Mount and blades Viking Conquest Roman Fort Elf Gear tutorial - Duration: 1:51. Na hua 8,454 views. Let's Play Stellaris ROMAN EMPIRE - Ep.1 - Modded Gameplay - Duration: 1:02:40. From that point on, the Brigantes under his command were at war with Rome. The Roman Conquest of the North of Britain became inevitable. FIRST FORT (a simple turf and timber fort) Heading up to the East Gate of the first and second forts. A first Roman turf and timber fort was established on the hill top around 71-73 AD.
A Viking ring fortress, or Trelleborg-type fortress,[1] is a type of circular fort of a special design, built in Scandinavia in the Viking Age. They are also known simply as trelleborgs. All trelleborgs have a strictly circular shape, with roads and gates pointing in the four cardinal directions. These common structures are sometimes partially encircled by advanced ramparts, but these additions are not always circular.
There are a total of seven known Viking ring fortresses at present, located in Denmark and Scania, Sweden. Most of them have been dated to the reign of the Harold Bluetooth of Denmark (died 986). The fort in Borgeby[2][citation needed] has been dated to around 1000 AD, so it is possible that it too, was built by the same king.
Denmark and Sweden are currently applying for admission of the Viking ring fortresses as UNESCO World Heritage sites.[3]
Etymology[edit]
Roman Fort Viking Conquest 2
This specific type of fortification was named after the first discovered example: Trelleborg near Slagelse, excavated in the years 1936–1941. Traditionally, the name trelleborg has been translated and explained as ″a fortress built by slaves″, since the Old Norse word for slave was thrall (The modern word is træl in Danish and träl in Swedish) and borg means fortress or city. The word trel (pl. trelle) is also a plausible explanation and relates to the wooden staves, covering both sides of the protective circular walls.[4]
List of trelleborgs[edit]
- Aggersborg near Limfjorden, Denmark.
- Borgeby north of Lund at Lödde Å in Skåne, modern Sweden.[citation needed][5]
- Borrering near Køge, Zealand, Denmark.[6][7]
- Fyrkat near Hobro, Denmark.
- Nonnebakken in Odense, Denmark.
- Trelleborg near Slagelse, Denmark.
- Trelleborgen in Trelleborg, Skåne, modern Sweden.[8][9]
- Rygge, Østfold, Norway (59°23′14″N10°42′22″E / 59.38712°N 10.7062°E)[citation needed]
The existence of a Viking ring fortress at Helsingborg in modern Sweden, was suggested in 2009 after archaeological excavations since 1987. The Helsingborg ring fort might have been the largest of them all, at a diameter of 270 m.[1]
Comparison of the seven fortifications[edit]
Map all coordinates using:OpenStreetMap |
Download coordinates as:KML·GPX |
Name | Inner diameter | Rampart width | Number of houses | Length of houses | Position | Year of discovery | Year of construction |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aggersborg | 240 m | 11 m | 48 | 32.0 m | 56°59′44″N9°15′18″E / 56.99556°N 9.25500°E | 980 | |
Borgeby | 150 m | 15 m | 55°45′05″N13°02′12″E / 55.75139°N 13.03667°E | 1997 | |||
Borrering | 122 m | 10–11 m | 55°28′11″N12°7′19″E / 55.46972°N 12.12194°E | 2014 (1875) | |||
Fyrkat | 120 m | 13 m | 16 | 28.5 m | 56°37′24″N9°46′14″E / 56.62333°N 9.77056°E | 1950 | 980 |
Nonnebakken | 120 m | 55°23′32″N10°23′17″E / 55.39222°N 10.38806°E | 1953 | 980–1000 | |||
Trelleborg | 136 m | 19 m | 16 (30) | 29.4 m | 55°23′39″N11°15′55″E / 55.39417°N 11.26528°E | 1936 | 981 |
Trelleborgen | 112 m | 55°22′34″N13°08′51″E / 55.3762°N 13.1476°E | 1988 | c. 800 |
The ring castles and the contemporary Ravning Bridge over Vejle River – together with minor bridges erected on Zealand (Bakkendrop bridge between Gørlev Tissø and Risby bridge by Præstø) and Lolland (over Flintinge river) – differ clearly from others from the Viking Age. Unlike other ring castles from the period the ring castles which follow the Trelleborg model are constructed after a strictly geometrical plan and measured with the Roman foot. The pointed bottoms of the moats is another element borrowed from the Ancient Romans.
All five fortresses had similar designs, 'perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern.'[10]
Similar structures have been found throughout Northern Europe, particularly in Ireland, but none of them have the same strict and precise geometrical design of the Scandinavian ring fortresses. On the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium there are ring castles with certain points of resemblance and on the island Walcheren there are the remnants of a castle with gateways in the four points of the compass, combined with streets. Similar forts can be found in England, such as Warham Camp. These generally date though from around the time of the Roman conquest of Celtic Britain and had been lying in ruins for hundreds of years prior to the building of the Viking ring forts.
Datings by dendrochronology have found the wood used for the construction of Trelleborg (near Slagelse) to have been felled in the autumn of 980 and thus being used for building presumedly in the spring of 981. The rather short construction time and the complete lack of any signs of maintenance indicate an only short use of the buildings, maybe five years but hardly more than twenty. The others have been dated to roughly the same time. Fyrkat may be a little older, Aggersborg somewhat younger. Not enough has been found at the other sites for a precise dating but the construction and layout of the trelleborgs at Slagelse, Fyrkat, Aggersborg, Nonnebakken under Odense and the fort under modern Trelleborg in Sweden is so similar that it is believed most probable that they were conceived by a single mind.
Around 974 the Danish Viking king Harald Bluetooth lost control of the Danevirke and parts of Southern Jutland to the Saxons. The entire complex of fortifications, bridges and roads which were built around 980 are presumed by some to be Harald's work, and part of a larger defensive system.
Another theory is that the ring castles were boot camps for the troops used by Sweyn Forkbeard in his attack on England. Sweyn and his men sacked London in 1013.
In Scandinavia, fortifications of a similar design and date has been found around some old towns, like in Aarhus for example, but they lack the perfect circular geometry.[11]
Speculation[edit]
In 1990, Danish hobby pilot Preben Hansson observed that the Trelleborgs at Aggersborg, Fyrkat, and Slagelse, and a ringwall at Eskeholm (Samsø, 55°53′08″N10°39′08″E / 55.88543°N 10.6522°E), appear to be aligned, a kind of Ley line.[12] The theory that the fortresses were planned by prehistoric aviators has been popularized by Erich von Däniken.[13][14]
See also[edit]
- Ravning Bridge, a contemporary large-scale structure in Denmark.
References[edit]
- ^ abMargareta Weidhagen-Hallerdt (2009). 'A possible ring fort from the late Viking period in Helsingborg'(PDF). Current Swedish Archaeology. 17. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^The second circular fort 'Trelleborg' found in SwedenArchived June 16, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
- ^'The Viking Era's Trelleborg fortresses'. Danish Agency for Culture. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
- ^Janne Bøje Andersen (2010). 'Veje ind i arkæologien'(PDF) (in Danish). p. 66. ISBN978-87-993972-0-4. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
- ^'Two Scanian ring forts from the Viking Age' (in Danish). Poul Erik Lindelof. Retrieved 6 September 2014. A private homepage. Sourced.
- ^'Enigmatic Viking Fortress discovered in Denmark'. Danish Castle Center. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^'Borgerring'. Fund og Fortidsminder (in Danish). Danish Agency for Culture. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^'Trelleborgen'. Trelleborg Municipality. Retrieved 16 September 2014. Official Homepage.
- ^'The Trelleborg' (in Swedish). Trelleborg Municipality. 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
- ^A. Forte, R. Oram, and F. Pederson. Viking Empires. 1st. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN0-521-82992-5 p. 180.
- ^'The Vikings' Aros – The Ramparts'. The Viking Museum (in Danish). Moesgård Museum. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^Hansson, Preben: Und sie waren doch da (1990) Bayreuth, ISBN3-7770-0419-7
- ^Däniken, Erich von: Die Steinzeit war ganz anders (1993) Munich, ISBN3-442-12438-7
- ^Däniken, Erich von: Auf den Spuren der Allmächtigen (1993) Munich, ISBN3-570-01726-5
The new dynasty in Wessex started by Egbert in 802, brought stability and continuity of policies to Wessex, cemented by good relations with the Church. Egbert attacked neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although his success was almost certainly magnified by the pro-Wessex Chronicle. By the end of his reign, Wessex was certainly enlarged to include the former kingdoms of Kent and the South Saxons and Mercia – the old enemy, was weakened.
The Great Army, supplemented by the Summer Army of 871,seized Reading in 870/1 and if Asser reported correctly they constructed for the first time a fortification between the two rivers Thames and Kennet. Aethelred, the king and his brother Alfred were reported fighting the Vikings on nine occasions in 871. Aethelred died at Easter, perhaps from wounds received fighting and Alfred his brother took over. By the end of the fighting season Alfred probably bought peace and the Viking army moved on to London and the attack on Mercia, which we have already discussed.
In 874/875 the Great Army, now led by Guthrum, overwintered in Cambridge on the border between Viking held East Anglia and eastern Mercia, from where it moved by sea and land to Wareham in Alfred's kingdom. Wareham was clearly a considered choice. It was accessible by river from Poole harbour and may have already have been fortified. Excavations have shown a series of earthwork ramparts, the earliest of which is certainly post-Roman, but is difficult to date precisely. It was an important ecclesiastical and royal centre. Here the Vikings overwintered 875/6 and Alfred brought up an army to oppose them. Viking armies disliked being penned in, but paradoxically they were at their most dangerous when defending a fort and it may be significant that Alfred made no attempt to storm the site (compare the fate of Osberht and Aelle at York in March 867). The Vikings agreed to leave Alfred's kingdom, but in fact moved only to Exeter, losing part of their fleet in a storm. Once again Alfred made no attempt to storm it, but he did force the Vikings to leave and in autumn 877 the army moved to Gloucester, just inside the Mercian border.
On 6th January 878 the Army moved from Gloucester to Chippenham, where Alfred was spending Christmas. This was unusual in that it was rare for early medieval armies to campaign in the winter. Alfred was taken by surprise and had to flee eventually to Athelney in the Somerset Levels, which he proceeded to fortify. A brother of Ivarr and Halfdan, whom later sources called Ubbe, sailed from Dyfed in south-west Wales in the same winter and landed on the north Devon coast. His force encountered an Anglo -Saxon army at Cynwit, which has been plausibly identified with the huge Iron Age hillfort at Wint Hill, Countisbury. The army was defeated and its leader killed by local levies, but was this meant to be part of a two-pronged attack on Wessex? Guthrum's force was eventually defeated at Edington in Wiltshire in May 878 after which the remnants of the army fled to a fortification- probably Chippenham. Asser stresses that it was a fort and Alfred again appears to have waited for Guthrum's surrender
Alfred dealt with Guthrum and thirty other Viking leaders by persuading them to be baptised Christian. Compare Charles the Bald's policy in Frankia. They agreed to leave his kingdom and Guthrum became king of East Anglia from 879 until his death in 890. Boson netsim 10 free with crack. As far as we can tell he posed no further threat to Wessex. So is the celebrated story of Alfred, but what of the Danes.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the sharing out of conquered land in Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia by the leaders of the Great Army in similar terms:
876 Halfdan divided up the land of Northumbria, and they were ploughing and providing for themselves.
877 And then in harvest-time the raiding-army went into the land of Mercia, and some of it they divided up and some they granted to Ceolwulf.
879 The raiding -army went from Cirencester into East Anglia, and settled that land, and divided it up
The meaning of these passages has stimulated debate, which revolves around the numbers of warriors in the Viking warbands, the pattern of some 1200 Scandinavian place-names in eastern England and the chronology and process of settlement. A simple answer is that the names were formed at this time by Viking warriors settling the land. But there are several problems with this interpretation. A careful reading of the extracts show a process of dividing up the land by the leaders of the armies.
Roger of Wendover writing in the 13th century with the benefit of a set of Northern Annals lost to us, adds of Halfdan's division of Northumbrian land:
'Halfdan, king of the Danes, occupied Northumbria and divided it among himself and his thegns and had it cultivated by his army.'
The implication here is that the land was divided only among the leaders of the army, but that it was worked by warriors transformed into farmers. By conquest the land which would have been immediately available to Halfdan and the other leaders were royal and noble estates, and since the Vikings were pagan, ecclesiastical estates. The process we observe in the extracts is almost certainly one of the takeover of complete estates by Scandinavian lords to whom their Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon labourers now paid their dues and renders.
Fortunately this process is visible in the written record, as Christopher Morris has shown. Early in the 10th century a noble, Aelfred, fled from his estates west of the Pennines to escape the activities of the Norse in that area. The bishop of Lindisfarne, taking pity on him, granted him custody of the monastery's lands between the rivers Tees and Wear. When the Viking leader from Dublin, Ragnall, seized control of York in 914 Aelfred was killed in battle and Ragnall rewarded his captains with estates belonging to Lindisfarne. The estates which Aelfred held on Lindisfarne's behalf now passed to two Viking leaders named Scula and Onlafbal. This seems to be the process being described in the above extracts. If we turn now to the place-names, the general distribution of names is patchy. The distribution is apparently thinner in East Anglia and eastern Mercia. This might be because these areas were conquered by Edward the Elder a generation or so after the Viking settlement If so, then Scandinavian naming had hardly begun when these areas passed back under Anglo-Saxon control or new Scandinavian names were quickly replaced by Anglo-Saxon. This may suggest that the Scandinavian names were not largely the result of the settlement of the army, but that they were formed later.
Peter Sawyer has pointed out that most Scandinavian names are first recorded in Domesday Book (1086) and we have no way of knowing when they were first formed or used. Apart from not knowing when the names were formed, we cannot be sure who was doing the naming. The old Norse language clearly had strong influence on the Anglo-Saxon spoken in eastern and northern England. Both were Germanic languages. Scandinavian personal names seem to have been adopted by families of Anglo-Saxon descent. Some naming might in the longer term have been done by Anglo-Saxons.
Field-names with Scandinavian elements might again in part result from the influence of language rather than incoming peasant settlers. It is curious that the majority of existing larger sites including the five boroughs themselves did not change their names. Derby is an exception. It was called Northworthy, but even here the new name Derby may have been applied at first only to the Viking settlement in the old Roman fort to the north, rather than to the Anglo-Saxon settlement below the modern city.
Despite Scandinavian occupation leaders do not appear to have found it necessary to change the names. So when and how did the 1200 or so Scandinavian place-names come into the landscape? Was it part of a slow process of the original estates gradually being broken up into smaller holdings? As part of this change farmsteads, hamlets and eventually villages received new names to identify them. The pattern of Scandinavian names concentrated on the former lands of the abbey at Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast is a good example. A high percentage of the names in -by are compounded with personal names – Flixby, the settlement of Flikkr e.g. or Grimsby, the settlment of Grimr – unlike in Denmark where only about 10% have personal names. Was this because in England it was necessary to make clear and identify the owner of the new landholding? In addition there are a number of hybrid names with a Scandinavian ‘specific', that is the core of the word, usually a personal name and an Anglo -Saxon ‘generic' or ending. Examples are Grimston = the farm or settlement (AS tun) of Grimr (old Norse name) or Kedleston = the settlement of Ketill.
Kenneth Cameron has shown that there is a great variety of personal names in use in the hybrids and they occur largely in areas where Anglo-Saxon names are prominent, or on the fringes of areas with Scandinavian placenames. Were these early settlers being referred to by their Anglo -Saxon neighbours using their personal names? Another element encountered is -thorp as in Fylingthorpe or Cleethorpes, which appears to indicate settlements of less importance secondary or outlying settlements, sometimes compounded with an English name. These may belong to a later stratum of naming, perhaps as an Anglo-Scandinavian society developed. If this period, c. 900 – 1000 does witness a change in the landscape from very large estates organised from specific centres to a pattern of smaller holdings with villages and hamlets as glimpsed in Domesday, then the Vikings had an influence on that process.
The pattern of landholding in the Danelaw, as revealed in Domesday, is in contrast to that south of the Thames. Of course we may not merely be observing the fairly small -scale settlement of the ninth century armies. It is possible that once Viking leaders were in control of the area other colonists were attracted in from the homelands. Bear in mind that place-names are not the only sign of Scandinavian influence on names. Some 600 or so Old Norse loan words passed into the English language at this time. Haystack, barn, window, egg, husband are examples, which remind us that the two languages were relatively close and in contrast to the Scandinavian settlers in the Celtic speaking lands around the Irish Sea, it will have been easy for Old Norse loan words to be absorbed into English.
There are a total of seven known Viking ring fortresses at present, located in Denmark and Scania, Sweden. Most of them have been dated to the reign of the Harold Bluetooth of Denmark (died 986). The fort in Borgeby[2][citation needed] has been dated to around 1000 AD, so it is possible that it too, was built by the same king.
Denmark and Sweden are currently applying for admission of the Viking ring fortresses as UNESCO World Heritage sites.[3]
Etymology[edit]
Roman Fort Viking Conquest 2
This specific type of fortification was named after the first discovered example: Trelleborg near Slagelse, excavated in the years 1936–1941. Traditionally, the name trelleborg has been translated and explained as ″a fortress built by slaves″, since the Old Norse word for slave was thrall (The modern word is træl in Danish and träl in Swedish) and borg means fortress or city. The word trel (pl. trelle) is also a plausible explanation and relates to the wooden staves, covering both sides of the protective circular walls.[4]
List of trelleborgs[edit]
- Aggersborg near Limfjorden, Denmark.
- Borgeby north of Lund at Lödde Å in Skåne, modern Sweden.[citation needed][5]
- Borrering near Køge, Zealand, Denmark.[6][7]
- Fyrkat near Hobro, Denmark.
- Nonnebakken in Odense, Denmark.
- Trelleborg near Slagelse, Denmark.
- Trelleborgen in Trelleborg, Skåne, modern Sweden.[8][9]
- Rygge, Østfold, Norway (59°23′14″N10°42′22″E / 59.38712°N 10.7062°E)[citation needed]
The existence of a Viking ring fortress at Helsingborg in modern Sweden, was suggested in 2009 after archaeological excavations since 1987. The Helsingborg ring fort might have been the largest of them all, at a diameter of 270 m.[1]
Comparison of the seven fortifications[edit]
Map all coordinates using:OpenStreetMap |
Download coordinates as:KML·GPX |
Name | Inner diameter | Rampart width | Number of houses | Length of houses | Position | Year of discovery | Year of construction |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aggersborg | 240 m | 11 m | 48 | 32.0 m | 56°59′44″N9°15′18″E / 56.99556°N 9.25500°E | 980 | |
Borgeby | 150 m | 15 m | 55°45′05″N13°02′12″E / 55.75139°N 13.03667°E | 1997 | |||
Borrering | 122 m | 10–11 m | 55°28′11″N12°7′19″E / 55.46972°N 12.12194°E | 2014 (1875) | |||
Fyrkat | 120 m | 13 m | 16 | 28.5 m | 56°37′24″N9°46′14″E / 56.62333°N 9.77056°E | 1950 | 980 |
Nonnebakken | 120 m | 55°23′32″N10°23′17″E / 55.39222°N 10.38806°E | 1953 | 980–1000 | |||
Trelleborg | 136 m | 19 m | 16 (30) | 29.4 m | 55°23′39″N11°15′55″E / 55.39417°N 11.26528°E | 1936 | 981 |
Trelleborgen | 112 m | 55°22′34″N13°08′51″E / 55.3762°N 13.1476°E | 1988 | c. 800 |
The ring castles and the contemporary Ravning Bridge over Vejle River – together with minor bridges erected on Zealand (Bakkendrop bridge between Gørlev Tissø and Risby bridge by Præstø) and Lolland (over Flintinge river) – differ clearly from others from the Viking Age. Unlike other ring castles from the period the ring castles which follow the Trelleborg model are constructed after a strictly geometrical plan and measured with the Roman foot. The pointed bottoms of the moats is another element borrowed from the Ancient Romans.
All five fortresses had similar designs, 'perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern.'[10]
Similar structures have been found throughout Northern Europe, particularly in Ireland, but none of them have the same strict and precise geometrical design of the Scandinavian ring fortresses. On the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium there are ring castles with certain points of resemblance and on the island Walcheren there are the remnants of a castle with gateways in the four points of the compass, combined with streets. Similar forts can be found in England, such as Warham Camp. These generally date though from around the time of the Roman conquest of Celtic Britain and had been lying in ruins for hundreds of years prior to the building of the Viking ring forts.
Datings by dendrochronology have found the wood used for the construction of Trelleborg (near Slagelse) to have been felled in the autumn of 980 and thus being used for building presumedly in the spring of 981. The rather short construction time and the complete lack of any signs of maintenance indicate an only short use of the buildings, maybe five years but hardly more than twenty. The others have been dated to roughly the same time. Fyrkat may be a little older, Aggersborg somewhat younger. Not enough has been found at the other sites for a precise dating but the construction and layout of the trelleborgs at Slagelse, Fyrkat, Aggersborg, Nonnebakken under Odense and the fort under modern Trelleborg in Sweden is so similar that it is believed most probable that they were conceived by a single mind.
Around 974 the Danish Viking king Harald Bluetooth lost control of the Danevirke and parts of Southern Jutland to the Saxons. The entire complex of fortifications, bridges and roads which were built around 980 are presumed by some to be Harald's work, and part of a larger defensive system.
Another theory is that the ring castles were boot camps for the troops used by Sweyn Forkbeard in his attack on England. Sweyn and his men sacked London in 1013.
In Scandinavia, fortifications of a similar design and date has been found around some old towns, like in Aarhus for example, but they lack the perfect circular geometry.[11]
Speculation[edit]
In 1990, Danish hobby pilot Preben Hansson observed that the Trelleborgs at Aggersborg, Fyrkat, and Slagelse, and a ringwall at Eskeholm (Samsø, 55°53′08″N10°39′08″E / 55.88543°N 10.6522°E), appear to be aligned, a kind of Ley line.[12] The theory that the fortresses were planned by prehistoric aviators has been popularized by Erich von Däniken.[13][14]
See also[edit]
- Ravning Bridge, a contemporary large-scale structure in Denmark.
References[edit]
- ^ abMargareta Weidhagen-Hallerdt (2009). 'A possible ring fort from the late Viking period in Helsingborg'(PDF). Current Swedish Archaeology. 17. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^The second circular fort 'Trelleborg' found in SwedenArchived June 16, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
- ^'The Viking Era's Trelleborg fortresses'. Danish Agency for Culture. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
- ^Janne Bøje Andersen (2010). 'Veje ind i arkæologien'(PDF) (in Danish). p. 66. ISBN978-87-993972-0-4. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
- ^'Two Scanian ring forts from the Viking Age' (in Danish). Poul Erik Lindelof. Retrieved 6 September 2014. A private homepage. Sourced.
- ^'Enigmatic Viking Fortress discovered in Denmark'. Danish Castle Center. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^'Borgerring'. Fund og Fortidsminder (in Danish). Danish Agency for Culture. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^'Trelleborgen'. Trelleborg Municipality. Retrieved 16 September 2014. Official Homepage.
- ^'The Trelleborg' (in Swedish). Trelleborg Municipality. 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
- ^A. Forte, R. Oram, and F. Pederson. Viking Empires. 1st. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN0-521-82992-5 p. 180.
- ^'The Vikings' Aros – The Ramparts'. The Viking Museum (in Danish). Moesgård Museum. Retrieved 6 September 2014.
- ^Hansson, Preben: Und sie waren doch da (1990) Bayreuth, ISBN3-7770-0419-7
- ^Däniken, Erich von: Die Steinzeit war ganz anders (1993) Munich, ISBN3-442-12438-7
- ^Däniken, Erich von: Auf den Spuren der Allmächtigen (1993) Munich, ISBN3-570-01726-5
The new dynasty in Wessex started by Egbert in 802, brought stability and continuity of policies to Wessex, cemented by good relations with the Church. Egbert attacked neighbouring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, although his success was almost certainly magnified by the pro-Wessex Chronicle. By the end of his reign, Wessex was certainly enlarged to include the former kingdoms of Kent and the South Saxons and Mercia – the old enemy, was weakened.
The Great Army, supplemented by the Summer Army of 871,seized Reading in 870/1 and if Asser reported correctly they constructed for the first time a fortification between the two rivers Thames and Kennet. Aethelred, the king and his brother Alfred were reported fighting the Vikings on nine occasions in 871. Aethelred died at Easter, perhaps from wounds received fighting and Alfred his brother took over. By the end of the fighting season Alfred probably bought peace and the Viking army moved on to London and the attack on Mercia, which we have already discussed.
In 874/875 the Great Army, now led by Guthrum, overwintered in Cambridge on the border between Viking held East Anglia and eastern Mercia, from where it moved by sea and land to Wareham in Alfred's kingdom. Wareham was clearly a considered choice. It was accessible by river from Poole harbour and may have already have been fortified. Excavations have shown a series of earthwork ramparts, the earliest of which is certainly post-Roman, but is difficult to date precisely. It was an important ecclesiastical and royal centre. Here the Vikings overwintered 875/6 and Alfred brought up an army to oppose them. Viking armies disliked being penned in, but paradoxically they were at their most dangerous when defending a fort and it may be significant that Alfred made no attempt to storm the site (compare the fate of Osberht and Aelle at York in March 867). The Vikings agreed to leave Alfred's kingdom, but in fact moved only to Exeter, losing part of their fleet in a storm. Once again Alfred made no attempt to storm it, but he did force the Vikings to leave and in autumn 877 the army moved to Gloucester, just inside the Mercian border.
On 6th January 878 the Army moved from Gloucester to Chippenham, where Alfred was spending Christmas. This was unusual in that it was rare for early medieval armies to campaign in the winter. Alfred was taken by surprise and had to flee eventually to Athelney in the Somerset Levels, which he proceeded to fortify. A brother of Ivarr and Halfdan, whom later sources called Ubbe, sailed from Dyfed in south-west Wales in the same winter and landed on the north Devon coast. His force encountered an Anglo -Saxon army at Cynwit, which has been plausibly identified with the huge Iron Age hillfort at Wint Hill, Countisbury. The army was defeated and its leader killed by local levies, but was this meant to be part of a two-pronged attack on Wessex? Guthrum's force was eventually defeated at Edington in Wiltshire in May 878 after which the remnants of the army fled to a fortification- probably Chippenham. Asser stresses that it was a fort and Alfred again appears to have waited for Guthrum's surrender
Alfred dealt with Guthrum and thirty other Viking leaders by persuading them to be baptised Christian. Compare Charles the Bald's policy in Frankia. They agreed to leave his kingdom and Guthrum became king of East Anglia from 879 until his death in 890. Boson netsim 10 free with crack. As far as we can tell he posed no further threat to Wessex. So is the celebrated story of Alfred, but what of the Danes.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the sharing out of conquered land in Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia by the leaders of the Great Army in similar terms:
876 Halfdan divided up the land of Northumbria, and they were ploughing and providing for themselves.
877 And then in harvest-time the raiding-army went into the land of Mercia, and some of it they divided up and some they granted to Ceolwulf.
879 The raiding -army went from Cirencester into East Anglia, and settled that land, and divided it up
The meaning of these passages has stimulated debate, which revolves around the numbers of warriors in the Viking warbands, the pattern of some 1200 Scandinavian place-names in eastern England and the chronology and process of settlement. A simple answer is that the names were formed at this time by Viking warriors settling the land. But there are several problems with this interpretation. A careful reading of the extracts show a process of dividing up the land by the leaders of the armies.
Roger of Wendover writing in the 13th century with the benefit of a set of Northern Annals lost to us, adds of Halfdan's division of Northumbrian land:
'Halfdan, king of the Danes, occupied Northumbria and divided it among himself and his thegns and had it cultivated by his army.'
The implication here is that the land was divided only among the leaders of the army, but that it was worked by warriors transformed into farmers. By conquest the land which would have been immediately available to Halfdan and the other leaders were royal and noble estates, and since the Vikings were pagan, ecclesiastical estates. The process we observe in the extracts is almost certainly one of the takeover of complete estates by Scandinavian lords to whom their Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon labourers now paid their dues and renders.
Fortunately this process is visible in the written record, as Christopher Morris has shown. Early in the 10th century a noble, Aelfred, fled from his estates west of the Pennines to escape the activities of the Norse in that area. The bishop of Lindisfarne, taking pity on him, granted him custody of the monastery's lands between the rivers Tees and Wear. When the Viking leader from Dublin, Ragnall, seized control of York in 914 Aelfred was killed in battle and Ragnall rewarded his captains with estates belonging to Lindisfarne. The estates which Aelfred held on Lindisfarne's behalf now passed to two Viking leaders named Scula and Onlafbal. This seems to be the process being described in the above extracts. If we turn now to the place-names, the general distribution of names is patchy. The distribution is apparently thinner in East Anglia and eastern Mercia. This might be because these areas were conquered by Edward the Elder a generation or so after the Viking settlement If so, then Scandinavian naming had hardly begun when these areas passed back under Anglo-Saxon control or new Scandinavian names were quickly replaced by Anglo-Saxon. This may suggest that the Scandinavian names were not largely the result of the settlement of the army, but that they were formed later.
Peter Sawyer has pointed out that most Scandinavian names are first recorded in Domesday Book (1086) and we have no way of knowing when they were first formed or used. Apart from not knowing when the names were formed, we cannot be sure who was doing the naming. The old Norse language clearly had strong influence on the Anglo-Saxon spoken in eastern and northern England. Both were Germanic languages. Scandinavian personal names seem to have been adopted by families of Anglo-Saxon descent. Some naming might in the longer term have been done by Anglo-Saxons.
Field-names with Scandinavian elements might again in part result from the influence of language rather than incoming peasant settlers. It is curious that the majority of existing larger sites including the five boroughs themselves did not change their names. Derby is an exception. It was called Northworthy, but even here the new name Derby may have been applied at first only to the Viking settlement in the old Roman fort to the north, rather than to the Anglo-Saxon settlement below the modern city.
Despite Scandinavian occupation leaders do not appear to have found it necessary to change the names. So when and how did the 1200 or so Scandinavian place-names come into the landscape? Was it part of a slow process of the original estates gradually being broken up into smaller holdings? As part of this change farmsteads, hamlets and eventually villages received new names to identify them. The pattern of Scandinavian names concentrated on the former lands of the abbey at Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast is a good example. A high percentage of the names in -by are compounded with personal names – Flixby, the settlement of Flikkr e.g. or Grimsby, the settlment of Grimr – unlike in Denmark where only about 10% have personal names. Was this because in England it was necessary to make clear and identify the owner of the new landholding? In addition there are a number of hybrid names with a Scandinavian ‘specific', that is the core of the word, usually a personal name and an Anglo -Saxon ‘generic' or ending. Examples are Grimston = the farm or settlement (AS tun) of Grimr (old Norse name) or Kedleston = the settlement of Ketill.
Kenneth Cameron has shown that there is a great variety of personal names in use in the hybrids and they occur largely in areas where Anglo-Saxon names are prominent, or on the fringes of areas with Scandinavian placenames. Were these early settlers being referred to by their Anglo -Saxon neighbours using their personal names? Another element encountered is -thorp as in Fylingthorpe or Cleethorpes, which appears to indicate settlements of less importance secondary or outlying settlements, sometimes compounded with an English name. These may belong to a later stratum of naming, perhaps as an Anglo-Scandinavian society developed. If this period, c. 900 – 1000 does witness a change in the landscape from very large estates organised from specific centres to a pattern of smaller holdings with villages and hamlets as glimpsed in Domesday, then the Vikings had an influence on that process.
The pattern of landholding in the Danelaw, as revealed in Domesday, is in contrast to that south of the Thames. Of course we may not merely be observing the fairly small -scale settlement of the ninth century armies. It is possible that once Viking leaders were in control of the area other colonists were attracted in from the homelands. Bear in mind that place-names are not the only sign of Scandinavian influence on names. Some 600 or so Old Norse loan words passed into the English language at this time. Haystack, barn, window, egg, husband are examples, which remind us that the two languages were relatively close and in contrast to the Scandinavian settlers in the Celtic speaking lands around the Irish Sea, it will have been easy for Old Norse loan words to be absorbed into English.
North-west England was largely settled by Norwegians who had been active in the Irish Sea area, although there are some Danish -by names. Some names here show Irish influence and may have been applied after the Norse were expelled from Ireland in 902. Apart from some clusters of Norse names on former monastic estates such as Heversham or Dacre Scandinavian names are largely in upland areas where numerous names in – thveit (a clearing in woodland) – Waberthwaite e.g. -occur. -bekkr , a stream, as in Troutbeck is also found. The influence of Celtic names learnt in western Scotland is shown by finds of -airigh meaning a shieling or seasonally occupied farm and in the inversion of the specific and generic, normal in Gaelic e.g. Kirkpatrick, which has the Norse specific – kirkja (church) first and the Celtic generic and personal name Patrick following. The population of the North-West therefore was very mixed with influences and settlers of the Viking Age coming from various directions.
Alfred's arrangements with Guthrum of East Anglia allowed the settlement of the Danelaw area north of the Thames. Here, Viking leaders seized by right of conquest centres such as York, but also Norwich, Thetford, Ipswich and the so-called five boroughs, mentioned for the first time as such by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 942. Here there were existing enclosures – Lincoln and Leicester were former Roman towns, Derby was a Roman fort, and enclosures of mid Saxon date existed at Nottingham and Stamford. In the Saxon period they almost certainly acted as estate centres. Note that the sites are inland, not coastal though they were all situated on navigable rivers. What use did the Vikings make of these centres? Were they merely military headquarters or, like York did they develop urban characteristics as regional centres, having relationships with hinterlands. Viking leaders would certainly have welcomed the system of food renders already in being. Was local trade more important than international and if so do we have any hints of this?
On Flaxengate in Lincoln timber buildings were erected aligned to streets in the last thirty years of the ninth century. These marked the beginning of thirteen phases of timber building on the site from c. 870 to about 1200. The site was re-developed in c. 900 – 930 though the plans of the houses remained the same. Domestic craftworking was done on the site by c. 900 in glass, copper alloy, bone and antler. Combs of both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian type are known. But it has to be said that the vast majority of small finds from the site could not be specifically characterised as either Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian. The area was in the hands of a single owner, as re-building was done at the same time as at Coppergate, York. Page 10
More exotic material includes Slavic and Frankish pottery, walrus ivory, soapstone and Norwegian honestones and Chinese silk. Is it a coincidence that as Vikings took over Lincoln in 874 this part of the former Roman town is organised for the first time since the Roman period and that it continues through into the middle ages? Scandinavian influence is certainly visible in some of the objects, though influence does not necessarily imply settlement. More intensive craftworking does not appear until the mid tenth century, by which time Lincoln was firmly back in the hands of the English kings. The excavator believed Viking landlords were likely on the site though their tenants could have been Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon.
Viking Conquest Mods
Centres like Ipswich, Thetford and Stamford were already producing pottery before the Scandinavians took over the Danelaw. The history of pottery production, under continental influence goes back to the 7th century and by the later 9th century the industries were well-established alongside others such as iron production. It is in this period that wheelthrown pottery becomes generally distributed throughout eastern England, excluding Essex, London and Kent. By 900 the Stamford potters were producing lead-glazed and painted wares in fine fabrics. The lead had to be obtained from the Derbyshire Peak District and was needed in some quantities. These techniques appear to be copies of skills developed in northern Francia. Were the techniques or even Frankish potters introduced as a result of the Scandinavian takeover?
Very little of the wheel- thrown pottery reached Wessex even after the Wessex kings conquered the Danelaw. Yet the distribution in the Danelaw, excluding Essex was considerable. In Wessex other pottery traditions dominated, based largely, though not exclusively on small scale production on rural sites. This is in contrast to the Danelaw area and in some ways may be due to Viking influence in that it remained urban based. Norwich by the 8th century consisted of 4 or 5 separate agrarian settlements north and south of the river. By the early 10th some 20 ha on the north bank had been enclosed with a D shaped ditch and rampart – compare Ipswich, Repton, Hedeby (see units 1 and 8). It was named Northwic on a coin of Athelstan (see unit 12). Viking names for street – gata (modern gate) – are preserved in the town and by the end of the 10th century the area had doubled and it doubled again by the time of Domesday Book, 1086. Was the presence of Viking leaders initially and later a Scandinavian population two of the stimuli to the growth of Norwich? So in some respects, Viking leaders may have imitated the kings of western Europe – converting to Christianity, occupying centres from which areas could be administered, offering protection and issuing coins. Guthrum was minting by c. 886 in East Anglia; the kings of York were minting by the early 10th, as were the leaders in Lincoln and Norwich.
The line of earthwork defences recently discovered north of the river at Norwich. It forms a ‘D' shape with the river Wensum completing the circuit. Similar defences are known at Ipswich, Suffolk and at Repton, Derbyshire. They may be characteristic of defences built by Scandinavians. Compare the defences at Hedeby, Ribe and Aarhus for example. ‘Gate' or ‘gata' is the Old Norse word for street and the survival of such names at Norwich, York and Lincoin suggests Dane influence, although it is not possible to be certain when the names were first applied.
While some of the linguistic evidence is likely to point to the input of specifically Danish settlers, this cannot be taken as unambiguous evidence for Danish settlers. The linguistic evidence of the widespread Scandinavian borrowings into English during and after the Viking Age, and the frequency of Scandinavian place- and personal names in medieval England, cannot be explained by the settlement of a small number of prestigious Scandinavians.
Roman Fort Viking Conquest Pictures
Overall, the extensive Old Norse impact on the English language and on place and personal naming can only be explained by the settlement of many Old Norse speaking Viking settlers in England. Unfortunately, the linguistic evidence can not tell us how many of the settlers came from Denmark.