Offa's Dyke is a famous landmark that many tend to think of as the border between England and Wales.

When I was just a little Scoff, we were taught that Offa's Dyke was a great wall built by King Offa of Mercia that ran the length of the Wales-England border to keep us noble Welsh from sallying forth and reclaiming our lands from those dastardly English (my memory may have embellished that somewhat). But how much of that is true?

Well, it turns out, little to none of it.

In this video I try to answer such important questions as

Did King Offa really build the Dyke?
When was it built?
Was it used to stop the Welsh invading Mercia?
Who were the Angles and Saxons?
Was Offa's Dyke built as an over compensation by King Offa?
Why do we measure it in bald eagles?

Against all probability, those last 2 questions do come up!

The history of Welsh / Mercian relations is a contentious one - and one we skim over in preference for talking about the history of a mound of mud, and why it was built.

If it was important enough for early medieval kings of Britain to fight over, then it is good enough for us to be sarcastic about in the present day!

The link to the Guthlac video I mentioned on how the Anglo-Saxons may have been mostly made up of Britons who managed to forget that they weren't actually conquered.

[ Ссылка ]

Bibliography

For those that like videos, the channel Archaeodeath is run by Professor Howard Williams, one of the foremost authorities on the Dyke - [ Ссылка ]

For those that prefer the written word I highly reccomend the book "Offa's Dyke" by Ian Bapty and Keith Ray. It's both well written and informative, though if you don't know the area you may find some of the bits where they go indepth on the geography of different sections a bit hard to parse (but the rest of it is great for all)

[ Ссылка ]

Other work used

Building Anglo-Saxon England, John Blair (2018, Princeton University Press)
Offa and the Mercian Wars, Chris Peers (2012 Pen & Sword Books)
Offa's Dyke Journals (volumes 1&2) Howard Williams and Liam Delaney - [ Ссылка ]

#offasdyke #KingOffa #welshhistory #britishhistory

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