Byrness : Early Medieval Period

Following the Roman withdrawal from the Dere Street outpost forts in the early 4th century there is an almost complete dearth of evidence concerning the history of upper Redesdale as a whole. In addition to the lack of documentation the archaeological fieldwork conducted in the valley has so far shed very little light of the early-medieval era.

Some placenames incorporating personal names may hint at early-medieval patterns of land holding and lordship in the valley. Gamelspath, denoting the moorland stretch of Dere Street near Chew Green incorporates an Old Scandinavian personal name whilst Corsenside (Crossensete) combines an Irish personal name, Crossan, with the Norse term for hill pasture saetr, and may hint at Irish-Norse settlement.

Elsdon (Ellesden in the earliest sources) presumably signifies Elli's or perhaps Aelf's valley. Nearby Troughend (Trocquen in medieval documents) may even be a Celtic survival (Beckensall 1992; Mawer 1920, 55, 74, 91, 201).

Early ecclesiastical activitity in Redesdale and the neighbouring valleys is equally elusive. Early Medieval carved stonework has been discovered at Falstone in upper North Tynedale, but none in Redesdale itself. Antiquaries, from Leland onwards, have declared that King Edwin and 3000 others were baptised by St. Paulinus at Holystone, in Coquetdale, on Easter Day 627, but it is clear that these events as recorded by Bede (HE 186-7) took place in ecclesia Sancti Petri apostoli - the newly built church of St Peter at York - not at Sancta Petra - Holy Stone (NCH XV, 454-455).

However, one possible clue to the early-medieval framework is provided by St Cuthbert's Churches at Elsdon and Corsenside. These belong to a string of churches in the upland hinterland of Northumberland - Elsdon, Corsenside, Bellingham, Haydon Bridge, Beltingham - which are consecrated to St Cuthbert (cf. Bates 1889, 326-327). Whilst some dedications to St Cuthbert can be related to the medieval holdings of the Prince-Bishops of Durham the same cannot be said of this upland series. It is possible the series in some way reflects early proselitisation by Cuthbert himself (as suggested by Bates: ibid.), however a more attractive hypothesis may be advanced.

The dedication sites can be linked to form a single itinerary leading from north Northumberland along the edge of the uplands and through the Tyne-Solway gap to Cumbria. It is tempting to identify this with the route followed by the Community of St Cuthbert during the late-ninth century, when it fled from its first refuge at Norham to a temporary haven in Cumbria in the face of the Danish onslaught (cf. Higham 1986, 310 with regard to Cumbrian church dedications).

Indeed, just such a tradition of extensive church and chapel foundation 'in the western districts', by the itinerant Community, is preserved by the 15th-century prior Wessington of Durham (cited by Bates 1889, 327 n.38). The dedications may reflect a process of alliance-building between the Community and the local secular elite, marked by the establishment of chapels on important estates. It also falls within a broader pattern of similar activity, as the foundations of the English parochial structure were laid by the widespread creation of estate chapels from the ninth century onwards.