- 2004 | The Battle of Brunanburh | ['Richard Marsden'] | Cambridge University Press eBooks | doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511817069.014 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: Two of the seven extant versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see p. 61) have the following brief entry for the year 937: ‘In this year Athelstan and Edmund his brother led levies to Brunanburh and there fought with Olaf, and with the help of Christ they had the victory’. It was one episode out of many in an unceasing struggle between Wessex and its northern and western enemies during the tenth century and might have gone unremarked. But the other five versions of the Chronicle expand on the entry with an ardently nationalistic poem of seventy-three lines which celebrates the battle at Brunanburh as a decisive English triumph. There King Athelstan and his brother Edmund, leading the armies ofWessex and Mercia, overcame a combined force of Norsemen from Dublin led by Olaf ( Anlāf in the text), Scots under King Constantine III, and Britons from Strathclyde. Although the main events of the battle are corroborated in various later annals and histories, and in a much later Norse saga, the location of Brunanburh is not known for certain. It must have been quite near the English west coast, however, at some point between Chester and the Scottish border, and a plausible case has been made for Bromborough in the Wirral, Cheshire, in which case the ‘Dingesmere’ mentioned in the poem is likely to be the River Dee.
- 2022 | Bromborough, Brunanburh, and Dingesmere | ['Michael A. B. Deakin'] | Notes and Queries | doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjac020 | cited:1
- 2022 | The Battle of Brunanburh: The Yorkshire Hypothesis | ['Paul Cavill'] | English Studies | doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2022.2154045 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: Disputes about where the battle of Brunanburh in 937 was fought continue, but in recent years one particular area, Yorkshire, has been proposed by Michael Wood. This article re-examines some of the strategic detail underlying assumptions about York as the goal of the invading forces and the Humber as their place of arrival and departure. It is demonstrated that lines of Castleford’s Chronicle suggested by Wood to refer to the Brunanburh campaign refer to Athelstan’s expedition of 934. The lack of interest of northern sources in the battle suggests that it was not fought in the north-east. The paper then analyses the evidence proposed to support the identifications of Burghwallis as Brunanburh and Went Hill as We(o)ndun and demonstrates that these identifications are implausible. It is concluded that the “Yorkshire context” of the battle argued for by Wood is not supported by the evidence he deploys.
- 2022 | Spellings of Brunanburh Revisited | ['Paul Cavill'] | Northern History | doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/0078172x.2022.2088437 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: The article considers the question whether the spellings of the name Brunanburh and Brunnanburh in texts relating to King Athelstan’s battle of 937 indicate the existence of two different places with very similar names, as proposed by Michael Wood. It argues that the claims made for two places are based on mistaken assumptions about the manuscripts and their sources, and that the difference is best explained as orthographic variation. An alternative is offered that the first element of Brunnanburh may be a hypocorism. Theories that might have prompted the ‘two places’ hypothesis are examined and it is demonstrated that Alistair Campbell, editor of the Old English poem The Battle of Brunanburh, conflated grammatically different name types and omitted crucial lexical and manuscript evidence from his consideration of the question. The manuscript and name evidence is presented and clarified. Uncritical adoption of Campbell’s linguistic arguments to support Burghwallis as the site of the battle is analysed and shown to be mistaken. The assumption that the Scandinavian element brunnr is present in the name Brunnaburh and referred to Burghwallis and its spring is undermined. The overall conclusion is that the spellings of Brun(n)anburh are best regarded as variants.
- 2023 | Bromborough, Brunanburh, and Dingesmere Revisited: A Response to Michael Deakin | ['Paul Cavill'] | Notes and Queries | doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjad077 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: Michael Deakin has recently published a critique of the theory that the battle of Brunanburh in 937 between King Athelstan and a group of forces from Dublin, Alba, and Strathclyde, might have been fought near Bromborough on the Wirral.1 He focuses on the terms relating to places used in the Old English poem The Battle of Brunanburh,2 with particular reference to Bromborough, disputing that it is derived from an earlier Brunanburh; and to Dingesmere, disputing that it might mean ‘wetland of the Thing’.3 He writes, It is perhaps fair to say that the case for the Wirral rests primarily on philological grounds and specifically the suggestion that places on the peninsula can be convincingly identified with two places mentioned in our earliest source on the battle, the Old English poem, The Battle of Brunanburh ….4 Part of his argument is based on faulty philology, however, and this article will attempt to outline the evidence on which the ‘philological’ case is based, while also addressing the geographical and other issues that Deakin raises.
- 2023 | The Battle of Brunanburh: The Lanchester Hypothesis | ['Paul Cavill'] | Neophilologus | doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-022-09758-1 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: Abstract The location of the battle of Brunanburh in 937 remains a source of disagreement among investigators. In recent years many places have been identified as Brunanburh. This article interrogates the claims of Andrew Breeze, in several works, to have securely located the battle at Lanchester in County Durham. The methods by which Breeze reaches his conclusion are analyzed, and the arguments he cites for it are examined. Breeze’s main proposals are discussed: that Brunanburh refers to the River Browney in County Durham; that the name We(o)ndun recorded by Symeon of Durham refers to a wen-shaped hill; and that dinges- in the Old English poem on the battle should be emended to dingles-. Alternative interpretations of the material are given, some based on hitherto unexamined evidence, including a new suggestion for the etymology of Dingley in Northamptonshire. It is argued that the Lanchester hypothesis does not stand linguistic and critical analysis.
- 2023 | La Bataille de Brunanburh : présentation, traduction et commentaire d’un poème du Xe siècle tiré de la Chronique anglo-saxonne | ['Alban Gautier'] | Tabularia | doi:https://doi.org/10.4000/tabularia.6873 | cited:0
    ABSTRACT: Cet article propose une traduction, accompagnée d’un commentaire, du poème en vieil anglais La Bataille de Brunanburh. La bataille éponyme, qui s’est déroulée en 937 dans le nord de l’Angleterre, a vu la victoire du roi Æthelstan et de son frère et héritier Edmond sur une coalition réunissant, entre autres, les vikings de Dublin et les Scots du roi Constantin II. Le poème, composé en l’honneur des vainqueurs, a été inséré dans cinq manuscrits (A, B, C, D, G) de la Chronique anglo-saxonne.