The Vikings and Alfred the Great PDF

SECONDARY ONE HISTORY The Vikings and Alfred the Great One day in June 793 monks on the ‘Holy Island’ of Lindisfarne noticed some strange ships coming towards them. They had carved figureheads’...

SECONDARY ONE HISTORY The Vikings and Alfred the Great One day in June 793 monks on the ‘Holy Island’ of Lindisfarne noticed some strange ships coming towards them. They had carved figureheads’ and brightly coloured sails as well as oars. The ships landed and out leapt a bang of fierce warriors wearing shirts of chain-mail and metal helmets. Armed with swords and battle-axes, the raiders attacked the surprised monks. They ransacked and burned the monastery and its church, and slaughtered some cattle to restock their ships with meat. Then they sailed away with their plunder, before help could come from the mainland of Northumbria. These mysterious sea-raiders came from the Scandinavian lands of northern Europe. In their language a viking was a pirate, and to go a-viking meant an adventure overseas. This is how they got their name; although some of their victims called them simply ‘Northmen’. Undefended monastery churches, with gold candlesticks, cups and other valuable ornaments, were obvious targets for these heathen pirates. They were back in 794 to ransack the church at Jarrow. In the next year St Columba’s monastery on Iona was plundered. Remains of the west front of Lindisfarne priory, scene of the Viking raid in 793. In the distance Lindisfarne Castle can be seen 29  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY All over the country people prayed: ‘From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us’. But these raids were just a start. For more than 200 years no part of the coasts of western Europe was safe from the merciless Vikings. Whenever the striped sails of their ships appeared on the horizon people fled in terror. Masters of the seas It was the skill of the Vikings as sailors and the excellence of their ships that made them such deadly enemies. They could strike without warning at any point along thousands of miles of coastline. Viking ships were a great improvement on the rowing galleys that carried the English settlers to Britain. Each had a proper keel, or ‘backbone’, made of a single length of oak. This gave sufficient strength to stand the strain 30  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY of a mast and a large square sail. The steer-board, or rudder, was shaped like the blade of an oar and fixed on the right-hand side of the hull, near the stern. This side of a ship is still called the starboard (from steer-board). A few well preserved Viking ships have been discovered. Perhaps the best example was found in 1880, under a burial mound at Gokstad, near Oslo. A thick layer of blue clay had kept out water and thus saved most of the wood from rotting. The ‘Gokstad ship’ was buried about A.D 900. It was only ten feet longer than a cricket pitch, yet it was able to ride the great Atlantic waves. Although it had a sail its main power came from sixteen oars on each side, which fitted through holes in the oak hull. The total crew was about forty or fifty-all warriors as well as oarsmen. The seaworthiness of these graceful vessels was shown in 1893, when an exact copy of the Gokstad ship was sailed across the Atlantic, from Norway of Newfoundland. Under sail, speeds of ten or eleven knots were reached, and the crossing took only 28 days. The ship came through several storms undamaged. Its captain, Magnus Andersen, praised its excellent steering and the way its springy sides bent with the waves. The Vikings were not just cruel ruffians. In some ways they were more advanced than their southern neighbours. At a time when most European sailors kept within sight of land, Vikings could steer directly across open sea. They set their course by the position of the sun, or the pole-star after dark. If they met storms or fog they drifted aimlessly, but when the sky cleared they could correct their course. These skilful and adventurous men were among the greatest sailors the world has known. The voyages of the Norsemen There were three main Viking races – Norwegians, Danes and Swedes. Most of the sea-raids on Europe were made by Norwegians and Danes. The Swedes were mainly interested in trade. Swedish merchants crossed the Baltic Sea and traveled up the great rivers of Asia and eastern Europe. Some settled round the shores of the Black Sea and traded with the Byzantines and Arabs. These peoples called them Rus, and that is how Russia got its name. 31  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY The earliest raids on Britain were made by the Norwegians or ‘Norsemen’. They left their coastal fjords (creeks) in the spring and returned with the west winds of autumn. Plunder was not their only aim. They were also searching for new places to live. Good farming land is scarce in mountainous Norway, and at this time there was probably a rise in the population. About the year 800, Norsemen began to settle on the treeless islands to the north and west of Scotland: the Shetlands, Orkneys, Faroes and Hebrides. They brought their families and lived by farming, fishing and seal-hunting. These islands were ideal bases for attacks on Ireland. By 820, according to an Irish chronicle, ‘…there was not habour or landing-place…without fleets of Vikings’. From Ireland, Norse farmers settled in the Isle of Man and parts of north-western England. Some married Celtic women and were converted to Christianity. Lonely Iceland was the next place to be settled by Norsemen. Although it was too cold for growing grain crops it had grassy regions suitable for cattle and sheep. By about 950 a large Viking colony had grown up there. Present-day Icelanders are descended mainly from these settlers and the Irish women and slaves they took with them. Later sagas (stories) of the Icelanders describe further voyages they made across the unknown Atlantic Ocean. In 982, a tough Norseman called Eric the Red (he had red hair) killed a man and was banished from Iceland for three years. He spent the time exploring a snow-covered land to the west, which had earlier been sighted by fishermen. After much searching he found a few areas of grassland along the coast. When Eric returned to Iceland he called his new country ‘Green Land’. He thought people would want to go there if it had an attractive name! Sure enough, when Eric went back to Greenland he was followed by shiploads of settlers. They must have been disappointed when they found it was not green at all, but mostly white with snow and ice. Nevertheless they stayed on, and other settlers followed. Archaeologists have unearthed some of their stone dwellings, thickly covered with turf to keep out the biting cold. According to a saga written in the twelfth century, a man called Bjarni lost his way while sailing to Greenland in 986. Three times he sighted a strange coast, where trees grew in large numbers. But because it was not like reports he 32  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY heard of Greenland he went on, without landing, until he found his destination. If this story is true Bjarni was the first white man to see the American continent 500 years before the famous voyage of Columbus. The saga tells us that a few years later (about A.D. 1000) Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the Red, decided to go and explore this new country. Using Bjarni’s information to set his course, Leif came to a land covered with dense forest. Then, sailing southwards into warmer regions, he came to a pleasant spot where grape-vines grew wild. There was no frost during the winter, and the grass did not wither very much…Leif named the country after its fruits and called it Vinland (Wineland). This seemed an ideal place for Norse settlement. Several expeditions followed, and landings were made along hundreds of miles of the North American coast. But as far was we know all attempts to establish settlements failed, because of attacks by people the Norsemen called Skraelings. These were probably Red Indians. At present archaeologists are searching for evidence to back up the Icelandic sagas. In Newfoundland they have unearthed a group of dwellings similar to those found in other Viking settlements. Nearby, they have found evidence of iron-making, which experts have dated to the eleventh century. This is very exciting, because we know that neither Red Indians nor Eskimos were then able to make iron. Danish attacks At the time of the early Norse settlements around the British Isles, Danish Vikings were spreading panic in France, Germany and eastern England. At first, they plundered coastal villages and monasteries. Then they grew bolder and sailed up great rivers, including the Rhine, Seine and Loire, bringing destruction deep into the heart of the countryside. In 845 a large Danish fleet sailed nearly 200 miles up the Seine to ransack Paris. Soon almost every Frankish town had been destroyed. Parts of North Germany suffered a similar fate. And in the years 33  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY (859-62) a mixed band of Vikings sailed south rounded Gibraltar and raided the Mediterranean coast as far as Italy. The first big Danish attack on England was in 835, when they plundered the Isle of Sheppey, in the Thames estuary. During the next thirty years, Danes raided some parts of England almost every summer. We are told that there was not a single church left standing within a day’s ride of the sea. It was just a matter of time before the fertile soil of England was invaded by these land- hungry Vikings. This happened in the autumn of 865, when a Danish ‘Great Army’ landed in East Anglia. The invaders rounded up horses and swiftly conquered most of eastern England. The ruling families of Northumbria and East Anglia were massacred, and their kingdoms came to an end. Dozens of monasteries were destroyed, together with their precious books. Later in 871 the Great Army set up a base near Reading and prepared to attack Wessex-the strongest English kingdom. If the West Saxons were defeated the whole country would be at the mercy of the Danes. Alfred versus Guthrum King Ethelred and his brother Alfred led the men of Wessex straight into the attack. They failed to storm the Danish stronghold at Reading but when the enemy advanced into open country they defeated them in a great battle on the Berkshire Downs. It is said that the King was praying for victory as the Danes drew near. He refused to be interrupted, so Alfred had to start fighting without him! The Danes quickly recovered and evened the score a fortnight later but they King Alfred’s Tower (1772) on one supposed were unable to press home their site of Egbert’s Stone, the mustering place victory. before the battle. 34  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY Ethelred died suddenly in April 871, leaving the kingdom and all England hopes in the hands of his brother. Alfred was only twenty-two yet he was already a tough and experienced soldier. Throughout the summer, the bitter struggle continued, but neither side was able to get on top. Altogether, nine battles were fought in 871. Both armies were exhausted, so they agreed to make peace. Alfred bribed the Danes with money to leave his kingdom. They rode off towards London and five years went by before they returned to Wessex. In the meantime, the Danes attacked Mercia and drove its king Burgred, across the seas. Wessex had lost its last ally. Part of the Great Army then gave up fighting. By 876, they had shared out a large area of Northumbria and settled down to farm and land. The rest of the Danes made a fresh attack to Wessex. Under their leader, Guthrum, they rode straight to Wareham, on the Dorset coast. Perhaps they aimed to meet reinforcements coming by sea. But if this was the plan, it failed, because 120 Viking ships were lost in a great storm. Guthrum now decided to avoid an open battle. After a long stay in Exeter he left Wessex and made camp at Gloucester (877). A second group of Danish warriors broke away and settled on the lands of eastern Mercia. If Alfred thought the danger was over he was mistaken. Early in January 878, Guthrum made a surprise raid on Wessex. His army was smaller than before but it caused panic among the West Saxons, who were still enjoying the Christmas festivities. Caught unprepared, many of them surrendered of fled across the channel. Alfred had no army - only a bodyguard of about 200 thanes and other follower. He retreated into the thick forest of Selwood, and then to the Somerset marshes. There the King established a stronghold, on the ‘island’ of Athelney, a patch of dry ground rising above the surrounding swamps and thickets. In later years, men made up stories about Alfred’s adventures during the dark days of retreat. It was said that the King disguised himself and accepted shelter in a peasant’s hut. One day the peasant’s wife was cooking some loaves, while Alfred 35  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY sat by the hearth. ‘But when the angry housewife saw the loaves she had set by the fire burning she rushed up and moved them…saying ‘You wretch! You’re only too fond of them when they’re nicely done; why can’t you turn them when you see them burning?’ Spring came and Alfred sent messengers to his thanes in the nearby shires. They were ordered to arm themselves, gather their followers, and be ready for a signal to meet the King at a secret place. Early in May, Alfred left Athelney and joined up with three or four thousand men from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. The deciding battle was about to be fought. Guthrum’s army waited below the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, at Edington. In the pale light of dawn, Alfred’s men formed a shield wall and charged down the grassy slopes. The Danes fought furiously with their two- headed axes, but they were outnumbered and finally forced to retreat. The West Saxons chased them for fifteen miles, to the Danish camp at Chippenham. After a fortnight’s siege Guthrum surrendered. The conquests of the Great Army were at an end. Danish settlements Peace was made and the Danes promised to leave Wessex for good. Guthrum was baptized a Christian, with Alfred as his godfather. Then he led his men across the country to East Anglia where they settled peacefully to plough the land and sow crops. Alfred was now the real ruler of all Englishmen living outside the Danish settlements. In 886 he made another pact with Guthrum, which fixed a frontier between the English lands and the Danelaw where Danish laws and customs were followed. The frontier went …up the Thames, and then up the River Lea to its source, then straight to Bedford, and up the River Ouse to Watling Street’ (the old Roman road). ‘Alfred and Guthrum’s Pact’ also forbade cattle stealing across the frontier, and declared that ‘If a man be killed, whether an Englishman or a Dane, we shall all place the same value (wergild) on his life. 36  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY The English living within the Danelaw seem to have been fairly treated. Most Danes cleared new land for themselves instead of driving the English from their homes. The names of Danish settlements have endings such as-by, -thorp or –thorpe (meaning village) and –toft (homestead). Some of these are important towns today for instance Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lowestoft. In Lincolnshire, where Danish place-names are most common, some country folk still call a farmhouse the ‘toft’. Although the threat of the Great Army was over, Alfred decided to strengthen his defences in case of future attack. Round the borders of Wessex he built a number of strongholds called burhs (this is where the wood ‘borough’ comes from). Some burhs were built at places like Exeter, Bath and Winchester, where the remains of old Roman walls could be patched up. But in most cases new earthen banks and ditches had to be made. Alfred also started building warships. They had sixty oars and were nearly twice as long as Danish ships. But it would be a long time before English sailors could match the skill of the Vikings. As well as building a navy, Alfred re-organised his army. Men had always disliked leaving their fields unattended just when it was time for sowing or harvesting. So in future only half the total force would have to fight. The other half would carry on farming. After a certain time the two halves changed places. The new West Saxon defences were soon put to the test. In 892 a large force of Danes crossed the Channel from France and landed on the Kent coast. In the next four years they plundered many parts of the Midlands and south-eastern England, living on stolen crops and slaughtered cattle. But most of Alfred’s burhs held firm. The invaders were finally defeated and forced to split up. Some settled in the Danelaw and the rest sailed back to try their luck in France. England now enjoyed a long period of peace. But Viking raids against the weak Frankish kingdom went on unchecked. In 911 French king, Charles ‘the Simple’, realized he could not get rid of the invaders and decided to come to terms with them. He invited a Viking chieftain named Rollo to become the lawful 37  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY duke of the lands, he controlled at the mouth of the River Seine. In return Rollo had to promise to protect Charles against further raids. Rollo and his followers were rough seafaring men. But once they settled down they quickly became more civilised. They mixed with the Franks, who converted them to Christianity and taught them to speak French. The ‘Duchy of the Northmen’ became known as Normandy. It grew bigger and more powerful. Timeline A.D 793 Viking attack on Lindisfarne 865 Danish ‘Great Army’ lands in England 871-99 Alfred ‘the Great’ King of Wessex 878 Alfred defeats Guthrum at Edington 911 Normandy founded by Rollo About 1000 Leif Ericsson lands in North America 38  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY The Kingdom of All England Alfred the Great is remembered as the king who saved England from the Danes. He defeated them in battle, built warships and strong-holds, or burhs, for defence, and reformed the army of Wessex. But these military achievements were only parts of his life’s work. Like Charlemagne, Alfred believed that studying, praying and making good laws were just as important as winning battles. Alfred – England’s schoolmaster Some time after the defeat of Guthrum, Alfred sent a letter to each of his bishops. Looking back to his childhood, he wrote: ‘I remembered how I saw, before everything was ravaged and burnt, that the churches all over England were filled with treasures and books’. But due to the destruction of monasteries and libraries by the Vikings, Alfred went on to say:’… when I came to the throne there were very few churchmen… who could understand their service books in England or translate even a letter from Latin into English’. Alfred was determined to restore learning and education in his kingdom. Just like Charlemagne, he invited scholars from home and abroad to his court. One of them was Bishop Asser, a Welshman, who later wrote a Life of Alfred. This book tells us a lot about the King. But we have to be careful how we use it because later writers and copyists altered the original text and added bits to it. 39  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY Alfred had no schooling in his youth. Like most Anglo-Saxon kings, he was brought up to be a soldier and to love hunting and the joys of the hall’. But when he was nearly forty years old he began to learn reading and writing, with the help of Bishop Asser. The King must have studied hard, especially during the long winter evenings, because after about five years he could write fairly good English and Latin. Up to Alfred’s time Englisc, as he called it, was mainly a spoken language. Songs, stories and poems were learned and recited, but few seem to have been written down. The laws of kings had to be written in English, because they were for all the people, not just the educated. But books were in Latin – the language of scholars and churchmen. Now Alfred decided it was time for a change. He wanted to translate certain important books in England. Then the sons of his thanes, who one day would help to govern the kingdom, could be taught to read in ‘the tongue we can all understand’. Only those that were ‘fit for higher learning’ or wanted to be priests would have to study Latin as well. Among the books translated by the King and his scholars were Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, Bede’s History of the England Church and People, and Universal History, written by a Roman called Orosius in the fifth century. The latter contained geography as well An extract from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is preserved in the British Museum, as history, and the translators put in London. Here some of the Danish invasions extra bits of information, especially about are described in English very different from that we speak today! the geography of northern Europe. Alfred played a large part in all this work. In the front of the Pastoral Rule it says ‘King Alfred translated every word of me into English.’ 40  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY History was one of Alfred’s special interests. He got scholars to find out all they could about the history of the English ever since the earliest settlements. Monastery records were collected, and also songs and stories that had been passed from one generation to the next. Then an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written – a kind of diary, but in years rather than days. For the earlier centuries it is little more than a register of kings and battles. But when it gets to Alfred’s time the Chronicle is very detailed. Copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were sent to a number of monasteries, where they were kept up to date. Seven different versions have been discovered, one of them continuing up to 1154. They all tell much the same story, although occasionally they contradict each other. From Alfred’s reign onwards the Chronicles are very accurate because events were recorded at the time they were happening. In 899, the chroniclers had sad news to report: ‘In this year, Alfred, son of Ethelwulf died, six days before All Saint’s Day… he had held the kingdom for one and a half years less than thirty.’ The Chronicle itself and Alfred’s own writings were his greatest memorial to future ages. He left many fine buildings as well – royal halls, new churches and monasteries. And he restored older churches that had been damaged in the Danish wars or were falling into decay. We also remember Alfred through his Code of Artist’s impression of an English soldier at the time of Alfred Laws. In this he tried to give special protection to his poorer and weaker subjects, who were often harshly treated by powerful landowners. No one summed up Alfred’s life better than the King himself, when he wrote: ‘I desired to live worthily… and to leave after my life… my memory in good works.’ 41  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY Re-conquest of the Danelaw Alfred’s kingdom passed to his son, Edward ‘the Elder’. He was an experienced soldier and he set out to increase the power of Wessex. His main aim was to conquer the Danelaw – the lands where the Danes had settled in eastern England. The Mercians, who no longer had a king of their own, fought on Edward’s side. They were led by his sister Ethelfleda who was known as the ‘First Lady of the Mercians’. The English made a two-pronged advance into the Danelaw, Edward from the south and Ethelfleda from the west. Like mice nibbling at cheese they conquered the land in small stages. In each newly-won area a burh was constructed just like those Alfred had built to protect Wessex. The Danes offered little serious resistance. By this time they had settled down and given up fighting. Most of them were prepared to accept Edward as their king provided they could go on farming in peace. This suited Edward because he did not intend to force them off the land. By 920 the conquest of the Danelaw was almost complete. The Danes were converted to Christianity, and churches and monasteries were built often at places where earlier abbeys had been destroyed by the Great Army. At the end of Edward’s reign (925) all the English in the South and Midlands looked to him as their king. Edward’s son Athelstan carried on where his father had left off. He took firm control of northern England, and even invaded Scotland. In 937 Athelstan was attacked by a large force of Scots, Britons and Norse settlers. But he crushed them in a great battle at Brunanburh, somewhere in Northumbria. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘Never before on this island…was a greater slaughter of a host made by the edge of the sword since the Angles and Saxons came here.’ Athelstan now called himself Rex Totius Britannae (King of all Britain) on his coins. His fame as a warrior had already spread far beyond the British Isles. Kings and dukes on the Continent sent him messages of friendship and beautiful gifts of gold and silver ornaments, weapons and decorated books. Athelstan gave richly in return. 42  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY Thus the kingdom of England grew out of the kingdom of Wessex. The Danes had helped to make this possible, although they did not realize it at the time. They destroyed the other kingdoms and so cleared the way for the union of all the English under a single king. Several centuries passed before the northern border with Scotland was fixed. But a start was made by King Edgar (959-75). He gave all the lands north of the River Tweed to Kenneth, king of the Scots. The Tweed still forms part of the Border today. Shires, hundreds and towns Once the Danelaw was conquered it was divided into shires; many of them centred round towns, such as Derby, Nottingham or Leicester. Shires had already been formed in most other parts of England. Some of the southern ones, including Kent and Sussex, began as separate kingdoms. Nowadays we call these local divisions counties. Most of them still have the boundaries that were fixed in Anglo-Saxon times. Each shire had its law court or shire moot, which met twice a year to deal with serious crimes and disputes. It was attended by important landowners, and a royal official called an ealdorman was in charge. He was the king’s representative in that area. Among his other duties he had to call up and lead the shire forces in wartime. In return for their service to the king, ealdormen (later called earls) were given money and large estates. Some became very powerful nobles, controlling several shires at once. Their ordinary duties in each shire were given over to a shire-reeve, or sheriff. By the eleventh century one or two earls were strong enough to challenge the power of the Crown. One of them, Harold Godwine, actually became king for a time in 1066. Ordinary villagers helped to run affairs in their own district. Shires were divided into smaller areas called hundreds which probably at first contained 100 ‘hides’ or households. In each there was a monthly meeting called the hundred moot where thieves, cattle-rustlers and other criminals were brought to justice. Commands from the king were read out by the leader of the meeting, known as the ‘hundred man’. 43  SECONDARY ONE HISTORY There were also burh moots in the towns. This reminds us that many English towns grew up at places where Alfred, Edward and Ethelfleda built burhs for defence against the Danes. Some of these were quite big. Winchester and Wallingford were each encircled by about two miles of defences. The protection given by these walled strongholds attracted merchants and craftsmen. They wanted market places where they could store and sell their goods in safety. Other towns grew up at harbours, crossroads, or beside cathedrals and large monasteries. London had long been the main centre of shipping and overseas trade. It received cargoes of wine, fish, timber and pepper; and exported wool, cheese and iron goods. Even in the eighth century Bede had described London as’… the market of many nations, coming to it by sea and land’. Canterbury and York the homes of the two archbishops, were also fairly large settlements at that time. These places were very different from modern towns. They looked more like overgrown villages, bordered by farmlands where corn grew and cattle grazed. Some town dwellers earned their living from the land. But most were merchants, clerks or craftsmen of some sort. So extra food had to be brought in from the countryside. One thing that would strike us about Anglo-Saxon towns would be the large number of churches. By the eleventh century there were about twenty in Norwich-roughly one for every 300 people. Churches were built of stone. So were the halls belonging to great nobles. But the houses of ordinary citizens were made of wood and thatch. Experts can only give a rough estimate of the size of these towns. London was almost certainly the biggest. It probably had a population of more than 10,000 by the eleventh century. York and Winchester were not far behind. Probably each had over 8,000 citizens. Winchester had long been the chief city of Wessex. The king’s main treasure was kept there. But it would be wrong to think of Winchester, or London, as the ‘capital’ of England. The King and his court still traveled around the country, and the Witan could be called to meet on any of the royal estates. 44