Battle of Edington - Location of The Battle

Location of The Battle

The primary sources for the location of the battle are Asser's Life of King Alfred, which names the place as "Ethandun" and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which has Eðandune. The chronicle was compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great and is thus a contemporary record. It is believed that Asser's Life was originally written in 893; however, no contemporary manuscript survives. A version of the Life written in about 1000 AD, known as the Cotton Otho A. xii text, lasted till 1731 when it was destroyed in a fire. Before its destruction this version had been transcribed and annotated; it is this transcription on which modern translations are based. Some scholars have suggested that Asser's life of King Alfred was a forgery.

The location of the battle generally accepted by most present-day historians is at Edington, near Westbury in Wiltshire. However, the location has been much debated by antiquarians over the centuries. In 1904 William Henry Stevenson analysed possible sites and said "So far, there is nothing to prove the identity of this Eðandune with Edington" but then goes on to say that "there can be little reason for questioning it".

The evidence to support the Eðandune of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Ethandun of Asser's Life, being Edington, Wiltshire, is derived from a trail of information from various ancient manuscripts. Edington, Wiltshire is known to have been part of Alfred's family estate. He left a manor called Eðandune to his wife, in his Will. A charter records a meeting of the king's council at Eðandun, although a later scribe has annotated the same document with Eðandune. In 968, another charter reported that King Edgar had granted land at Edyndon to Romsey Abbey. The Domesday book has an entry for Romsey Abbey holding land at Edendone(Wilt'schire) at the time of Edward the Confessor and also in 1086, and this is known to be at Edington, Wiltshire.

Alternatives to Edington, Wiltshire, have been suggested since early times. The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil appears to have misread the ancient texts for the battle site as he places it at Abyndoniam (Abingdon) instead of Edington. In the 19th century there was a resurgence in interest of medieval history and King Alfred was seen as a major hero. Although most early historians had sited the battle as in the Edington, Wiltshire area, the significant interest in the subject encouraged many antiquarians to dig up Alfredian sites and also to propose alternatives for the location of the battle. The alternative sites were generally name based, although with the large interest in everything Alfredian in the 19th century, any site that had an Alfred connection could be guaranteed large amounts of tourists, so this was also a driving force to find a link.