The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present by Rebecca Fraser Page B
Authors: Rebecca Fraser
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Vikings destroyed the beautiful and ancient monastery at Medeshamstede (Peterborough), killing the abbot and monks and burning the celebrated library. In East Anglia the brave young King Edmund led an army against them. But he was taken prisoner and then horribly murdered at Hoxne, twenty-five miles east of Bury St Edmunds: he was tied to a tree where he was used for archery practice before being beheaded. The abbey of the town of Bury St Edmunds was erected in the murdered king’s honour over his burial place. East Anglia too was now another kingdom of the Vikings.
In five years three of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, all the land north of London–that is Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria–had fallen to the Danes like ripe apples off a tree. Only Wessex remained Anglo-Saxon. The others were now in effect a huge Danish kingdom run according to Danish law. Thanks to poor and haphazard military organization and no fleet to protect their coasts they had been easy meat for any enemy with a standing army and an urge to conquer. Although the fyrd required men to spend forty days a year fighting, it was unpopular and its call often ignored. Of those who did respond most of its members preferred not to fight beyond their kingdom’s boundaries. Rather like jury service today the forty days might come at the worst possible moment, perhaps when the peasant farmer was desperate to bring his harvest in before it rained.
If the isolated raids earlier in the century had been terrible, the permanent presence of the marauding Danish Great Army gave daily life the oppressive feel of a never-ending nightmare. The Trewhiddle Hoard, an important collection of early church silver (now in the British Museum), was hidden in a tree by a priest who never came back for it. It is a mute memento of the continuous slaughter that took place and the destruction of a culture which had developed over two-and-a-half centuries. There is a chronicle written by an eyewitness, a monk of Croyland in the Fens, which gives a typical account of the arrival of a Viking war-party as it was experienced throughout England and describes how the soil shook beneath the pounding hooves of the heathen Danes’ armoured horses as they travelled from Lincolnshire to Norfolk. The abbot of Croyland and his monks were at their morning prayers when a terror-stricken fugitive ran in to tell them that the Vikings were on their way. Some of the monks took to their boats and rowed away from the monastery praying that in the mists and marshes of the Fens they would not be found. But the rest were slaughtered where they stood.
By the autumn of 870 the Danes decided to conquer the last of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England which remained independent, namely Wessex. But they had finally met their match. Although the present king of Wessex, Ethelred, was not gifted with determination and was more concerned with his spiritual life than with preserving the safety of the kingdom, his younger brother and co-commander Alfred, who was soon to succeed him, was the heir to all the best qualities of West Saxon kingship. Alfred was the fourth and youngest son of King Ethelwulf, who had passed on to him a strong sense of his duty to resist the destruction of Christendom by the Vikings. Ethelwulf had also inspired Alfred with memories of the most constructive sort of Christian kingship handed on to him by his own father Egbert, who had spent his early life at the court of Charlemagne. Alfred was taken to Rome by his father at least twice on pilgrimages to invoke God’s goodwill towards Wessex and protect her from the Viking plague. Reflecting fears among the West Saxons that Christian civilization might die out in England because of the repeated attacks of the Danes, Ethelwulf had designated one-tenth of his kingdom’s revenues to be given to the Church to ensure that learning continued.
The sense of learning’s almost irreversible decline, now that so many monks and priests had been killed, was
In five years three of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, all the land north of London–that is Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria–had fallen to the Danes like ripe apples off a tree. Only Wessex remained Anglo-Saxon. The others were now in effect a huge Danish kingdom run according to Danish law. Thanks to poor and haphazard military organization and no fleet to protect their coasts they had been easy meat for any enemy with a standing army and an urge to conquer. Although the fyrd required men to spend forty days a year fighting, it was unpopular and its call often ignored. Of those who did respond most of its members preferred not to fight beyond their kingdom’s boundaries. Rather like jury service today the forty days might come at the worst possible moment, perhaps when the peasant farmer was desperate to bring his harvest in before it rained.
If the isolated raids earlier in the century had been terrible, the permanent presence of the marauding Danish Great Army gave daily life the oppressive feel of a never-ending nightmare. The Trewhiddle Hoard, an important collection of early church silver (now in the British Museum), was hidden in a tree by a priest who never came back for it. It is a mute memento of the continuous slaughter that took place and the destruction of a culture which had developed over two-and-a-half centuries. There is a chronicle written by an eyewitness, a monk of Croyland in the Fens, which gives a typical account of the arrival of a Viking war-party as it was experienced throughout England and describes how the soil shook beneath the pounding hooves of the heathen Danes’ armoured horses as they travelled from Lincolnshire to Norfolk. The abbot of Croyland and his monks were at their morning prayers when a terror-stricken fugitive ran in to tell them that the Vikings were on their way. Some of the monks took to their boats and rowed away from the monastery praying that in the mists and marshes of the Fens they would not be found. But the rest were slaughtered where they stood.
By the autumn of 870 the Danes decided to conquer the last of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England which remained independent, namely Wessex. But they had finally met their match. Although the present king of Wessex, Ethelred, was not gifted with determination and was more concerned with his spiritual life than with preserving the safety of the kingdom, his younger brother and co-commander Alfred, who was soon to succeed him, was the heir to all the best qualities of West Saxon kingship. Alfred was the fourth and youngest son of King Ethelwulf, who had passed on to him a strong sense of his duty to resist the destruction of Christendom by the Vikings. Ethelwulf had also inspired Alfred with memories of the most constructive sort of Christian kingship handed on to him by his own father Egbert, who had spent his early life at the court of Charlemagne. Alfred was taken to Rome by his father at least twice on pilgrimages to invoke God’s goodwill towards Wessex and protect her from the Viking plague. Reflecting fears among the West Saxons that Christian civilization might die out in England because of the repeated attacks of the Danes, Ethelwulf had designated one-tenth of his kingdom’s revenues to be given to the Church to ensure that learning continued.
The sense of learning’s almost irreversible decline, now that so many monks and priests had been killed, was
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