Anglo Saxon Scandinavian Period
The Late Saxon Period
793 CE to 1042
The
period when the Scandinavians dominated the history of northern England and
assimilated with it over time
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Go back to the Anglo Saxons.
The
Late Saxon Period (850 to 1066 CE) consolidated and built upon advances made
during the Middle Saxon Period. It is better documented, particularly through the Anglo Saxon Chronicle,
begun in the late ninth century. Nine manuscripts of the Chronicle, none
of which is the original, survive in whole or part. Seven are held in the
British Library, one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the oldest in the
Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The oldest seems to have
been started towards the end of Alfred's reign, while the most recent was
copied at Peterborough Abbey after a fire at that monastery in 1116.
866 CE
After
the Great Heathen Army seized York, the Scandinavians began to settle and a separate identity grew around the newly Scandinavian city
of Jorvik.
Halfdan Ragnarsson
Halfdan
Ragnarsson was Viking overlord of Northumbria from 866 to 867 CE. He and his
brother Ivar the Boneless were the Viking leaders of the Great Heathen Army
which had invaded England in 865. While Halfdan only ruled Northumbria directly
for about a year in 876, he placed Ecgberht on the throne as a client-king.
867 CE
Ecgberht I
Ecgberht was the
client King of Northumbria 867 to 872 CE. Symeon of Durham recorded that After
these events, the pagans appointed Egbert king under their own dominion; Egbert
reigned for six years, over the Northumbrians beyond the Tyne.
He was probably
the Great Heathen Army's tax collector and likely belonged to one of the
several competing royal families in Northumbria.
869 CE
The
Viking army moved into East Anglia, martyring its King Edmund (whose body was
taken to the future Bury St Edmund), and conquering all the land.
870 CE
The
Heathen Army turned its attention to Wessex, fighting like a wild boar (Asser)
establishing a winter camp at Reading. They suffered a defeat at Englefield
west of Reading. However a battle followed with
Æthelred won by the invaders.
871 CE
Æthelred, with his brother Alfred fought a series of battles against the Vikings culminating
in a victory at Æscedun (Ashdown). The heathen army
was more successful at Basing south of Reading, and then at Mæredun
two months later.
After fourteen days had elapsed King Æthelred and
his brother Alfred joined their forces, and marched to Basing to fight with the
heathen. Having thus assembled, battle was joined, and they held their own for
a long time, but the heathen gained the victory, and
held possession of the battle-field. After this fight,
another army of heathen came from beyond sea, and joined them (Life
of King Alfred,
Asser, section 40)
Whilst
something of a stalemate, the Viking Army was consolidating a hold in Wessex
too. Much of the leadership of Wessex had been depleted in fighting the Danes.
Social Structure
The thegns,
originally a term for slave, were the new elite class of Anglo-Saxon royal
households. As young men they lived in the royal household, protecting the King
and dining with him, before being rewarded with land, governing local districts
of the kingdom, but still spending a third of their time in the King’s direct
service. The thegns of Saxon England were an emerging nobility, many
of whom obtained their estates through grants of royal land. They first begin
to appear in the Middle Saxon period, and were becoming a
real force in the land in late Saxon times. In theory, a thegn was a person who
owed owned at least five hides of land and was obliged, in return, to serve the
king in times of war.
The rise of
thegns saw the beginning of the process which led to organisation by manors. In
time manorial courts were presided over by the lord of the manor, usually the
landowner. Everyone was expected to attend. The organisation of the Open Field
system was decided in such courts.
The middle rank
of society were the cnichts, or knights, a
rank that grew in importance in the Middle Ages. As time passed, society became
ever more hierarchical.
Thegns and
knights were significantly more important than the lowest form of freeman, the ceorl,
pronounced ‘carl’, who was in effect the head of a free peasant household.
These social divisions varied between the different kingdoms of later Saxon
England, but ceorls too were liable for military service. Although in the
country at large things may have been beginning to settle down, these were
still turbulent and often violent times.
The payment of
blood money, or wergeld, was a means of
containing the worst of the violence, and amounts were set according to rank. Wergeld was a payment by a killer or his family to a
victim’s family who were otherwise bound to avenge the death. The size of wergeld payments give us some idea of social status.
Those at the
bottom, whose labour ultimately supported the entire system, were the villeins,
tenants in a state of serfdom. They were tied to their landlord and owed a
lifetime’s obligation of labour. In return they had rights to work land in the
open field systems for their own use. They were the largest group in society.
The villeins kept the landlords’ wholly owned farms or demesnes,
prosperous and provided the landlords with their main source of income.
There were also slaves
who had no rights at all. Some were able to buy their way out of slavery or
with permission, join the church. If they escaped and managed to live in a new
place for more than a year and a day, they might gain their freedom.
This system
continued in structure until the social changes following the Black Death.
(Britain in
the Middle Ages, An Archaeological History,
Francis Pryor, 2007, page 131 to 133).
Warrior armies during this period were not formed of all freemen,
but from ealdormen and thegns and an elite class who themselves had followers
of well equipped soldiers.
They were probably often mounted, including in battle. They carried out
offensive warfare into the lands of their enemies, pillaging and burning, for
the opportunities for plunder. They mostly gambled their part in warfare for
the potential gains they might benefit from.
In
Easter 871 CE, a substantial body of Viking reinforcements arrived as a fleet
sailed up the Thames.
Alfred the Great King of the
West Saxons 871 to 886 CE, King of the Anglo-Saxons 886 to 899 CE
There is an In Our
Time podcast, King Alfred and the defeat of the Vikings at Battle of
Edington and Alfred's project to create a culture of Englishness.
With Æthelred’s death, Alfred was left the Kingdom of Wessex. As
he did so pagan men were laying waste to the land with fire and sword,
mercilessly slaying Christian people (The Anglo Saxons, A History of the Beginnings
of England, Marc Morris, 2021, page 201).
The exaltation of Alfred largely arose in his reinvention from
the eighteenth century onwards. His story was retained by a Welsh bishop,
Asser, who wrote a hagiographical record of his life, The Life of King
Alfred. The original of Asser’s work was destroyed in a fire in 1731, and
it was embossed with non authentic material when it was re collated thereafter. The cake story was
a later gloss on his life (first told a hundred years later in The Life of St Neot, section 2) and the credit to him as a translator of books has
been challenged since (Did
King Alfred Write Anything?,
R Godden, Medium Ævum, Volume 76, No 1, 2007, pages 1 to 23, Did King Alfred actually translate anything? The
Integrity of the Alfredian canon revisited, Janet Bately, Medium Ævum,
Volume 78, No 2, 2009, pages 189 to 216).
The King was a self proclaimer of his greatness,
perhaps to justify himself as the fifth son to rule Wessex, but there has been
debate more recently about the extent of his greatness.
His life was marked by illness. The pious lad is
said to have preyed for an illness to overcome his
feelings of lust and was rewarded with a dose of haemorrhoids, and illness
continued to dominate his life.
Whatever
his attributes for his new role, he was crowned at a
time of acute crisis. Northumbria and East Anglia had fallen to the heathen army, Mercia was in dire straights
and Wessex was threatened.
Alfred had an early setback against the Vikings at Wilton
soon after he took the crown.
872 CE
In 872, Symeon of
Durham wrote that the Northumbrians expelled their king Egbert, and their
Archbishop Wulfhere. That year Northumbria rebelled against the Great Heathen
Army and their collaborators and expelled Ecgberht I and Wulfhere of York.
873 CE
The Great Heathen
Army came north against the Northumbrians in 873 CE. There was a destruction of
monasteries.
Ricsige
The Northumbrians
chose to replace Ecgberht with a ruler of their own choosing. Ricsige was client King of Northumbria from 873 to 876 CE.
This revolt drew the Scandinavian invaders back to the north.
The Vikings
established a winter camp at Torksey, about 10 miles northwest of Lincoln, then an
island in the Trent. Ther archaeological finds evidence an army minting their
own coins, and engaged in international trade.
874 CE
The
Great Heathen Army turned their attention back to Mercia and occupied the
church at Repton, burying their own dead there, and incorporating the church
into a defensive stronghold. This was the fall of Mercia too.
Differences
arose amongst the Scandinavian armies who split, buying Alfred some time. Halfdan took an
army into Northumbria and established a camp on the Tyne from where he raided
into Pictland and Strathclyde. Guthrum, Oscetel and
Anwend remained in the south and established a new camp at Cambridge.
875 CE
Attacks
on Wessex nevertheless continued. The Vikings seized Wareham in Dorset, and
later Exeter, but were confronted by Alfred who took hostages from them. They
withdrew to Mercia.
876 CE
It was said that
report of this permanent settlement caused Ricsige to
die of grief.
Ecgberht II
Ecgberht probably only reigned
over the northern parts of Northumbria as Symeon recorded Ricsige,
king of the Northumbrians, died, and Egbert the second reigned over the
Northumbrians beyond the river Tyne. He probably ruled
in Bamburgh and northern Northumberland from 876 CE to an unknown date.
877 CE
Interregnum
Halfdan was killed in Ireland in
877 CE whilst trying to regain control over Dublin, a land he had ruled since
875 CE. There was an interregnum after Halfdan died until Guthred
became king in 883.
The southern Scandinavians
decided to follow their Northumbrian kinsmen and began to settle the lands of
Mercia permanently.
878 CE
Early in the year, the Viking army attacked the Wessex town of
Chippenham. They may have launched a surprise attack during Christian
festivities. Soon afterwards they overrode and occupied the land of Wessex,
and drove many of the people across the sea, and the greatest part of the
others they overrode (Anglo
Saxon Chronicle). By
strength of arms they forced many men to sail overseas, through both poverty
and fear, and very nearly all the inhabitants of that region submitted to their
authority (Life
of King Alfred,
Asser, section 52).
Alfred fled to take refuge in the swamps of Athelney, accompanied by a small group of thegns and
warriors. He took to guerilla warfare and his biographer,
the Welsh monk Asser wrote that he led a life of great distress
amidst the woody and marshy plains of Somerset with nothing to live on except
what could be foraged in raids.
In May Alfred left the swamps and rallied support at
Egbert’s Stone in Selwood Forest at Whitsun. He then marched towards Chippenham
and encountered the Viking army at Edington which he defeated with great
slaughter, and pursued them flying to their stronghold (Life
of King Alfred, Asser, section 56). It was clearly a remarkable victory, for he took
hostages including Guthrum.
This was an important turning point. Guthrum and
thirty high ranking warriors, accepted baptism after his defeat. Oscetel and
Anwend had disappeared from the record. As well as an acquiescence to the
Anglo-Saxon region, this had the potential political impact of bringing the
southern Scandinavians into a level playing field in negotiation. They had
until then simply ignored the terms of negotiations, not playing by the rules,
but their baptism may have been an aspiration of Alfred to bring a degree of incorporation
into the Christian order of things. The hope was not rewarded however, as the
Vikings soon afterwards retook Exeter.
879 CE
The
annexing of Mercia and the further evolution of the idea of an English race
The
Vikings had occupied much of eastern Mercia and Alfred seems to have replaced
Ceolwulf of Mercia by annexing the western part of Mercia into Wessex, perhaps
resulting from a negotiation with Guthrum over the partition of Mercia. Alfred
seems to have persuaded the people of Mercia that they were not being absorbed
into Wessex as Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Cornwall had been, but rather that they
were being united by their common ethnicity.
When
Alfred started to refer to a united kingdom of the
Anglo-Saxons he was not expressing a new idea. It had been envisioned in
Northumbria in the seventh century. The old rivalry between Mercia and Wessex
was fading and since 867 CE a common currency was being adopted with coins
minted in London and Canterbury. As he started to use the style King of the
Anglo Saxons, he made a statement of the unity of Angelcynn.
The idea of an English ethnicity had emerged in the golden age
of Northumbria in the preceding two centuries. The idea was now picked up by
Alfred. In his dealing with Guthrum, he spoke of ealles Angeleynnes witan, all the councillors of the English
and Angelcynn began to be used more frequently
on coinage, which also started to refer to Alfred as Rex Anglorum. From
882 CE Asser described Alfred as Angulsaxonum
rex. The idea of Englishness, born in Northumbria, was used by Alfred for a
political purpose, to persuade Mercia and others being subsumed within a
Greater Wessex, that they were all part of the Kingdom of the Anglo Saxons.
At
about this time another Viking force arrived at Fulham (Fulham
878 to 879: A New Consideration of Viking Manoeuvres,
John Baker and Stuart Brookes, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Volume 8, 2012, pages 23 to 52). In that
same year a large army of heathen sailed from beyond sea into the river Thames, and joined the greater army. However, they wintered
at Fulham, near the river Thames (Life of King Alfred,
Asser, section
58). Fulham lay in a protective bend in the Thames, which offered
protection. This was a moment of significant risk to Alfred. The Vikings under
Guthrum had withdrawn to Chippenham, still close by, but in Mercian territory. However Guthrum maintained his agreement with Alfred and
withdrew into East Anglia and the new Fulham force
withdrew to Francia.
The traditional
form of warfare, led by bands of elite thegns, raiding into enemy territory,
did not provide an appropriate strategy for the Scandinavian threat, since they
simply disappeared at will. It was more difficult to persuade kinsmen to
provide a defensive force, since that provided little opportunity for trophies
and plunder. It was at this time that kings therefore began to insist on
military service as a duty which fell to all freemen, and not only the elite
classes. This was the pattern under Charlemagne in Francia and by Offa. These
attempts had mixed effectiveness.
It
was Alfred who began to succeed in achieving a comprehensive defensive strategy
as he started to build fortifications across his kingdom.
Burhs were the next form of urban settlements after the emporia
or wics of the early Anglo-Saxon period, a
reaction to the Scandinavian threat.
The Burghal Hidage, produced between 911 and 914 CE, listed 31 burhs,
not necessarily all created under Alfred, and accounted for the number of hides
to support each. These fortified towns operated as a network. Their locations
were carefully chosen to control roads and rivers. They were strongholds
permanently garrisoned with soldiers. Whilst fortifications had protected towns
like York and Nottingham, they had fallen more easily than Alfred’s fortified
towns operating as part of a strategic defensive network. The fortresses were
fully manned, supported by the association with hides of productive land. It
has been calculated that a remarkable force of about 27,000 soldiers were stationed across the network. This was an astonishing
feat of mobilisation.
Although the burhs provide the derivation for later
boroughs, many of Alfred’s towns were not commercial centres, at least during
Alfred’s reign, but defensive points within a network.
Winchester did grow to become an important
commercial centre and London also began to revive as a
commercial centre and by the mid ninth century Lundenwic
started to be referred to as Lundenburh.
Alfred also ordered the building of a fleet of ships
which numbered about a hundred by 910 CE at the time of his son Edward. By 957
CE King Edgar was able to provide a naval defence which patrolled the coasts
for pirates and Edgar may have maintained three fleets. Alfred was, perhaps,
the founder of a royal navy, although his ships were generally created for
impact, some with sixty oars, and tended to be outmanoeuvred by the smaller
Danish longboats, or ran aground.
Alfred convened councils of ealdermen,
and those most regularly summoned took the style of his witan, perhaps
comprising two or three bishops, four ealdermen and
about eight thegns or ministers.
The church had been badly impacted by Viking
attacks, with seizures of gold and precious objects, the enslavement of monks,
the torching of libraries, and the ransoming of valuable books such as the
Codex Aureus of Canterbury. Alfred lamented these losses, which had also led to
a deterioration in literacy and learning.
A
Wessex Renaissance
The decline in literacy was widely seen as a failure to uphold
the Christian duties of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Alfred started a campaign to
rectify these failings. He founded new religious houses at Shaftsbury and Athelney. He also strove to restore monastic libraries and
improve the literacy of his subjects and the church. He recruited learned men
to his court including Werfreth, Bishop of Wocester; Plegmund, later
Archbishop of Canterbury; two priests, Æthelstan and Wæwulf; Grimbald who was extremely learned in every kind
of ecclesiastical doctrine; and John the Old Saxon who was immensely
learned in all fields of literary endeavour.
Alfred himself was not literate until his teens and
lacked a formal education. However in the 880s he was
tutored to improve his understanding of Latin texts.
For the first time Alfred had at least 7 books
translated into English, including Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, and
works of Gregory the Great, so that they could be more widely understood,
although he aimed at a revival of Latin literacy. Whether Alfred had any
personal involvement in the translations is open to debate. He intended that
all freeborn men in his kingdom should be literate in their own language. This
was also a part of his political strategy to foster a sense of a gens Anglorum,
a common identity.
Alfred also commissioned his own history, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which originally concluded in 890 CE
with Alfred ruling over a peaceful kingdom, but was later continued to subsume
later periods of Viking raids.
883 CE
Guthred Hardacnutsson
Guthred (c 844 to 24
August 895 CE) was the Norse king of Northumbria from c 883 to 895 CE. Guthred was probably the first Christian Viking King of
York.
He seems to have
defeated a large invasion by the Scots.
The
monks of Lindisfarne had long abandoned Lindisfarne, taking the bones of St
Cuthbert with them, and had initially settled at Norham on the Tweed. In
about 883 CE they settled in the Roman fortification at Chester-Le-Street on
the Wear, where they remained for over a century, until 995 CE.
The Gilling sword is an Anglo-Saxon sword, dating from the late ninth to early
tenth century, found in Gilling Beck in Gilling West.
Scandinavian crosses are found in churchyards, a good example
being the Middleton Cross, northwest of Pickering, which probably represents a Norse warlord sitting on his throne.
It may have been a memorial stone rather than a gravestone.
There are a series of distinctive Scandinavian grave markers,
known as hogback tombstones, from their curved profile. There’s an example in Helmsley church. They
are believed to have been tombstones, but none has actually
been found over graves, and their decoration, which can be very
elaborate on the best examples, is a distinctively Viking style, with bear-like
beasts at head and foot and elaborate interlacing patterns. Their shape and
design, some have carvings of roof tiles on their upper surfaces, and their
bowed sides resemble those of boat shaped houses, recall, for example, the
pre-existing English tradition of small, house shaped stone shrines. They are
usually found in parts of the country which were settled by Norwegian Vikings.
Although they are undoubtedly Viking creations, no examples of hog backs are
known from Norway, and along with much of the stone art of this period they are
best seen as a colonial creation of Anglo Scandinavian culture. Hogbacks seem
to have been a short lived phenomena, being confined
to the middle decades of the 9th century.
Another uniquely
Anglo Scandinavian development, are the early sundials
that appear on country churches in Yorkshire. These sometimes record the names
of Viking Lords who were benefactors of the church. A good example can be seen
at Old Byland., higher in the east side of the tower, above the southern
doorway, But the best is undoubtedly that at Saint Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale.
(Britain in the Middle Ages, An Archaeological History, Francis Pryor, 2007, page 86).
885 CE
In
885 CE the Fulham Vikings returned and besieged Rochester, but because the
citizens were able to defend themselves, there was time for Alfred’s army
dispersing the enemy to their ships. This was how the network of burhs was
intended to operate, with sufficient force within the fortified towns to hold
off against attackers, allowing sufficient time for a main force to arrive and
disperse the attackers.
Alfred
felt religiously bound to revive learning amongst his people. In a reverse of
Alcuin’s process, he brought in Carolingian scholars to support this process,
but his revival had a distinctly English flavour. This gave rise to a heavy programme of
administration, often by letter but also by some 200 charters.
886 CE
Only
Wessex avoided conquest and partition at this time under King Alfred and by
886, when all the Anglecyn, in the words of the
Anglo-Saxon chronicle, not under subjugation to the Danes submitted to him, the
West Saxon ruling family would seem to have been the only native dynasty still
holding royal power. (The Earliest English Kings, D
P Kirby, 2000, page 1, Anglo Saxon Chronicle, 886).
890 CE
By
the 890s the Vikings had lost their operational freedom, but there followed a
period of stand off.
892 CE
A crop failure in northern
Francia led to widespread famine there and a large Danish army turned its
attention back to England. A fleet of 250 ships landed a force in Kent who
established a fortified camp at Appledore. A fleet of 80 ships landed another smaller
army who camped at Milton, near Sittingbourne.
Alfred responded by taking up a
position in the middle of Kent between the two enemy forces.
893 CE
In spring 893 CE the larger
Danish force were defeated by Alfred’s eldest son,
Edward, the young prince, at the Battle of Farnham. However
Edward was unable to press home his victory when his soldiers declared that
their term of military service had expired and abandoned Edward.
New attacks broke out along the
south coast of Wessex by Danes who had by then settled in Northumbria and East
Anglia. They were soon encountering attacks all cross the kingdom including in
the west along the Severn and the Welsh border, as the Scandinavian forces of
Northumbria, East Anglia and Francia started to work together. However the Danes were not able to
break into Wessex itself because of the new networks of burhs.
894 CE
The viking
army sailed up the Thames and established a base about 20 miles from London.
895 CE
An attack by the threatened
Londoners did not go well. Alfred then arrived with an army and dislodged the
invaders as he started to construct new burhs on either side of the Thames.
Siefredus or Sigfrith
Siefredus was Norse King of Northumbria
from c 895 to 900 CE. A number of silver coins bearing
the inscription Siefredus Rex were found as part of a
Northumbrian hoard. He may have pirated the coast of Wessex from the land of
the Northumbrians with a large fleet, ravaged twice and afterwards sailed back
to his own homeland.
896 CE
The
renewed Viking attack on Wessex that had begun in 892 CE, started to subside.
The Anglo Saxon Chronicle is
largely silent about the last three years of Alfred’s life.
899 CE
Edward the Elder King of the
Anglo-Saxons 899 to 924 CE
Alfred died on 26 October 899 CE, after a reign of 28 years,
leaving his kingdom to his son Edward the Elder. By now the term King of the
Anglo Saxons was in regular use. Alfred was king over all the Anglo Saxon kingdoms except the parts subject to Danish rule.
Alfred had maintained control of Wessex and annexed Mercia west of Watling
Street but everything north and east of Watling Street, was still part of the
Danelaw. He was therefore not the first king over all of England. The lands
north of Watling Street however were beyond his realm. Yet his defence of the
southern realm from the Scandinavian threat was remarkable.
Æthelwold was the son of Æthelred, the
king of Wessex from 865 to 871. Following his father's death, in 871, his uncle
Alfred the Great became king. When Alfred died in 899. Alfred's son Edward the
Elder ascended the throne of Wessex. However, Æthelwold
made a bid for power, seizing his father’s old estate in Wimbourne.
Edward's forces besieged Æthelwold's position,
forcing him to flee.
There
was an immediate attempted coup led by Æthelwold, son of Alfred’s older brother,
Æthelred I. Alfred had attempted to appease this family and avoid a succession
struggle, but the modest compensation granted to them was not enough to prevent
a claim being made on Alfred’s death. Æthelwold immediately took an unnamed nun from
a nunnery to marry her, possibly a woman he had been forbidden to marry by
Alfred and who had been cloistered by Alfred. Æthelwold then took up a defensive position at
Wimborne Abbey in Dorset. The new king Edward the Elder
rode to Badbury Rings, a short distance from
Wimborne, and Æthelwold fled to the Danelaw
territory.
The Danelaw
The designation of the
area to the north and east of Watling Street, was first referred to as the
Danelaw in the eleventh century. The northern lands were not a single political
unit, but were split into separate
zones with numerous rival leaders. East Anglia was ruled by Guthrum until he
died in 890 CE. The East Midlands to the Humber were ruled by a loose
confederation with bases at Leicester, Nottingham, Stamford, Lincoln and Derby
(later known as the Five Boroughs).
Northumbria was once again
split into two, having been carved up by Hafdan in
875 CE. The northern half, north of the Tees, remained Anglo -Saxon with its
base at Bamburgh. Its southern half, south of the Tees, was a new Scandinavian
kingdom, centred on York.
Almost half the placenames
in Yorkshire recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, had Scandinavian origins.
Settlements ending in -by or -thorpe
are the prime examples. The early Norse word for a farmstead or village was bý. It was at about this time that Hild’s Streanæshealh
became Whitby. -gate
in the suffix of road names is the Scandinavian form. Some 48% of
place names in the East Riding of Yorkshire have Scandinavian origins.
Significant archaeological finds such as Scandinavian coins, clothes, amulets with
pagan symbols evidence the extent of the Scandinavian lands. It has been
estimated that the Scandinavian immigrants to the area may have numbered 20,000
to 35,000.
The Danelaw posed a
continual threat to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The future course of English
history was in the balance.
There
is an In Our Time podcast, The Danelaw.
900 CE
Cnut
Cnut of Northumbria is not the
same person as the future King Cnut. He was Norse King of Northumbria c 900 to
905 CE.
About 3,000 silver coins bearing
the inscription Cnut Rex were found as part of the
Cuerdale Hoard in Cuerdale,
Lancashire.
By about 900 CE there was
a grid pattern of long narrow plots in Jorvik and archaeology at Coppergate revealed a major
commercial and craftworking centre between the Rivers Ouse and Foss. Workshops
produced leather goods, wooden houseful vessels, textiles and grave slabs. Honestones (for sharpening) were imported from Scandinavia,
pottery and wine from the Rhineland and silk from the Middle East. In the early
decades of the tenth century a mint was producing coins for the Saxon King Æthelstan.
901 CE
Æthelwold managed to persuade the
Scandinavian settlers to accept him as their leader. He went to York, where the locals
accepted him as king, in 901.
In autumn 901 CE Æthelwold sailed down the east coast to Essex, where he was
joined by the Danes of East Anglia. They invaded Mercia and then Wessex before
withdrawing back to East Anglia.
902 CE
Edward the Elder attacked
Cambridge and Ely. Æthelwold attacked the
Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Holme (Holmesdale) where the Scandinavians held
the field of battle. However Æthelwold
was killed in 902 and this ended the challenge to Edward’s rule. It did not
however remove the Danish threat to the southern kingdoms.
906 CE
There were probably sporadic
raids until 906 CE when Edward
made peace with East Anglia and Northumbria from necessity, probably paying
tribute.
909 CE
Edward
the Elder seems to have taken the initiative again in 909 CE when he embarked
on a month long raid into northern territory. The raid by Wessex and Mercia in
909 CE took Oswald’s bones from Bardney Abbey in the Kingdom of Lindsey and
buried them in the new St Oswald’s Priory in Gloucester.
910 CE
On
5 August 910 CE a Danelaw army was ambushed at Wednesfield, near Wolverhampton
and thousands were killed. This was probably the victory of Edward’s older
sister, Æthelflæd, who had married the King of Mercia, but due to his illness Æthelflæd was ruling as the Lady of the Mercians. She
continued to rule Mercia after her husband died in 911 CE.
911 CE
The
southern kingdoms began a more aggressive campaign of seizing land in the
Danegeld. He planted a burh in Hertford in 911 CE and in Witham, Essex in 912
CE, later creating burhs at Stafford and Tamworth.
914 CE
Ragnall I
Ragnall ruled in Jorvik (York)
from 914 to 921 CE. He had arrived from Irland and had conquered York. Links
between Scandinavians in Northumberland and York had ben
growing closer.
915 CE
Edward and Æthelflæd built more burhs along the frontier and some Danish
leaders accepted Edward as their king.
917 CE
Edward’s
forces moved deep into Danelaw, building a burh at Towchester,
while Æthelflæd advanced into the Five Boroughs.
918 CE
The folk of York were unhappy with
Ragnall. They therefore promised obedience to Æthelflæd,
Lady of the Mercians in early 918, but the negotiations were ended prematurely
by her death in June of that year. Later in his reign, Ragnall
submitted to Edward as overlord, but was allowed to keep his kingdom.
Æthelflæd took Leicetser and Edward
took Leicester. However Æthelflæd
died on 12 June 918 CE whereupon Edward received the submission of all the
nation of the land of the Mercians.
Edward
seized Nottingham, but the campaign was losing its momentum. The last of the
five boroughs, Lincoln, probably held out against the Anglo-Saxons.
By
the end of 918 CE however, Edward held all of southern
England south of the Mersey and the Trent.
Over
the following two years, he consolidated his hold, building new burhs on the
Mersey at Thelwall and Manchester, reinforcing Nottingham and building a
fortified bridge over the Trent.
920 CE
Edward
advanced up the Derwent and established a new burh at Bakewell.
During this period of Anglo-Saxon
advance, the Scandinavians of York maintained a low profile. Some peace
negotiation may have taken place at about this time.
921 CE
Ragnar was overthrown by Sitric, reputedly another descendant of Ivar the Boneless. Sitric ruled Scandinavian Northumbria from 921 to 927 CE. Sitric was a kinsman of Ragnall,
and another Scandinavian leader expelled from the Kingdom of Dublin, in 902. Sitric, however had returned to Ireland to retake Dublin
and become their king. Then in 920 he travelled to York and joined Ragnall where in 921 Ragnall died
and Sitric replaced him as king.
Sitric raided Davenport, Cheshire, in
violation of the terms of submission agreed between Ragnall
and Edward the Elder.
924 CE
Æthelstan King of the Anglo-Saxons 924 to
927 CE, King of the English 927 to 939 CE
Edward the Elder died in
his early fifties, leading to another succession crisis. Edward the Elder had a
lot of children from three wives. His eldest was Æthelstan, but his mother had
died or been discarded. The Mercians supported Æthelstan
who seems to have been reared there, but many powerful nobles of Wessex
preferred Ælfweard, eldest son of Edward’s second
wife, reared in Wessex. At this point Ælfweard
mysteriously died. It seems that an agreement was then reached with Edward’s
third wife, Eadgifu, which may have been an agreement to Æthelstan’s
crowning conditional upon his recognition of Eadgifu’s son as his heirs and a
promise not to bear children. Indeed Æthelstan neither married, nor bore children.
Æthelstan was the most pious
king, and became very wealthy. He became king of the
Anglo Saxons in 924 CE on the death of Edward the Elder. The Deeds of the Kings of
the English by William, a monk of
Malmesbury, records details of his life.
William suggested that he had been specially selected by Alfred in his
childhood, as Alfred had been by Æthelwulf, but this may be a later gloss.
925 CE
After the drama of 924
CE, Æthelstan was finally crowned on
4 September 925 CE at the royal estate of Kingston on the Thames, on the border
between Wessex and Mercia. For the first time the new king had a crown, rather
than, as previously, a helmet, placed on his head, adopting an ancient Roman
style which had recently revived amongst the emperors in Europe.
926 CE
Although the annals
indicated that Sitric was reluctant to submit to
Edward, he submitted to Æthelstan at Tamworth in
January 926. Part of the agreement was that Sitric
should marry Æthelstan's sister Eadgyth and that he should be baptised. He
seems to have repudiated Christianity and rejected his bride shortly
afterwards.
927 CE
Guthfrith
(Gofraid ua Ímair)
Sitric Cáech
died in 927 and Guthfrith left for Northumbria,
delegating authority in Dublin to his sons. This upset the sons of Sitric, who allied with a son of Helgi and seized
Limerick. This act began a period of conflict between the Hiberno-Scandinavian
of Dublin and Limerick which would last until 937. Guthfrith
seems to have competed with Ealdred, the Anglo Saxon
ruler of the northern territory ruled from Bamburgh. Guthfrith’s attempt to
rule in Northumbria was unsuccessful and he was driven out by Æthelstan of England within six months. Guthfrith
fled to Constantine,
King of the Scots.
Æthelstan
There
is an In Our Time podcast about the reign of King Athelstan, whose military exploits united much of
England, Scotland and Wales under one ruler for the first time.
After the death of Sitric, Æthelstan,
whose sister was Sihtric’s widow, seized the opportunity to invade the
Scandinavian York. He thereby united the Kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and
Northumbria.
This was probably a
military invasion by Æthelstan who marched north and
destroyed the Scandinavian stronghold at York.
There followed an
important meeting at Eamont Bridge near Penrith, near ancient earthworks
of King Arthur’s round table and Mayburgh Henge,
between the rivers Lowther and Eamont, where roads converged from all
directions. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records that kings from
across Britain converged here on 27 July 927 CE at a meeting which is generally
taken to be the founding of the Kingdom of England.
There is an In Our
Time podcast about the
history of English
national identity which
examines the concept of the Nation State in an era of globalisation.
Æthelstan met with Constantine,
King of the Scots, the king of the Britons of Strahclyde
and Ealdred of Bamburgh. Æthelstan had a military
force behind him to impose his will.
Æthelstan was King of the
Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and Rex Anglorum from 927 to 939. He had
previously been referred to as King of the Saxons, but after 927 CE he came to
be more commonly referred to as Rex Anglorum, sometimes upgraded to ruler
of the whole world of Britain This new title reflected Æthelstan’s
conquest of the Scandinavian Kingdom of York, previously part of the
Northumbrian Kingdom. He established direct rule over York.
Æthelstan is widely considered one
of the greatest Anglo-Saxon kings for his efforts to consolidate the English
kingdom and the prosperity his reign brought. His reign was prosperous and
legal and economic reform, but there were frequent clashes with the Scots and
the Scandinavian lands.
After the meeting at
Eamont Bridge, Æthelstan demanded subservience from
the rulers in Wales at Hereford, and then the Britons of the southwest, the
Corn-Welsh.
As fiery lights were seen
in the northern skies, Æthelstan had brought under
his rule all the kings who were in this island.
His success came partly
from his success as a warrior, probably honed when fighting alongside his
father, Edward the Elder. It also came from his wealth, growing after Alfred’s
successes and restoration of the coinage. His investment of a rich wealth which
he had inherited from his Wessex predecessors, paid dividends because, in the Anglo Saxon world, his conquests added further wealth. The
rulers in East Anglia and the east Midlands must have paid heavy tributes. He
found York to be full of plunder. The Welsh were forced to provide a
hefty tribute. He likely extracted similar tributes from the Corn-Welsh, the
Scots and the Britons of Strathclyde.
Whilst he maintained
control over his homelands of Wessex and Mercia by itineration, he adopted a
new approach to governing the new territories further away. He called on the
rulers of those lands to attend him at increasingly large royal assemblies. The
charters increasingly comprised long lists of names of former rulers now
reduced to subreguli, or sub-kings. Some were so large that they must
have been held in the open air. They were also a means of demonstrating Æthelstan’s majesty to his newly enlarged realm.
However Constantine
of Scotland and Owain of Strathclyde, did not make the journey to these
assemblies, after the meeting of 927 CE.
934 CE
In 934 Æthelstan travelled to York to give
them a large area of land in modern Cumbria, possibly a bribe for the continued
loyalty of Northumbria.
Æthelstan made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Cuthbert in Chester le
Street. He encouraged the cult of Cuthbert as a unifying policy. He made
generous gifts to the monks including a royal headdress woven in gold and
several texts including three ornate gospels and a Life of St Cuthbert.
He also gave them lands on the south of the Wear. Some of the items, including
embroidery and the Life of St Cuthbert survived, and the latter, held by
Corpus Christie College, Cambridge, contains a picture of Æthelstan presenting the book, the earliest image of an
English king in a manuscript.
He was en route to
Scotland with an army of soldiers from Wessex and Mercia, some Danes from the
east and Britons from the west.
Frustrated by the non-compliance by Constantine of
Scotland and Owain of Strathclyde, Æthelstan marched into Scotland
to lay waste to the lands as far as Dunnottar and Caithness.
By August 934 CE Constantine was unable to resist, and taken back to
the burh at Buckingham, he submitted as subregulus.
935 CE
In 935 CE there was a fresh royal assembly attended by the
sub-kings including Constantine.
It was at about this time that the Welsh poem Armes
Prydein Vawr, the Great Prophecy of Britain
prophesied the unification of Celtic peoples, the Irish, and the Scandinavians
of Dublin to drive the Anglo-Saxons out of Britain. Led by legendary figures
like Cynan and Cadwaladr, the prophecy was a rallying cry against Saxon
dominance and expressed frustration with policies that sought peace with the
ascendant English kingdom of Wessex.
937 CE
In summer 937 CE, the new
king in Ireland, Olaf Guthfrithson, the son of Guthfrith who had failed to seize
York in 927 CE, sailed to join a coalition anticipated in the Great Prophesy.
He was joined by Constantine of Scotland and Owain of Strathclyde
and they despoiled everything with continuous ravages driving out the
people, setting fire to fields (William of Malmesbury). Æthelstan raised an army and met them at Brunanburh, probably
Bromborough on the Wirral peninsula. The battle was violent, a great, lamentable
and horrible battle. Thousands of the invaders were killed.
In the ‘great war’ at the
Battle of Brunanburh in 937, Æthelstan routed a coalition of the King of
Dublin and York (Olaf Guthfrithsson), Scotland (Constantine) and Strayhclyde (Oswain). Æthelstan was recognised again as king
throughout England. The rebels made a shameful retreat. The chronicler Æthelweard wrote that the
fields of Britain were consolidated into one, there was peace everywhere, and
an abundance of all things. However the peace
would not survive the king’s death two years later.
939 CE
Edmund I King of the English 938
CE to 946 CE
Æthelstan died on 27 October 939 CE
at Gloucester, aged about 45. His body was taken to Malmesbury Abbey. Æthelstan’s half brother,
Eadgifu’s son, Edmund succeeded to the whole English Kingdom, the first to do
so, but his inheritance was uncertain.
Monastic Reform (southern
England only)
From the time of
the early monasteries in the seventh century CE, religious communities had been
varied, some following the austere code of the Benedictine Rule, and others
taking a more relaxed approach, with secular priests alongside celibate monks.
In Northumberland the only surviving monastic houses were the monks who had
left Lindisfarne and founded a community at Chester-le-Street,
and some impoverished monks in York. In
Wessex and western Mercia, whilst more monastic communities had survived, they
were much diminished under the pressure of constant raiding. Where minsters
survived into the tenth century it was usually as houses of secular clerks, who
might be married and have families. (The
Anglo Saxons, A History of the Beginnings of England,
Marc Morris, 2021, page 282).
Dunstan
(The Life of St Dunstan by ‘B’) was
born near Glastonbury in about 909 CE, he was educated by Irish monks and later
became a minister to Aethelstan and Edgar.
At about the time Dunstan was
born, the monastic orders in continental Europe were being reformed. Cluny was
founded in 909 CE with independence from lay control, including its founder,
answerable only to the Pope, and strictly following the Benedictine Rule.
Cluny’s influence spread across Europe and had reached the kingdom of Æthelstan. Reformist ideas started to be discussed, at the
time when Dunstan left Glastonbury to join the household of Bishop Ælfleah in Winchester, a keen advocate of monasticism.
By about 938 CE Dunstan was in
the service of a wealthy widow, Æthelflæd who died before 939 CE, but
introduced Dunstan to the Queen Mother Eadgifu and through whom Dunstan was
introduced to the new King Edgar. Edgar was not immediately impressed, but after
a hunting accident when Edgar nearly plunged into the Cheddar Gorge but was
saved by promising to engage Dunstan (or so the legend goes), Dunstan was
appointed as abbot of Glastonbury.
The Abbey of Glastonbury was a
place of mythological significance. In the late twelfth century the imagined
bones of Arthur and Guinevere were discovered in its grounds and in the
fourteenth century it was claimed to be the last resting place of Joseph of
Arimathea who had arranged Christ’s burial and who kept the Holy Grail.
Dunstan intended to introduce a more
pure form of monasticism, based on Benedictine Rule as he began rebuilding
the abbey in stone. Dunstan attracted pupils
to Glastonbury, including Æthelwold, who left
Glastonbury in about 954 CE seeking a more zealous form of monasticism.
Soon afterwards the Scandinavians
retook of York.
The Olafs - Scandinavian
Rule 939 to 944 CE
When Æthelstan died in 939, the
Scandinavian leader Olaf Guthfrithson arrived from Dublin and took over
Northumbria with minimal opposition. Coins minted at York during his reign show
the Raven motif.
940 CE
In 940, his cousin Olaf
Cuaran, the son of Sitric, joined him in York to
reclaim his father’s throne. The Northumbrians were false to their pledge, and chose Olaf from Ireland as their king (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).
The Olafs also recovered the five
boroughs.
942 CE
It is probable that Olaf Guthfrithson died in 942 and was replaced by Olaf
Cuaran.
943 CE
Edmund
negotiated with Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, a
native Northumbrian, leading the negotiation for Olaf. The peace they
concluded was devastating to the claim of those southern kings to be rulers of
all the English. It was decided that the border between Edmund and Olaf should
be the line of Watling Street, just as it had been in the days of Alfred and
Guthrum. In a matter of months the conquests of Æthelstan, Edward and Æthelflæd
had been undone. (The Anglo Saxons, A History of the Beginnings of England,
Marc Morris, 2021,
page 289).
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Olaf Cuaran was baptised, with Edmund as
sponsor, and that same year, another king of Northumbria, was named as Ragnall Guthfrithson and he was confirmed also with Edmund
as sponsor. Both Olaf and Ragnall were called king, but it is uncertain whether
they were co-rulers or rival kings.
944 CE
In 944 CE Edmund invaded
Northumbria, to recover the losses of the previous year. Ragnall seems to have died and Olaf
returned to Ireland.
English rule 944 to 947 CE
Edmund therefore expelled the Scandinavian leaders from Northumbria. Eadred
was the half-brother of Æthelstan and full brother of Edmund, all of whom
were sons of King Edward the Elder. Eadred inherited Northumbria, but like
Edmund lost it soon afterwards.
945 CE
Edmund advanced into Strathclyde
and handed it to Malcolm, the new King of Scotland.
Edmund recovered the relics of the
norther saints, Hild from Whitby and Aidan from Lindisfarne, and had them
reinterred at Glastonbury.
946 CE
Eadred King of the English 946
to 955 CE
Edmund I was stabbed in an
assassination and buried at Glastonbury. He was succeeded by his brother
Eadred.
Eadred was more committed to monastic
reform and recalled Dunstan to his court.
947 CE
Shortly after his
coronation Eadred met Archbishop Wulfstan and other Northumbrian leaders on the
southern border of Northumbria at Tanshelf (Pontefract) and called
on them to swear oaths of obedience to him. Almost immediate afterwards
however, the leaders broke their oath and accepted the Scandinavian Eric as
their king.
Eric of York (possibly, but
probably not Eric Bloodaxe)
Eric expelled Anglo- Scandinavian
rulers of Northumbria in 947 CE
948 CE
Eadred ravaged Northumbria
in 948 CE, burning St Wilfred’s minster at Ripon and taking his bones to
Canterbury, and the Northumbrians agreed to the reinstatement of English rule. However the tribute he imposed,
and the settlement, didn’t last.
949 CE
Olaf Cuaran returned from Ireland
and took back the throne in 949 CE, but was then
ousted by Eric in 952 CE.
954 CE
The Northumbrians expelled
Eric and submitted again to Eadred. Eric was the last Scandinavian king of
Northumbria and his authority only extended to the southern kingdom of York.
Scandinavian domination came to an end when Eadred's forces killed Eric at the Battle of Stainmore in 954. The whole area was then governed
by earls, from the local nobility, who were appointed by the kings of England.
Eadred had finally achieved the submission of the Scandinavians in
York.
Oswulf I of Bamburgh
When Eadred finally
regained control in 954, he appointed Oswulf earl of the whole of
Northumbria. By the twelfth century Oswulf was held
responsible for the death of Northumbria's last Norse king, Eric of York.
Dunstan’s zealous pupil Æthelwold became abbot of Abingdon.
955 CE
Eadwig King of the English 955
to 959 CE
Eadred died on 23 November 955
CE. He was succeeded by his older brother Edmund’s 15 year
old son, Eadwig. His reign was degenerate and divisive. Somehow
influenced by a Mercian faction, Eadwig ejected the advisers of his
predecessor, including the ancient Queen mother Eadgifu and the influential
nobleman Æthelstan Half King (so called for his
powerful position in the court). Dunstan’s estates were seized and he was
exiled.
His regime was unstable and
massive tracts of land were granted during his reign to attempt to buy
political support. The kingdom almost reached a point of civil war.
957 CE
The tide turned under the
influence of a crystallisation of opposition to the new king’s approach. Out of
the chaos, a great council in 957 CE divided the kingdom, so that Eadred
controlled Wessex, but his younger brother Edgar became king
of Mercia and Northumbria. It looked possible at
this stage that Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria would once again go in separate
directions.
Eadgifu regained her influence
and Dunstan returned from exile. The opposition to Eadwig even secured the
annulment of his still childless marriage to Ælfgifu
on the ground of consanguinity.
959 CE
Edgar King
of the English 959 to 975 CE
Before he was able to find a new
wife, the disastrous Eadwig died on 1 October 959 CE. He was succeeded by his 16 year old younger brother Edgar.
Edgar was a keen reformer and
the reforming movement around Dunstan began to effect
its campaign. Dunstan was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Edgar. However the records leave little information about Dunstan
himself, and his former pupil the charismatic and authoritarian Æthelwold,
promoted to Bishop of Winchester, began to take centre stage in the
reform movement.
962 CE
A plague of 962 CE was
interpreted as divine displeasure, requiring all, whether rich or poor, to meet
their obligations to render their tithes with all gladness and with all
willingness.
963 CE
Eadwulf II “Evil Child” of
Bamburgh
Eadwulf was Earl of Northumbria
from about 963 CE.
964 CE
Æthelwold began to purge Winchester of
secular priests who his biographer wrote married wives illicitly, divorced
them, and took others; and were constantly given to gluttony and drunkenness.
Strict Benedictine Rule was introduced and the reformation movement spread.
965 CE
At an assembly of bishops Edgar
ordered the establishment of 40 monasteries and many others followed.
969 CE
Although Edgar came to be known
as pacificus, he imposed his will harshly, for instance in 969 CE
ordering the Isle of Thanet to be ransacked when they robbed merchants from
York.
973 CE
Æthelwold, by now very wealthy,
drove these monastic reforms, and concerned by differences of interpretation of
the Benedictine Rule, he imposed a uniform observance focused on the Regularis Concordia, the Monastic Agreement, at a
synodical council at Winchester in 973 CE, which was distributed to all the
monasteries. Compiled by Bishop Æthelwold, it provided a uniform code of life
and customs for all monks and nuns in England, supplementing the existing Rule
of St. Benedict.
It departed from the European
tradition in that it did not completely remove lay oversight, since it retained
a place for the English monarchy as protector of the monasteries, in return for
constant prayer for the king and queen from every monk and nun.
The Regularis
Concordia was accompanied by a new and elaborately illustrated charter for
Winchester, which sought to justify the expulsion of secular clerks. This was
accompanied by an artistic revival in Winchester including the finest
illustrated manuscript of the Anglo Saxon world, the
Benedictional of Æthelwold. The manuscript
illustrations became the basis for the Winchester style of illumination. The
handwriting followed the Carolingian Script devised by Alcuin in Charlemagne’s court for Latin text
and a different, insular script for English translations. The term insular simply signifies that the
manuscripts produced on the island of Britain were quite distinct from those
being produced elsewhere in Europe. The Lindisfarne
Gospels, the Book of Kells and the Books of Durrow are examples which have a
Celtic suggestion in their art. The art of the insular tradition is clearly
a fusion of both English (Anglo-Saxon) and British traditions. (Britain in the Middle Ages, An Archaeological History, Francis Pryor, 2007, page 25).
The installing of religious
uniformity was accompanied by the uniformity of royal administration. Æthelwold was intensely critical of the division of the
kingdom under Eadwig. Ideas of state enforced uniformity derived from European
traditions, followed in the court of Louis the Pious (ruled 814 to 840 CE), the
son of Charlemagne.
This religious and lay
reform of the southern kingdoms which stretched into the former Danelaw, never
reached the lands of the Five Boroughs nor into Northumberland.
The hundreds were known as wapentakes
in Northumbria and the Five Boroughs, from a Scandinavian word vapnatak referring to the practising of brandishing
weapons as a sign of accord. Edgar showed discretion in his impositions in the
north. It is my will that such good laws be in force among the Danes as they
best prefer. However he strove for the uniformity
of criminal law, wishing measures to deal with thieves to be common to all
the nation, whether Englishmen, Danes or Britons. Wapentakes and hundreds
were used to organise populations through courts for administration and
enforcement of justice.
Reform of the Anglo -Saxon
coinage during the reign of Edgar. Coins had been minted centrally,
but varied in weight and design. Edgar imposed a comprehensive
standardisation of the coinage. All coins struck were to be of the same size
and purity and bore an identical image of the King.
New silver mines were opened in
Germany in the 960s and German silver was increasingly
exchange for British goods, indicating a thriving economy.
Edgar was styled Rex Anglorum
on coins and in charters as King of All Britain. He started to see
himself in an imperial vision of ruler of all of Britain as Otto I “the Great”
of Germany revised the title of Holy Roman Emperor in 962 CE. On 11 May 973 CE,
Edgar was freshly crowned at Bath, as simply Rex, the king of a single
people. There followed a series of fresh acts of subservience from the kings of
Scotland and the Strathclyde Britons.
975 CE
Edward the Martyr King of the
English 975 to 978 CE
On 8 July 975 CE Edgar, son of
Edmund and King of England died suddenly. The death of the Good Shepherd
of the tenth century Reformation, left the continued religious and
administrative reform vulnerable.
The succession was contested
between his two sons Edward and Æthelred. Edgar’s third wife Ælfthryth and her surviving son Æthelred had been promoted
as the legitimate line of succession, including by Æthelwold. However on Edgar’s death, there was strong support for
Edward, not least as the older son. Dunstan crowned Edward as king, but
Æthelred and his supporters were not happy.
The reforms of Edgar’s reign had
left many subjects and lay clerks out of office and stripped of estates for
monastic endowment, sometimes with limited compensation. These grievances
erupted as the 16 year old Edward became king. Monks
and abbots were driven out from their communities and were seen wandering in
the roads, penniless and barefoot. The anti-monastic reaction was popular with
secular clerks, but provided an excuse for supporters
of Æthelred to challenge Edward’s accession. Factional fighting followed.
978 CE
Æthelred II the Unready King of
the English 978 CE to 1013
Edward the Martyr was killed under suspicious circumstances in 978 CE.
Edward had travelled to Corfe in Devon to visit Æthelred
and his mother Ælfthryth. As he approached
he was met by a band of armed men who pulled him off his horse and murdered
him. He was buried at Wareham, without ceremony. He soon became a martyr. It
was Æthelred, Ælfthryth and Æthelwold who
were the beneficiaries of the event.
Ælfthryth and Æthelwold
with the Mercian ealderman, Ælfhere
ruled on behalf of the twelve year old boy, as regents.
Æthelred was given a bad
reputation after his death, from ominous portents of his failings from the time
of his baptism. The Unready was a mis interpretation of his nickname,
the unraed, meaning badly advised,
a pun on his name Æthelred, which meant noble counsel. His reputation
arose because Scandinavian raids returned during his reign, and he failed to
deal with them with the same efficiency as his ancestor, Alfred. Yet he ruled
for 38 years, one of the longest of the Anglo Saxon
period.
This was a time when the
word Englalond was starting to be used to
define the burgeoning nation. The coinage referred to Anglia, but a
writer of various works, Ælfric of Eynsham, started to refer to Engla-lande. Generally society was
divided into those who fought, those who prayed and those who worked the land.
However there emerged a new group of ceorls, small scale gentry farmers,
who emerged as estates divided and this is associated with the creation of new
parishes and parish churches. (A Brief History of the
Anglo Saxons, The Beginnings of the English Nation, 2006, Geoffrey Hindle, page 296 to 297).
979 CE
Æthelred was crowned at Kingston
upon Thames on 4 May 979 CE, after Edward’s body was given a formal burial. He
pledged to protect the church, punish theft and wickedness, and be just and
merciful in his judgements.
980 CE
By 980 CE extensive extension
work to Winchester was completed by Æthelwold.
Burgeoning towns
From the mid tenth centuries the fortified burhs of Alfred began
to become commercial centres. In Winchester, the names of Flesher Street and
Tanner Street started to appear. York had seen
this process of commercialisation earlier in the tenth century. Suburbs were created outside the towns to accommodate
noisier industries and regular markets were held.
The rural landscape was also changing. In Mercia and
Wessex this started to occur by the ninth century, but in Kent and East Anglia,
it sometimes did not occur until the eleventh century or later. It was driven
by peaceful
conditions which started to be felt in Northumbria after 954 CE with the
expulsion of the Scandinavian kings. It was also
driven by a growing population.
Previously the elite class (kings, ealdermen, bishops and abbots) had held vast estates, with
people living in small, isolated settlements making renders to their overlord.
From about the 980s CE, these overlords were splitting up their estates and
granting smaller ones to their dependants, so that smaller lordships emerged.
This resulted in farmers moving closer together forming communities that were
the early villages. This resulted in greater cooperation, with the purchase of
communal plough beats and the overlords provided them with new technology such
as watermills to save the daily grind by hand in return for payment. These new
villages were often named after their creator.
More prosperous landowners started to build long
ranges, divided internally into halls, and some even with a second floor.
Private churches also started to appear.
There were opportunities for the elite class to
reorder the landscape. The focus of agriculture in more difficult times was on
pigs, sheep and cattle, with the more arduous task of growing crops being more
restricted. With the growth of villages, common land was converted for arable
use, in time leading to the open field system of the later medieval
period.
(The Anglo Saxons, A History of the Beginnings
of England,
Marc Morris, 2021, page 321 to 324).
The roots of the open
field system lay in the Late Saxon Period when earlier settlements, which were
dispersed and surrounded by their own fields, were replaced with larger
centralised villages with open field systems. This was a parish
based system of arable farming, involving two or three large open fields
which were subdivided into small strips of about half an acre each. Groups of
these strips were referred to as furlongs. The arable land of the
open fields was managed by common agreement among the tenants, each of whom
would have possession of several strips and furlongs scattered through the open
fields. Disputes were settled at the manorial court, where the tenants also met
to decide which furlongs were to remain farrow and where animals could be grazed.
It was realised that grazing, manuring and leaving land fallow were important
if the arable land was to be rested to regain its fertility and minimise plant
diseases. Animals were also grazed in the woods and on open pasture, often on
heavier clay land around the fringes of the parish. The arable land was closest
to the village, and was usually the best drained, lightest and most fertile
ground. The big drawback to the system was the fact that individual holdings
were so widely dispersed, but as time passed there was a tendency to
rationalise them into groups of furlongs. After the Black Death, this process
gathered pace as land became more freely available and the rules governing the
open field system grew less rigid. In practice the system varied from place
to place. (Britain in the Middle Ages, An Archaeological History, Francis Pryor, 2007, page 119).
Anglo Saxon Slavery
Slaves were an integral
part of Anglo-Saxon society. They may have accounted for
as much as 30% of the entire population. They could be punished with
branding and castration. Ælfric of Eynsham provided a rare depiction of an
enslaved person's experience through his Colloquy, a Latin textbook designed to
teach students through dialogues about different professions. It includes a
dialogue with a ploughman who describes his difficult daily life. This passage
provides a unique, empathetic glimpse into the conditions of slavery. The
enslaved ploughman is given a voice to describe his plight, saying Hig! Hig! micel gedeorf ys
hyt. Geleof, micel gedeorf hit ys, forþam ic
neom freoh, Old English
for Oh! Oh! The labour is great. Yes, the labour is great, because I am not
free. He details a life of relentless, back-breaking work from daybreak to
nightfall, driven by fear of his master. There is not a winter so harsh that
I dare lurk at home for fear of my master.
By the tenth century there
was a new class of gebur who intensively worked the estates of large
landowners. They were required to work for their overlord for several days a
week and supply renders of food. They were an Anglo-Saxon form of serf,
operating as part of a pre-Norman system of feudalism. They were tied to the
land and their lord. Their social status was higher than a slave but lower than
a fully free peasant. They generally held an allotment of land, typically
around 30 acres, known as a yard-land. The lord provided him with the
land, tools, and livestock. This property reverted to the lord upon the gebur's
death. In exchange for his tenancy, the gebur owed a combination of
labour services and rent in cash or kind to his lord. For example, he might be
required to work on his lord's land for a set number of days each week and pay
additional rents in goods like barley or hens. Unlike a fully free
peasant, a gebur could not leave the lord's estate. The lord's control
extended to regulating much of his life.
From 980 CE Scandinavian attacks
on towns and monasteries around the south coast resumed. The west country and
Cheshire were attacked by Vikings from Ireland and Kent and Hampshire from a
newly displaced population direct from Scandinavia, a threat not experienced
for about a century. The new wealth of Anglo-Saxon Britain provided new
opportunities for the raiders.
983 CE
The grip on power of the
triumvirate regency weakened in 9823 CE with the death of ealderman
Ælfhere and of Æthelwold.
Æthelred assumed responsibility for his own realm. This was encouraged by a new
body of supporters eager to draw back from the long period of monastic reform.
985 CE
Æthelred married Ælfgifu, the daughter of Thored, an ealdorman of York.
988 CE
A more threatening Scandinavian
army landed at Watchet in Somerset, though it was rebuffed by the English army.
991 CE
A much larger army
arrived from Scandinavia, comprising 93 ships under the command of Olaf
Tryggvason, a future King of Norway. They landed at Folkestone and met the
English army, led by Ealderman Byrhtnoth at Maldon in
Essex on 11 August 991 CE. The English army was defeated, shattering the period
of successful English resistance since the days of Alfred.
Danegeld
Æthelred responded by
paying a tribute of £10,000 to cease their attacks.
Dane-geld is a poem by Rudyard
Kipling (1865 to 1936) which laments the foolishness of paying Danegeld. The
most famous line is once you have paid him the
Danegeld, You never get rid of the Dane.
The poem ends, It is
wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb
and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will
find it better policy to say: "We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter
how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And
the nation that pays it is lost!
The sub
title to the poem makes clear that it concerns the act of Æthelred
paying the Danes in 991 CE to stop their raiding.
Æthelred was not the first to buy off the
Danes, and even Alfred did so in his early years. However, combined with the
disgust at Æthelred’s failure to fight against his enemies in person, leading
from the front, his reputation took a dive.
Olaf nevertheless remained in England for the
following three years and ravaged the east coast.
993 CE
In an attempt to forestall the growing
disillusionment with his leadership, Æthelred called as assembly at Winchester
at Pentecost 993 CE. He announced that he had made a terrible error by
renouncing the policies of the late Bishop Æthelwold and recorded his intention
to change his ways and restore lands seized at Abingdon in the Abingdon
charter. There was a renewed drive to the monastic reform of his father’s
reign. His approach became penitential at a time when there was a widespread
fear of the imminent end of everything.
Millennium Fears
994 CE
Waltheof of Bamburgh
Waltheof was Earl of
Northumbria from c 994 to 1006. Waltheof was high-reeve or ealdorman of
Bamburgh, son of Ealdred, and the grandson of Oswulf I. He was father of
Uhtred the Bold, Ealdorman of Northumbria. The name Waltheof remained in his
family when Earl Siward married his great-granddaughter and named his son
Waltheof.
In 994 CE a large fleet under
Olaf Tryggvason of Norway and Swein Forkbeard of
Denmark sailed against London but were repelled. There followed a period of
vengeance by the Scandinavians for their defeat along the southern and eastern
costs, including Kent, Essex, Hampshire and Sussex, plundering, burning and
killing. A treaty was agreed and more geld was paid to the Danes. Olaf and his
companions were invited to Andover and were treated with royal favour. There
was a confirmation ceremony for Olaf, who had already been baptised. At the
meeting Æthelred offered to retain Olaf’s army as a mercenary force against
attacks by other raiders. £22.000 in gold and silver was paid for a non aggression treaty and a
promise of aid from other raiders.
Olaf returned to Norway and many
of his men remained as mercenaries. Æthelred supplied them with food and
ordered his citizens not to seek their revenge. Anglo Saxon kings did not tend
to maintain standing armies due to their cost, and this is what Æthelred was
now doing. In order to fund the tribute, he imposed
heavy taxation. Upon the network of shires, hundreds and burhs,
he elevated the function of the reeves to be responsible for
administration and tax collection across whole shires, becoming the shire
reeves, who in time would become sheriffs.
Æthelred stopped the
Scandinavian attacks by collecting their plunder for them.
The bribe worked for a couple of
years.
995 CE
The Lindisfarne monks
moved from Chester-le-Street to Durham in 995 CE, after a stop in Ripon, taking
the bones of Cuthbert with them. There is a legend that the cart carrying
Cuthbert’s coffin suddenly stopped and couldn’t be moved. A cowgirl asked after
her lost dun, brown, cow and was told it had been seen in the direction
of Dunholme. The monks followed the cowgirl, and found that the cart with the coffin moved
again. The protective peninsula of Durham was an ideal defensive location for
the monks.
997 CE
The Scandinavians, having grown
bored and frustrated by their unnatural role as standing mercenaries, took to
raiding again. They started to raid in Devon and Cornwall, and then in Dorset
along the River Frome.
999 CE
The Scandinavians
attacked Kent, plundering and
seizing horses. Æthelred was cowardly and
incompetent.
1001
The Scandinavians attacked Devon
and the Isle of Wight. Æthelred sought peace by paying them more Danegeld.
1002
Inviting the Norman Interest in England
Normandy or Normannia, the land of the Danes,
had been settled by Scandinavians since the late ninth century and was ruled by
dukes of Scandinavian descent. They were therefore a staging post for their
cousins’ attacks on England. Æthelred made a deal with Duke Richard II of
Normandy by agreeing to marry his sister, Emma, as his Queen.
He then ordered the
deaths of all Danes living in England. It seems unlikely that this includes all
Danes, since the former Danelaw lands of Northumbria and East Anglia would have
been wiped out, but he likely ordered the killing of the remaining members of
the mercenary force of 994 CE. The orders were carried out on 13 November 1002
(now known as the St Brice's Day massacre).
1003
Sweyn landed in Devon
and destroyed the burh at Exeter. He then attacked Wiltshire and the
burh at Wilton.
1004
Sweyn attacked East
Anglia, including Norwich and Thetford. Æthelred still failed to confront him
in person, even though Sveyn was a rival king
ravaging through his lands.
1005
1005 was a year of
severe famine, micla hungor,
the Great Hunger. Crop failure and starvation seemed to be further
evidence of divine displeasure at the turn of the first Millennium.
Æthelred’s response to
these disasters was a fresh purge on his court. Fresh advisers started to
dominate the government including Wulfstan, Archbishop of York and the layman Eadric whose meteoric rise to power
earned him the title streona, the Grabber.
1006
Ealdorman Waltheof was too
old to fight and remained in his castle at Bamburgh. Ealdorman Ælfhelm of York
also took no action. Waltheof's son Uhtred, acting for his father, called
together an army from Bernicia and Yorkshire and led it against the Scots. The
result was a decisive victory for Uhtred. Local women washed the severed heads
of the Scots, receiving a payment of a cow for each, and the heads were fixed
on stakes to Durham's walls. Uhtred was rewarded by Æthelred II to become the
ealdorman of Bamburgh, even though his father was still alive.