Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire

The End of the Romans and the beginning of the Saxons

During the Roman period Herefordshire had never evolved into an major area of culture, trade or society, but it is clear that here, like elsewhere in the country, the Romans had left their mark with market towns such as Kenchester and a farily extensive road system.. The traditional date for the end of Roman Britain is 410 AD when the Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the people of the province ordering them to look to themselves for the defense of their homes against the invading Picts and Scots. Due to trouble elsewhere in the Empire it is highly likely that Roman soldiers and citizens that had made Britain their home had been moving back to Europe for some time.

Aerial photograph of the Roman town of Kenchester

Large scale Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement did not occur in Britain until the middle of the 5th century and Herefordshire on the western edge of the Roman world did not feel the effects until the end of the 6th century, when Anglo-Saxons arrived on the fertile plains of central Herefordshire.

After the departure of the Romans there seems to have been a downturn in trade and industry throughout Herefordshire and the rest of Britain. After 325 AD no coins were minted in Britain and money was imported from the Continent, after the Romans left the importation of coins stopped and was not replaced by any British source, even though before the Romans had arrived many of the Celtic tribes had regularly produced their own coinage. Raymond Perry has suggested that this may be due to the fact that after the departure of the Romans there was no longer any central or regional government to issue any coinage (Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire - Raymond Perry, pg 7).

As a result of the collapse of the monetary system trade and industry would have suffered, without the coins to pay for items trade had to return to its old ways of bartering for goods with other items. This would have led to a decline in trade not only at a local level as without coinage the people of Britain could no longer trade with their neighbours on the Continent. As a result many industrial sites would have become disused and many of the urban centres which relied so heavily on trade for their existence would have been abandoned. The people of post-Roman Britain would have most likely returned to their self-sufficient farming techniques of pre-Roman Britain. This would have caused a migration of people from urban centres back into the rural areas.

It is also thought that climatic change may have had an effect on Britain in the early 6th century in which the global temperature dropped sharply. This theory is supported by evidence for dendro-climatology. The ring growth for the 530's and 540's shows a period of extremely cold weather (and hence poor growth) starting in 536. This would have caused crop failure and even starvtion. This may have meant a drop in population in Herefordshire in the 5th and 6th centuries and would have increased the practice of subsistnece farming as you would have struggled to feed yourself let alone have enough left over for trading.(Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire - Raymond Perry, pg 12).

It is likely that the first Anglo-Saxons in Herefordshire found a somewhat less densely populated county than the Romans over 500 years before them. The smaller population, and the results of the warfare, diseases and economic collapse may have meant that the Anglo-Saxon job of invasion was made much easier.

The migration of Germanic tribes to Britain began in the 5th century (the date given for this is usually 449 AD) and the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Herefordshire represents the furthest push west of the invasion.

It is hard to be certain of exact dates for Anglo-Saxon settlement as it would appear that the written word was not used by the Anglo-Saxons until the return of Christianity to Britain in 597AD.

It is likely that the Anglo-Saxon settlers of  Herefordshire found some sort of heirarchical structure still in existence from when Britain was under Roman rule. At the top of the social scale would have been the British Princes and to support their leadership a warrior class and underpinning the higher classes a worker or servant population who would have most likely had to supply food and other goods as a type of tax.

When the Anglo-Saxons arrived it was likely that the lower orders of society retained their social position as workers and providers as they posed no threat to the new administration. The warriors and leaders would have only retained their status in areas where the invasion was peaceful. If the Britons had opposed Anglo-Saxon arrival then they would have no doubt been stripped of their leader privileges to avoid any further attempts at undermining Saxon society.

In Herefordshire the arrival of the earliest Anglo-Saxons did not, at first, lead to the wholesale colonisation of the county and two British districts, Archenfield and Ewias in the south-west remained primarily British in people, nature and law for a further 400 years. Archenfield had been incorporated in Herefordshire by 1086 and is surveyed in the Domesdy Survey of 1086, although it is listed as still having its own customs. Ewias was incorporated after Archenfield later in the 11th century. Left: A map showing the probable extent of initial Anglo-Saxon settlement in the county. Showing that in the south the border between Celts and Saxons was formed by the river Wye. (Taken from Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire by Raymond Perry)

One of the customs listed for Archenfield in the Domesday Survey is particulary gruesome:

'..If a Welshman has killed a Welshman, the relatives of the slain man gather and despoil the killer and his relaties and burn their houses until the body of the dead man is buried the next day about midday. The King has the third part of this plunder, but they have all the rest free.' (Domesday Book : Herefordshire - Edited by Frank and Caroline Thorn).

Because of the fact that Archenfield and Ewias remained predominantly British after the Anglo-Saxon invasion it has been suggested that the River Wye formed the boundary in Herefordshire between the British and the Anglo-Saxons as both of the British areas are to the west and south of the river. As a result of the Anglo-Saxon arrival in Herefordshire the population of Archenfield and Ewias may have risen as the British fled or were pushed out of their homes so that the Anglo-Saxons in effect began to occupy semi empty territory. In the areas where British people remained they continued to exist alongside the Anglo-Saxons as their own group initially divided by culture and language, but eventually assmiliated into Anglo-Saxon society.

Later Anglo-Saxon Herefordshire

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for 917AD record that 'a great raiding ship came over here from the south from Brittany, and with them 2 jarls, Ohtor and Hroald, and then went around west until they got into the mouth of the Severn and raided in Wales everywhere along the banks where it suited them, and took Cameleac, bishop in Archenfield, and led him to the ship with them....then after that the whole raiding-army went up and wanted to go on a raid against Archenfield; then they were met by [the men] from Hereford and from Gloucester and from the nearest strongholds, and fought gainst them and put them to flight, and killed the jarl Hroald and the other jarl Ohtor's brother, and a great part of the raiding army, and drove them into an enclosure and beseiged them there until they gave them hostages, that they would leave the king's domain.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Worcester Manuscript, 917 AD

This shows that although Herefordshire was on the west of Britain and furthest away from most of the raiding parties it still had its share of conflict. It also shows that by this time Hereford had grown into a fairly substantial settlement that was capable of calling up men to fight its cause. It also shows the importance of taking hostages as a way of negotiating peace.

The name Hereford means 'army-ford', and it is likely that the town grew up around an important crossing of the River Wye. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 Hereford was the social, commercial, poitical and religious centre of the region and it is likely that it had been this way since the foundation of a diocese here in the 7th century.

The presence of two religious institutions, the cathedral and St Guthlac's, within the same area would have encouraged the growth of a secular community which in turned would have enticed traders and craftsmen who would have seen the oppurtunity to market their goods. At Hereford trade was probably most dependent on agriculture and sheep, honey and slamon are all mentioned in the Domesday Book. There is also mention of brewing in the Customs of Hereford stating 'Any man's wife who brewed ale inside or outside the City gave 10d as a customary due'. (Domesday Book : Herefordshire - Edited by Frank and Caroline Thorn, Phillimore)

The earliest defensive feature of the burgh of Hereford was located on the western side of the city and consisted of a gravel rampart. The rampart may have been fronted by a structure and may have bben topped by a fence or palisade but the lack of preservation makes it hard to determine. This early structure was later replaced by a clay and turf rampart, thought to have been built in the late 9th and 10th centuries.

These rampart walls encompassing the city would have separated the urban centre form the its rural surroundings and in time the urban centre would have beocme the desirable place to live with houses within the city defences costing more than those outside. This would have been in part due to the increased security from raiding parties that the walls provided.

From the very beginning Hereford has been  frontier city and even today the Welsh border is less than 20 miles away to the west. It is very likely that this border was a lot closer in Anglo-Saxon times and may have even been denoted by the River Wye. There has always been a volatile relationship between England and Wales with the border territory being the location for frequent raids from both sides.

A contemporaray document known as The Ordinance Concerning the Dunsaete has survived from Anglo-Saxon times recording an agreed procedure for dealing with disputes between the English and the Welsh, which appears to back up the theory that at one time the River Wye was the border. The document seems to be of 10th century date and expressly refers to the border as a river, although it does not mention the Wye. The Ordinance deals with the problem of what should happen if property goes missing. The main item it deals with is stolen cattle (cattle being a valuable item of property). If the owner of the stolen cattle should follow the tracks and find that they lead to the river it is then the responsibility of the owner of the land on the other side to pick up the trail and search for the cattle. If he cannot find them after searching for 9 days then he is liable to pay compensation to the cattle owner.

The Ordinance also mentions the value put on a man as being 1 pound. Pressumably this referred to slaves and the theft of. The Domesday Survey records 18% of the population of Herefordshire as being slaves, but we do not know if the same rules of search applied as with cattle.

The Ordinance also deals with the traversing of the border by Welsh and English and records that the English shall only cross into the Welsh side and vice cersa in the presence of an appointed man who then had the responsibilty of making sure that the foreigner was safely escorted back to the crossing point.

Wales remained independent throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and internally it was divided into a 5 competing kingdoms. Each of these kingdoms was ruled by a Prince and often they would lead raiding parties into England. One such period of resistance against the English and King Athelstan was led by Idwal Foel of Gwynedd. The upshot of this rebellion was that in 927 all 5 of the Welsh Princes who ruled within Wales met Athelstan at Hereford and acknowledged hs overlordship as 'mechteyrn' (Great King) and agreed to pay him a huge yearly tribute of 20 pounds of gold, 300 pounds of silver, 25,000 oxen and as many hawks and hounds as the king wished. The occurrence of this meeting is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (In Search of the Dark Ages - Michael Wood, pg135)

Under King Athelstan the power of the Anglo-Saxons was at its height and it was during his reign that further imrpovements were made to the city defences. The timber defences that were erected at the end of the 9th century were enhanced by the addition of stonework to the face of the wall (Shoesmith, pg 80). A small stone wall was also added to the rear of the rampart with a roadway about 2m wide and surfaced with pebbles behind this.

This level of fortification suggests a stable and profitable government in the area that was able to afford the material and manpower for these improvements. In the anglo-Saxon period as today much of the revenue in Herefordshire came from landownership and agriculture with the greater majority of the population of Herefordshire living and working on the land.

Hereford was now a fortified burgh of considerable size with houses inside and outside of the city walls. There was a religious community as well as an economy built on trade and industry.

Towards the end of the 10th century Herefordshire was contained within the English State, however the unification of England did not immediately herald an era of stability and peace. Danish raids were a frequent occurrence and Æthelred II (The Unready) was having to repeatedly soften the blow of the raids by paying money to the Danes. This money was known as Danegeld and much of it was raised through taxes which would have been unpopular with those that paid it.