г 6 ORIGINS OF THE BOROUGH
was inclined to think that it was drawn up under Edward the
Elder, and Professor Chadwick argues from internal evidence
for a date between Ql I and 919.1 Sir Charles Oman, however,
in 1910,2 and more recently the late W. J. Corbett,3
have claimed it as in the main an Alfredian document. Im-
perfect at the beginning and perhaps at the end, it contains
(l) a list of thirty-one burhs, the hidages assigned to which
are added up, and (2) an appendix, apparently later, com-
prising only Essex, Worcester and Warwick. The chief
argument for the later date is the inclusion in the former of
the Mercian Oxford and Buckingham, though it is other-
wise a purely southern list. Professor Chadwick suggests
that this limited inclusion was only possible shortly after
the death of the Mercian ealdorman Ethelred, Alfred’s son-
in-law, about 911, when Edward took into his own hands
London and Oxford with their districts and the interven-
ing Buckingham was probably, he thinks, included. On the
other hand, Sir Charles Oman argues that when Ethelred,
according to the Chronicle, had received London in 886
from Alfred it was as his personal representative and not as
ealdorman of Mercia,4 so that he probably obtained Oxford
and Buckingham at the same time and on the same terms and
their grouping with Wessex is not therefore inconsistent with
an Alfredian date. But Sir Charles has already, in another
connexion,5 accepted without demur, except at its date, a
pretty obvious slip of 880 for 887, a charter which, if genuine,
shows Ethelred disposing of land in the Oxford district as
“ dux et patricius gentis Merciorum.” 6 The question of his
status would be further cleared up if Birch’s identification of
Hrisbyri, the scene of a Mercian witenagemot in which Ethelred
made a grant three years earlier,7 with Prince’s Risborough
in Buckinghamshire could be sustained. But the name, it
is said, “ cannot be reconciled with the other certain forms for
Risborough."8 A further objection, that English rule in
1 Anglo-Saxon Institutions, p. 207.
2 England before the Norman Conquest, pp. 468 ff.
3 Cambridge Medieval History, iii. 357.
4 This is inferred from its resumption (with Oxford) after Ethelred’s
death, though Ethelfied retained the ealdormanry for some years longer.
5 Op. cit., p. 464 n. 6 C.S. 547, ii. 166. ’ Ibid. 552, ii. 174.
8Mawer and Stenton, Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, p. 171 n.
Risbury i.D.B. Riseberie) might be suggested as an alternative, but Hrisbyri
is not a possible ninth-century form even for that and as C.S. 552 is only
known from Smith’s edition of Bede, the name may be a late copyist’s
corruption of a correct form of Risborough. Cf. the Eiseberie of a charter
C. 1155 quoted op. cit., p. 170.
THE NEW BURHS
17
central Buckinghamshire in 884 is very unlikely, would lose
force if Liebermann was right in his argument,1 on independent
grounds, that the peace between Alfred and Guthrum which
fixes the frontier so as to leave London and all west of the
Lea English did not, as now generally held, follow a recapture
of London in 886, but may have been concluded as early as
880 the siege and recovery of London at the later date, if there
was such an event, being the result of a temporary success of
the East Anglian Danes who in 884 “ broke the peace.” 2
So far Professor Chadwick has certainly the best of the
argument, and he might have strengthened his case by pointing
out that Edward and not Alfred is recorded in the Chronicle 3
to have made two burhs at Buckingham. Professor Stenton
has further called my attention to charter evidence that
Porchester, which is included in the main list, belonged to
the see of Winchester in Alfred’s time and was not exchanged
with the crown for (Bishop’s) Waltham until 904.4 On the
other hand, with the exception of Oxford and Buckingham, the
main part of the Burghal Hidage seems to have constituted
a complete scheme of defence for Wessex and its dependencies
and for them only.
Moreover, Oxford at least, in the hands of Alfred’s son-in-
law, might be considered as a bridgehead of Wessex.s Save
Buckingham, the list contains none of the burhs founded by
Ethelred and his wife or her brother in their offensive against
the Danes. Even their burh at Worcester, built in Alfred’s
life-time, appears only in the obviously later appendix.
That burhs, old and new, played an important part in Alfred’s
last campaigns against the Danes we know from Asser and
the Chronicle. Unfortunately, the annalist only mentions
four by name and those all with Roman walls,6 but by good
ɪ Ges. iii. 84. 2 A.S.C., ed. Plummer, i. 80.
3 Ibid. p. 100. Sir Charles Oman unconvincingly -assumes that
Buckingham here is an error for Bedford {op. cit., p. 500 n.). Hisappeal
to the Burghal Hidage of course begs the question.
* C.S. 613, ii. 274.
6 The assignment in the list of a joint hidage to Oxford and Wallingford,
an undoubted West-Saxon borough, may be significant in the light of the
curious fact that in each the royal demesne was an area of eight virgates
(T>.B. i. 56a, 2, 154a, I ; see below, p. 89) and of the interrelations of the
two boroughs and their counties revealed in Domesday Book. For Alfred's
Oxford mint, see p. 7 n.
β Exeter, London, Chester and Chichester. Of these only Exeter and
Chichester are in the Burghal Hidage, though Sir Charles Oman implies
(0P ∙ cil., p. 469) that there were a good many more and includes Twyneham
first mentioned in the Chronicle under Edward and Wimborne, which is
not in the list and is described as a ham not a burh in 901.
2