Hereward the Wake

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2013-07-15. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-05-19.

Hereward the Wake (c. 1035–1072), Hereward the Outlaw, Hereward the Exile or Hereward the Saxon, was a leader of Anglo-Danish resistance against the Norman invasion. His base was in the Isle of Ely and surrounding areas, North Cambridgeshire, South Lincolnshire and West Norfolk. The primary sources for our knwoledge of Hereward and his deeds are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Domesday Book, Liber Eliensis and, especially, the Gesta Herwardi. Written in the first third of the 12th cent., the latter was based on a now lost Old English text. It details the birth, upbringing and career of Hereward. The tale is a mixture of fantastic events in distant lands and more down to earth accounts of guerilla warfare in the Fens. In the mix are also tales of trickery, ruse and disguise that often foreshadow the tales of Robin Hood and other outlaws.

Editions

Translations

English

• Swanton, Michael, transl. 'The Deeds of Hereward', in: Ohlgren, Thomas H., ed. Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (Stroud, 1998), pp. 12-60, 293-99
• Swanton, Michael. 'The Deeds of Hereward', in: Ohlgren, Thomas H., ed. A Book of Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (Stroud, 2000), pp. 12-60, 293-99
• Swanton, Michael. 'The Deeds of Hereward', in: Ohlgren, Thomas H., ed. Medieval Outlaws: Twelve Tales in Modern English Translation. Revised and Expanded Edition (Anderson, SC, 2005), pp. 28-99

Italian

• Meneghetti, Alberto, transl. De Gestis Herwardi: le Gesta di Ervardo (Pisa, 2013).

Studies and criticism

• Dalton, Paul. 'The Outlaw Hereward "the Wake": His Companions and Enemies', in: Appleby, John C., ed.; Dalton, Paul, ed. Outlaws in Medieval and Early Modern England: Crime, Government and Society C. 1066–c. 1600 (Farnham, Surrey, 2009), pp. 7-36
• Harlan-Haughey, Sarah; Coote, Lesley A., ser. ed.; Kaufman, Alexander L., ser. ed. The Ecology of the English Outlaw in Medieval Literature: From Fen to Greenwood / Sarah Harlan-Haughey (Outlaws in Literature, History, and Culture, [vol. I]) (London [recte: Abingdon, Oxfordshire] and New York, 2016). See especially ch. 2, "Hereward" (pp. 69-100) and as per index s.n. Hereward.
• Jones, Timothy S. 'Fighting Men, Fighting Monsters: Outlawry, Masculinity and Identity in the Gesta Herewardi', in: Jones, Timothy S., ed.; Sprunger, David A., ed. Monsters, Marvels, and Miracles (Kalamazoo, 2002), pp. 187-206
• Rex, Peter. Hereward: the last Englishman (Stroud, 2005)
  • Rex, Peter. Hereward: the last Englishman (Stroud, 2007)
  • Rex, Peter. Hereward (Stroud, 2013)
• Rex, Peter. Hereward: Outlaw and Hero ([Ely], [2006?])
• Trollope, Edward. 'Hereward, the Saxon Patriot', Associated Architectural Societies' Reports and Papers, vol. VI (1861-1862), p. 1-18.
• Wikipedia: Hereward the Wake
• Wikipedia: Gesta Herewardi
• Wilson, R. M. 'Lost Literature in Old and Middle English', Leeds Studies in English, vol. 2 (1933). pp. 14-37; see pp. 29-32.

Brief mention

• Gladwin, Irene. 'The Norman Sheriff', History Today, vol. 24 (1974), pp. 180-88; see pp. 181, 185.
• Gover, J.E.B.; Mawer, A.; Stenton, F.M. The Place-Names of Northamptonshire (English Place-Name Society, vol. X) (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 193-94; under the heading "Newton Bromswold", discusses "Bruneswald", one of the areas where Hereward operated according to the Gesta Herewardi and Geoffrey Gaimar's Lestoire des Engles, concluding that this clearly was "originally a large area, probably of woodland, on the borders of Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire. It seems to have included Leighton, Lutton and Newton within its borders. The name means the 'weald of a man named Brūn,' with [...] gradual transition of sense in the word weald from woodland to open country".

Analogues