Bampton

I recently bought a second hand copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that I'm intending to bore you with at a later date. It was one pounds twenty, and seemed like a bargain.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is one of the earliest texts written in Britain and is a record of events from about 600 AD till the twelfth or thirteenth century. In fact it starts from 50 BC and Caesar's invasion of Britain, but they weren't really here then and were just repeating gossip.

Anyway, the strange thing is that when I opened the book, the first paragraphs I read were these -

A.D.611. This year Cynegils succeeded to the government in Wessex, and held it one and thirty winters. Cynegils was the son of Ceol, Ceol of Cutha, Cutha of Cynric.

A.D. 614. This year Cynegils and Cwichelm fought at Bampton, and slew two thousand and forty-six of the Welsh.

Yup, that's Bampton, as mentioned in the post I wrote about Morris Dancing June 28th. Other than these two instances, it's a place I'd never heard of, yet it seems a hive of activity, not to mention genocide.



I looked it up on the map and it's a tiny place, just a few houses and not near anywhere substantial. It's about twenty miles west of Oxford and on the edge of the Cotswold hills, though this road map doesn't show that.

Anyway, I googled it, as one does, and found a good website
here that includes a history page.
They mention the Welsh massacre, although the figure has gone up to 2065. Who were those extra 19 Welshmen? Perhaps they weren't really Welsh, so weren't included in the corpse count by some of the more officious Anglo-Saxons.

There also seems to be some dispute as to whether there was even a road going to Bampton before the mid-nineteenth century; it was called "Bampton in the Bush" because it was cut off from the world.

Anyway, it seems a wondrous place, full of dead Welshmen and Morris dancers, and I intend to travel there soon.