Personally, I find it difficult to believe that Byrhtnoth was an idiot. The standard explanation of this battle was that it was a huge tactical blunder to allow the Vikings to cross the causeway and if he had not done so all would have been well. Actually, this view has some major flaws.

To begin with, there is little in what we know about Byrhtnoth to lead us to believe he was an idiot. The poem, The Battle of Maldon, tells us his father was one "Byrhthelm", but no Byrhthelms can be found amongst the records of the Ealdormen of Essex in this period. It is more likely his father was Byrhtferth, who held the post of Ealdorman from 951 until Byrhtnoth took over in 956.

Byrhtnoth was a close political ally of Aethelstan, Ealdorman of East Anglia, who had the nickname "Half-King" during the minority of the boy king Edgar. He and his son Aethelwine were rulers of England in all but name in this period, and we find Byrhtnoth's name associated with Aethelwine's several times in this period, including in a series of donations to new monasteries. One of these was Ely, where Byrhtnoth is now buried.

By 991, Byrhtnoth had ruled Essex for thirty-five years. His powerful ally, Aethelwine, fell seriously ill early that year, effectively making Byrhtnoth the most powerful man in south-east England and one of the most powerful in the kingdom.

But in 991 England was in trouble. There had been many small Viking raids on the eastern coast of England in preceeding years, but now King Swein Forkbeard of Sweden began to launch a succession of more highly organised and numerically strong raiding armies against what he saw as a kingdom in political disarray. It was one of these ship armies, possibly (though not certainly) led by Olaf Tryggvasson, later King of Norway, that landed on the Isle of Northey and prepared to cross the causway and march on Maldon. They probably were not expecting to meet much opposition.

But, as the leading man in that part of the kingdom, Byrhtnoth decided to oppose them.

The brief accounts of the battle, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Vita Oswaldi, the Liber Eliensis and the poem, do not give us much information about the size and make-up of Byrhtnoth's force. The poem merely mentions that he was accompanied by his hearthwerod or retinue of "hearth warriors" - the professional core of any Anglo-Saxon force, much like King Harold's huscarls at Hastings. But in an emergency like this one Byrhtnoth would have called up as many of the Select Fyrd and Great Fyrd as he could muster and clearly had enough troops to confront a Viking army of 93 ships on relatively equal terms. He moved fast enough to catch the Vikings on the hop and successfully managed to bottle them up on Northey.

The problem was: what to do next?

Those who argue that it was foolish to let them cross and fight it out do not seem to take into account the alternatives to this action. By not letting them cross, the Vikings certainly couldn't hurt his army, but likewise he could not do much to hurt them. And it was not as though they were stuck on Northey - it would have been an easy matter for them to re-embark and sail away to attack Essex elsewhere. Or to stand off long enough for Byrhtnoth's troops to disperse and then return. Byrhtnoth had a choice - let them run away to fight another day, perhaps on less favourable terms and ground, or let them cross and beat them here and now once and for all while he had the troops and on ground of his choosing.

Contrary to popular belief, pitched battles were a rarity in medieval warfare, and for good reasons. Battles in this period were a risky business and good generals were very careful when they chose to fight and on what terms. It was only when a general honestly thought he had a good chance of winning or when he had no alternatives that he chose to risk a fight.

Clearly, Byrhtnoth - a veteran leader - thought he was in a strong enough position at Maldon to fight a pitched battle and win. We know, of course, that he was wrong on that last point, but it is very easy to be wise in hindsight.

So Byrhtnoth, in his "ofermod" (a tricky word to translate accurately), took his chance and let the Vikings cross. And in the battle that followed he was killed, his forces broke and the last stand of (most of) his heathwerod went down in history.

The important thing to remember here is that early medieval commanders were usually shy of risky battles. The fact that Byrhtnoth decided to risk one tells us something about his force at Maldon: clearly it was large, strong and experienced enough to take this risk. Just as in our recent discussion about whether Harold's defeat at Hastings was "inevitable" I think it would be a mistake to say that the defeat at Maldon was similarly a foregone conclusion. Byrhtnoth was no fool and I do not think we should assume we know more about the make up and quality of his army simply because he (like Harold) lost his gamble.

After all, he was there - we were not.

It is also interesting to look at how and when the poem was written and what this says about how Byrhtnoth was remembered, but perhaps more of that anon.

Cheers,
Thiu

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