed in one fairly narrow time slot, argued above, provides some support for the hypothesis that the creation of the whole system to which these places belong can therefore be dated to this time.

As Brooks has pointed out (1996a: 90-1) the inclusion of Warwick and Worcester in the appendix to version B is a separate issue to the origin and context of the main List itself. The explanation of the fact that the List did not include London or any of the other fortresses of Mercia (except the two in the appendix to version B) lies in the fact that it described a successful system put in place before London was retaken from the Vikings in late 879, and within a context which existed prior to, and which was soon superseded by, the changes in the political, economic and military circumstances in Mercia after this time which mark the development of what Simon Keynes has termed the 'kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons'.(13).

The suggested function of the List follows from this context. It has for a long time been assumed to have been a "working document" used in Wessex (eg. Brownhill 1911: 2-3). In this vein Alex Rumble has suggested that it was an official memorandum which was "intended for the use of its draftsman or his successors in administration" (1996:69); and David Hill has suggested that it "may not have arisen for any other purpose than as a stock-taking of the situation and [may] not be linked to a particular crisis or decision" (1996: 96). It could be argued however that its purpose was far more significant, and that it was as important to the implementation of Alfred's strategic intentions as was the scheme that it describes. Nicholas Brooks has emphasised the direct connection between the successful enforcement of public defensive works against the Vikings in the 9th century and the development of royal authority (1971:84). And Richard Abels has observed how the construction of the fortresses enhanced "the institutional power of the West Saxon Monarchy over its subjects", and how they reinforced and regulated "the traditional connection between landholding and the military obligation to the Crown" (1998:208). The composition and dissemination of the List can therefore be seen as an essential propaganda exercise, in the sense that its 'publication' or circulation would have been an integral aspect of king Alfred's drive to consolidate his authority and control over his kingdom. Given its strategic significance, already argued above, it would be reasonable to suggest that copies of the List were widely circulated in Wessex (14), possibly to the ealdormen or reeves of all the shires. This would have served to regularise, systematise and disseminate the outcome of a rapidly executed strategy, many elements of which would have had to have been worked out and implemented at a local level (Brooks 1996b: 133). It would also have reinforced both the allegiance of the population as a whole to the processes of royal government, as well as their willingness to participate in the general conscription required for the implementation of the king's overall strategies (15).

The Calculation

This developmental model provides the basis for a fresh interpretation of the context of the Calculation in the appendix to version A of the Burghal Hidage. Given the arguments made above, a plausible context for the Calculation is that it was attached to the original List as an aid to the allocation of resources needed to lay out and garrison the new secondary fortified market centres in Wessex which replaced and/or augmented the temporary forts of the original system, arguably (as above) from the early 880s. In a situation in which the redistribution of resources and the creation of new sites were at least partly constrained by the existing hidage totals of the shires, the addition of a practical and prescriptive formula spelling out the way to convert a hidage assessment into manpower resources and wall lengths would have been entirely appropriate - indeed necessary. In putting forward this hypothesis, however, two alternative scenarios should be examined. The List and the Calculation comprising the A version could have been both created and disseminated as a unitary document at the same time in either a) the initial stages of the formation of the original defensive system, or b) the initial stages in the development of the secondary defended centres. However, both alternatives seem to be ruled out by a) the existence of a separate and different version of the List alone in version B, from which it follows that the List in version A was also separate; and b) the fact that wall lengths - the basis of the Calculation - is a factor ignored by the List, implying that the Calculation was composed to supplement the information in the List.

That the reorganisation of local resources to facilitate these defensive arrangements was based on the individual shires implies that the Calculation, like the original List, was circulated to every shire reeve. This Calculation was attached to a version of the document in which all the 'emergency' forts were still regarded as part of the original system. It can be inferred from this that although the original List on its own had a specific function, the single entity formed by the two together reflects a significantly different function within the context of an early stage in the process of reorganisation of the defences of Wessex in the 880s. It would have had the effect of transforming an exercise in royal propaganda - in its fullest sense - into something akin to a prescriptive planning brief. In other words, it was not some idle memo recorded by a tidy-minded clerk and consigned to the 'file-it' tray in the royal surveyor's office. It was on the contrary arguably a significant instrument - like the original List itself - in the practical implementation of a redevelopment programme which was centralised, highly organised and wide-ranging, but which required the active cooperation of the reeves and thegns, and indeed the population as a whole, in each of the shires. As such it has important social, economic as well as strategic implications for any view of the development of Alfred's authority and control over his kingdom.

ENDNOTES

1. Dr Rumble has demonstrated how the List, the Calculation appended to version A and the Appendix to version B (with its parts) should be regarded as separate entities with different histories.

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2. The strength of this point seems to have been missed in the writings on the subject by both Nicholas Brooks and Simon Keynes. Keynes refers in several places to the fortresses in the Burghal Hidage List being a series, with Shaftesbury belonging "among the earliest in the series" (1998: 38), and for instance Southwark perhaps being built a few years later (1993: 24, 26-7 n.119). Brooks refers on more than one occasion to the addition of fortresses at varying times to an original group, which may or may not therefore have constituted a system in the sense used here (eg 1964: 86-7; 1996a: 90). In his rather brief discussion of the Burghal system, John Peddie has also recently made the same assumptions. He not only regards the fortresses at Cricklade and Wallingford, somewhat inconsistently, as being in existence in the early 870s (1999: 83, 87-8, 127-8, 151), but also sees Southwark as being built after Alfred's assumption of control of London in 886 (ibid: 166). See further discussion below.

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3. Excepting of course the possibility that some places may have been left out in both surviving versions through scribal errors, which seem to have plagued its later transmission.

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4. F.Kitchen has suggested the identification of Eorpeburnan with Rye in E Sussex (Kitchen 1984). This is supported by further work by the writer, who will argue that Rye originated as a late Saxon planned and fortified urban settlement. As a working hypothesis it is suggested that Eorpeburnan may be identified either with Rye or, more probably, with an unknown fortress of which Rye was the 'urban' successor, and Castle Toll in Kent identified with the half-finished fortress stormed by the Vikings in 892, but that Eorpeburnan cannot be identified with the latter fortress.

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5. Figures are based on Table 4:5 in Brooks 1996a:88. See note 6 below.

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6. These places include Eorpeburnan, suggested above (n.3) as being a fort replaced by Rye; Burpham, possibly replaced by Arundel; Clausentum, replaced by Southampton; Chisbury, replaced by Marlborough (Haslam 1984b: 94-102); Brydian, replaced by Bridport; Halwell replaced by Totnes; Hlidan, a small fort at Lifton, replaced by Lydford (Hill 1996: 209; 2000: **); Pilton replaced by Barnstaple; a fort in a hillfort above Watchet replaced by Watchet; Lyng (a bulwark for Athelney) - possibly a fort at Athelney being replaced by Lyng itself; Sashes, possibly replaced by Cookham (or more probably Staines); and Eashing, replaced by Guildford. These will be discussed by the writer at a later date.

The arguments in this paper, in this and other paragraphs, are contrary to views about the origins of towns in the 10th century, and their relationship to those listed in the Burghal Hidage, which are put forward in a recent paper by David Hill (Hill 2000). Hill postulates a period of urban formation in the reign of Athelstan, in the late 920s or 930s, in which some of the small forts mentioned in the Burghal Hidage were replaced by defended urban places on new sites. This phase saw the creation of such places as Barnstaple, Totnes and Guildford in Wessex, replacing respectively Pilton, Halwell and Eashing, and the creation of other new towns on Roman sites such as Exeter, Dorchester and Ilchester. This view was first put forward in Hill's paper of 1969, and has been repeated for instance by other writers since then (eg Biddle 1976: **; Abels 1988: 69; Brooks 1996: 137).

A detailed examination of Hill's thesis will be set out by the writer elsewhere. Its basic premise is that the Burghal Hidage represents the situation existing in Wessex in c.919. Any developments in town formation which appear to supercede the arrangements described in the Burghal Hidage must therefore be later than this date. The arguments developed in this paper, that the Burghal Hidage belongs in its entirety to c.879, unhappily removes the main plank of Hill's thesis.

Another premise underlying this thesis is that evidence of the beginning of minting at a centre or centres is taken to be evidence for the supposition that a place or group of places was brought into being at this time. This premise is mistaken. It is evidence merely of the existence of new mints, not of towns newly formed to accommodate these new mints. Similarly, the laws of Athelstan implying the existence of many small market towns governed by Port Reeves (Hill ibid: 174-5) says much about the situation in the time of the laws, but nothing about the origin of these places.

Hill argues furthermore that this phase of urban foundation, which it is supposed is contemporary with the creation of many new mints, was driven by economic and trading considerations. One of the objections to this thesis, as argued below, is that the topography, siting and layout of all Hill's examples - and of others as well - indicate that defence was a primary factor in their siting and layout. For instance, the fortified sites of Totnes and Barnstaple, replacing the small forts of Pilton and Halwell, are sited to command defensive bridges on major estuaries. The context of their creation is therefore more appropriate to the late 9th (or possibly the early 10th century) than to the period of relative peace from the 930s onwards.

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7. The paradigm has been reinforced by discussions of the date of the Burghal Hidage by both David Dumville and Alfred Smyth (Dumville 1992: 24-27; Smyth 1995: 135;). Patrick Wormald, however, has suggested that the Burghal Hidage "may well date to Alfred's reign", and specifically to before 886 (1982;152-3). A tentative dissenting viewpoint has also recently been put forward by Keynes, who has suggested (without further analysis of its implications) that the Burghal Hidage "might ... reflect a position in the 880s, with the network [of fortresses] conceived within the political context of the 'Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons'."(1999: 76). One of the main theses of this paper however is that the system of fortresses was conceived within the context of the 'new' kingdom of Wessex (after the battle of Edington in early 878), but before the enlarged 'kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons' under Alfred had emerged (after late 879), and that this system was the principal means by which Alfred subsequently gained the military overthrow of the Vikings, through which control of the latter was achieved.

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8. A further consideration, which is not discussed by Hill, is that the Mercian Register records the building of other burhs by Aethelflaed which were not shire towns ( eg Bremesbyrig [910], Bridgenorth [912], Scergeat [912], Tamworth [913], Eddisbury [914], Chirbury, Weardbyrig and Runcorn [915]. All of these (which there is no reason to suppose is a complete list of fortresses built in this period) must have needed hidage assessments to determine the manpower required for their construction and garrisoning. Not only would these assessments have been established before Edward was supposed to have caused the shiring of Mercia (and before the Burghal Hidage is supposed to have been composed to work out these and other hidages); but these assessments would also have been required to have continued in force, whether or not the Shire fortresses were reassessed, while these fortresses were continuing their defensive functions into the 930s and probably beyond.

Nicholas Brooks has given a salutary warning (1996a: 91-2) that the figures for Warwick and Worcester do not belong to the Burghal Hidage, and should not be used in any discussion about its origin or purpose.

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9. Nicholas Brooks also appears to accept the proposition that the temporary forts only passed out of use when the military crisis eased in the 920s (1996: 137). But see arguments in note 6 above.

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10. The only exception is the paper by Professor Davis (1982), in which he posits (without any further discussion) a date in the 880s for its foundation. As Brooks has pointed out, Davis's suggestion that Buckingham was recaptured from Viking control in 914 is mistaken.

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11. This is a predictive, and therefore a testable, hypothesis. Until such time as late 9th century defences at Buckingham have been disproved by excavation, the probability that there were must be allowed - even if it is not fully accepted. The argument that the frontier recorded in Alfred and Guthrum's Treaty was that negotiated immediately prior to the retreat of Guthrum's army from Cirencester to eastern England in late 879 is argued in the earlier part of this paper.

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12. This point has also been made for instance by both Nicholas Brooks (1964: 87 n.50) and David Hinton (1977: 32).

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13. It could however reflect the fact that London, like Kent, was assessed as a separate entity. An important element in the arguments presented here, however, is that London was removed from Alfred's direct control in the summer of 877 - and certainly by the middle of 878 by the arrival of the Viking army at Fulham - and only regained by him in late 879. By this time the system of fortresses described in the Burghal Hidage had (it is argued here) already been put in place, and the document written and circulated.

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14. With probably a lost introductory sentence - as suggested by Rumble (1996:69).

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15. Brooks describes the social and other aspects of this conscription (1979: 17-20), and Abels has pointed out how the system, which was "extraordinarily expensive in execution", required "the creation of a sophisticated and effective administrative system" for its upkeep (1988: 74).

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