Athelstan

(c. 895-939) King of Wessex (r. 924-939) and the first Anglo-Saxon king to have effective rule over the whole of England. The son of Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, Athelstan was brought up in Mercia by his aunt Aethelflaed, the lady of the Mercians. On his father's death in 924, Aethelstan was elected king in both Wesswx and Mercia. On the death of its king, Sihtric Caech, in 927 Athelstan seized York and received the submission of the Northumbrians, so completing the West Saxon takeover of all England. Athelstan's growing power united against him a strong coalition of Olak Guthfrithsson, king of Dublin and claimant to the throne of York, Constantine II, king of the Scots, and the Britons of Strathclyde. Athelstan decisively routed the allies at the battle of Brunanburh in 937. Regarded as a mighty king by his contemporaries, Athelstan enjoyed close relations with many European rulers, and he married his half-sisters into the royal houses of France, Germany and Burgandy. Athelstan never married and was succeeded by his half brother Edmund.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. p 29

Battle of Brunanburh (937). Crushing victory of Athelstan, king of Wessex, over a colaition of Dublin Vikings, Scots and Strathclyde Britons led by Olaf Guthfrithsson of Dublin, at an unidentified location, probably in northern England. The battle was fought from dawn till dusk; when Olaf's army broke it was pursued by the West Saxons and Mercians, who cut down the fugitives. Though West Saxon losses were heavy, Olaf's army was cut to pieces and he himself barely escaped. Among the dead were five minor Norse kings, seven jarls and Cellach, the son of king Constantine II of the Scots. Olaf's aim had been to recapture York, seized by Athelstan in 927, and to curb the growing power of Wessex. Athelstan's victory was therefore an important step in the creation of a unified English kingdom.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 37-38

Aethelflaed

'lady of the Mercians' (d.918). Daughter of Alfred the Great, Aethelflaed was married to Ealdorman Aerheled of Mercia in 884. She ruled Mercia jointly with her husband, and after his death in 911 ruled alone for the remainder of her life. She gave permission for the Viking Ingamund to settle on the Wirral c.902 and refortified Chester in 907. after he attacked it c 905. She founded burhs at Eddisbury and Runcorn to block Viking expansion south of the River Mersey. From 912 she cooperated closely with her brother Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, in his campaign to conquer the Danelaw. In 917 Aethelflaed captured Derby, and in 918 Leicester surrendered to her. In the same year the Danes of York offered to submit to her, but she died before the offer could be acted upon. She was briefly succeeded by her daughter Aelfwynn, but in 919 Edward formally annexed Mercia to Wessex.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. p 19

Edward the Elder

(d.924) King of Wessex (r.899-924). Edward was the eldest son of Alfred the Great. His greatest achievement was the conquest of the Danelaw as far north of the River Humber. The first three years of his reign were spent suppressing the rebellion of his cousin Aethelwold, who allied with the East Anglican Danes to raid Mercia. Although Edward's army was defeated by the Danes at the Holme in 903, both Aethelwold and the Danish king Eorhic were killed. In 909 Edward invaded the kingdom of York: a Danish counter-attack in 910 was bloodily defeated at Terrenhall. With the Danes of York effectively eliminated, in 912 Edward embarked on the methodical conquest of the Danelaw, aided closely by his sister Aethelflaed of Mercia. After the unnamed Danish king of East Anglia was killed in battle at Tempsford, Bedfordshire, in 917, resistance in the Danelaw crumbled, and by the end of 918 Edward's conquest was complete. In parallel to his conquest of the Danelaw, Edward also absorbed Mercia into Wessex, seizing London, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire in 911, and the rest of the kingdom in 919 following the death of Aethelflaed (918). In the same year he occupied Manchester in the kingdom of York. Edward consolidated his conquests by building fortified burhs. The Mercians were not reconciled to the loss of their independence and they rebelled in alliance with the Welsh in 924. Edward died in Cheshire in the same year, suppressing the rebellion. After a brief succession crisis he was succeeded by his son Athelstan.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 61-62

Burhs

Anglo-Saxon fortified settlements, built mostly in the late 9th and early 10th centuries as a response to Viking attacks. The first burhs were built at the end of the 8th century in the Midland kingdom of Mercia, but their systematic use as defensive centres began in Wessex under Alfred the Great (r. 871-899). In the 880s Alfred established a network of 30 burhs across Wessex so that no part of the kingdom was more than 32 kilometres from one. There were two categories of burh. The largest were planned as permanent settlements and market centres, most of which developed into successful towns. There was also a catagory of smaller burhs that were intended only as temporary forts: most of these were probably abandoned by the mid 10th century. Some burhs, such as South Cadbury, were sited to take advantage of surviving iron age fortifications; others such as Bath, Chichester, Exeter and Winchester, made use of old Roman fortifications. Burhs such as Walingford and Wareham had defences that were modelled on Roman forts; many others utilized natural defences. Each burh was given a tax assessment and a garrison of peasant levies according to length of its walls. The formula recorded in the Burghal Hidage, compiled c914-18, was that four men were needed to man each pole (about 5 metres) of wall, and that one man should be supplied by each hide (the area of land needed to support one peasant family). Thus Wareham, whose defences were 400 poles (about 2,000 metres) long was assigned 1,600 hides of land. The defences were usually built of clay or turf, topped with a timber palisade, though in a few cases these ramparts were rebuilt in stone in the 10th century. Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder (r. 899-924) and daughter Aethelflaed, lady of the Mercians, methodically extended the system of burhs to consolidate the conquest of the Danelaw.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 38-39

Additional information about burhs - Alfred the Great and the burhs

also Burghal Hidage (Alfred's towns, the burhs)

and Alfred the Great, including information on the Burghal Hidage

Alfred the Great part 2

Found two useful books in the public library dealing with aspects of the life of Alfred the Great - The political thought of King Alfred the Great by David Pratt (Cambridge University Press 2007) and Alfred the Great : Asser's life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources (Penguin Classics 1983).

Both books have a photo of the Alfred Jewel now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum of British Archaeology at Oxford University. The jewel was believed to have been the top of a pointer (aestel) sent to bishops with copies of Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's Pastoral care or it may have been a symbol of office. The Alfred Jewel is one of the few objects remaining from the Anglo-Saxon period.

Alfred translated Pope Gregory's Pastoral care from Latin into old English for the use of his bishops who he suspected were neglecting their duties. he also wrote a preface to the work explaining his program of educational reform. This is one of the works included in Penguin Classics volume. Other works include:

Asser's Life of King Alfred - available online as part of Online Medieval and Classical Library. Asser was the Bishop of Sherborne and wrote this work in Latin around 888.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - also available as part of Online Medieval and Classical Library . King Alfred commissioned the writing of the chronicle around 890 and it was subsequently added to by other writers until the middle of the 12th century.

Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius - available online as part of the Project Gutenberg. Boethius wrote this work c524.

Soliloquies by Augustine of Hippo - available online as part of  Internet Archive. Saint Augustine lived from 354 to 430.

Prose translations of Psalms 1 - 50 - available online Medieval Academy publications.

Other sources from the reign of Alfred include:

The laws of King Alfred - a selection is available online in Internet History Sourcebook. An article on the laws and a brief account of Alfred's life is also available online.

Will of King Alfred

Pratt's work provides a study of the translated works and their relevance to the understanding of Alfred as well as his contribution to the governance and development of England as one nation.

Alfred the Great

(d. 899) King of Wessex (r. 871-899). The youngest son of Aethelwulf of Wessex, Alfred succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother Aethelred I. The early years of his reign were taken up by a life-and-death struggle with the Danish Great Army, culminating in the near collapse of Wessex after a surprise attack on the royal manor at Chippenham in midwinter 878 forced Alfred into hiding at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset. From there, Alfred rallied his forces, and that May he won a decisive victory over the Danes at Edington and besieged their base at Chippenham, forcing them to surrender. By the treaty of Wedmore, the Danish king Guthrum accepted baptism and withdrew his army to East Anglia. Alfred embarked on a thorough reorganisation of the defences of Wessex, building a series of fortresses or burhs, reforming the army, and building a fleet to take on the Vikings at sea. He built a close relationship with Mercia, marrying his daughter Aethelflead to its ruler ealdorman Aethelred, and also with Northumbria, presenting himself as leader of all English not under Danish rule. In 886 Alfred recaptured London from the Danes after Guthrum had broken the the peace the previous year. In the peace settlement, Alfred forced Guthrum to grant equal rights to the English living under his rule. The effectiveness of Alfred's defences were tested by the arrival of a large Viking army from Francia in 892. But despite receiving support from the Danish settlers in the Danelaw, this new onslaught was contained. The Vikings faced constant harassment by Alfred's forces and in 896 their army broke up, most to settle in the Danelaw, others to join the Viking army on the River Seine.

A devout Christian, Alfred believed the Viking attacks were a punishment from God for the laxity of the English Church. As a result, Alfred began a programme of educational reform to raise the standard of the clergy, inviting scholars from abroad and translating into English several major works, including Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. He was responsible for beginning the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. In the late Anglo Saxon period, Alfred's reputation was overshadowed by those of his successors, Edward the Elder and Athelstan. Alfred's reputation began to grow in the 12th century, thanks to chronicler William of Malmsbury, and by the 16th century he had acquired his title 'the Great', the only English king to be so distinguished. Certainly, with the benefit of hindsight, Alfred's reign can be seen as decisive in English history, marking the beginning of a national kingship. In his combination of political, military and scholarly abilities. Alfred stands alone among the leaders of medieval Europe.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 21-22

William Longsword

(d. 942) Son of Rollo, William count of Rouen (r. c.928-42), was the second ruler of Normandy. William continued the expansionist policy of his father and was granted the Contentin peninsula in 933 and attempted to establish his protection over Brittany. In 935 William invaded Flanders but was defeated at Therouanne. William also consolidated his authority over the Scandinavian settlers in Normandy, putting down a rebellion led by a Viking called Rioul in 933-4. In 939 he allied himself with Hugh the Great in a rebellion against King Louis IV. The war was ended through the mediation of the pope, and Louis confirmed William's investiture of Normandy in 940. William's murder, on the orders of Arnulf I, count of Flanders, during a meeting on an island in the River Somme in 942, threw Normandy into chaos. He was succeeded by his illegitimate son Richard I (Richard the Fearless).

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. p 208.

Wessex

The only Anglo-Saxon kingdom to survive the Viking invasions of the late 9th century intact. Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, is traditionally considered to have been founded by Cerdic c AD 500, and by the 9th century it covered most of England south of the River Thames. Its main towns were Winchester and Hamwic (Southampton). The victory of Egbert (r. 802-839) over the rival kingdom of Mercia at Ellandun in 825 established Wessex as the strongest Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and in 829 he was recognised as Bretwalda (high king of Britain). Viking attacks on Wessex began during the reign of Egbert's predecessor Beorhtric (r. 786-802) with a raid on Portland, probably in 789. Later tradition in Wessex held that this was the first Viking raid in Britain. Large-scale Viking attacks began only in 836 when Egbert was defeated by thirty-five ships' companies at Carhampton in Somerset. The scale of raids escalated dramatically in the 850s when the Vikings wintered at Thanet in the Thames Estuary, but generally the West Saxons gave the Vikings as good as they got.

With the arrival of the Danish great army in East Anglia in 865 the Viking threat escalated yet again, but its first foray into Wessex five years later was defeated by king Aethelred and his brother Alfred after bitter fighting. The Danes under Guthrum, Oscetel and Anund, invaded again in 875 and Alfred, now king (r. 871-899), was hard pressed, driving them out only after his decisive victory at Edington in 878. Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against a second Viking onslaught in 892-6.

Alfred was followed by a succession of able kings who progressively brought the rest of England under their control. Alfred's son Edward the Elder worked closely with his sister Aethelflaed, wife of the Mercian earldoman Aethelred, to conquer the Danelaw of eastern England in 912-18. A year after Aethelflaed's death in 918, Edward annexed Mercia, taking West Saxon control to the Humber and the Mercy. When Edward's son Athelstan captured York from the Norse in 927, all the Anglo-Saxons and all the Scandinavian settlers in England came under a single ruler for the first time and Wessex was transformed into the kingdom of England.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. p 208.

Harald Hardrada

1015-1066 - King of Norway (r. 1046-166). Harald's spectacular, if largely unsuccessful, career carried him across much of the world then known to the Vikings: it is not without justification that he is widely regarded as the last great Viking leader. Harald's career is known mainly from his saga in Snorri Sturluson's 13th century Heimskringla. At the age of 15, Harald fought for his half-brother king Olaf Haraldsson in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Defeated, Harald went into exile in Sweden in Sweden and then to the court of prince Jaroslav the Wise at Novgorod. For three years he served Jaroslav as a mercenary, before joining the Byzantine emperor's Varangian Guard at Constantinople. Though it can be shown from contemporary Greek sources that the saga exagerates harald's importance, he undoubtedly made a good reputation as a warrior and a small fortune for himself during his service in the guard. In 1044 he returned to Sweden, marrying Jaroslav's daughter Elislief (Elizabeth) on his way back through Russia. There he allied with Svein Estrithson to try to win a share of his nephew Magnus the Good's Norwegian-Danish kingdom. When Magnus offered him joint rulership of Norway in 1046, Harald abandoned his alliance with Svein. When Magnus died the following year, Harold became sole ruler of Norway, but Svein seized power in Denmark.Harald tried vainly to dislodge Svein from Denmark. Despite winning every battle he fought, in 1064 Harald finally recognised Svein as king of Denmark. Harald also faced frequent opposition to his rule in Norway, earning his nickname 'hardradi' (hard ruler) for the ruthless measures he took to defend his authority. Harald had inherited a claim to the English throne as a result of a treaty between Magnus and Cnut's son Harthacnut in 1036. The death of England's king Edward the Confessor in 1066 seemed the ideal opportunity to pursue the claim. Landing in the Humber Estuary with a fleet of 300 ships in September, he defeated an English army at Fulford Gate and then took York. Only days later, another army under the English king Harold Godwinson surprised Harald's force at Stamford Bridge and annihilated. Harald himself was killed, and the severity of the losses in the battle weakened Norway for a generation. Harald was succeeded by his son Magnus II.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 91 - 92.

Harold Godwinson (Harold II)

c1020-1066. The last Anglo-Saxon king of England (r. 1066). Harold was the son of Godwine of Wessex and Kent and his wife Gytha, a Danish noblewoman related by marriage to Cnut. Through his father's patronage Harold became earl of East Anglia in 1044. When Godwine was exiled by Edward the Confessor, it was Harold who led the army that forced the king to reinstate him. He inherited his father's earldoms on his death in 1053. Harold became the dominant figure at court, obtaining earldoms for his brothers Tostig, Gyrth and Leofwine by 1057. In 1063 he showed his military abilities on a successful punitive expedition in Wales. When Edward died in 1066 without any heirs, Harold was chosen king but he faced rival claimants in William the Conqueror of Normandy and Harald Hardraga of Norway. He also faced the hostility of his brother Tostig, who had been exiled from his earldom of Northumbria in 1065 and was now leading the Viking raids along the English coast. When Harald (Hardrada) in September 1066 he was joined by Tostig, but both were killed when Harold surprised and defeated their army at Stamford Bridge near York (25 September). A few days later William landed on the south coast and Harold hurried south with his exhausted army to confront him. After a fierce day-long battle at Hastings (14 October), the English army broke and Harald with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine was killed. By Christmas William had been accepted as king of England. It is not known why Harold did not allow his army time to recover from the battle at Stamford Bridge or to gather reinforcements. It may have been eagerness to protect his family lands in Wessex from Norman depredations. More likely, he did not want to give his political enemies in England the opportunity to ally with William against him.

Notes from Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood. Thames & Hudson 2000. pp 92 - 93.