Seven days to Sandwich - geography and nationhood in the Alliterative Morte Arthure
- Michael Smith
- 11 hours ago
- 8 min read
In the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur’s Death), King Arthur becomes enraged by the demands of the Roman Ambassadors who claim the king owes fealty to the emperor of Rome.
After entertaining them as befits all such emissaries, Arthur then sends them packing, telling them they have seven days to ride from Carlisle in Cumberland to Sandwich in Kent. Was such a feat possible and what does it tell us about travel in medieval England?
Imperial hegemony meets national pride
In the poem, ambassadors arrive from Rome demanding that Arthur pays homage to Lucius, the emperor of Rome, for his lands in Britain and abroad. While entertaining the ambassadors, he leaves the hall to seek advice from his own councillors in the manner of all the best kings.
Buoyed by the support of his men and clearly furious at the demands of Lucius, Arthur tells the ambassadors that he has no intention of obeying the emperor and will instead rampage across Europe and, within seven winters, he will lay siege to Rome.
What follows next is a remarkable passage which provides us with a detailed understanding of travel in England in the fourteenth century. Telling the ambassadors that they have seven days to ride to Sandwich and leave his realm, Arthur lays out just how this journey will be made [ll.443-466]:
My summons are certain so I serve to you
Documents of safe conduct to carry as you please;
I assign lodgings at stages to rest on your journey 445
From this place to the port from whence you shall depart:
Seven days to Sandwich is all I suffer to grant you;
Sixty miles in a day, so you have not much time!
You must speed at your spurs and spare not your horse;
You must wend by Watling Street and no other way; 450
You must spend the night as needs must where you stop;
Be it forest or field, do not fare from the road;
Bind your horse by a bush even with its bridle;
Lodge yourself below trees as you likely think best;
For I will not allow aliens to amble at night 455
Above all, not your troop roaming free to cause riot.
Your licence is limited, as witnessed by these lords;
Like or loathe it, I leave that to you,
For both your life and your limb rely upon this:
Though Sir Lucius claims my lands owe lordship to Rome, 460
If you are found with one foot on this side of the sea
Afterwards, on the eighth day, by when undern rings,
We will behead you with haste and draw you with horses
And then hang you high for the hounds to gnaw on!
And all the rents and red gold that belongs to Rome 465
Will not readily, Sir, be enough for your ransom!”
Miles medieval and modern - a mighty fine challenge
The location of King Arthur’s Court, in the manner of many poems of the 'Northern Gawain Cycle' (but also in Chretien’s Perceval), is at Carlisle. Arthur sets the ambassadors a task to reach Sandwich within a week; to do so will require them travelling at sixty miles a day, suggesting an overall distance of 420 miles.
Clearly, the poetic mile is not necessarily accurate, but a comparison with modern distances seems to give an acceptable variance of around 10%. Google search presents two options: 372 miles via the A2 and A1 (the Great North Road) and 409 miles following the motorways along the M6, M40, M25, M20.
This latter option would not have been available to medieval riders of course. The text itself says that the ambassadors must travel using Watling Street, which means following first the A6 southwards from Carlisle and then later joining the A5 (Watling Street) near Wroxeter before heading south to London and then Kent. This journey is approximately 390 miles.
An impossible task for the Roman ambassadors?
In laying down his demands, Arthur seems to be presenting the ambassadors with an impossible task. Although he “assigns lodgings” along their way [l. 445], he seems to be suggesting that this may be a luxury and that they will have to stop where needs place them, in field or forest but, importantly, not far from the road [ll.451-456].
Clearly the poetic demand is for artistic licence and narrative exaggeration. Even if they “speed at their spurs and spare not their horses” [l.459], the task seems incredible. A typical horse and rider might be expected to travel at 20-30 miles per day while an elite horse might manage 50.
But whether the same horse could carry the same rider for seven consecutive days is moot. If the horse wasn’t stabled and nourished appropriately, this seems unlikely. Notwithstanding, allowance does not appear to be made for the ambassadors to change their horses. The task is seemingly impossible.
The route of the Roman ambassadors in the Alliterative Morte Arthure
We have discussed two potential routes to be taken by the riders although the text seems emphatic that the route should be via Watling Street, which suggests a journey via Lancaster, Warrington, Wroxeter, High Cross, St Albans and London. This appears to be the longer route at 390 miles.
However, Dobson and Taylor (in Rymes of Robyn Hood) point out that Watling Street was a common name in medieval England and that it appears in the tales of Robin Hood which are set in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire – i.e. along the Great North Road.
If the ambassadors took this route, they would cross the top of the Pennines along the route from Penrith towards Newcastle before heading directly south to London via Boroughbridge and Doncaster in the manner of Harold’s men after the battle of Stamford Bridge. This would be the shorter route at 370 miles.
The fourteenth century Gough Map (above) reveals that there was a strong understanding of the geographical relationship between cities, towns and rivers across the British Isles in this period, suggestive of an inherent understanding of the landscape and routes across it.
Certainly, Arthur's demands are not based on ignorance. The writer of the poem - and his audience - were far from provincial people; they appear to have understood both local and national geographical connections.
Reasons to exaggerate - where poetry meets reality
Allowing for an elite horse traveling at 50 miles per day, the A5 route would take 7.8 days; to travel along the Great North Road would take 7.4 days. Clearly the ambassadors were being set a task known by reader and audience to be unlikely. The journey seems well known so the poet is clearly using it for effect.
Yet what the challenge tells us is that the poet, and his audiences, could reference the roads described - they understood the context of the challenge. In citing Carlisle and Sandwich, the poet gives us two well-known locations in England – one being the crucial fortress on the Scottish borders, the other being one of the Cinque Ports and fundamental to international trade and travel.
Although the distances cited are not as accurate as mileage measured today, they are nonetheless broadly indicative rather than being fanciful. They create a fixed reality in the fiction of the poetry enabling the audience to engage with a fictional king (Arthur) in a real place (in this case, Britain).
Geography and a sense of national identity
It seems therefore that this was a poem reflecting a sense of distinct nationality, a bringing together of audiences in a common understanding of the land in which they lived.
In the castles and palaces, houses and halls where poems such as this were read, here were words which bound readers to their own realm while also creating borders to those outside it. On an island, roads unite and seas defend.
In the Alliterative Morte Arthure, written at a time when England was at war in France, there is a strong sense of angry togetherness in the face of otherness. In drawing together a vibrant English language with a strong geographic identity and sense of country, the poem is strident in its portrayal of a monarch and a country wronged.
But, while some may see the poem as a nationalistic portrayal of Arthur’s Britain against the outside world, some kind of medieval equivalent of Britain against Europe, the opposite is true.
Yes, in the poem Arthur overcomes all his enemies to lay siege to Rome as he has promised. But the poem also tells of Arthur's dream of Lady Fortune in which he, like many great kings before him, are toppled at the height of their powers.
In Arthur's case, his overseas follies - his overweening pride in seeking Rome - distract him from his responsibilities at home. While he is away, Mordred steals his kingdom, takes his wife and - uniquely - has children by her. When Arthur returns, he defeats his nemesis but at the same time loses all his best lords and also his own life.
At once a poem of nationhood, the Alliterative Morte Arthure is also a lesson in international politics and the importance of sound leadership. It reminds us fundamentally that national aggression and monarchical irresponsibility through arrogance and pride will only lead to destruction.
In the poem, Britain may appear to be an island, entire of itself. But despite its washing seas and angry bile, it is also a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
About the Alliterative Morte Arthure
The Alliterative Morte Arthure is one of the jewels of the "Alliterative Revival" of the fourteenth century. It draws from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain and as such is described as being in the Galfridian tradition in the Arthurian canon, rather than the romance tradition.
Although the poem is written almost as a chronicle, it carries enormous power and vigoour and, in the style of many fourteenth century alliterative works, contains many hidden messages for its readers and audiences.
Used by Malory to inform his own Le Morte D’Arthur, the Allliterative Morte Arthure was once clearly widely known in fourteenth and fifteenth century England. Today only one example of it survives, which was transcribed by Robert Thornton in the 1440s and is now housed in Lincoln Cathedral library.
Order your copy of The Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death)
My translation of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (King Arthur's Death) was published in 2021. My publisher is Wilton Square Books.
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About the author, Michael Smith
I am a British translator and illustrator of medieval literature. I am also an established printmaker, with work in private collections worldwide.
My books, including translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and William of Palerne, are published by Wilton Square Books and are available through all the usual outlets. All my books feature my own linocut prints as their illustrations.
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