232
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
excellent preservation, of Nero and Agrippina, with their two heads on the obverse,
and a male and female figures, in a quadriga of elephants, on the reverse : date, of
course, about A.D. 55 (Nero 54-68).2 A coin of Vespasian has also been found in
Maldon.
Possibly the only record we have of Saxon Maldon is that which exists in its
name—Saxon, Mael-Dun, the "Cross-hill," from a cross which was supposed
to have then stood in the highest part of the town, or it more probably may
have been from the roads crossing on the top of the hill, as now. Saxon urns
and coins have occurred in several localities, but most commonly at Heybridge.
I cannot learn whether the "fine gold Druidical coin" found near "Maldon
Hall" is British or Saxon. There is an interesting Saxon urn of the Frankish
type, decorated with projecting bosses, in the Colchester Museum, to which it
was presented by Mr. E. H. Bentall.
We have no history of the Danish conquest of Essex, but we know that
here was one of the chief seats of the Danish power, and Camden has perhaps
not greatly libelled these pirates when he says, "About the time of Egbert (827-
834 A.D ) they landed with such tumults and hurliburlies as never the like was
heard of, having for many yeares made foule havvock over all England, razing
cities, firing churches, and wasting countries, they let out the raines loose to all
barbarous cruelties—driving, haraying, spoyling, and turning all upside down
wherever they went."
In later and historical Saxon times, in the course of the reconquest of the Dane-
law, we have documentary notices of the camp erected here in 913 by Edward
the Elder. Henry of Huntingdon gives us this ;—"Eodem anno scilicet Edwardus
fil. Alfredi construxit Burgum quemdam, Witham, in Essexia, et interea manebat
apud Mealdune et ei subdita est magna pars gentis illius quae prius erat in subditione
Dacorum." Under date 913 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, "And then (after
the Hertford Burg was finished) during the summer, between Rogation days and
Midsummer, King Edward went with some of his forces to Maeldune in Essex,
and there lived the while the Burg at Witham was wrought and getimbred."3 In
920 Edward again encamped at Maldon. He rebuilt and fortified the town, and
according to Marianus, built a castle here, of which we now know nothing, unless
the camp is again referred to. In 92I, after the massacre at Colchester by a large
army of the Danes, they besieged the camp without effect; so it was probably
of considerable strength. When forces came to its relief great numbers of the
enemy were slain, and the Saxons then avenged their Colchester brethren.
Doubtless, throughout this unquiet tenth century, Maldon and the adjacent
country was the scene of numerous struggles between the Saxons and Danes, as
it is with every probability believed that Mersea Island and the Blackwater estuary
was for many years the headquarters of the Danes in Britain, and Maldon was the
first important Saxon entrenchment to be overcome when they made their frequent
inland incursions. Coming to the year 993, the Saxon chronicle records that "this
year came Unlaf with 93 ships to Staines, and laid waste all around, and thence
he went to Sandwich, and thence to Gypswic [Ipswich], and harried it all and so
to Maeldun ; and then Byrhtnoth, the Ealdorman, and his force came against him
and fought with him, and there they slew the Ealdorman, and kept the battle
field." The chronicle of Ely tells us this battle lasted 14 days, till at last the
Danes killed Brihtnoth and cut off his head. Its great interest to us is that we
have, in the "Song of Maldon," an almost contemporaneous historical fragment
describing this fight, with even the speeches of the warriors; and the faithful
description of the ground on which it was fought shows it to be at any rate the
words of an eye-witness, or one who obtained his information at first hand.
Coming now to the Domesday general survey, we learn that Maldon was a half
hundred, according to its jurisdiction and taxation, as was Ipswich. Colchester
was A hundred. Here we have undoubted information of the owners of the land,
2 In Gibson's additions to the "Britannia" it is stated that "in a garden at Maldon was found
a piece of gold almost as large as a guinea. It has on one side Nero, and on the reverse
Agrippina, and is very exactly done." Possibly this was the borough coin.—Ed.
3 See some remarks on this point in Mr. Spurrell's paper on "Withambury'' in Essex
Naturalist, i., pp. 19-22.—Ed.