Battle of Deorham
Who Fought
History & Significance
The Battle of Deorham (or Dyrham) is portrayed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an important military encounter between the West Saxons and the Britons in the West Country in 577. The Chronicle depicts the battle as a major victory for Wessex's forces, led by Ceawlin and one Cuthwine, resulting in the capture of the Romano-British towns of Glevum (Gloucester), Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester), and Aquae Sulis (Bath).
Hēr Cuþwine ⁊ Ċeawlin fuhton wiþ Brettas, ⁊ hīe .iii. kyningas ofslōgon, Coinmail, ⁊ Condidan, ⁊ Farinmail, in þǣre stōwe þe is ġecweden Dēorham. ⁊ ġenāmon .iii. ċeastra Glēawanċeaster, ⁊ Ċirenċeaster, ⁊ Baþanċeaster.
577: Here Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Britons, and they killed 3 kings, Coinmail, Condidan and Farinmail, in the place which is called Deorham, and took 3 cities: Gloucester and Cirencester and Bath.
Scholars agree that the place-name Deorham here survives in the name of Dyrham in what is now South Gloucestershire, on the Cotswolds escarpment a few miles north of Bath, and that it is here that the battle is portrayed as taking place. The identification of the other cities is even less controversial; they correspond to Corinium, a provincial capital in the Roman period (Cirencester); Glevum, a former colonia (Gloucester); and Aquae Sulis, a renowned spa and pagan religious centre (Bath).
=== Nineteenth-century narrative of Anglo-Saxon settlement ===
In an influential lecture of 1849 on "The Early English Settlements in South Britain", Edwin Guest argued that the battle was (in the words of one of his audience) the culmination ofthe long story of the gradual encroachments of the conquerors on the native tribes retiring step by step, only yielding up their territory after bloody defeats, the battles of Charford, and Badbury, and Barbury and Old Sarum, within a mile or two of the place of our meeting, until the decisive battle of Deorham sealed the fate of southern Britain, and the Weals [Britons], severed from one another by the broad expanse of the Severn Sea, were finally cooped up among the mountain ridges of Wales, or in the peninsula of Cornwall.Guest's conception of the reality of the battle and its place in a coherent narrative of Anglo-Saxon military conquest and settlement of southern Britain remained prominent among historians into the 1980s, partly on the basis of the natural strategic importance of the Severn Valley in British geography. These historians include Frank Stenton, John Morris, H. P. R. Finberg, and J. N. L. Myres.
The belief that the Chronicle account was substantially reliable—notwithstanding its obvious brevity—encouraged elaborate speculation by antiquarians such as Welbore St Clair Baddeley. In 1929 he supposed that the Saxons launched a surprise attack and seized the hill fort at the Hinton Hill Camp (near Dyrham) because it commanded the Avon Valley, and disrupted communications north and south between Bath and the neighbouring Romano-British towns of Gloucester and Cirencester. Once the Saxons were in occupation of the site (and, he supposed, had begun reinforcing the existing Iron Age defensive structures at the site) the Britons of those three towns were compelled to unite and make a combined attempt to dislodge them. Their attempt failed and the three opposing British kings were killed. Their routed forces were driven north of the River Severn and south of Bath where it appears they began the construction of the defensive earthwork called the Wansdyke in a doomed attempt to prevent more territory from being lost.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Deorham lies on Inferior Oolite Group, bedrock that formed in the Bathonian. The rock here is limestone, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.
Frequently Asked Questions
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- Battle of Deorham · Wikidata
- Battle_of_Deorham · Wikipedia