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In AD 1006 a challenge was made to the English by the Danish raiding army at Cwicchelmes hlæwe [Cwichelmeshlæwe] or the ‘Mound of Cwichelm’. This site is known today as Scutchamer Knob, situated in East Hendred on the Oxfordshire and Berkshire border. The raiding army camped and by so doing confronted local legend, awaiting in vain the ‘boasted threats, because it had often been said that if they sought out Cwichelm’s Barrow, they would never get to the sea’. They eventually turned homeward, achieving a safe return to the Hampshire coast. Today Cwichelmeshlæwe is recognized through fieldwork as a prominent prehistoric tumulus, once over 60 metres in diameter and 7 metres in height. (Ref: Semple: Excavations at Scutchmer’s Knob, East Hendred, Berkshire, South Midlands Archaeological Journal.)
Despite its creation in prehistory, this monument must have held a political significance for the late Anglo-Saxon communities and powers of this region. It was named after a member of the West Saxon royal family and is twice documented as the meeting place of the late Saxon shire assembly (Gelling 1974: 481–2; see also Robertson 1939). In 1006, the monument was described in relation to emotive and popular folklore, linking the safe defence of England to the security of the mound. Perhaps for this reason the raiding army chose it as a place for a theatrical and political statement designed to weaken English resolve.
Prehistoric monuments were important to early medieval populations. They recognized them as ancient features, as human creations from a distant past. They used them as landmarks, battle sites, and estate markers. They gave them new Old English names. Before and even during the conversion to Christianity, communities buried their dead in and around these relict features and placed elite graves within them. After the conversion, several churches were built in and on these monuments, great assemblies and meetings were held at them, and felons executed and buried within their surrounds.
From the Introduction to Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England: Religion, Ritual, and Rulership in the Landscape by Sarah Semple, Oxford University Press, 2019
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