The Viking Influx

An account of the struggle between Viking invaders and the inhabitants of the British Isles

The inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland struggled for about two hundred and fifty years against the Viking raiders.  For many years they  contented themselves with quick assaults against a few mostly defenceless targets before disappearing over the sea with their ill-gotten gains. Eventually they began to establish permanent settlements and finally banded together in a Heathen Army to conquer whole swathes of Anglo-Saxon England. Their domination was curbed by Alfred the Great and the Danelaw was governed alongside the whole of England by his successors until a Danish resurgence occurred during the reign of the weak king Aethelred the Unraed.

Viking was a term which came into use at a later time to describe raiders from the sea coasts of Norway, Denmark and southern Sweden.  They were also known as Norsemen (from Norway) or Danes, but there was no national or ethnic difference between the various groups and the language of Old Norse was shared by all.

Their seamanship, navigation skills and shipbuilding technology was so good that they ventured over the Atlantic Ocean to Greenland and North America and down the Russian river system to Byzantium, the surviving eastern rump of the Roman Empire.

[swpm_protected custom_msg='If you wish to read or listen to the complete account of this section and gain permanent access to all the other parts of Annals Britannica, please Login now or Join via Credit/Debit card on PayPal for only £5.']

The Vikings made their first appearance in England in 793 when they destroyed the abbey at Lindisfarne and slaughtered the monks.  Soon they were making raids on shores and river inlets in every country of the British Isles.  They were violent men who stole what treasure they could find.  They killed the plough oxen and feasted on their flesh.  They carried off men, women and children into slavery.  Their chief targets, however, were the churches and monasteries where they knew they would find books, vestments and church ornaments richly decorated with gold, silver and gemstones.

For seventy years their raids on the British Isles were seasonal and sporadic, but eventually they launched an all-out attempt to conquer England.  In 865 a combined force of mainly Danish Vikings, which the Anglo-Saxons called the Great Heathen Army, invaded England.  By 874 Wessex, now ruled by King Alfred, was the last of the seven kingdoms left to oppose the Vikings.  Alfred came close to being overwhelmed before he finally rallied and won the vital battle of Edington in 878.  Alfred was not powerful enough to dislodge the Danes from the whole of England, but he made a treaty with his opponent Guthrum whereby Guthrum agreed to recognise Alfred’s control of West Mercia, including London, as well as Wessex.  Guthrum also ‘sealed the deal’ by converting to Christianity.  He and his followers went off to settle in East Anglia where he ruled as king until his death.

Other parts of the Danish army were beginning to settle in an area stretching from the River Tees in the north down to Bedford.  Five towns, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Stamford and Leicester, served as their political and military bases in the Mercian area of the Midlands. Together with Guthrum’s kingdom and the stronghold of Jorvik or York and its fiefdom of  a large part of the old kingdom of Northumberland, this large territory of eastern, and midland England became known as the Danelaw because, although it was most likely still populated by an Anglo-Saxon majority, Danish law and customs ruled and, to all intents and purposes, it was a Danish colony.

The Danes settled as farmers, traders and craftsmen and, for two generations, they lived relatively peaceably alongside their English neighbours.  The Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse languages, being somewhat similar in some respects, began to blend together as the two nations interacted with each other in the Danelaw area during this period.  Moreover, every year more Danes became Christians; the religion would shortly take root in Denmark itself.  The few monasteries which remained standing in England were less likely to be targets for Danish war bands in the future, and a certain amount of Anglo-Saxon/Danish intermarriage probably began to take place.

Meanwhile, their Viking brothers in arms had established themselves in the Orkney and Shetland Isles and in Ireland, where they founded Dublin.  They were also active around the coast of Cumbria and Scotland and in the Frankish kingdom across the English Channel, where they established the Duchy of Normandy.  During this period, the Welsh Britons, fearing the predatory intentions of the Vikings, chose to acknowledge Alfred and his successors as their overlord.

For some years the Danelaw coexisted alongside the English kingdom of Wessex which, under Alfred, developed into a well-organised and powerful state.  He fortified strongholds known as burhs, where people could seek refuge, and any Danish incursion could quickly be confronted by the permanent armed garrison from the nearest burh.  The English thegn was now a completely different soldier to his ancestor who took over the land from the Britons armed with little more than a trusty spear and shield and, occasionally, a sword for the better off.  Every thegn was now mounted on a horse, armed with a well-crafted sword and protected by a helmet and a shirt of chain mail.

Commanded by these well-armed and well-trained men, The Fyrd militia was divided in two: one half remained at home guarding their own and their neighbours’ property whilst the other half manned the burhs or, with a new, swift-moving cavalry element, went into the field against Vikings or more localised outlaws and robbers.  These policies effectively deterred Danish aggression and any English chieftain tempted to lead a war band against his fellow-countrymen.  The Anglo Saxon Chronicle claimed Alfred also funded a navy, consisting, of swifter and bigger ships with which to counter the Viking threat.

In addition to his military reputation, Alfred is remembered as a pious Christian ruler who devised and enforced a fair system of law and justice.  He also wrote or inspired the publication of many books, promoted the Old English language and made education central to his philosophy for improving the lot of his kingdom and its people.  His fame spread throughout Europe, where he was greatly respected by his contemporaries.  He came to be known as ‘Alfred the Great’, the only British monarch to earn that appellation.

Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder renewed the Anglo-Saxon struggle with the Danes and was assisted by his daughter Aethelflaed, who became the Lady of the Mercians when  she married the ruler of Anglo-Saxon West Mercia, a semi independent remnant of the former powerful kingdom,  They continued with great success the policy of building fortified burhs and eventually they over-ran the five towns of the Danelaw and also East Anglia in 918.

Although events are confusing because of the lack of real historical records, it seems the Viking world was suffered internal problems at this time. The Irish King of Leinster is reputed to have evicted Ragnald and his Norse Vikings from Dublin in 902.  Ragnald originally came to the Isle of Man after being ejected from Dublin and he eventually took over the Viking powerhouse of Jorvik or York in 919.  Jorvik was the last Viking stronghold to resist the Wessex takeover of England. Edward’s son Aethelstan completed the English offensive by taking control of York and the Danish-controlled kingdom of Anglian Northumbria.  All of England was now in Aethelstan's control and, from 927, Aethelstan became the first man to be known as the King of the English.

Aethelstan and his successors engaged in several attempts to establish a northern border with their new neighbours in the north, the Kings of Alba - soon to be known as Scotland.  In the process Lothian was detached from its long association with Northumbria and became part of Scotland.  The rest of the old kingdom of Northumbria recognised the king’s supremacy, but remained split between York, ruled by one or other Viking dynasty, and the old Bernicia ruled by the Anglo-Saxon Ealdorman of Bamburgh.

The English shires, nearly all of which survive to this day, were established in this period.  The power of the church, much weakened by the Viking attacks, was restored alongside monastic life under the auspices of St Dunstan the Archbishop of Canterbury, who became an influential advisor to Edgar the Peaceful.  This was indeed reputed to be an unusually peaceful period and a time of firm government and justice.

However, it was soon followed by further political insecurity when Edgar was succeeded by his eldest son Edward, a young man given to wild and unseemly behaviour, who became known as ‘the Martyr’ after he was murdered in the year 978 by members of the household staff of his step-mother, the dowager queen - Ælfthryth third wife of Edgar.  Her young son Aethelred took the crown.  He is known to history as ‘the Unready’ which is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon word unraed meaning badly advised.

With England ruled by a boy king whose court was riven by suspicion and disputes between a variety of factions, conditions were ripe for a renewal of Danish raids on the south and east coasts of England after the year 980.  Following defeat by a large Danish force at Maldon in Essex, Aethelred attempted to buy off the Danes with a payment of £10,000.  You cannot buy off a bully: he merely returns and asks for more.  This is what happened to Aethelred; further attacks by organised Danish forces extracted ever-increasing payments of Danegeld.

At one stage Aethelred apparently engaged some of the attackers to serve as mercenaries based in the Isle of Wight.  The hired mercenaries soon turned on their paymaster and joined their compatriots in harrying the south coast.  They were occasionally aided by fellow Vikings from across the channel who provided support and a safe haven in Normandy.  Elsewhere, the newcomers began to squeeze into areas of Eastern England already occupied by their kinsmen who had settled there during the previous century.  Anglo-Saxon neighbours were probably roughly treated and removed to make room for the new arrivals.

By the year 1002 the king was desperate.  He issued a command that all Danish men in England should be killed on St Brice’s Day 13^th November.  A massacre duly took place, most probably concentrated in southern England outside the Danelaw area.  One of the victims was allegedly the sister of the King of Denmark, Sweyn Forkbeard, who invaded with a powerful army and exacted retribution on areas of East Anglia which were not already dominated by Danish settlers.  However he was strongly resisted by the local ealdorman and desisted from leading further attacks for some years.  Nevertheless, English morale was destroyed in the next few years by constant Viking raids, despite the payment of ever-increasing amounts of Danegeld.  King Sweyn eventually returned to England in person and quickly took over the country in 1013.   Aethelred was forced to seek exile with his father in law in Normandy.  Sweyn Forkbeard was pronounced King of England.  However, five weeks after becoming king he suddenly died.

The Danelaw nobility immediately offered the crown to Sweyn’s son Cnut, but the ealdormen in the rest of England invited Aethelred to return, on condition that he addressed the people’s grievances and promised that he would govern them justly and forgive past offences against his majesty.  Only the people of Lindsay supported Cnut whole-heartedly, but he was forced to return to Denmark, leaving his allies in Lindsay to face the vengeance of Aethelred and his son Edmund, who earned the nickname ‘Ironside’ for his success in opposing the Danes.

However, Cnut returned the following year with a strong alliance of Vikings from all parts of Scandinavia.  The ealdormen of Mercia and East Anglia defected to his side, King Aethelred died and his successor, Edmund Ironside  was finally defeated.  Soon afterwards Ironside also died, leaving England entirely in the hands of  Cnut who (despite being married already) promptly married Emma, the widow of King Aethelred, by whom he had two more children.  Emma’s two sons and daughter by Aethelred remained safe in Normandy.  She is particularly noteworthy for twice becoming the queen consort of two kings of England; as Cnut’s wife she also became Queen of Denmark and Norway; furthermore, she was mother of two further kings of England: Harthacnut, son of Cnut and Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred.

Cnut mercilessly eliminated other claimants to the throne, notably Eadwig Aetheling, last surviving son of Aethelred the Unready by his first wife.  Despite those flashes of the old Viking cruelty, he turned out to be a shrewd and successful ruler of a North Sea empire consisting of England, Denmark, Norway and part of Sweden.  A professed Christian, he came to be well-regarded by the Church despite his bloody history and the concurrent maintenance of two wives.  Cnut made great efforts to enlist the powerful Church’s support and actively promoted Christianity among his Viking subjects.

England had become a country of mixed cultures and nationalities.  The Anglo-Saxons were more numerous, but large numbers of Danes also shared much of the country and a significant number of the old British stock lived in the far west.  With energy and intelligence Cnut set about forging these people into a single nation.  He tightened the reins of government, replacing the Anglo-Saxon concept of ealdorman with Scandinavian earls.  He appointed four powerful earls to have charge of areas equivalent to the four major kingdoms that preceded the unification of England.  By the end of his reign two of the earls were Anglo-Saxons of the powerful Godwin family, and their countrymen were included among his closest counsellors, demonstrating that Cnut had successfully moulded England into a multi-cultural whole.

Cnut’s marriage arrangements gave rise to a complex problem of royal succession.  At his death the Scandinavian Empire was already fracturing.  Norway was seeking independence from Denmark and his sons were faced with plausible Anglo-Saxon competitors for the English crown in the form of Emma's sons by Aethelred. Cnut's chosen heir Harthacnut, his son by Emma, was unable to leave Denmark due to the difficulties with Norway.  Harold Harefoot, Cnut’s second son by his first wife, acted as regent for his half-brother in England until the Witan, finding the king’s absence unsupportable, prevailed on Harefoot to take the crown.

During Harefoot’s brief reign, a prospective Anglo-Saxon claimant in the form of Aelfred, Emma’s younger son by her first husband Ethelred the Unready, came to England from Normandy and was captured by Earl Godwin.  Aelfred was blinded and died of his wounds; his retainers were put to death and their bodies were mutilated.  Queen Emma and her eldest son Edward were naturally appalled by the duplicity of Godwin and the outrage committed against their son and brother.

Harthacnut finally came to England and took the throne after the death of Harefoot.  However, he too died suddenly two years later and the dynasty of Danish rulers in England was ended.

The crown was awarded by the Witan to Edward, Emma’s eldest son by Aethelred the Unready, who is remembered by the soubriquet ‘the Confessor’ on account of his pious and abstemious life.  Edward and his wife, who was daughter of the powerful earl Godwin, had no children and he made plans to pass the crown on to the last remnant of the Wessex royal house.  He welcomed his nephew Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside, to England and treated him as a potential successor.  However, the Exile died almost immediately, leaving his six year old son Edgar to be brought up at Edward’s court.  He was called the Aetheling which meant crown-worthy or a potential successor.

The powerful Godwin family had other ideas.  When the Confessor died, the Witan chose Harold Godwinson, brother of Edward’s queen and an experienced soldier, to become his successor.  However, although Godwinson was the most powerful earl in England, he also had many enemies.  As King Harold II, he was immediately confronted by rebellion in the north, led by his own brother Tostig allied to King Harald Hardrada of Norway.  Hardrada’s claim to the English crown via a tenuous relationship to Cnut’s successors was almost as weak as the Godwin claim.  King Harold II marched north and won a battle outside York where his brother and the King of Norway were both killed.

The depleted troops of the Fyrd then marched south again to meet another dangerous foe.  Duke William of Normandy claimed Edward the Confessor had promised he would inherit the English crown, although that gift was ultimately in the hands of the Witan.  William always maintained that Harold Godwinson had also promised on oath to support his claim.  The two armies met at Hastings on October 14^th 1066.  After a long, hard-fought battle, during which Harold and most of the nobility of England were slaughtered, the old Anglo-Saxon/Danish rule established by earlier invaders over the previous 650 years, was destroyed.

Looking back over those centuries since bands of German settlers first came to England was, for the Englishman of 1066, like us looking back to Agincourt and the days before the Wars of the Roses.  Unlike us, they could not consult a continuous narrative of their history in these islands.  There were no records to help them recall with any certainty the early struggles of their Germanic forebears as they wrested the country from the hands of their Romano-British predecessors.

Nevertheless, those early years of conquest and settlement were recorded forever.  They are marked on our present-day maps, which are peppered with the names their Anglo-Saxon forefathers gave to the places where they built their homes and tilled their fields.  Places such as Hastings (the people of Haesta) recall the name of the particular leader who established the settlement.  As the Germanic migration increased, places were named after some local aspect such as Fordham (the home or settlement by a ford) and Ely (the island of eels).  There are scores of Suttons and Nortons (South farm and North farm) all over England.   Ham at the end of a place name usually means village or settlement.  Later still, a name recalls a particular action or activity; every place called -bury or -burgh was a place fortified by Alfred or his immediate descendants and cheap or chipping as an element in a name reveals it was a market.

The country was almost completely anglicised until the Vikings arrived in the 10^th century.  Their presence is witnessed by every place name ending in -by meaning village, -toft meaning hamlet and -thorpe meaning homestead.  In the north-west, which until then had largely remained in the hands of the Britons, we find Norse suffixes like –thwaite, a forest clearing.

In fact, the Old English language of 1066 was quite heavily infiltrated with the recent addition of Norse words and expressions.  It was more distant from the Germanic dialects of their ancestors than modern English is from the tongue of Geoffrey Chaucer.  But, even with a mass of Viking descendants in their midst, the English had become one nation.  Saxon southerners might have difficulty understanding the brogues of the north but they shared a common language and a basic framework of law and they lived within a common Christian heritage.  The Norman incomers ruled with a rod of iron, but they faced a stubborn, well-established common people wedded to their customary life and culture.

The same might also be claimed for the Gaelic Irish, now settling uneasily with their Norse neighbours who lived in the few townships of that land, and the British fiercely defending their Celtic culture in Wales. The emerging country of Scotland to the north was also evolving with combined Gaelic Irish, British, Anglian and Norse elements on a Pict background.

[/swpm_protected]