Lesson video

Hello, so this brings us to the last lesson of this four lesson enquiry on why is Alfred remembered as Great? Now, I'm really sorry that I've picked this as the title of the lesson but, hopefully, you'll find it an interesting lesson.

We've already come across these slightly funny names, Athelstan and Aethelflaed.

Today, we're going to be learning about the Kingdom of Brycheiniog.

Mmhmm, that's right.

So I asked a Welsh friend how to pronounce it correctly because I couldn't pronounce it correctly.

Brycheiniog.

Now, if anyone is Welsh and I've pronounced it incorrectly, I'm really, really sorry but I'm doing my best.

So you will, first of all, do what I've asked you to do many times before which is, piece of paper or your book, date of whatever day it is you're doing this lesson on, title, spell it correctly, I got it wrong a few times but that's fine, and then we will start with this lesson.

And really, I really enjoyed reading about this forgotten kingdom, and why it's forgotten, so the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, King Elisedd, it's great.

Love this stuff.

So off we go.

You can pause me whenever you want, if I get too nerdy, that's fine.

I won't take it personally.

So off you go and then, we will start the lesson.

So, if you could make sure that you have this title, in your books or your notes, underlined, The Kingdom of Brycheiniog.

Make sure you're spelling that correctly.

It's a very strange spelling, I know, but it's important that you get this correct.

So when you've done that, restart the lesson, and then I will tell you about the story of the vanished kingdom of Brycheiniog.

So we are going to be zooming in to this part of Wales, where the red spot is.

Specifically, we're going to this purple area.

Now this is a mediaeval map, a map of mediaeval Wales.

The different colours represent different kingdoms in Wales at this time, and we're talking about Brycheiniog which is the purple area just there, and I'll explain to you why we're going to be talking about this in a moment, but this is just to give you an idea of the location of today's lesson.

Specifically, we're going to be talking about events that happened around this lake, Llangorse Lake, and here we see, this was the site of something very, very interesting that happened at the time of Alfred and his children.

Now, we only know about this, well, until quite recently, we only know about this story, we only have a mention of the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, because of an entry in this.

This is the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" which I showed to you in the last lesson.

The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", just to remind you, is kind of like of diary but for years.

So you might see the blurred numbers on the left hand side, that's a year, and then, on the right hand side, we have a description of what happened in the years.

Now, for the year 916, we have this entry, and I'll read it out to you: "This year, the innocent priest, Egbert, was murdered, "on the sixteenth day before the start of July.

"And within three nights, Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia, "sent an army into Wales, and stormed the Llangorse Lake; "and took the king's wife, with 34 others." This is the only mention we have of the Kingdom of Brycheiniog in this period of time.

For about, sort of, there are various mentions, but in the years between the start of the 900s, for about 20, 30 years, this is the one mention we have of what happened to the Kingdom of Brycheiniog.

And we're going to zoom into Llangorse Lake because what's really interesting about this story is that, without archaeology, we don't know much about Brycheiniog, and this will make sense when we talk about our enquiry question, why do we always focus on Alfred? Why do we talk about Alfred the Great? What about the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, all of these other stories? What about the Lady of Mercia? So here we have a really interesting, like, just a snippet, a tiny little flash, of what must have been a huge battle that took place in 916.

Just very quickly, where did Aethelflaed send an army in 916? See if you can just, based on what I've just been telling you, I want you to tell the story, just answer this question, which of these four? There we go, Wales.

Now, what's been interesting about this, as we've looked in the last lessons, the story that we've been looking at is the fight against the Vikings.

It is that Alfred, leading the charge, then his children, Aethelflaed and Edward, lead the fight, the story that we're often told is about Anglo-Saxon kings and the Lady of Mercia fighting against the Vikings, and this is the big story that has been told for many hundreds of years.

However, what this doesn't do is pay attention to what was also happening, and what we have happening at this particular moment is a kingdom in Wales, an independent kingdom of Wales, being destroyed by the Lady of Mercia.

Does this make her great? Is this part of the story that we've been telling ourselves? Or is this part of the story about, are we missing something out? And I would say we are missing something out and I'll explain to you why.

So Llangorse Lake, we've known, historians have known for a long time that this was the site of something, the site of this big battle that happened between Aethelflaed and this, now forgotten, kingdom.

We don't even know which king it was because the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" doesn't say which king it was.

So we're left with a mention in one written source and we don't really know much about, we know very little, we know very little about this kingdom, didn't write much down, and so what do we then rely on? As we've been looking at the last few lessons, it's the importance of archaeology.

Now, this is where the archaeology gets really interesting.

In Llangorse Lake, there is an island and this island, in the middle of this circle, was made from nothing.

So it's a manmade island, made by one of the kings of Brycheiniog.

His name was Elisedd and he made this island in the 890s.

Now think about what we've been looking at so far.

In the 890s, this was when Alfred and Guthrum had been making their deal, they made their treaty.

This is when the Vikings were causing a lot of trouble.

They were still in England.

They were raiding all around the islands, all around the British Isles, and, at the same time, we don't have this written down, we don't know for sure that this happened, we only know that this happened because of what archaeologists have found.

So archaeologists went to this island, this island in Llangorse Lake, and they started to dig.

This is another view of this island.

So this island was manmade.

There were no trees on it at the time that we're talking but it was made from scratch.

Now to make an island is quite a difficult task 'cause you have to shift a lot of earth, a lot of stone, in order for you to be able to build on it.

But that's exactly what King Elisedd of Brycheiniog managed to do, despite the fact this was when the Vikings were destroying so many parts of England.

Why would you want to build an island, in fact? Ask yourself this question.

Why would a king want to build an island? This is the sort of, it's quite a big task, especially if you've got Vikings and other Welsh kings and Anglo-Saxon kings causing, threatening your kingdom, what's the point of building this island? I'll explain to you in a moment why and it's based on what archaeologists found, not what's written down, not what historians have found in the Chronicle.

It's what archaeologists have found that tells a lot about what was happening on this island.

Well, here we have excavations.

So archaeologists went to this island called a crannog, don't worry too much, you'll read about it in a moment, they dug into the ground on this island in 1991 and what they found was the remains of wooden walls.

Specifically, here's a bit of wood that was found.

Now, what this allowed archaeologists to do, they looked at this wood and they were able to date this building because, they looked at the wood, they were able to test it, and they found that these trees were chopped down in the 880s.

They could be that specific.

So we know that this island was made and the buildings that were on it were made in the 880s because of the wood that was found.

And this is a reconstruction of what the island might have looked like.

It might not seem particularly glamorous to us but, actually, this was a very important centre for the Kingdom of Brycheiniog.

To build an island, it was a symbol of power.

It was a really, really big thing that he'd done, building an island from scratch.

It was also quite a good way of protecting yourself from attacking Vikings or other Welsh soldiers.

Now this is one of my most favourite, one of the best things I've found when I've been researching these lessons to give to you.

This is one of the most important things ever found in Wales, believe it or not.

I'm going to tell you what it is.

It is a bit of burnt wood.

You can't see it, but on the top of this bit of wood is a bit of fabric, a bit of, it's a woman's dress, they think, a woman's dress, burnt onto this bit of wood.

Now this is what, they very carefully took this layer of cloth off the burnt wood they found in the ground, and then they've recreated it.

So on the right hand side, you can see what it would have looked like.

Now, what this tells us, again, there's nothing written down about how people lived in the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, there's nothing written down about what life was like on this island.

Archaeologists, however, have found this kind of thing, and what this tells us is that the people living on this island were, they were wealthy enough to buy this kind of fabric.

They were wealthy enough to spend money dressing in this way.

Now, the reason I think it's really important that we look at this kind of thing is because it tells us a lot about a kingdom or a royal family that, without the work of archaeology, we would not know much about.

We have the mention in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" but, other than that, we don't know much at all and that is why it's so important that archaeology is used, when we're talking about this period, we take the time to look at the archaeology as well.

Everyone talks about Alfred, Alfred the Great, Alfred, Alfred, Alfred.

We've also started to talk about Athelstan, his daughter, Aethelflaed, son, Edward.

Then we have the discovery, on this island, a little bit, I mean, just look at it.

This tells a story.

It might look, well, it looks like just a bit of wood.

But this tells a story and it tells a story of a kingdom that once was powerful enough to build an island, to have these buildings on this island, for whoever it was to wear these beautiful dresses, only because archaeologists have found this bit of wood.

Now, what's really interesting about this, it was burnt.

So the archaeologists found that all the stuff that was on the island was burnt, including this dress, and so, if we think about what the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" said, which is that the Lady of Mercia, Aethelflaed, sent an army to attack the lake, this may well be the remains of that attack.

Now, I just think that's an amazing story and I think it shows the importance, when we're talking about, when we're talking about historical figures like Alfred, we don't focus only on Alfred.

We look at all these other characters, all these other stories that have been lost and we struggle to build a picture.

But this is what historians do, we bring everything together.

We don't just accept what we read.

We question what we read.

We look at the other evidence.

We build a picture of what has happened in the past.

So I'd like you just to have a go at this.

Same task as you've done a few times before, seven words to fit into the paragraph.

Write the paragraph out first, leaving some gaps, and then work out which word goes where.

So pause now and have a go.

So, at the end of the 9th century, King Elisedd of Brycheiniog built an island in Llangorse Lake.

This was at a time when the Vikings were attacking England.

They also attacked Brycheiniog once, but Elisedd's bigger problem was from other Welsh kings.

The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" describes how the island built by Eliseed was burnt down by Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia.

Archaeologists have found evidence that suggests this actually happened.

I just think that's, I think it's really cool, actually, that we have a mention in the Chronicle that is now backed up, potentially backed up, by what archaeologists have found.

So what you're going to do now is five questions, you're going to pause the video, you're going to go to the next part of the lesson, you're going to read through the slides, and you're going to answer these five questions in full sentences.

So pause now, read the slides, answer the questions, and then restart the video when you're done.

So, first question, and remember, you can pause at any point if I've talked too quickly or if you want to correct an answer.

So first one, what is a crannog? And the acceptable answer, an island.

The good answer: a crannog is a man-made island common in Ireland, created by powerful men.

Now, interestingly, the crannog we're talking about is in Wales, so this shows that there was clearly some sort of relationship between the king of Brycheiniog, Elisedd, who made this island, and people in Ireland.

So that, in itself, tells us a lot about who this man was.

Two, why does the crannog show that Elisedd was powerful? Acceptable answer, it was hard to build.

Good answer: The crannog shows that Elisedd was powerful because building it required a lot of work and effort.

It was also a symbol of his power.

So, again, when we're talking about Alfred the Great, why is Alfred known as great? Well, Alfred built a lot.

He organised his kingdom.

He fought against the Vikings.

But we only know this because of the written sources, the things that were written down about Alfred.

If it weren't for the work of archaeologists digging up the crannog in Wales, we would probably not know much about Elisedd.

So this is why we have to be very careful when we're thinking about figures in the past.

Just because we have sources that talk about one king, doesn't mean that there were no other kings that are worth looking at.

Three, what did archaeologists find on the crannog? Bones and bits of wood.

The good answer: Archaeologists found the remains of pet dogs, feasts, and the sleeve of a woman's well-made dress.

I love the, I just think it's a really amazing thing that archaeologists have found pets, the remains of pets.

That tells us a lot about who these people were, what kind of lives they led, what they liked to do, feasting, going hunting, petting dogs, very human, very much like, lots of similarities with things that we do today.

Four, who was the main threat to Brycheiniog? Other Welsh kings.

The good answer: the main threat to Brycheiniog were other Welsh kings, as well as the Vikings.

So, again, when we talk about this period, typically, the story is Anglo-Saxon kings fighting against the Vikings.

This story about Brycheiniog tells us something else.

It tells us that the story was more complex, it was more complicated.

Yes, the Vikings were threatening Wales but also, there was also a lot of arguing and fighting between Welsh kings, and then we have this other relationship with Alfred as well that comes in and makes it even more complicated.

Five, who destroyed Brycheiniog? Acceptable answer, Aethelflaed.

Good answer: In 916, Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia, destroyed Brycheiniog.

However, the kingdom was already weakened by fighting with other Welsh kings and Viking raids.

So, again, the story is complicated.

Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia, who we've learnt about how she fought against the Vikings, she's remembered as a warrior queen who strengthened England against the Vikings, well, it was Aethelflaed who crushed this Welsh kingdom.

So we must be careful when we think about these, calling kings or queens or ladies or lords, it's not black and white.

It's a bit more complicated.

Alfred, yes, he did lots of good things and strengthened Wessex but we also mustn't assume that that makes him the perfect man.

The biography, the life that Asser wrote about King Alfred, missed out quite a lot of stuff.

We can assume that he wasn't this perfect man.

He had flaws, he made mistakes.

So we just have to be wary about this when we're studying history.

So bringing this all together, how do we know which mediaeval kings were great? So our enquiry was about why is Alfred known as Alfred the Great.

Well, I want us to think about this more broadly.

How do we know which mediaeval kings were great? Thinking about the different kings that we've talked about in the last few lessons.

So just to remind us, we're going to go through the story that we've been looking at in this enquiry.

Alfred crowned king of Wessex, not England, in 861.

He rules for about 38 years, during which time he pushes the Vikings back across this border that he agrees with Guthrum.

He then strengthens Wessex, he strengthens Mercia, he builds burhs, he organises the army, he builds a navy, he encourages learning.

Hence, him being known as Alfred the Great.

Then we have Edward, his son, becoming king of the Anglo-Saxons, and with Aethelflaed, who becomes Lady of Mercia in 911, they fight, they push the Vikings out, out, out, of England.

They build burhs all over England and they really, they build on what Alfred has achieved.

Now, neither is known as great and yet, they did what, some would say, were great things.

Then we have the death of Aethelflaed in 918.

Mercia is then taken over by Edward and Edward continues fighting until he dies in 924, at which point his son, Aethelstan, becomes the king of the Anglo-Saxons, and, of course, it was Aethelstan who scored this massive victory at Brunanburh in 934, dying in 939, and then England is united.

Why do we only focus, and actually, you'll see on this screen, on this timeline, no mention of Elisedd, the king of Brycheiniog.

Why, why have I done that? Why have I chosen that? Why do we only focus on Alfred? Why is it Alfred the Great? Why not Aethelflaed the Great? Why not Edward the Great? This is the question that we're asking.

What makes a king great? What is the, where does this come from? Well, part of the issue is we can only talk about a king or a lady or a queen if we know who they were and if we know what they did.

The problem that we have for this period is that there are very few written sources.

One of them is on the screen, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", like a diary, and we've talked about this already, each year, written down the main events of that year.

So that's one of these sources that we can talk about.

Then we have archaeology.

Now this rather ugly looking object tells us more about what was happening in Wales than the Chronicle does here.

Well, it tells us a different kind of story.

This tells us that Aethelflaed attacked the kingdom of Brycheiniog and burnt it down.

This object tells us who, who was living in Brycheiniog.

It tells us what they liked, what life was like for these people on Brycheiniog.

It tells us that whoever was wearing this, this dress that is now burnt and stuck on a piece of wood, was rich, was powerful, liked to look good, was able to get these beautiful objects from far away.

And this brings us to the big point, the big point of this enquiry, the importance of historical evidence.

So just reading through these sentences on the board.

This is really, really important.

We only know about things that happened or people that lived in the past if we have historical evidence.

We find historical evidence in sources.

Not sauce as in ketchup, sources as in that spelling.

A source is anything that survives from the past.

A source might be something that has been written or it might be the remains of human activity.

So we can only talk about Alfred, Aethelflaed, the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, because we have historical evidence, and that evidence comes from these sources.

Now, the problem that we have is these sources aren't always, we need to be careful when we're using them.

So, just on the screen, so historical sources for the fight back against the Vikings.

So we've talked about the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and we've talked about "The Life of King Alfred", these two big, big sources of evidence to work out what happened.

Well, you'll see that both of these sources were written by people who worked for Alfred.

Hmm, that's potentially a bit of a problem because, of course, if you're working for someone, you're going to be giving their view.

So what does this mean? Well, it means that we have to look for other sources of evidence.

And archaeology, the third point, that tells us a lot as well.

For example, we've looked at what the Vikings did at Repton, remember our first lesson, and we've also looked, today, at a dig at the crannog on the Lake of Llangorse.

And so what we have to do, as historians, is bring everything together.

We're like detectives.

We're looking at these different bits of information, we're saying, okay, that's interesting, does the other evidence support what I'm finding in this bit of evidence? We have to build a picture, very carefully looking at what, looking at the sources, being aware that maybe we need to just be a little bit cautious before we believe everything that we read.

It doesn't mean we can't use the source.

It just means we have to be careful not to trust everything without some amount of questioning.

So what I'd like you to do, oh sorry.

So the problem, as I've just talked to you, is exactly this; we don't have many sources and we have to be careful when we're talking about these sources.

So what I'd like you to do, the last part, so how do we know which mediaeval kings were great? So the first sentence, I've done for you: we know about mediaeval kings because of the historical sources that have survived.

So we've looked at the Chronicle, we've looked at the "The Life of King Alfred", we've looked at archaeology.

What I'd like you to do now, the four sentence starters there, and I want you to have a go at answering this question.

You don't need to use these sentence starters if you don't want to, but this is all about making us question why is Alfred known as great and why Edward, Aethelflaed, Athelstan, are not known as great.

Well, part of it is because the historical sources that survive paint Alfred in a really positive light.

So what we need to do is to really question the sources.

It doesn't mean we ignore them, we just need to question them.

And then, for the last, so we've got three sentence starters that I need you to finish, or I'd like you to finish, and I think you just see what you can do with this.

Now, you don't need to use these sentence starters if you don't want to, if you don't need to, but this is just to give you some ideas about how you might want to answer this question.

So have a go, don't spend more than 5 or 10 minutes on it, and pause the video while you're doing this, and when you're finished, restart the video, and that'll bring us to the end of the lesson.

So, if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak.

Not compulsory but I would love to see the work you're producing.

So that brings us, not only to the end of lesson four, but to the end of this enquiry.

So I hope you now have a much better idea of why Alfred was given this name Great and why, perhaps, we should be thinking about other kings and queens who might also have been great by the standards of the time, and I hope the one thing that you don't forget about this lesson is the image of the little dog, the pet dog, belonging to King Elisedd, maybe to his wife who was wearing the nice dress, and how great is that, that we can build a picture of what was happening on this tiny little island in the middle of Wales over 1,000 years ago.

I love history, not going to lie.

So quiz and then you're free to go.

Have a great day.