Bloody slaughter: imagine one of the big, set-piece scenes from Game of Thrones (minus the dragons and giants), and you get an idea of what the Battle of Aclea might have looked like. The exact site of the battle in the Surrey Hills remains a mystery lost to history
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Danish invaders on the rampage, a Wessex king winning a huge battle and the most opulent of all the surviving English Medieval manuscripts are all traced back to the role of a nobleman with land in Selsdon by DAVID MORGAN
Precious: the Codex Aureus is a marvel of Medieval England
The National Library of Stockholm has a vast collection of treasured books. One of them, now kept in a darkened room to avoid light damage, is the Codex Aureus – the “Golden Book”. This fragile tome is well over 1,200 years old, thought to have been completed around the year 750.
The Codex Aureus was made with 400 pages of carefully prepared calf vellum – cured animal hide – of which every other sheet is dyed purple. It is one of the most opulent of all the surviving English Medieval manuscripts and is thought to have been made by monks either in the scriptorium at Canterbury or by the nuns of the convent of Minster-in-Thanet.
In this Golden Book, the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel has rare and precious gold leaf lettering.
An entry on the endleaf, however, which was added in the 9th century, provides us with a clue that this magnificent tome could have been housed right here in Croydon, and for some time, too.
Croydon’s Saxon history remains largely shrouded in the mists of time. Various archeological finds have helped to piece together a little of what life was like back then.
Golden history: this coin, with the head of Coenwulf, provides a link to Croydon going back more than a thousand years
The year 809 is a significant date, though. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Wulfred, met with the King of the Mercians, Coenwulf, near to the Minster in Crogedena, the Saxon name for Croydon. Some historians think this meeting was part of a synod.
Bearing in mind that St Augustine landed in Kent in 597, the church and the settlement of Crogedena must have gained a real prominence in this part of England in quite a short time.
One of the inhabitants of Crogedena in the latter part of the 9th century was Aelfred, now commonly referred to as Alfred (but not to be confused with the cake-burning king, who probably didn’t burn any cakes anyway…).
Croydon’s Alfred was an Eolderman, or Alderman, of Surrey, a senior, respected Saxon official, responsible for raising armed troops at the command of the king. He was one of the noblemen in the royal court. It was the Eolderman’s name which was discovered written inside the Golden Book in a remarkable entry which shines a light into Saxon England during the Dark Ages.
The entry added to the precious Codex Aureus reads as follows:
“I Eolderman Aelfred and Werberg my wife have obtained these books from the heathen army with our pure money, that was with pure gold.”
The “heathen army” was the description given to the Vikings, who arrived in large numbers down the east coast of England in 865 in their longboats, triggering a series of raids, invasions and wars that lasted for nearly a century.
Campaigns in 871, 877-878 and 893-894, together with innumerable raids, brought the English kingdoms to their knees. The Vikings terrorised coastal areas. Monasteries were raided and their libraries smashed. Villages were burnt and destroyed, with some of the population taken into slavery.
Gilt-edged pages: the Golden Book was painstakingly written and illustrated more than one thousand years ago
It must have been on one of these raids that the Codex Aureus was taken. On a literary level, it was worth nothing to the Vikings. However, they knew the value of the gold leaf and religious importance invested in it by the early Christians, and so were prepared to accept a payment for its return. It was a Dark Ages version of ransomware.
Looking at the dates of Viking raids on south-east England, it seems probable that the book was taken in the year 851. This was the only recorded date in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when there was a raid on Canterbury during Eolderman Alfred’s lifetime.
That was also the year when Vikings raiders were confronted by a Wessex army and defeated in the Battle of Aclea. The exact location of Aclea is a mystery that puzzles historians and detectorists to this day, but it is widely thought to have been somewhere in the Surrey Hills, and is regarded as an important turning point in the wars against the Danish raiders because it was the first time they had been beaten in a significant battle.
Historic meeting point: As the near-meeting point of four kingdoms, on the route between London and Canterbury, Croydon grew in importance
As one source outlines, “In his account of the battle, Asser explained that Aclea means ‘Oak Field’. This description could apply to Ockley, as the village is surrounded by oak trees to this day.”
Ockley, near Dorking, is about 24 miles south of Croydon, situated on the ancient route of Stane Street, long-since adopted as the main A24 road from London to Chichester, which is the likely route the Vikings would have taken south from London Bridge, and the same route used by Aethelwulf’s Wessex army travelling north to confront them.
Aclea, sometimes spelt Acleah, meant “Oak Glade”, and became Oakley, argue others. There is one such place name in Surrey, in Merstham, to the north of Redhill. This is close to another ancient trackway, now known as the Pilgrim’s Way. There is also Battlebridge Lane in Merstham and a tradition of it being the site of a Viking defeat.
Whether Ockley or Oakley, the Saxon warriors under King Aethelwulf defeated a vast Viking army. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the events leading up to and including the battle as follows:
“The same year 350 ships came into the mouth of the Thames and stormed Canterbury and London and put to flight Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia, with his army and then went over the Thames into Surrey and King Aethelwulf and his son Aethelbald with the army of Wessex fought against them at Acleah and there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding army that we have heard tell of up to this present day.”
Perhaps the surviving Vikings sought to offload some of their earlier captured treasures and the chance to raise some money from their victors seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
We do not know the exact sum of money which changed hands nor where the book was taken after Alfred got it back.
We do know more about Alfred’s family, which included a daughter, Alhthryth, and son Aethelwald, and his status, though.
A copy of his will has survived. None of his family were to inherit the Golden Book, though, as a further note in the endleaf of the Codex Aureus explains.
“We wish to present them to Christ Church to God’s praise and honour and glory, and as thanksgiving for his sufferings, and for the use of the religious community which glorifies God daily in Christ Church; in order that they should be read aloud every month for Alfred, Werberg and for Alhthryth, for the eternal salvation of their souls, as long as God decrees that Christianity should survive in that place. And also I, Eolderman Alfred and Werberg beg and entreat the name of Almighty God and of all his saints that no man should be so presumptuous as to give away or remove these holy works from Christ Church as long as Christianity survives there.”
“Christ Church” is the Cathedral at Canterbury. Alfred makes it clear that although he is presenting precious books in the plural, the Aureus Codex is the only one about which we know. The presentation isn’t a one-way transaction, as Alfred points out. In return for giving Canterbury the gift of the books, he expects the monks to pray for his soul and those of his wife and his daughter.
Devotion: the Golden Book illustrates the Gospel of St Matthew
His will must have been drawn up between 871 and 888 by using the witness names on the other charter documents. If the book was seized and bought back in 851, that would mean 20 years or more before it was given to the cathedral.
Where might have it been stored and used?
We know that Alfred’s main estate was in the Selsdon area. It would be wonderful to think that he held the book here.
There is another fascinating revelation about Eolderman Alfred. He made an agreement with Archbishop Aethelred, who was in office from 870 until his death in 888, that he would have the lifelong use of an estate in Croydon, in return for bequeathing one of his estates Chartham in Kent to Canterbury after his death.
This is the first documented evidence of the Archbishops of Canterbury owning land in Croydon.
There was an option, too, for a permanent acquisition by an heir. In Alfred’s will there were significant bequeasts of land at Sanderstead, Selsdon, Lingfield, Westerham, Horsley and Nettlestead to his wife and daughter.
His son, Aethelwald, received just two small parcels of land at Waddington (Coulsdon) and Gatton.
An estate in Clapham was bequeathed to Chertsey Minster and land was gifted to two kinsmen Beorhtsige and Sigewulf. Sigewulf was a signatory of the contract drawn up that granted Alfred lifelong use of the estate at Croydon.
It can be seen from the size of estates that Eolderman Alfred held a most significant place in Anglo-Saxon society and it is interesting to note that his wife and daughter benefited far more in his will than his son did.
The Codex Aureus, it is presumed, remained at Canterbury for many centuries.
However, the book turned up in Madrid in 1690, housed in the Library of Gaspar de Haro, the seventh Marquis del Carpio. In 1690, it was purchased from de Haro by Johan Gabriel Sparwenfeld, the distinguished Swedish envoy and linguist. Sparwenfeld donated it to the National Library in Stockholm in 1705 where it has remained ever since.
The history of Croydon in Medieval times remains little-known, but careful searches are piecing together important details which show the town, close to the borders of four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and its people have played important roles in national events for many decades longer than had ever before been considered.
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- When Minster was the venue for an Anglo-Saxon peace treaty
- From a GP’s on the High Street to hosting dinner for the King
- Norwood to Hollywood: Oscar-winner who dressed the stars
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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