Free Offa and the Mercian Wars by Chris Peers Page A

the peasantry not only by their equipment but by their stature and muscular development, the product of a high-protein diet and constant training. A similar situation exists even today in places such as parts of rural India, where the local subsistence farmers can be readily told apart from those who make their living in other – sometimes less legitimate – ways.
    The professional gesiths of early Anglo-Saxon times may even have constituted a hereditary military class which operated across the borders of the developing kingdoms, as we have seen in the case of Imma. Bede also mentions that many young men from other kingdoms served in the retinue of King Oswine of Deira (reigned 644 – 51). On the other hand men of this caste seem often to have embarked on private freebooting expeditions at the expense of neighbouring kingdoms, especially perhaps the Britons. According to his biographer, an East Anglian monk named Felix, Saint Guthlac, who was born among the Middle Angles in the late seventh century, decided to follow the example of ‘valiant heroes of old’, and gathered a following of similar warlike youths whom he led on raids in search of wealth and glory. From another passage in the same source we learn that Guthlac had once lived among the Britons and spoke their language, so some of his military career had presumably been spent in Wales. After nine years as a war leader he renounced warfare and became a monk. Guthlac is only known to us because his later reputation for sanctity attracted the attention of the chroniclers, but many of his contemporaries no doubt used the experience and military knowledge which they had gained to enter the service of a king or nobleman as one of his hearth companions. For this reason their youthful escapades were tolerated for the skills and experience which they imparted to the future warriors, despite the risk of them provoking hostilities with neighbouring kingdoms.
    At some point during the eighth century military obligations began to be placed on a more formal basis with the appearance of ‘bookland’. This was land granted by the king in return for certain specific obligations set out in a ‘book’ or charter. It is of course likely that these obligations were based on those required in previous centuries, but which had not been written down. Professor Brooks, in a detailed survey of military obligations in the charters, concluded that this development began in Mercia during the reign of Aethelbald and spread gradually to neighbouring kingdoms under Mercian influence, reaching Kent during Offa’s occupation in the 790s. What became the three ‘common burdens’ – service in the army, work on fortifications and work on building and maintaining bridges – are first specified in King Aethelbald’s charter of 749 (Brooks). This monarch incurred the wrath of the church by attempting to impose military obligations on religious houses as well as secular landlords, but even Offa was insistent that there were no exemptions from these three forms of service. In fact it has been suggested that it was Offa who permanently extended his predecessor’s labour dues to include military service. No doubt local lords discharged their obligations by compelling their own tenants to turn out for labouring or supply-train duties, but there is still little evidence that the mass of the people actually fought in the armies.
    Still influential in Anglo-Saxon studies is Warren Hollister’s theory that in the eleventh century the army was divided into two main elements, the ‘great fyrd’, or mass levy, and the ‘select fyrd’, an elite force consisting of one man selected from every five hides. This has often been extended by other writers to apply to the whole Anglo-Saxon period, but even for the period with which Hollister was concerned there are few references to this system in contemporary documents. In the era of the