Chester in 900

The Puzzle
Around the year 900 something which was to be important for the history of Chester happened there. This was around the time that Britain was emerging from so-called "Dark Ages" once named for a lack of historical records, and now known as the "early modern period". Just what occurred is only known in outline, but within a few years Roman Chester had been "restored" and thereafter the course of its history is a little clearer. The names of many of those involved in the events at Chester are known, but exactly what happened remains something of a mystery. In part, this appears to be due a deliberate concealment of the truth.

The Welsh kingdoms had been subject to Mercia since the mid seventh-century, and in 853 the Mercians under Burgred received the assistance of the West Saxons to maintain their hegemony. In the 870s Mercia became subject to attacks by the Viking Great Heathen Army, and in 874 it drove out King Burgred. He was succeeded by the last independent King of Mercia, Ceolwulf II, who was presented by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a puppet of the Vikings. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the east for themselves and leaving the west to Ceolwulf. Gwynedd was also under attack from the Vikings, and in 877 King Rhodri Mawr was defeated and driven out. He returned the following year, but immediately came under attack from Mercia, which was still trying to maintain its hegemony in Wales. King Alfred's victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in May 878 relieved the pressure on Mercia, and in the same year Mercia defeated and killed Rhodri Mawr. Ceolwulf died or was deposed in 879, and was succeeded as Lord of the Mercians by Æthelred. Æthelred was in turn defeated by the Welsh in 881 but survived to become an ally of Alfred.

Chester sits squarely in the disputed territory between Mercia and Wales. In 830 some authorities make it the capital of Gwynedd. Ecgbert of Wessex appears to have visited Chester but once, around 830. As one writer records:


 * During Egbert’s final war with Cornwall, the North Welsh had to the best of their ability aided their fellow Britons, and therefore Egbert launched a punitive expedition against them. He laid siege to and took Chester, then capital of the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd – strongest of all the several North Welsh states. Of the punishments Egbert visited upon these Britons, the most humiliating was his command that the statue of their ancient king, Cadwalhon, be destroyed and never replaced. When he returned to Wessex, Egbert decreed that all the Welsh and their offspring leave his kingdom within six months or be put to death. Egbert ordered this apparently at the instigation of his wife, Redburga, who did exercise some political influence over her husband, and whose hatred of the Welsh was well-known.

Just one of the complication with this statement is that the "traditional" boundary of Mercia and Wales, Offa's Dyke, lies to the west of Chester. Other theories have proposed that at times the boundary lay along the River Gowy, to the east of Chester. So one aspect of the puzzle is, just when and how did Chester cease to be a Welsh city?

Disputes over the border had existed long before the years around 900 and would continue for centuries afterwards. It is not clear where the border between the pre-Roman tribes lay, with the Bronze Age occupants being the Deceangli in North Wales and the Cornovii in the modern English counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, north Staffordshire among others. The local topography provides several possible choices: the line of Offa's Dyke, the fords along the valley of the River Dee and the Sandstone Ridge with its Hillforts.



Dramatis Personae
The following list of characters are all known with some certainty to have existed, but much about their lives is clouded by propaganda. A key source for the period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The Chronicle was a West Saxon production, however, and is sometimes thought to be biased in favour of Wessex; hence it may not accurately convey the extent of power achieved by Offa, and other Mercians. Both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Victorian historians would puff-up the role played by Wessex, especially when Wessex had victories, although both would downplay the defeats which Wessex suffered.

One important thing to note is the weakness of some to the sources of supposedly historical information.

Werburgh, Mercian saint:


An Anglo-Saxon princess who became the patron saint of the city of Chester. Werburgh was born at Stone (now in Staffordshire), and was the daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia (himself the Christian son of the pagan King Penda of Mercia) and his wife St Ermenilda, herself daughter of the King of Kent. She obtained her father's consent to enter the Abbey of Ely, which had been founded by her great aunt Etheldreda (or Audrey), the first Abbess of Ely and former queen of Northumbria, whose fame was widespread. Werburgh was trained at home (traditionally by St. Chad, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield), and by her mother; and in the cloister by her aunt and grandmother. Werburgh was a nun for most of her life. The shrine of St Werburgh remained at Hanbury until the threat from Danish Viking raids in the late 9th century prompted their relocation to within the walled city of Chester. A shrine to St Werburgh was established at the Church of St Peter and St Paul (the site is now occupied by Chester Cathedral). In 975, the Church of St Peter and St Paul was re-dedicated to St Werburgh and the Northumbrian saint Oswald. A monastery in the names of these two saints was attached to the church in the 11th century.

Some of the supposed history of Werburgh seems obviously false, even Chambers in his "Book of Days" is suspicious, especially as regards some of the stories which became associated with her father and brothers. Parts of her story do seem to be backed-up by other evidence - such as the fact that one brother became king after her uncle had stood in as ruler during his youth for some years. Both the uncle and the brother appear to have eventually become monks. Other parts are less believable, including the supposed murder of other brothers by her father. She probably was a very well-connected "royal saint" at a time when royalty who favoured the church found many of their deceased achieving sainthood. There is no definite evidence of the existence of a church of canons dedicated to St. Werburgh at Chester before 958. In that year Edgar the Pacific, then king of the Mercians, granted to "the familia of St. Werburgh" 17 hides of land in Hoseley (Flints.), Cheveley, Huntington, Upton, Aston, and Barrow.

The problem with the actual re-location of Werburgh to Chester is that while it is mentioned by Bradshaw, it is not mentioned in either the brief biography written by Florence of Worcester (died 1118) nor by Goscelin, Werburgh's hagiographer (who was alive in 1106). This was not Werbergh's first post-mortem journey. She died at Trentham (3 February, 699 or 700) and, according to some, was originally buried there. Existence of this nunnery is disputed and a connection with Saint Werburgh is also disputed.

Offa, Mercian King:
Many historians regard Offa as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. He is associated with Offa's Dyke a large linear earthwork that roughly follows the current border between England and Wales. For 200 years (between 626 and 825), having annexed or gained submissions from five of the other six kingdoms of the Heptarchy (East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex), Mercia dominated England south of the River Humber: this period is known as the Mercian Supremacy. Offa died in July 796. His son Ecgfrith succeeded him but reigned for less than five months before Coenwulf came to the throne. In the last few years of Offa's rule the first recorded Viking raids on Britain started. The first being in 789, with the noted Lindisfarne raid being in 793. The Vikings would be a significant influence on the next three-hundred years of British history, including that of Chester.

Offa is at times portrayed as something of a despot who ruthlessly eliminated all possible rivals to the sucession of his son. A letter written by Alcuin of York in 797 to a Mercian ealdorman named Osbert makes it apparent that Offa had gone to great lengths to ensure that his son Ecgfrith would succeed him. Alcuin's opinion is that Ecgfrith:


 * "has not died for his own sins; but the vengeance for the blood his father shed to secure the kingdom has reached the son. For you know very well how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom on his son."

The association of Offa with his supposed dyke has been disputed, even though it is mentioned by such apparently careful historians as Bishop Asser, in recent years views have diverged even about such basic questions as its purpose and even when it was built. The traditional theory is that it marks the border between Mercia and Wales, and may have been a symbol that the power of Mercia was such that attacking would be fruitless. It is unclear how effective as it was as a barrier/border: in c895 Asser, with the benefit of hindsight and in the setting of Alfred’s newly-ascendant West Saxon kingdom in the late ninth-century, saw Offa’s Dyke fundamentally as a vainglorious exercise by an unscrupulous and ruthless king. Asser should however be considered biased.

Even given such an impressive monument as Offa's Dyke it would perhaps be wrong to assume that it marked any kind of traditional boundary between the western part of English Mercia and Wales.

Ecgbert, King of Wessex:


King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was reputedly Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Ecgbert was forced into exile to Charlemagne's court in the Frankish Empire by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Ecgberht returned and took the throne of Wessex. In Chester, Ecgbert is commemorated by a bas-relief in the porch of the Town Hall with the somewhat enigmatic label "KING EGBERT UNITING THE KINGDOMS MERCIA" and a lot of foot-kissing by what are presumably the then local administration in Chester - although they may be meant to be conquered kings as they appear to be piling crowns at his feet. The "traditional" story being portrayed at the Town Hall is that Ecgbert conquered all of England.

Ecgbert also seems to have been the subject of a certain amount of historical propaganda on the part of Wessex, who were writing a chronicle at the behest of his grandson Alfred. The later Wessex chronicle-writers sought to portray Ecgbert as a heroic figure who was a rightful king, wrongly exiled and swearing an oath to return at Ecgbert's Stone, who did indeed return from the prestigious court of Charlemagne and became the overlord of the whole land. There is certainly a core of truth in this account of him, but much of the detail appears to have been presented in such a manner as to support the position that Alfred's Wessex was the logical inheritor of the English crown.

Ecgbert's supposed dominion of England came to an end with Wiglaf's recovery of power in Mercia the following year. Wiglaf's return is followed by evidence of his independence from Wessex. Historians have sought reasons why Ecgbert's rulership of Britain was so brief. It could be that he was fortunate as regards being able to exploit political instability in the other kingdoms of Britain. It is possible that he had for a while strong support from the Carolingians which faded away when the power of Louis the Pious was weakened by civil war after about 830. It is also possible that the alliance between the Cornish and the Vikings was a long drain on his resources. he was defeated by the Danes in 836 and it took him until 838 to finally defeat the alliance. Another view is that Ecgbert never really had "overlordship" but simply conducted a series of raids against enemies who were suffering from temporary weakness and would have been quite unable to hold all the teritory that he supposedly "united".

Alfred ("the Great"), King of Wessex:
King of the West Saxons from 871 to c. 886 and king of the Anglo-Saxons from c. 886 to 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. His father died when he was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, creating what was to become known as the "Danelaw" in the North and East of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He is portrayed as having defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England.

Alfred is believed to have instituted the "Burh" system. This consisted of the development of fortified settlements and a network of roads connecting them. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts, promontory forts or Roman forts and often employed materials from the original fortifications. Burhs also had a secondary role as commercial and sometimes administrative centres. Their fortifications were used to protect England's various royal mints. Initially established in Wessex by Alfred, later Burhs were developed in Mercia by his son Edward the Elder, his daughter Æthelflæd and her husband Æthelred. The Burhs were instrumental in not only defending against attack but enabling the Mercians to regain and hold lost territory. The Burhs ensured that all of King Alfred's subjects would be close to safety, typically not more than 20 miles (one day) away. The image of a united England where everyones fortified home-town was in effect his castle was taken up by Victorian historians with great enthusiasm.

While Alfred was eventually a highly successful ruler he has also been the subject of historical propaganda. The "reconquest" of the Danelaw was the work of later rulers and can perhaps be better seen as a political union between the by then "native" Anglo-Saxons and the later Viking settlers, although there were periods when hegemony was achieved by force of arms on the part of "Wessex".

Rhodri the Great, Welsh king:
Succeeded his father, Merfyn Frych, as King of Gwynedd in 844. Rhodri annexed Powys c. 856 and Seisyllwg c. 871. He is called "King of the Britons" by the Annals of Ulster. In some later histories, he is referred to as "King of Wales", although the title is anachronistic and his realm did not include southern Wales. The Chronicle of the Princes records his death occurring at the Battle of Sunday on Anglesey in 873; the Annals of Wales record the two events in different years. According to the Chronicle, Rhodri and his brother Gwriad were killed during a Saxon invasion (which probably would have been under Ceolwulf of Mercia), although there is an alternative theory that he was engaged in conflict with the "dark foreigners" (Vikings). All the sources call his son Anarawd's victory over the Mercians at the Battle of the Conwy in 881 "God's vengeance for Rhodri". The fact that the battle was fought at Conwy seems to suggest that the Mercians under Ceolwulf II had seized teritory as far as the Conwy valley and that there was a counter-attack by the Welsh. Anarawd made an alliance with the Danish king in York in an attempt to guard himself against further Mercian attacks. After that alliance proved unsatisfactory, he came to an agreement with Alfred the Great of Wessex, visiting Alfred at his court. He received honours and gifts from the Saxons, and King Alfred stood witness at his confirmation.

The role of the Welsh in the history of Mercia, especially that part of it which was to become Cheshire, should not be overlooked.

Coelwulf II, ruler of Mercia:
He succeeded Burgred of Mercia who was deposed by the Vikings in 874. His reign is generally dated 874 to 879 based on a Mercian regnal list which gives him a reign of five years. However, he possibly reigned into the early 880s. By 883, he had been replaced by Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who became ruler of Mercia with the support of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex. Up until 2015 historians generally believed the Wessex chronicler version that Coelwulf II was "an unwise king's thane" who was appointed as king of Mercia as the puppet of the Vikings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle writes of Ceolwulf:


 * "...He swore them oaths and gave hostages, so that it would be ready for them on whatever day they would have it, and he himself ready, and all those who would follow him at the force's need."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is however, known to be biased in favour of Wessex. It is considered to be politically motivated, written with a view of strengthening the claims of Alfred and his son Edward the Elder to the overlordship of Mercia, and playing down any contribution by the Mercians. This is seen particularly clearly in terms of the deeds of Æthelflæd who was almost entirely written out of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. That Coelwulf was rather more than a "foolish thane" is evidenced by a 2015 find of Anglo-Saxon "Imperial" coins dated to around 879 CE, known as the Watlington Hoard presumed to have been buried by retreating Vikings. Most of the coins show an emperor’s head on one side and two royal figures seated side by side on the other. The coins are believed to depict both Ceolwulf as a king as well as Alfred on the same coins, leading some experts to conclude that the two were being portrayed as equals. Only a single instance of this coin had been found before. Other coinage of Coelwulf and Alfred also show similarities, and this has been taken as further evidence that they may have co-operated against the Vikings. The newly found coins cover several years and were struck in different mints, demolishing the earlier belief that the two kings issued "joint" coins in only one year, marking a very short-lived alliance and a one-off issue.

Æthelred of Mercia:
Became ruler of English Mercia shortly after the death of its last king, Ceolwulf II. His rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. Æthelred's ancestry is unknown. He was probably the leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881, and soon afterwards he acknowledged the lordship of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. The alliance was cemented by the marriage of Æthelred to Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd.

Plegmund, Alfred's archbishop:
Little is known of the early life of Plegmund except that he was of Mercian descent. A later tradition, dating 300 years after his death, stated that Plegmund lived as a hermit at Plemstall in Cheshire. His reputation as a scholar attracted the attention of King Alfred the Great, who was trying to revive scholarship. Some time before 887, Alfred summoned Plegmund to his court, and in 890 made him archbishop of Canterbury.

Hastein, Viking leader:
A notable Viking chieftain of the late 9th century who made several raiding voyages. He was one of the most notorious and successful Vikings of all time, having raided dozens of cities across many kingdoms in Europe and North Africa.

Ingimund, Viking leader:
A tenth century Viking warlord. In 902, Irish sources record that the Vikings were driven from Dublin. It is almost certainly in the context of this exodus that Ingimundr appears on record. He is recorded to have led the abortive settlement of Norsemen on Anglesey, before being driven out from there as well. He appears to have then led his folk to the Wirral peninsula, where the English allowed him to settle his followers.

Æthelflæd, eldest child of Alfred and his wife Ealhswith of Mercia:
Æthelflæd played a key role in the establishment of a burh at Chester, strengthening the church organisation with her promotion of the cults of Oswald and Werburgh and extending the City Walls to their present size. She was a formidable military leader and did much to help her brother Edward recover the Danelaw from Danish rule. As she was ruler of Mercia, and possibly because she was a woman, her role was downplayed in the official version of history written by the scribes of Wessex.

Edward the Elder, Alfred's son;
King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred's elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred. In 924 he faced a Mercian and Welsh revolt at Chester, and after putting it down he died at Farndon on 17 July 924. He was succeeded by his eldest son Æthelstan

Æthelwold, cousin to Edward the Elder;
The younger of two known sons of Æthelred I, King of Wessex from 865 to 871. Æthelwold and his brother Æthelhelm were still infants when their father the king died while fighting a Danish Viking invasion. The throne passed to the king's younger brother (Æthelwold's uncle) Alfred the Great, who carried on the war against the Vikings and won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington in 878. After Alfred's death in 899, Æthelwold disputed the throne with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Viking-controlled Northumbria, where he was accepted as king. In 901 or 902 he sailed with a fleet to Essex, where he was also accepted as king.

The Issue: "Chester Renewed"
Almost all of what is known of the history of Æthelflæd's times comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC), a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great (r. 871–899). Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were independently updated. Nine manuscripts survive in whole or in part, though not all are of equal historical value and none of them is the original version. The oldest seems to have been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, possibly on his own instructions, while the most recent was written at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at that monastery in 1116. Almost all of the material in the Chronicle is in the form of annals, by year; the earliest are dated at 60 BC (the annals' date for Caesar's invasions of Britain), and historical material follows up to the year in which the chronicle was written, at which point contemporary records begin. There are also places where the different versions contradict each other. Taken as a whole, however, the Chronicle is the single most important historical source for the period in England between the departure of the Romans and the decades following the Norman conquest.

The earliest extant manuscript, the Parker Chronicle, was written by a single scribe up to the year 891, late in the reign of Alfred. The scribe wrote the year number, DCCCXCII, in the margin of the next line; subsequent material was written by other scribes. This appears to place the composition of the chronicle at no later than 892; further evidence is provided by Bishop Asser's use of a version of the Chronicle in his work "Life of King Alfred", known to have been composed in 893, but left unfinished. The Chronicle has a clear bias in favour of Wessex and in particular the house founded by Ecgbert, grandfather of Alfred. There are only a few mentions of Chester in the ASC and while these provide some bare bones of history they illustate several contradictions:

Chester in 616

 * "This year Ceolwulf fought with the South-Saxons. And Ethelfrith led his army to Chester; where he slew an innumerable host of the Welsh; and so was fulfilled the prophecy of Augustine, wherein he saith: If the Welsh will not have peace with us, they shall perish at the hands of the Saxons." There were also slain two hundred priests,  who came thither to pray for the army of the Welsh. Their leader was called Brocmail, who with some fifty men escaped thence."

This is discussed in more detail under Battle of Chester. There is no doubt that the battle too place and clear suggestions that Chester was occupied at the time, with all the evidence suggesting that it was occupied by the Welsh. The events of 616 have no direct bearing on the events of around 900, but they do illustrate that there was continuing occupancy at Chester after the departure of the Romans, and perhaps that it retained some strategic importance, especially to the remnants of Roman rule which may have survived in Wales.

St Johns (689)
Tradition ascribes the foundation of St. John's to Æthelred, king of Mercia (674–704), in 689. He was the uncle to Werburgh. The direct authority for this statement quoted by John Leland is the Itinerary of Giraldus Cambrensisc (Gerald of Wales). However no such information is found in the surviving texts of the Itinerary (it was written in 1191). Two authorities of a subsequent date quote the early date in such a mannner as to imply their acceptance of it, and the source as being Giraldus: the MS Chronicle of St Werburgh and by Henry Bradshaw a native of Chester and monk of St Werburgh's Abbey. In his "Life of St Werburgh" (1513), Bradshaw writes:


 * "The year of grace six hundred fourescore and nyen As sheweth myne auctour a Bryton Giraldus Kynge Ethelred myndynge moost the blysse of Heven Edyfyed a Collage Churche notable and famous In the suburbs of Chester pleasaunt and beauteous In the honor of God and the Baptyst Saynt Johan With helpe of bysshop Wulfrice and good exortacion"

The first clear problem here is the unconfirmable primary source and the second that a Mercian is now founding a church in what was recently a part of Wales. One possible explanation is that Bradshaw is trying to create an early association between Werburgh, her brother Æthelred and Chester. Werbergh herself never visited Chester (at least when alive), and it is not clear who controlled the site of the city following the Battle of Chester (616) and during her lifetime (~650-700).

The "Wulfrice" (Wilfid) mentioned by Bradshaw and in the Annals of Chester appears to be an exiled Bishop from Northumbria. Æthelred had also made Wilfrid bishop of the Middle Angles, and supported him at the council of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case for restoration to the see of York before an assembly of bishops led by Archbishop Berhtwald of Canterbury. Æthelred's support for Wilfrid embroiled him in dispute with both Canterbury and Northumbria, and it is not clear what his motive was, though it may be relevant that some of Wilfrid's monasteries were in Mercian territory. Wilfrid was not known for his diplomacy and commentators have said that Wilfrid "came into conflict with almost every prominent secular and ecclesiastical figure of the age". Hindley, an historian of the Anglo-Saxons, states that "Wilfrid would not win his sainthood through the Christian virtue of humility". Wilfrid was known as an advocate of Benedictine monasticism, regarding it as a tool in his efforts to "root out the poisonous weeds planted by the Scots". By 'Scots' he probably meant the Irish Celts, so his involvement in the establishment of St John's may well have been part of an attempt to wipe out the last of the influence of the "Celtic" church.

Ecgbert (829/30)
Ecgbert seemingly attacks a Welsh Chester which is the capital of Gwynedd and has provided some assistance and support to the Cornish. At this stage therefore the borders of Wales must have extended at least as far as the River Dee, indicating that the Welsh had taken back much of the teritory which the Mercians appear to have gained under Offa and others. The last we know of the conflict between Mercia and Noth Wales is that Coenwulf of Mercia took advantage of Welsh interal troubles in 817, occupying Rhufoniog (between the Clwyd and the Conwy) and laying waste to the mountains of Snowdonia. Coastal Wales along the Dee Estuary must have remained under Mercia’s control through 821, as Coenwulf is recorded dying peacefully at Basingwerk in that year. In 823, Mercia laid waste to Powys and returned to Gwynedd to burn Deganwy to the ground. Gwynedd and Powys then gained a respite when Mercia's attention turned elsewhere and its fortunes waned. King Beornwulf was killed fighting the East Anglians in 826, his successor Ludeca suffered the same fate the following year, and Mercia was conquered and occupied by Ecgberht of Wessex in 829. It seems very strange that between 823 when Deganwy was burned and 829 when Ecgbert sacked Chester that the Welsh had moved their capital to Chester.

Werburgh (c876)


The shrine of St Werburgh remained at Hanbury until the threat from Danish Viking raids in the late 9th century prompted their relocation to within the walled city of Chester. As recorded in the Annales Cestriensis:


 * In the same year, when the Danes made their winter quarters at Repton after the flight of Burgred, king of the Mercians, the men of Hanbury, fearing for themselves, fled to Chester as to a place which was very safe from the butchery of the barbarians, taking with them in a litter the body of S Werburgh, which then for the first time was resolved into dust.

This is not mentioned in the ASC, but there is good evidence from archaeology that the Vikings were at Repton, and possibly even that they had a plague in their camp, which might have prompted the men of Hanbury to evacuate. The fact that Chester was seen as a safe place, and therfore presumably occupied by the Mercians confirms that it had not returned to Welsh hands.

ASC after 892/3

 * The "A" text of the ASC for the given year 893 is is described as " ... þæt hie gedydon on anre westre ceastre on Wirhealum, seo is Legaceaster gehaten ..." translated as referring to a "deserted" place on the Wirral;


 * The "C" text of the ASC for the given year 907 states simply "Her wæs Ligcester geedniwod" which is normally translated as "Here was Chester renewed".

The Burhs
Æthelflæd's establishment of burh's sometimes assisted by her brother are recorded in the ASC. As noted above Chester was "restored" in 907. 912 saw fortifications at Scargeat (location unknown) and Bridgnorth. 913 saw her fortify Tamworth and Stafford. The following year she added fortifications at Eddisbury and Warwick, adding Runcorn in 915 and three further burhs on the Welsh border, including Chirbury, and likely Hereford and Shrewsbury. 917 saw her capture of Derby. One potential problem with these dates it that she appears to start with a relatively isolated fortress at Chester (907) with comparatively little infrastructure to the south and then add other fortifications in subsequent years.

Taken together these supposed facts seem hoplessly contradictory. A Welsh stronghold even descibed as the capital of Gwynedd has a major church founded by a Mercian king and is then sacked by the ruler of Wessex, thereafter the men of Hanbury in Mercia see it as a safe place to transfer the relics of Werburgh. It is raided by the Vikings who over-winter there before going off to ravage Wales and somehow the cult of Werburgh survives to be promoted by Æthelflæd who builds a fortress city at an isolated end of Mercia without any supporting infrastructure.

Making sense of it?
Comparing the versions of history there are several difficulties with the "traditional view" that Chester was re-fortified by Æthelflæd. The issue was discussed at some length by the historian Tony Sharpe, but many historical guides to Chester skip over the details. Several questions can be asked to which there are no clear answers:

What was the status of Chester at the time of the Viking raid in 892/3?
Taking the records at face value it appears that Chester was "deserted" when it was occupied by the Vikings. One possible explanation is that "west" used to describle the location of the "castra" (Chester = fortress) has been misread as "waste". However, this explanation simply leads to the issue of how any local ecclesiastical community survived the presence of starving Vikings for a winter. If the city was "desrted", then there is also the issue of who had deserted it. Either the Welsh or the Mercians could have been the last occupants. Both of these could have already have begun to fortify, or re-fortify, the site which is already seen to have been of strategic and religious importance: Roman Chester was built there, the Battle of Chester was fought here, Ecgbert attacked there, St Johns was founded there and the remains of Werburgh were translated to there as a place of safety from the Vikings.

Tony Sharpe offers the tentative conclusion that the "burh" may have already existed before Æthelflæd restored it and have been effectively founded by the Welsh (or even the Vikings). He considers that the fact that Edward the Elder died at Farndon following a revolt at Chester could indicate that the fortress was not firmly under Mercian control.

Why choose to establish an isolated burh at Chester (907) without the infrastructure to support it?
There are potential explanations for this. Chester could have been seen as a particularly important site, with a good harbour and easy access to the Irish Sea. There was also the fact that Mercia had frequent conflicts with Wales and that the Vikings had settled on the Wirral sometime after 902. It might simply have not been possible to delay building a Mercian fortress here. It was obviously also the site of a Roman fortress which might have further demonstrated its strategic importance, especially if the Roman road network was still in use. In North Wales many of the Roman sites had become later religious sites and the Roman Roads were probably still in use.

The ongoing conflict between Edward the Elder and his cousin Æthelwold could also have been an issue.

Was there an attack on Chester?
Ingimund's supposed attack on Chester is not mentioned in the ASC. The reason for this may be that the city was successfully defended by Æthelflæd and it would not be in the political interests of Wessex to mention this "Mercian" victory, despite the fact that she was Alfred's daughter.

Conclusions?
The history of Chester around the year 900 is far more complex than can be expressed in a few words.

Related Pages



 * Dark Ages;
 * Ecgbert:
 * Amphitheatre:
 * Vikings:
 * Æthelflæd: daughter of Alfred the Great;
 * Farndon: for her brother, Edward the Edler;
 * Plegmund: Alfred's archbishop;
 * Historiography: why history is not always "truth"
 * Farndon: the death and disputed succession of Edward the Elder;
 * Battle of Brunanburh;
 * City Walls;
 * Cathedral;
 * St Johns;

Chronicles

 * The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;
 * Bede Ecclesiastical History of England;
 * Six old English chronicles: Ethelwerd's Chronicle, Asser's Life of Alfred, Geoffrey of Monmouth's British history, Gildas, Nennius and Richard of Cirencester.

N.B. Richard of Cirencester's De Situ Britanniae was faked by Charles Bertram prior to publication in 1747 although it was revealed to be a fake in 1845, it had by then provided misinformation which turned up in many other works.

Other Online

 * Collapse, Reconfiguration or Renegotiation?: The Strange End of the Mercian Kingdom, 850-924;
 * The Foundation of the Chester Burh in the Tenth Century: When and by Whom?;
 * Wales and West Britain: 9th and 10th century relations;
 * The Mercian Burhs: Chester;