(Jody Gray): Introduction and Overview
The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity... The migrants were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii and Franks... By the year 400, southern Britain -that is Britain below Hadrian’s Wall -was a peripheral part of the western Roman Empire, occasionally lost to rebellion or invasion, but until then always eventually recovered... The second process is explained through incentives: language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England. In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use and possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value…
By the middle of the 6th century, some Brythonic people in the lowlands of Britain had moved across the sea to form Brittany, and some had moved west, but the majority were abandoning their past language and culture and adopting the new culture of the Anglo-Saxons -barriers began to dissolve between peoples… Brythonic names appear in the lists of Anglo-Saxon elite. The Wessex royal line was traditionally founded by a man named Cerdic, an undoubtedly Celtic name ultimately derived from Caratacus. This may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton, and that his dynasty became anglicised over time…
*Indigenous British groups -who adopted some aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language. Map: Great Britain, 5th century AD, before the invasion and subsequent founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Brittonic; Pictish (Scotland); Goedelic (Irish)
The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity... The migrants were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii and Franks... By the year 400, southern Britain -that is Britain below Hadrian’s Wall -was a peripheral part of the western Roman Empire, occasionally lost to rebellion or invasion, but until then always eventually recovered... The second process is explained through incentives: language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England. In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use and possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value…
By the middle of the 6th century, some Brythonic people in the lowlands of Britain had moved across the sea to form Brittany, and some had moved west, but the majority were abandoning their past language and culture and adopting the new culture of the Anglo-Saxons -barriers began to dissolve between peoples… Brythonic names appear in the lists of Anglo-Saxon elite. The Wessex royal line was traditionally founded by a man named Cerdic, an undoubtedly Celtic name ultimately derived from Caratacus. This may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton, and that his dynasty became anglicised over time…
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| Roman Empire under Hadrian (ruled 117-138), showing the location of the tribe of the Teutones, in their original home in the northern part of the Jutland peninsula.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutons |
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| The Roman empire under Augustus (ruled 27 BC-14 AD) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri |
Teutonic (dictionary): of, relating to, or characteristic of the Teutons or Germans; German. 3. Noting or pertaining to the northern European stock that includes the German, Dutch, Scandinavian, British, and related peoples. 4. (of languages) Germanic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutons Teutons, were a Germanic tribe or Celtic tribe mentioned by Greek and Roman authors… According to a map by Ptolemy, they originally lived in Jutland, which is in agreement with Pomponius Mela, who placed them in Scandinavia, although there was disagreement by these scholars whether or not they were related to the Celts. Rather than relating directly to this tribe, the broad term, Teutonic peoples or Teuton in particular, is used now to identify members of a people speaking languages of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.
History. In the late second century BC, many of the Teutones, under their leader Teutobod as well as the Cimbri, migrated from their original homes in southern Scandinavia and on the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, south and west to the Danube valley, where they encountered the expanding Roman Republic. The Teutones and Cimbri were recorded as passing west through Gaul before attacking Roman Italy… in 105 BC, the Cimbri and Teutones divided forces and were then defeated separately by Gauis Marius in 102 BC and 101 BC respectively, ending the Cimbrian War… Teutones -their name is Celtic in form and many writers believe that the Teutones really were Celts, however, a people of this name are mentioned by the early traveler, Pytheas, as inhabitants of the northern ocean coasts. Strabo and Marcus Velleius Paterculus, moreover, classify them as Germanic peoples, and this is perhaps a more probable view, although the distinction between Celts and Teutons are not clearly realized by some earlier historians. If the Teutones really came from the same quarter as the Cimbri, it is possible that their name may have been preserved in the Thyland or Thythsyseel regions, found in the far north-west of Jutland.
Mass suicide of the women of the Teutones. According to the writings of Valerius Maximus and Florus, the king of the Teutones, Teutobod, was taken in irons after the Teutones were defeated by the Romans. Under the conditions of the surrender, three hundred married women were to be handed over as Roman slaves. When the matrons of the Teutones heard of this stipulation, they begged the consul that they might instead be allowed to minister in the temples of Ceres and Venus. When their request was denied, the Teutonic women slew their own children. The next morning, all the women were found dead in each other’s arms, having strangled each other during the night. This act passed into Roman legends of Teutonic fury -referring to the proverbial ferocity of the Teutones, or more generally the Germanic tribes of the Roman Empire period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri Cimbri, were an ancient people, either Germanic or Celtic who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones, fought the Roman Republic between 113 and 101 BC.
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| Jutland Peninsula |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jutes Jutes, were a Germanic people. (according to Bede) one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time in the Nordic Iron Age, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles. The Jutes are believed to have originated from the Jutland Peninsula and part of the North Frisian coast. In present times, the Jutlandic Peninsula consists of the mainland of Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany. North Frisia is also part of Germany. The Jutes invaded and settled in southern Britain in the late 4th century during the Age of Migrations, as part of a larger wave of Germanic settlement in the British Isles.
The Jutes, along with some Angles, Saxons and Frisians, sailed across the North Sea to raid and eventually invade Great Britain from the late 4th century onwards, either displacing, absorbing, or destroying the native peoples there. According to Bede, Jutes settled in: Kent, where they established Cantaware; the Isle of Wight, where they established the kingdom of Wihtwara; the area known later as Hampshire, where they established the kingdoms of: Meonwara and Ytene… There is also evidence that the Haestingas people who settled in the Hastings area of Sussex, in the 6th century, may also have been Jutish in origin… The culture of the Jutes of Kent shows more signs of Roman, Frankish, and Christian influence than that of the Angles or Saxons. Funerary evidence indicates that the pagan practice of cremation ceased relatively early and jewellery recovered from graves has affinities with Rhenish styles from the Continent, perhaps suggesting close commercial connections with Francia.
Source: (3) Venerable Saint Bede (1723). The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. (4) The Germanic invasions of Britain. (5) Invaders (Historic UK)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Jutes 1911, Britannica/Jutes. |
| Britain c. 575 |
*Indigenous British groups -who adopted some aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language. Map: Great Britain, 5th century AD, before the invasion and subsequent founding of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Brittonic; Pictish (Scotland); Goedelic (Irish)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Britons Celtic Britons. Ancient Britons were those ancient inhabitants of the island of Great Britain who spoke the Celtic Common Brittonic language, which diversified into a group of related Celtic languages such as Welsh, Cornish, Pictish, Cumbric and Breton. The Britons lived all over the island of Great Britain and on the surrounding islands and archipelagos such as Orkney, Shetland, and Herbrides and the Isle of Man, Ireland and inhabited by a different group of Celts, speaking Goidelic (or Gaelic). The coming of the Anglo-Saxons and Gaelic speaking Celts from the 5th century AD onwards, and the resulting gradual spread of the collection of dialects that would become the English language and Scots Gaelic, between them eventually extinguished Brittonic from much of its former territory by the 12th AD, leaving Brittonic speakers only in Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria and Brittany… although there is thought to have been little or no change to the genetic mixture at the start of the period, and relatively little by the end *language change but not genetic change. During the 18th century however, and particularly after the Acts of Union 1707 the terms British and Briton would gradually come to be applied not just to the remaining Brittonic peoples themselves, but to all the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, including the English, Scottish and Northern Irish.
By about 750 AD, much former Brittonic territory had been gradually absorbed by newcomers, in the form of the Anglo-Saxons (or English) and Gaelic speaking Scots, both of whom began to arrive from Continental Europe and Northern Ireland respectively in the decades following the End of Roman rule in Britain in the late 4th century AD.
...After the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, a Romano-British culture emerged, and Latin and British Vulgar Latin coexisted with Brittonic. Prior to, during and after the Roman era, the Britons lived throughout Britain south of the Firth of Forth. Their relationship with the Picts, who lived north of the Firth of Forth, has been the subject of much discussion, though most scholars accept that the Pictish language was indeed a form of Common Brittonic, rather than a separate Celtic language.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was originally compiled by the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately 890, and subsequently maintained and added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the 12th century, starts with this sentence: “The island Britain is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad, and there are in the island five nations: English, Welsh (or British, including the Cornish), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward.” (Armenia” is possibly a mistaken transcription of Armorica, an area in northwestern Gaul including modern Brittany.)
The Latin name in the early Roman Empire period was Britanni or Brittanni, following the Roman conquest in AD 43. |
| (Modern) Brittany |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany Brittany, is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Covering the western part of Armorica, as it was known during the period of Roman occupation, Brittany subsequently became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as if it were a separate nation under the crown. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain) -Bretons
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Europe, 476. *(England) Bretons, Angles, Saxons, Jutes
(Franks) Frisians, Saxons (peninsula) Angles, Jutes *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons |
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| Angeln, (Southern) Schleswig-Holstein, Germany closest city Flensburg *Jutland Peninsula |
*archaeological evidence, saucer and cruciform brooches (fibula) worn by the women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibula_(brooch) Fibula, a brooch or pin for fastening garments (photo) Germanic fibulae, 5th century
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| Saxons ca 530 AD |
Ethnonym. Anglo-Saxons… became the name of the peoples… a term that was rarely used by the Anglo-Saxons themselves… Also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest (1066). The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, ‘Saxones’ who attacked the shores of Britain and Gaul in the 3rd century AD. Procopius (principal Byzantine historian) states that Britain was settled by three races: the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in continental writing of the 8th century… to distinguish the English Saxons from the continental Saxons -the name therefore seemed to mean “English” Saxons… The first use of the term Anglo-Saxon amongst the insular sources is in the titles for Athelstan (most glorious king of the Anglo-Saxons and of the Danes) (king of the Anglo-Saxons and emperor of the Northumbrians, governor of the pagans, and defender of the Britons). Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex.. Ethelred used Engla cyningc (King of the English). King Cnut was the first to refer to the land and not the people, ealles Englalandes cyningc (King of all England). These titles express the sense that the Anglo-Saxons were a Christian people with a king anointed by God… Catherine Hills suggests that it is no accident, “that the English call themselves by the name sanctified by the Church, as that of a people chosen by God, whereas their enemies use the name originally applied to piratical raiders” (Germanic raiders).
Early Anglo-Saxon history (410-660). covers the history of medieval Britain that starts from the end of Roman rule -the Migration Period -a period of intensified human migration in Europe from 400 to 800. The migrants were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii and Franks; they were later pushed westwards by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Alans. By the year 400, southern Britain -that is Britain below Hadrian’s Wall -was a peripheral part of the western Roman Empire, occasionally lost to rebellion or invasion, but until then always eventually recovered. Around 410, Britain slipped beyond direct imperial control into a phase which has generally been termed “sub-Roman”.
Migration (c. 410-c. 560). Heinrich Harke states: It is now widely accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes. Writing c. 540 Gildas mentions that, sometime in the 5th century, a council of leaders in Britain agreed that some land in the east of southern Britain would be given to the Saxons on the basis of a treaty, a foedus, by which the Saxons would defend the Britons against attacks from the Picts and Scoti in exchange for food supplies. The most contemporaneous textual evidence is the Chronica Gallica of 452 which records for the year 441: “The British provinces, which to this time had suffered various defeats and misfortunes, are reduced to Saxon rule.” (archeological evidence agrees with this earlier timescale)... three phases of settlement: an exploration phase, when mercenaries came to protect the resident population; a migration phase, which was substantial as implied by the statement that Anglus was deserted; and an establishment phase, in which Anglo-Saxons started to control areas, implied by Bede’s statement about the origins of the tribes… By around 500 the Anglo-Saxon migrants were established in southern and eastern Britain.
What happened to the indigenous Brittonic people is also subject to question… while “culturally, the later Anglo-Saxons and English did emerge as remarkably un-British,... their genetic, biological makeup is none the less likely to have been substantially, indeed predominantly, British”. The development of Anglo-Saxon culture is described by two processes. One is similar to culture changes observed in Russia, North Africa and parts of the Islamic world, where a powerful minority culture becomes, over a rather short period, adopted by a settled majority.
The second process is explained through incentives: language was a key indicator of ethnicity in early England. In circumstances where freedom at law, acceptance with the kindred, access to patronage, and the use and possession of weapons were all exclusive to those who could claim Germanic descent, then speaking Old English without Latin or Brittonic inflection had considerable value.
By the middle of the 6th century, some Brythonic people in the lowlands of Britain had moved across the sea to form Brittany, and some had moved west, but the majority were abandoning their past language and culture and adopting the new culture of the Anglo-Saxons -barriers began to dissolve between peoples… Brythonic names appear in the lists of Anglo-Saxon elite. The Wessex royal line was traditionally founded by a man named Cerdic, an undoubtedly Celtic name ultimately derived from Caratacus. This may indicate that Cerdic was a native Briton, and that his dynasty became anglicised over time…
Development of an Anglo-Saxon society (560-610). In the last half of the 6th century, four structures contributed to the development of society; they were position and freedoms of the ceorl (a freeman of the lowest class, ranking directly below a thane -a man who held land granted by the king or by a military nobleman, ranking between an ordinary freeman and a hereditary noble), the smaller tribal areas coalescing into larger kingdoms, the elite developing from warriors to kings, and Irish monasticism developing under Finnian and his pupil Columba. The Anglo-Saxon farms of this period are often falsely supposed to be “peasant farms”. However, a ceorl, who was the lowest ranking freeman in early Anglo-Saxon society, was not a peasant but an arms-owning male with the support of a kindred, access to law and the wergild (aka man price, a value placed on every being and piece of property); situated at the apex of an extended household working at least one hide of land. The farmer had freedom and rights over lands, with provision of a rent or duty to an overlord who provided only slight lordly input. Most of this land was common outfield arable land that provided individuals with the means to build a basis of kinship and group cultural ties.
The Tribal Hidage lists thirty-five peoples, or tribes, with assessments in hides, which may have originally been defined as the area of land sufficient to maintain one family. The assessments in the Hidage reflect the relative size of the provinces. Although varying in size, all thirty-five peoples of the Tribal Hidage were of the same status, in that they were areas which were fueled by their own elite family (or royal houses), and so were assessed independently for payment of tribute. By the end of the sixth century, larger kingdoms had become established on the south or east coasts…
By the end of the sixth century, the leaders of these communities were styling themselves as kings, though it should not be assumed that all of them were Germanic in origin. The Bretwalda concept is taken as evidence of a number of early Anglo-Saxon elite families (the ability of leaders to extract tribute, overawe and/or protect the smaller regions)... Ostensibly “Anglo-Saxon” dynasties variously replaced one another in this role in a discontinuous but influential and potent roll call of warrior elites. Importantly, whatever their origin or whenever they flourished, these dynasties established their claim to lordship through their links to extended kin ties -”they all just happened to be related back to Woden”.
The process from warrior to cyning -Old English for king (described in Beowulf -translated): There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, A wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. This terror of the hall-troops had come far. A foundling (infant abandoned by its parents, discovered and cared for by others) to start with, he would flourish later on As his powers waxed and his worth was proved. In the end each clan on the outlying coasts Beyond the whale-rod had to yield to him And begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. (Jody Gray): the ‘foundling’ is common in legend -of unknown parentage…
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| Lindisfarne Gospels c. 700 |
In June 597 Columba died… Augustine (of Canterbury, “Apostle to the English”) landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to King Ethelberht’s main town of Canterbury. Pope Gregory the Great (pope of the Catholic Church -famous for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome to convert a pagan people to Christianity -successfully established papal supremacy) chose him in 595 to lead the Gregorian mission to Britain to Christianise the Kingdom of Kent from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism. Kent was probably chosen because Ethelberht had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the King of Paris, who was expected to exert some influence over her husband -he was converted, churches were established and wide-scale conversion began… Ethelberht’s law for Kent instituted a complex system of fines…
In 635 Aidan, an Irish monk from Iona chose the Isle of Lindisfarne to establish a monastery and close to King Oswald’s main fortress of Bamburgh… Oswald (was) determined to make Northumbria Christian… Later, Northumberland’s patron saint, Saint Cuthbert, was an abbot of the monastery… An anonymous life of Cuthbert written at Lindisfarne is the oldest extant piece of English historical writing, and in his memory a gospel was placed in his coffin. The decorated leather bookbinding is the oldest intact European binding.
In 664, the Synod of Whitby was convened and established Roman practice (in style of tonsure and dates of Easter) as the norm in Northumbria, and thus “brought the Northumbrian church into the mainstream of Roman culture.”
Middle Anglo-Saxon history (660-899). By 660 the political map of Lowland Britain had developed with smaller territories coalescing into kingdoms, from this time larger kingdoms started dominating the smaller kingdoms. The development of kingdoms, with a particular king being recognised as an overlord, developed out of an early loose structure… Simon Keynes suggests that the 8th and 9th century was period of economic and social flourishing which created stability both below the Thames and above the Humber. Many areas flourished and their influence was felt across the continent, however in between the Humber and Thames, one political entity grew in influence and power and to the East these developments in Britain attracted attention.
Mercian supremacy (628-821). Middle-lowland Britain was known as the place of the Mierce, the border or frontier folk, in Latin Mercia. Mercia was a diverse area of tribal groups, as shown by the Tribal Hidage; the peoples were a mixture of Brythonic speaking peoples and “Anglo-Saxon” pioneers… Although there are many gaps in the evidence, it is clear that the seventh-century Mercian kings were formidable rulers who were able to exercise a wide-ranging overlordship from their Midland base.
...In 676 Ethelred, King of Mercia, conducted a ravaging in Kent and caused such damage in the Rochester diocese that two successive bishops gave up their position because of lack of funds… The East Saxons seem to have lost control of London, Middlesex and Hertfordshire to Ethelbald, although the East Saxon homelands do not seem to have been affected… The Mercian influence and reputation reached its peak when, in the late 8th century, the most powerful European ruler of the age, the Frankish king Charlemagne, recognised the Mercian King Offa’s power…
Learning and monasticism (660-793). The “Golden Age”, when learning flourishes with a renaissance in classical knowledge (fluent in Greek and Latin)... Anglo-Saxon monasticism developed the unusual institution of the “double monastery”, a house of monks and a house of nuns, living next to each other, sharing a church but never mixing, and living separate lives of celibacy -they were presided over by abbesses, some of the most powerful and influential women in Europe. Double monasteries which were built on strategic sites near rivers and coasts, accumulated immense wealth and power over multiple generations (their inheritances were not divided) and became centers of art and learning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea North Sea, Territorial Waters, is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. It connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. Historically, the North Sea has featured prominently in geopolitical and military affairs, particularly in Northern Europe but also globally through the power northern Europeans projected worldwide during much of the Middles Ages and into the modern era. The North Sea was the center of the Vikings’ rise.
The coast of the North Sea: in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats.
The Viking Age began in 793 with the attack on Lindisfarne and for the next quarter-millennium the Vikings ruled the North Sea. In the superior longships, they raided, traded, and established colonies and outposts on the sea’s coasts. From the Middle Ages through the 15th century, the northern European coastal ports exported domestic goods, dyes, linen, salt, metal goods and wine. The Scandinavian and Baltic areas shipped grain, fish naval necessities, and timber. In turn the North Sea countries imported high grade cloths, spices, and fruits from the Mediterranean region. Commerce during this era was mainly undertaken by maritime trade due to underdeveloped roadways.
West Saxon hegemony and the Anglo-Scandinavian Wars (793-878). The 9th century saw the rise of Wessex, from the foundations laid by King Egbert in the first quarter of the century to the achievements of King Alfred the Great in its closing decades. The outlines of the story are told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though the annuals represent a West Saxon point of view. On the day of Egbert’s succession to the kingdom of Wessex, in 802, a Mercian ealdorman from the province of Hwicce had crossed the border at Kempsford, with the intention of mounting a raid into northern Wiltshire; the Mercian force was met by the local ealdorman, “and the people of Wiltshire had the victory”. In 829 Egbert went on, the chronicler reports, to conquer “the kingdom of Mercians and everything south of the Humber”. It was at this point that the chronicler chose to attach Egbert’s name to Bede’s list of seven overlords, adding that “he was the eighth king who was Bretwalda”... Egbert’s ‘bipartite’ kingdom is crucial as it stretched between the West Saxon dynasty and the rulers of the Mercians. In 860 the eastern and western parts of the southern kingdom were united by agreement between the surviving sons of King Ethelwulf, though the union was not maintained without some opposition from within the dynasty; and in the late 870s King Alfred gained the submission of the Mercians under their ruler Ethelred, who in other circumstances might have been styled a king, but who under the Alfredian regime was regarded as the ‘ealdorman’ of his people.
The wealth of the monasteries and the success of the Anglo-Saxon society attracted the attention of people from continental Europe, mostly Danes and Norwegians. Due to the plundering raids that followed, the raiders attracted the name Viking -from the Old Norse víkingr meaning an expedition -which soon became used for the raiding activity or piracy reported in western Europe. In 793, Lindisfarne was raided and while this was not the first raid of its type it was the most prominent. A year later Jarrow, the monastery where Bede wrote, was attacked; in 795 Iona…
Viking raids continued until in 850, then the Chronicle says: “The heathen for the first time remained over the winter”... the army which arrived in 865 remained over many winters, and part of it later settled what became known as the Danelaw. This was the “Great Army”, a term used by the Chronicle… The invaders were able not only to exploit the feuds between and within the various kingdoms, but to appoint puppet kings, Ceolwulf in Mercia in 873… and perhaps others in Northumbria in 867 and East Anglia in 870. The third phase was an era of settlement; however, the ‘Great Army’ went wherever it could find the richest pickings, crossing the Channel when faced with resolute opposition, as in England in 878, or with famine, as on the Continent in 892. By this stage the Vikings were assuming ever increasing importance as catalysts of social and political change. They constituted the common enemy, making the English the more conscious of a national identity which overrode deeper distinctions; they could be perceived as an instrument of divine punishment for the people’s sins, raising awareness of a collective Christian identity; and by ‘conquering’ the kingdoms of the East Angles, the Northumbrians and the Mercians they created a vacuum in the leadership of the English people.
Danish settlement continued in Mercia in 877 and East Anglia in 879-80 and 896. The rest of the army meanwhile continued to harry and plunder on both sides of the Channel, with new recruits evidently arriving to swell its ranks, for it clearly continued to be a formidable fighting force. At first, Alfred responded by the offer of repeated tribute payments. However, after a decisive victory at Edington in 878, Alfred offered vigorous opposition. He established a chain of fortresses across the south of England, reorganised the army, “so that always half its men were at home, and half out on service, except for those men who were to garrison the burhs”, and in 896 ordered a new type of craft to be built which could oppose the Viking longships in shallow coastal waters. When the Vikings returned from the Continent in 892, they found they could no longer roam the country at will, for wherever they went they were opposed by a local army. After four years, the Scandinavians therefore split up, some to settle in Northumbria and East Anglia, the remainder to try their luck again on the Continent.
King Alfred and the rebuilding (878-899). More important to Alfred that his military and political victories were his religion, his love of learning, and his spread of writing throughout England…
Reform and formation of England (899-978). During the course of the 10th century, the West Saxon kings extended their power first over Mercia, then into the southern Danelaw, and finally over Northumbria, thereby imposing a semblance of political unity on peoples, who nonetheless would remain conscious of their respective customs and their separate pasts. The prestige, and indeed the pretensions, of the monarchy increased, the institutions of government strengthened, and kings and their agents sought in various ways to establish social order. This process started with Edward the Elder -who with his sister, Ethelflaed (Ethelfled), Lady of the Mercians, initially, charters reveal, encouraged people to purchase estates from the Danes, thereby to reassert some degree of English influence in territory which had fallen under Danish control… When Ethelred died, Mercia was absorbed by Wessex. From that point on there was no contest for the throne, so the house of Wessex became the ruling house of England.
Edward the Elder was succeeded by his son Athelstan… Athelstan’s victory over a coalition of his enemies -Constantine, King of Scots, Owain ap Dyfnwal, King of the Cumbrians, and Oalf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin -at the battle of Bruanburh (937), opened the way for him to be hailed as the first king of England. Athelstan’s legislation shows how the king drove his officials to do their respective duties… his claim to be “king of the English” was by no means widely recognised. The situation was complex: the Hiberno-Norse (Vikings who settled in Ireland and Scotland) rulers of Dublin still coveted their interests in the Danish kingdom of York; terms had to be made with the Scots, who had the capacity not merely to interfere in Northumbrian affairs, but also to block a line of communication between Dublin and York; and the inhabitants of northern Northumbria were considered a law unto themselves… the major political problem for Edmund and Eadred, who succeeded Athelstan, remained the difficulty of subjugating the north. In 959 Edgar is said to have “succeeded to the kingdom both in Wessex and in Mercia and in Northumbria, and he was then 16 years old”...
Edward the Elder was succeeded by his son Athelstan… Athelstan’s victory over a coalition of his enemies -Constantine, King of Scots, Owain ap Dyfnwal, King of the Cumbrians, and Oalf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin -at the battle of Bruanburh (937), opened the way for him to be hailed as the first king of England. Athelstan’s legislation shows how the king drove his officials to do their respective duties… his claim to be “king of the English” was by no means widely recognised. The situation was complex: the Hiberno-Norse (Vikings who settled in Ireland and Scotland) rulers of Dublin still coveted their interests in the Danish kingdom of York; terms had to be made with the Scots, who had the capacity not merely to interfere in Northumbrian affairs, but also to block a line of communication between Dublin and York; and the inhabitants of northern Northumbria were considered a law unto themselves… the major political problem for Edmund and Eadred, who succeeded Athelstan, remained the difficulty of subjugating the north. In 959 Edgar is said to have “succeeded to the kingdom both in Wessex and in Mercia and in Northumbria, and he was then 16 years old”...
Ethelred and the return of the Scandinavians (978-1016). The reign of King Ethelred the Unready witnessed the resumption of Viking raids on England, putting the country and its leadership under strains as severe as they were long sustained. Raids began on a relatively small scale in the 980s, but became far more serious in the 990s, and brought the people to their knees in 1009-12, when a large part of the country was devastated by the army of Thorkell the Tall -(Jomsvikings, a semi-legendary order of Viking mercenaries). It remained for Swein Forkbeard, king of Denmark, to conquer the kingdom of England in 1013-14, and (after Ethelred’s restoration) for his son Cnut to achieve the same in 1015-16… Raids were signs of God punishing his people… In 1016 Ethelred died of illness, leaving his son and successor Edmund Ironside to defend the country. The final struggles were complicated by internal dissension, and especially by the treacherous acts of Ealdorman Eadric of Mercia, who opportunistically changed sides to Cnut’s party. After the defeat of the English and Cnut agreed to divide the kingdom so that Edmund would rule Wessex and Cnut Mercia, but Edmund died soon after his defeat in Nov. 1016, making it possible for Cnut to seize power over all England.
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