Was Offa's Dyke Offa's dyke?
Submitted by VirtHist on Thursday, 09 June 2005 Page Views: 13584
Multi-periodCountry: England Type: Misc. EarthworkInternal Links:
a) have there been no Anglo-Saxon finds at its base levels?
b) is it the only Anglo-Saxon structure of its kind? (It's still unclear as to who constructed Wansdyke near Bristol)
c) is it never mentioned in the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'?
The alternative theory behind the construction of this 150 mile long work was put forward by my colleague Steve Blake and his co-author Scott Lloyd in their book 'The Keys to Avalon' and it goes something like this...
It was whilst writing their book and researching Offa’s Dyke that they came across the writings of a 6th century Roman called Procopius. This latter day Roman mentions a wall built by the Britons running from north to south. Historians believe he must have been mistaken. There are no walls built at this time running north to south. Hadrian's Wall (73 miles in length) and the Antonine Wall (37 miles in length) run east to west. But what if he was referring to another 'wall'; a 'wall' we believe to have been built much later - Offa's Dyke?
Could this be the wall referred to by Gildas? Could this be the wall the Emperor Severus was said to have built in the late 2nd century but historians put down to a reworking of Hadrian's Wall? Is this why no Anglo-Saxon finds have been made anywhere on the Dyke? All this was just theory until a find was made at Wat's Dyke - which runs parallel to Offa's in it’s northern section - and was thought to be built around the same time. This find, of hearth remains, was made in Oswestry, Shropshire during the construction work for the Maes-y-Clawdd Industrial Estate. These remains were carbon dated to around 446 AD: just after the Romans abandoned Britain and not Anglo-Saxon at all. This threw a 'cat amongst the pigeons' but made Steve and Scott very happy. If this was true of Wat's Dyke then the same could be so for Offa's.
This now made even more sense of what Procopius says when he tells us that the Britons built this wall and on one side of it 'was fertile pastureland and on the other a land not fit for humans and full of vipers and serpents. ' Whilst this is a little harsh on the lands of what is now Wales, it's understandable why someone in the 6th century would think so. It doesn’t really describe the environs of either Hadrian's or the Antonine Walls. Procopius also states that anyone passing over this wall would die and says, ‘They say that the souls of men departed are always conducted to this place.’ This – amongst many other discoveries - is what lead them to conclude that North Wales was the "Land of the Dead" or the Otherworld... but that's another story.
It is also incredible that in all the listings for the deeds of Offa in the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicles' there is not one mention of him constructing such a dyke. Far lesser things get a mention so why not one for, that would be, the greatest Anglo-Saxon engineering achievement of its time? No mention of Wat’s Dyke either, and now we know why... they didn’t build it!
How did it come to be called Offa’s Dyke? All because of one line in Asser’s 'The Life of King Alfred' from 893 that says: ‘there was a late king of Mercia a certain strenuous king... Offa by name, who ordered to be made between Britannia [Wales] and Mercia, the dyke from sea to sea.’ That is the only written evidence. Even though historians have always wondered how the Saxons managed to build such a construction with no engineering skills in such matters - if they didn't build Wat's Dyke and with Wansdayke still in question – it became fact and has stuck.
Steve and Scott went looking for more evidence and found this in Nennius’ 'Historia Brittonum': ‘In order to safeguard the acquired provinces from barbarian attack he [Severus] built a wall and rampart from sea to sea through the breadth [not the length] of Britanniae, this is for 132 miles and it is called in the British language Guaul.’
The 'Leabhar Breathnach', the Gaelic version of Nennius’ work says ‘Severus was the third king who came to Britannia and it was he that made the Saxon ditch against the barbarians i.e. the Cruithnians [Picts], 130 miles long and the name of the ditch among the Britons was Guaul.’ It’s known the Cruithnians were in North Wales at this time and the dyke is the only ‘wall’ of this length with Hadrian’s and the Antonine not exceeding 73 miles. It also makes sense with the 2nd century being the wall building era: Hadrian’s c.120 and the Antonine 140AD, that Severus constructed one.
(The name given to the wall, Guaul, throws up other questions as Vortigern was suppose to have given land to the Saxons, Horsa and Hengist to the north of the wall called Guaul. This is why many think Guaul to be Handrian's Wall).
In the 4th. Century Roman text, 'Scriptores Historia Augustae', the only text that actually tells us who built the Hadrian and Antonine walls, it informs us...
Hadrian’s Wall: He [Hadrian} set out for Britain. There he put right many abuses and was the first to build a wall, eighty miles long, to separate the barbarians and the Romans.
Antonine Wall: Antonine waged many wars, using his legates. Lollius Urbicuc, a legate, conquered the Britons for him, and when he had driven the barbarians off built another wall, of turf.
Wall of Severus[?]: He [Severus} fortified Britannia, building a wall across the island from both ends to the Ocean boundary.
...three walls, not two. No mention that he worked on Hadrian’s Wall but that he had one built himself. If we needed any more evidence, then we can also look at the 4th century writings of St Jerome when translating the Greek 'Chronicles of Eusebius of Caesarea' (c. 320) in to Latin: ‘(Anno Abraham 2221) [AD205] Severus brings war over against the Britanni, where also, in order to safeguard the acquired province from attack, he made a wall from sea to sea for 132 miles’
Steve and Scott also found that... ‘in all of the early source materials used for the beginnings of British history the only wall ever mentioned is that built by Severus. There is no mention of either Hadrian’s or the Antonine Walls in Nennius, Gildasb or Bede (who supposedly lived within a few miles of Hadrian’s Wall)’... and... ‘For example, when writing 'The History of the English Church and People' in 731, Bede relates the following:
He [Severus] was compelled to come to Britain by the desertion of nearly all the tribes allied to Rome, and after many critical and hard fought battles he decided to separate that portion of the island under his control from the remaining unconquered peoples. He did this not with a wall, as some imagine, but an earthwork. For a wall is built of stone, but an earthwork such as protects a camp from enemy attack is constructed with sods cut from the earth and raised above the ground level, fronted by a ditch from which the sods were cut and surmounted by a strong palisade of logs. Severus built a rampart and ditch of this type from sea to sea fortified by a series of towers.’
There are those who argue that there would be no need for such a wall in this location at this time, such archaeologist, Keith Matthews, because there was no threat from Wales, but there are plenty who counter argument.
So should Offa’s Dyke actually be called Severus’ Wall? We’ll never know until more archaeology is carried out, but if Steve and Scott are proved right then a great deal of history would have to be rewritten.
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