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Tag Archives: Borvo

A Sign of those Anglo Saxon times..

11 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by dennybradburybooks in History

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9th century, anglo saxon, Borvo, Roman, society

Alfred the Great image

With the launch of Denny Bradbury’s highly anticipated second novel, Borvo II, it is worth taking the time to reflect back on what the ninth century was actually like for the people who lived during it.
Society was divided into three classes, with the top being the Thanes, the Anglo Saxon upper class who enjoyed feasting and hunting and was expected to give their followers gifts of weapons. Beneath them were the Churls of whom some were reasonably well-off and in the bottom tier were the Thralls for whom life was very hard. Some Churls were lucky enough to own their own land but many rented land from a thane. By renting it meant that they worked on the thane’s land for a part of the week and by also giving him a portion of their crops.
Unlike today where England is full of cars, houses, and buildings, Anglo Saxon England was covered by forest that was occupied by wolves that were a constant danger to domestic animals. The human population was also very small with roughly a million people in England at that time. Almost all of the population lived in tiny villages, each with less than 100 inhabitants, and was mainly self-sufficient with the villagers needing only a few things from outside like salt and iron as they grew their own food and made their own clothes.
By the 11th century this had begun to change and whilst a vast majority of the population still lived in the countryside, 10% – a significant minority – were living in towns. New towns had been created and trade was flourishing. Unlike the unrest of the 9th century when Britain experienced a great deal of unrest due to the influx of Viking people resulting in the invasion of East Anglia by the Danish army in 865, followed by the city of York and the kingdom of Northumbria and the western part of Mercia, leaving just the kingdom of Wessex to be safeguarded by Alfred the Great who also re-established his Anglo-Saxon rule over the western half of Mercia, in the 11th century England had grown into a civilised, stable state with an efficient system of local government, whilst learning and the arts flourished in the monasteries.
The Anglo Saxons also provided us with most of the English place names we have today, with Saxon place name endings including those such as ham, a village or estate, tun – which was usually changed to ton over time – , a farm or estate, hurst, a wooden hill and bury, derived from the Saxon word burh meaning fortress. The Anglo Saxons also called groups of Roman buildings a caster which in time would evolve into the place name ending in chester, caster or cester.
Family ties were very important in Anglo Saxon society; if you were killed, your relatives would avenge you and vice versa if it was one of your relatives that met a grisly end. However, the law did provide an alternative which meant if you did kill or injure somebody you could pay them or their family compensation a currency called wergild and varied in amount according to the person’s rank ie the wergild for killing a thane was much higher than that for killing a churl. Thralls and slaves had no wergild and if the wergild was not paid then the relatives were entitled to seek revenge.
Whilst at first Anglo Saxon society was relatively free, with the basis of society being the free peasant, over time the Anglo Saxon churls began to lose their freedom and became increasingly dependent on their Lords who wielded the control.
As the old Roman towns fell into decay and the Roman roads became overgrown, travel in Anglo Saxon times was slow and dangerous, with most people travelling only if it was unavoidable. For Borvo, it was just that. After ten years away from home, it was now time to go back and help his family….

A Day In The Life…

01 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by dennybradburybooks in Misc

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Borvo, Dorset sky, Hare in the Moonlight, nature, Wingrave

Saturday April 13th and in the quiet village of Wingrave in Buckinghamshire, a film crew were gathering….

Denny Bradbury, the acclaimed author and poet famous for novels such as ‘Borvo’, an Anglo Saxon tale, and her first poetry collection ‘Denagerie of Poems’, is waiting to be interviewed about her recently published second book of poems entitled ‘De:versify’.

The opening scene is filmed outside the village’s picturesque church as the presenter and interviewer, Julie Davis, welcomes the viewers to Wingrave and sets the scene for who we are about to meet.

A short walk from the church and we are outside Denny’s house; a knock on the door and we are led in to meet the author herself.

Much of her writing takes place in a small study, full of books and personal memorabilia that inspire her to write the poems she does, be it a photo of a trip into the mountains of another country, or a letter from the office of HRH the Prince of Wales, recognising the issues that Denny tackles in her poetry such as the destruction by man of our green and pleasant land as a cause close to His Highness’ own heart.

Through the course of the interview we learn more about Denny the author, poet and person – she talks of how often inspiration for her poems can suddenly come to her whilst she is out walking or in the middle of the night when she cannot sleep, sometimes in their entirety, other times in short bursts that take a while for the full poem to form.

Her love of nature and the creatures that exist within it shine through the poems in her new collection – ‘Hare in the Moonlight’, one of her favourite poems from her new collection, was borne from an appreciation of a painting of such a subject whilst ‘Stars Tonight’ was written under the Dorset sky where the lack of light pollution means a clear, star-gazers paradise.

Denny shares with us how some of her poems are personal to her own life whilst others are brought to life by other events she has witnessed on the news or in print that have in some way touched her.

Future works consist of a sequel to ‘Borvo’ and as we walk with Denny and her dog, Rufus, through the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside, she shares with us how walking aids the creative process.

A charming and extremely talented lady and we, as her readers, look forward to what the next few years hold for Denny and her creative offerings.

The Tales of Storytellers

20 Wednesday Jul 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in History

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Borvo, Denny Bradbury, entertainment, glee, King Alfred, saxon, scops, storyteller


We all like a good story.  Collectively we spend billions of pounds on print books, e-books, and audio books.  Hours of our lives are taken up watching TV soaps, dramas and big-budget films.

Theatres are full with standing ovations; families and friends meet up and exchange life stories.

Stories can be factual or fictitious, sometimes a combination of both.  Yet in all accounts they are entertaining.

Our love of stories in the present is no different to the love of stories in historical times.

Denny Bradbury’s latest offering, ‘Borvo’, is set in Anglo-Saxon times during the reign of King Alfred.  One of the characters travels between villages, entertaining the people with his wit and cunning.

These wandering storytellers or ‘scops’ were respected.  It was a true skill to pass on information, make it entertaining, and keep the interest of the audience.

Their tasks were many:

  • Reporters – passing news from town to town
  • Teachers – hiding ‘lessons’ within their stories, rights and wrongs, advice on how to live in a respectful and helpful manner
  • Historians – reciting past events and keeping them fresh in the minds of the people
  • Morale – it was necessary in times of battle and hardship to keep spirits high
  • Loyalty – stories were told in such a way to leave their ‘employer’ in high regard

No royal residence or home of high society was complete without a scop at banquets.  They would entertain the guests with stories, music and riddles.  Some would show off other skills, such as juggling.

Scops often recited stories with a rudimentary harp or a lyre (hence the terms ‘lyrics’).  This allowed for easier understanding of the words.  Rhythm and rhyme enabled the scop to remember the many fables and historical events.

These storytellers tended to write and perform their own work.  Although performances would include items of fantasy and extravagance, they often began life as factual stories but ‘altered’ for entertainment value.

They were usually welcomed wherever they went; people longed to hear of news from other villages.  As such, scops were offered free food and shelter as a thank you for their visit.

Other people in the entertainment business were Gleemen.  Although similar to scops in many ways – storytelling, performing music and other acts – they did not have a ‘base’, a home in which they could return.  Instead, Gleemen relied on their talents to pay for lodgings and feed themselves.

They were not always welcomed where they roamed and were the Saxon equivalent of modern-day buskers.

The art of storytelling has not died over the years, it has merely transformed.

King Alfred championed the use of English in written form as opposed to Latin, making texts more accessible.  He also brought in education for a wider range of society.

Over the years, stories were written rather than spoken and historical events were documented and not just confined to memory.

The need for oral narratives began a decline but the need for stories continue to this day.

Laura Scott

You can buy Denny Bradbury’s books online by clicking on the links below.

Borvo by Denny Bradbury    

A Study of Abbeys Part II

18 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in History, Misc

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Abbeys, Borvo, King Alfred, libraries, manuscripts, monks

AbbeysLife inside an Abbey was mostly one of hard, physical work, scholarship and prayer.  Some monasteries and Orders encouraged the existence of “lay brothers” – monks that did the majority of the physical labour in the fields and the workshops, whilst the fully-fledged monks were able to concentrate on prayer and learning.

The Abbey was under the authority of an Abbot or Abbess, beneath whom there was the Prior or the Prioress who would run the monastery in the Abbot’s absence.  Other offices included the Cellarer who was in charge of food storage and preparation, and specialists in areas such as building, farming, masonry, education and caring for the sick.

A day in the Abbey would consist of regular prayer services in the Church every three hours, throughout the day and night, and when prayers weren’t taking place monks would spend their time on other tasks that would help grow and maintain a self-sufficient community.

Abbeys grew their own food, did all their own building and often became quite prosperous doing so.  Certain Abbeys, such as Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, grew to have a huge wealth through raising sheep and selling the wool.

Throughout the medieval period, Abbeys were the only places for scholarship and learning, with their inhabitants often being the only educated members of society.  Monasteries were the libraries for ancient manuscripts and many monks occupied their time by copying out sacred texts in a room in the Abbeys called the Scriptorium.  They also created “illuminated manuscripts” which were beautifully detailed Bibles and Prayer books that had images on most pages.  One of the most famous, the Lindisfarne Gospel, now resides in the British museum and is regarded as one of the most precious remnants of early Christian Britain.

When the Dissolution of the Monasteries occurred, one of the biggest loses was to culture, as many of the monastic libraries that were full of the priceless illuminated manuscripts were destroyed with little or no regard for their value.

The decline of the monasteries occurred gradually.  During the early 14th century there were as many as 500 different monastic houses but the Black Death in 1348 wiped out many nuns and monks and most houses never fully recovered. Dissolution

When Henry VIII then engineered his break with Rome in 1538, one of his first targets were the very rich monastic houses.  He began by confiscating the property of the small, less powerful houses and by making the buildings themselves unsuitable for use.  This was followed the next year by the larger houses, with the power of the King over the Church, plus his greed for money, being the driving factors.  The buildings were either sold to the wealthy gentry as country estates or used as sources for cheap building materials for the local inhabitants.  Although a few survived in the form of cathedrals or parish churches, such as Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, almost all the more isolated ones, including the Cistercian monasteries, were destroyed.

Shaftesbury Abbey, founded by King Alfred, was destroyed in 1539 and Thomas Hardy– whose own ashes are buried in the Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey – wrote of its ruins:

“Vague imaginings of its castle, it’s three mints, it’s magnificent apsidal Abbey, the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, chantries, hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions – all now ruthlessly swept away – throw the visitor, even against his will, into a pensive melancholy which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel.”

Denny Bradbury, whose second novel, Borvo, is to be released imminently, talks of how the inspiration for the journey her main character Borvo undertakes was enhanced by an early visit to Shaftesbury Abbey when she was a student at Bristol University.  As can be read here Denny talks of how the Abbey spoke to her in such a way that years later, when writing Borvo, she felt it was natural to make it part of the character, Borvo’s, story.

The novel is set during the reign of King Alfred and when the monasteries were dissolved, Hyde Abbey was one that was ruined in an act of historical vandalism, with the tombs of a number of the Saxon Kings being destroyed.  Some of the bones from the tombs were collected into caskets and placed above the Chancel in Westminster Cathedral – and King Alfred’s bones are believed to be amongst them.

Elizabeth Bridgefield

To purchase one of Denny’s books please click on the images below or contact Denny directly at email denisebradbury@btinternet.com.
The Reunion Denagerie of Poems by Denny Bradbury

Herbal Plants and Medicines

11 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by dennybradburybooks in History

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Borvo, Denny Bradbury, herbalism, herbs, history, King Arthur, medicine

Herbal Plants and Medicines

During the middle ages, herbal plants and medicines were a hugely important part of life. Much more than an add or a supplement like today, herbs and plants were all the medicine they had. In the 5th and 6th centuries, every house would have its own herb garden, full of lots of different plants to help a variety of ailments.

These home grown medicines were the only available and therefore a necessary part of family life. Generally, the ‘art’ of knowing which herbs cured what would be passed down through family lines, a mother would tell her daughter and she in turn would tell her own child.

Particular women in villages who had an extensive knowledge of herbal medicine would become known as ‘wise women’. This eventually led to their downfall hundreds of years later when they would be accused of being witches. But during the early 5th and 6th centuries, their knowledge was respected and they were thought to be the village equivalent of a doctor or nurse.

The use of herbal medicine dates back thousands of years at least to the ancient Egyptians who were known to use garlic and opium for medicinal purposes. The ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates, known as the father of western medicine advocated the use of herbs.

These preserved ancient writings mean that in the middle ages it was often monasteries that had the best herbal gardens and were the experts in using them for medicinal purposes.

In Denny Bradbury’s new novel ‘Borvo’ she explores how a young peasant boy uses his knowledge of herbal plants and medicines to come to the aid of the great King Arthur.

Denny Bradbury’s latest novel ‘Borvo‘ will be available in both print and as an e-book.

To purchase one of Denny’s books please click on the images below or contact Denny directly at email denisebradbury@btinternet.com.
The Reunion Denagerie of Poems by Denny Bradbury

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