The Northern Way, Autumn Term 2019, Public Lecture

Rees Jones, S. R. (Organiser)
Paul Dryburgh (Lecturer)

History

Activity: Other › Public engagement and outreach (social community and cultural engagement)

Description

Title: A Chapter of Woe. The Anglo-Scots Battle of Myton

Period	24 Oct 2019
Degree of Recognition	Regional

Documents & Links

https://www.york.ac.uk/medieval-studies/events/archive/2019/northern-way-lecture-autumn/
Paul Dryburgh, Principal Record Specialist at The National Archives, will deliver the first of a series of lectures associated with The Northern Way project. On 20 September 1319 William Melton, archbishop of York, hastily assembled an army of clergymen, monks and their lay servants, friars and local civic officials. His force headed north from York to tackle a battle-hardened Scottish invasion force under Robert Bruce and his chief lieutenants before the Scots could approach York where the queen was residing. The result – amidst the confusion of smoke and fire – at Myton on the River Swale, was a rout of the archbishop’s army. So many clergymen apparently perished, most of whom drowned in the Swale, that the Scots later mockingly called the battle “The Chapter of Myton”. In this lecture, Dr Paul Dryburgh introduces one of the most calamitous but least known battles of the Anglo-Scots wars in its 700th-anniversary year and looks at how the northern Church and northern society coped with the Scots’ military supremacy in a decade during which England suffered some of its greatest humiliations in arms.

Related content

Projects
The Northern Way
Project: Research project (funded) › Research