A BLOODY battle was once fought in Bishop Auckland in which the king of Northumbria was slain, his army was massacred, and the victorious Viking invaders then celebrated by commit-ting “plunder, rapine and slaughter everywhere”.
The story of the Battle of Bishop will be told by Dr Andrew Breeze on Monday night, as part of the Bishop Auckland History Fair, which begins today.
“Everyone knows about 1066 and the death of King Harold,” said Dr Breeze. “But now we can add another battle to the list. Besides Hastings and 1066, we can talk about Bishop Auckland and 844. What happened there was just as dramatic, and should get Bishop Auckland into all the history books.”
Ancient chronicles tell how in 844, Aethelred II, the king of Northumbria, was deposed by a man called Raedwulf.
There are very few mentions of King Raedwulf in history, but many museums have coins, like this one, minted during his short reign in 844 in their collections. It is believed that having seized the crown, Raedwulf put the mints into overdrive to produce coins which became very visible symbols among ordinary people of his power. Picture: York Museums Trust (Yorkshire Museum)
But Raedwulf only ruled Northumbria, which stretched from the River Humber as far north as the Firth of Forth in Scotland, for a short time before the kingdom was attacked by a Viking raid.
According to a monk writing in the 13th Century, Raedwulf decided to defend his territory at a place called “Alutthèlia”.
Another chronicle, written in northern France, says the fighting lasted for three days after which the Danes “were victorious, (and) committed plunder, rapine, and slaughter everywhere, and possessed the land at their pleasure”. With their king dead, the Northumbrians were at the mercy of the pagan invaders.
The location of this place “Alutthèlia” has long puzzled historians, but Dr Breeze will tell a public meeting in the town hall that it is Bishop Auckland.
Dr Breeze (above), who teaches at the University of Navarre in Pamplona in Spain, is one of the foremost experts in the battles of the Anglo-Saxon period.
He will explain that the first part of “Alutthèlia” is a misspelling of early “Alclit”, which is the earliest known name for the Auckland area – it is of Celtic origins meaning “the rock of the cleansing river”. The second part, says Dr Breeze, comes from the Old English word “thelu” meaning “bridge”.
He says: “Bishop Auckland is a natural stronghold. It lies on Dere Street, the old Roman road to the north. What we have to think of is a frantic battle for the bridge there. Whoever possessed it had the key to power in the old kingdom of Northumbria.”
Bishop Auckland from the air in a picture from today's history fair. It was taken when there was a large market around the town hall
Dr Breeze’s contention is that the Battle of Bishop was a crucial event in northern history because it so weakened the kingdom of Northumbria that, with the king dead, it dissolved into civil war. This left it so vulnerable to the raiders that within 20 years it had fallen completely under the control of the Vikings, who established York as their Scandinavian capital.
After solving the real identity of Alutthèlia, the next mystery is where exactly this bloody battle took place, and on Monday, Dr Breeze will ask his audience to help.
He said: “The people of Bishop Auckland know a thousand things about their town that I do not. You can enlighten the rest of us on the exact site of the bridge where this desperate struggle occurred. You can say whether it was close to the town, or whether it was to the north, where the old Roman road crosses the Wear beyond Binchester.
“In either case there is a task for archaeologists. They may recover remains of spears and swords and arrows as proof of what happened on that tragic day nearly 12 centuries ago.”
In his recent book British Battles 493-937 (above), published by Anthem Press, Dr Breeze posited that another famous ancient battle also took place in County Durham. In 937 at somewhere called “Brunanburh”, Aethelstan, the king of England, defeated the combined forces of the kings of Dublin, Scotland and Strathclyde and so effectively created the English nation.
Dr Breeze, whose grandmother was from Consett and whose father left school at 14 to work in a coalmine, believes that Brunanburh was fought near the Roman fort of Lanchester.
“There are similar arguments for the British hero Arthur,” he says. “They show that he really ex-isted, although as a very successful commander, and not the “King Arthur” of legend. His battles were fought in what is now southern Scotland and its borders, and he will have met a sol-dier's death in the year 537 at Castlesteads, on Hadrian's Wall in Cumbria.”
Dr Breeze believes that researchers in the north are on the threshold of major discoveries. It will shed new light on the Dark Ages if they can find the last resting place of Arthur and locate the battlefields of Alutthèlia and Brunanburh.
“Together, they will let us see the area's past more clearly than ever,” he said. “It brings before us ruthless usurpers, pagan Viking invaders, victory and defeat, and even the fabled King Arthur, certainly a hero of north Britain.”
Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland. What's the car closest to the camera?
- Everyone is welcome to Dr Breeze’s lecture about the Battle of Bishop Auckland 844. It will start at 7.30pm on Monday. Admission is free to members of the civic society and £2 to non-members. The civic society’s agm begins at 6.30pm ahead of the lecture.
THE Viking invaders renamed the river which runs by Bishop Auckland as the "Gaunless" – to them it was gormless, or useless, particularly for navigation. It is believed that before that the river was known as the "Clyde" – a Celtic name by which a river in Scotland is still known. This seems to come from the cleansing, purifying Celtic goddess who was believed to inhabit the waters of the Gaunless. Therefore, Bishop Auckland's early name Alclit has "clyde" as its second syllable and means "the rock in the cleansing river".
TODAY is the main day of the Bishop Auckland History Fair with the town hall full of displays, vintage bus tours from the market place and Roman soldiers patrolling Newgate Street.
At 3pm, there’s a Stan Laurel walking tour led by Tom Hutchinson and Peter Jones from outside the town hall. The vintage bus tours of the town run from 10am to 4pm from the market place, featuring Ian Kirkbridge and Jayne Bradley.
The main exhibition in the town hall is called Picture This: Now and Then, and it is open from 10am to 4pm, while from 11am to 3pm there are displays by the local history groups of Wheat-ley Hill, Hartlepool Headland, Tudhoe & Spennymoor and Durham County, plus there will also be stalls and stands and exhibits from Durham Record Office, The Auckland Project, Weardale Museum, Bishop Auckland’s People Museum, County Durham Forum for History & Heritage, Darlington Centre for Local Studies, Durham Amateur Football Trust, Bishop Auckland Civic Society, Northern Heartlands and Bishop Auckland Heritage Action Zone.
Admission is free.e.
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