Viking Age England

by Julian D Richards

  English hoards, by contrast, contain only Anglo-Saxon coins, as foreign issues were excluded from circulation, and the coins do not generally show any evidence of having been tested. England had a full money economy, where coins, despite variations in weight and purity, had an agreed face value. The late ninth-century hoard from Bolton Percy (North Yorkshire), for example, contained 1775 copper stycas buried in a small Badorf ware pot. Several hoards contain personal treasure hidden for safekeeping. Around 875 a wealthy Anglo-Saxon hid his best jewellery and some money in a leather purse in Beeston Tor Cave (Staffordshire). The hoard contained two silver disc brooches and a gold finger ring, as well as a number of plain bronze rings and some 50 Anglo-Saxon silver pennies.

  Viking armies

  There is no direct archaeological evidence for the great battles which dominate the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s account of the Viking Age, although it has been claimed that the remains of a Viking army have been discovered at Repton (Derbyshire) (Biddle and Kjølbye-Biddle 1992). The site was first noted in 1726, when Dr Simon Degge recorded in his journal a visit to Repton and the story told to him by a labourer, Thomas Walker, aged 88. About 40 years earlier Walker had been clearing some ground when:

  near the surface he met with an old Stone Wall, when clearing farther he found it to be a square Enclosure of Fifteen Foot . . . In this he found a Stone Coffin, and with Difficulty removing the Cover, saw a Skeleton of a Humane Body Nine Foot long, and round it lay One Hundred Humane Skeletons, with their Feet pointing to the Stone Coffin . . .

  Excavation in a mound in the vicarage garden at Repton has since confirmed some aspects of this story (plate 2). The mound had been constructed over a massive two-roomed stone structure, originally built in the eighth century, west of the monastery church. It is likely that this was originally intended as a mausoleum for the Mercian royal family. The original building was aligned east-west, and was entered down a slight ramp and through a narrow doorway in the centre of the west wall. An internal doorway directly opposite led into the eastern compartment, which had been reused as a charnel house. In the ninth century a low pebble mound had been constructed over the truncated mausoleum, its edges defined by stone kerbing. This was a substantial structure, some 13 x 11m in diameter, and would have been visible from the river Trent. A burial of four teenagers had been cut into the mound, interpreted by the excavators as sacrificial victims. From the charnel deposit, the disarticulated remains of at least 249 individuals were recovered. In the north-east corner was a stack of sorted long bones which may represent the only surviving part of the original burial; the rest of the bones were in a disorganised heap which post-medieval pottery and clay tobacco pipe fragments suggests had been disturbed in the seventeenth century or later, possibly by Walker. The central burial did not survive, but the deposit contained many objects which may originally have accompanied it, including an axe, two large seaxes, and fragments of silver and silver gilt with cloisonné work, possibly from a sword hilt. There was also a small group of coins deposited some time after 871.

  Analysis of the main burial deposit underlines that this was an incomplete skeletal assemblage. Thus although there were 249 left femurs there were only 221 skulls and 201 pelvis bones. Smaller bones were very under-represented, with only 1.5 per cent of phalanges (finger and toe bones) for example. This strongly suggests that the assemblage must have been gathered from elsewhere. Nor was it a normal population: 80 per cent were robust males in the agerange 15-45; there were no children or younger teenagers. Although some of the bones showed signs of injury, these had healed and none had apparently died of their wounds. Radiocarbon dating of the bones may suggest that there were at least two assemblages which had been amalgamated; one belonging to the late ninth century and the time of the over-wintering of the Great Army in 873-4; the other to many years earlier. It has been suggested that the Repton burial deposit represents a war cemetery of remains of the Viking Great Army gathered from various battlefields, intermingled with the disturbed remains of the Mercian royal family. More prosaically the bones may represent the occupants of the monastic cemetery, originally buried around the church, but disturbed and re-buried when the massive ditch was dug through the cemetery for the Viking winter camp (see below).

  PHASE 2: PERMANENT COLONISATION, 865-96

  From 865 it is possible to detect a change in the nature of Viking activity, with large armies arriving with the aim of permanent settlement in England. They were highly mobile forces, moving rapidly around the country, attacking the weakest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in turn, and exploiting Civil War in Northumbria. In 871, after a year of battles against the Danish armies, King Æthelred died, and was succeeded by his brother Ælfred.

  During the next decade there were three partitions of land between the Danes and the English, in Yorkshire, East Mercia, and East Anglia:

  And that year [876] Healfdene shared out the lands of the Northumbrians, and they proceeded to plough and to support themselves.

  Then in the harvest season [877] the army went away into Mercia and shared out some of it, and gave some to Ceolwulf.

  In this year [880] the army went from Cirencester into East Anglia, and settled there and shared out the land.

  Nevertheless, the settlements did not stop the Vikings plundering the rest of England. In 878 they drove Ælfred into Somerset, where he took refuge in the marshes of Athelney. Regrouping his forces he defeated the Danish leader Guthrum at Eddington, and at the Treaty of Wedmore in 886 a boundary was established between Ælfred’s Wessex and Guthrum’s East Anglia ‘Up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street’. The area to the north and east of this line was later known as the Danelaw, to distinguish that part of the country where Danish custom prevailed, in contrast to the areas of Anglo-Saxon law. The significance of the treaty, however, was also that Guthrum was subsequently baptised, and incorporated into an Anglo-Saxon system of kingship. Ælfred made use of the treaty to consolidate his position in Wessex. He initiated a system of defended towns, or burhs (see chapter 4), organised a militia system whereby his peasant army was always half at home and half on active service, and built fast and high ships with 60 or more oars ‘neither of Frisian design nor of Danish, but as it seemed to himself that they might be most useful’ (ASC 897).

  3 England, 865-96

  From the 890s there were further attacks on Wessex by fresh group of Vikings, but Ælfred’s defensive measures proved effective and in 896 the Viking army dispersed. Some settled in East Anglia and Northumbria, others sailed to Normandy. The Chronicle recorded that ‘by the grace of God, the army had not on the whole afflicted the English people very greatly’.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not describe events in the north-west, but an eleventh-century Irish account, supported by references in Welsh sources, records the settlement in the Wirral (Cheshire) of a band of Vikings under the leadership of Ingimundr who had become fugitives after their expulsion from Dublin in 902. This appears to have lead to internecine warfare between Danes and Norwegians, particularly after 919, when the Norse took control of York.

  In southern England, Ælfred’s policies were continued by his daughter Æthelflaed, who married Æthelred, king of Mercia, and then by his son Edward. Gradually the Danelaw was re-conquered by Ælfred’s children. By 917-18 the Danelaw was back under the control of Edward the Elder but this did not lead to the expulsion of the Danes. In fact the Chronicle records that Edward used both Danes and English to man the fortifications at Nottingham in 918, and we hear that both Danes and English submitted to him and swore to keep the peace. Edward’s task was made easier by the fact that there were easier pickings for Viking raiders elsewhere in Europe. In 920 the Northumbrians and Scots submitted to Edward, and after the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, Danish power in the north collapsed. In 954 Erik Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of York, was expelled from the city.

  Viking fortifications

>   Viking armies wintering in England needed to camp in a defensible position. At first they appear to have made use of natural islands, such as the Isle of Sheppey and Thanet, but from the late ninth century there are a number of references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to purpose-built fortifications. In 885 the Danes ‘made fortifications round themselves’ at Rochester, and in 892 they built forts at Milton Regis, near Sittingbourne, and at Appledore, on the edge of marshes between Rye and Ashford, in Kent. In 893 there are references to forts at Benfleet and Shoebury on the Essex coast, and in 894 a fort was built by the River Lea, about 32km (20 miles) above London, and another at Bridgnorth on the River Severn. In 917 they ‘made the fortress at Tempsford, and took up quarters in it and built it, and abandoned the other fortress at Huntingdon’.

  These forts were probably fairly rudimentary, comprising an earthwork bank-and-ditched enclosure, perhaps with a timber rampart. Such earthworks are notoriously difficult to recognise and to date archaeologically, and one must be cautious of sites with names such as that of Dane’s Dyke (Yorkshire) which are likely to be earlier landscape features which were attributed to the Vikings in antiquity. Nevertheless, there are several possibilities, and one excavated example, particularly along the Danelaw frontier. All would have sheltered an army in the hundreds, rather than the thousands.

  The Chronicle references suggest that the Vikings preferred to make use of the sea or a river or marsh to protect them on one side, and at these sites one might expect to find a D-shaped enclosure, such as those erected around Scandinavian coastal trading sites such as Hedeby and Birka. The fort at Gannock’s Castle, near Tempsford, has often been described as Danish but is now recognised to be a twelfth- or thirteenth-century site. In fact, the fort at Tempsford referred to in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is more likely to have been a 2ha (5-6 acre) site adjacent to the river Ivel at Beeston, near Sandy (Bedfordshire), 5km (3 miles) south of Tempsford. Others may be observable in modern town plans, and Nicholas Brooks has suggested that the line of the King’s Ditch represents a D-shaped Viking camp at Cambridge.

  A number of similar D-shaped sites have been identified in Bedfordshire, at Church Spanel, where a gravel island has been artificially fortified with a bank, at Stonea Camp, where an enclosure was built against the Fen edge, and at Bolnhurst. Willington and Etonbury (Bedfordshire) and Longstock (Hampshire) may be comparable sites with provision for protecting boats within them in dry-docks and harbours (Dyer 1972). At Repton, a D-shaped enclosure was constructed as a winter camp for the Viking army of 873-4. The river Trent formed one side; the rest of the site was surrounded by a bank and ditch into which the monastery church was incorporated as a gatehouse. The ditch, which cut into the Anglo-Saxon cemetery to the east of the church, was a massive affair, some 4m deep and 4m wide. It has been estimated that the Repton fort would have taken five weeks to construct with 200 men. At Shoebury (Essex) a rampart enclosing a semi-circular area, approximately 460m across, adjacent to the sea, may be the Viking camp of 893.

  Where a suitable site was not available adjacent to water then circular fortifications may have been constructed, although none as fine as the Danish Trelleborg forts have been found. A number of possibilities have been identified, with wide ditches and internal banks, or regular circular hollows with low banks, although without excavation such sites might equally well be Roman amphitheatres or Norman ringworks. Limited excavation has demonstrated that Warham Camp (Norfolk) originated in the Iron Age, although the site may still have been remodelled in the Viking Age (Gray 1933). At Howbury (Bedfordshire) there is an almost perfectly circular enclosure, 40m in diameter, with ramparts 3m high with a wide water-filled ditch on the outside. The site commands the highest spur east of Bedford, and gives a view along the Ouse Valley. At Hawridge Court, on the Hertfordshire-Buckinghamshire border, there is a regular earthwork with a flat central area, 60m in diameter, with a bank 5m high and a ditch still 1m deep. Finally, at Ringmere (Norfolk) there is another circular enclosure, 32m in diameter, with a double bank and ditch.

  Ritual deposits

  There is also a large quantity of material, weaponry in particular, which has been discovered in rivers. In 1965 it was calculated that 34 Viking Age swords had been found in English rivers, as opposed to eight from churchyards and Viking graves (Wilson 1965). Twenty-four of these were from the river Thames or its tributaries. Spears, axes, knives and tools have also been found. Eight axes, six spearheads, a pair of tongs and an anchor have been dredged from under Old London Bridge alone (plate 3). These finds have often been interpreted as evidence of Viking battle losses, with Viking warriors storming London, for instance, being dumped in the river along with all their armour, weapons and tools. This seems unlikely. A find from Skerne (East Yorkshire) perhaps reveals the true nature of these deposits (Dent 1984). At Skerne a number of animal skeletons and Viking metalwork have been found closely associated with the oak piles of a bridge abutment or jetty. In total there were at least 20 animals, including horses, cattle, sheep and dogs. Only one showed signs of slaughter: a horse had been pole-axed in the forehead; none showed signs of butchery for consumption. Four knives, a spoon-bit, an adze and a Viking sword in a wooden scabbard of willow poplar with fleece lining were also found. There are similar finds from Scandinavia, continuing an Iron Age tradition of bog offerings of horses and weapons, at sites such as Illerup (Denmark). These deposits were probably ritual sacrifices, perhaps offered to give thanks for success in a previous battle, or in the hope of good fortune in a forthcoming one.

  PHASE 3: EXTORTION OF TRIBUTE, 980-1012

  By the second quarter of the tenth century there was clearly a well-established Anglo-Scandinavian society in the Danelaw, and England enjoyed several decades of peace. Towards the end of the tenth century, however, the new generations of Vikings were no longer able to plunder Russia and turned their attention back to the west. These new armies differed from those of the previous century in that they now included Swedish Vikings (Jansson 1966; 1990) as well as Danes and Norwegians, and in that they apparently had no interest in settlement, but used their power to extort tribute, or Danegeld, from the native population. Edgar of Wessex had been recognised as king of all England, and even the Christianised Danish population had recognised him as their overlord. After Edgar’s death in 975 there was a period of dynastic weakness. His son Edward was murdered in Corfe Castle, and Æthelred (the Unready), succeeded to the throne. From 980 onwards the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records renewed raiding against England. At first the raids were probing ventures by small numbers of ships’ crews, but soon grew in size and effect, until the only way of dealing with the Vikings appeared to be to pay protection money to buy them off:

  And in that year [991] it was determined that tribute should first be paid to the Danish men because of the great terror they were causing along the coast. The first payment was 10,000 pounds.

  Over the next decade payments grew dramatically, causing widespread hostility to the Vikings, and leading to demands for increasingly desperate reprisals. On St Brice’s Day (13 November) 1002 Æthelred ‘ordered to be slain all the Danish men who were in England’. The intended victims of this drastic measure can hardly have been established Danish settlers in the Danelaw, and it was probably directed against remaining groups of mercenaries, or paid-off members of the army who had outstayed their welcome. Nonetheless, amongst those slaughtered were the sister and brother-in-law of Sveinn, King of Denmark.

  The English lacked any consistent policy and effective means of defence against the Viking threat, and the later compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle become increasingly scathing about Æthelred:

  and when [the Danes] were in the east [in 1010], the English army was kept in the west, and when they were in the south, our army was in the north. Then all the councillors were summoned to the king, and it was then to be decided how this country should be defended. But even if anything was then decided, it did not last even a month. Finally there was no leader who would collect
any army, but each fled as best he could, and in the end no shire would even help the next.

  All these disasters [in 1011] befell us through bad policy, in that they were never offered tribute in time nor fought against; but when they had done most to our injury, peace and truce were made with them; and for all this truce and tribute they journeyed none the less in bands everywhere, and harried our wretched people, and plundered and killed them.

  The Viking warbands were probably mounted and highly mobile. Stirrups are thought to have been introduced by the Vikings. Many Danish graves contain stirrups and other rich horse equipment. Finds of stirrups in the Danelaw attest to the presence of Danish cavalry in eleventh-century armies (Graham-Campbell 1992; Seaby and Woodfield 1980).

  4 England, 980-1012

  Scandinavian evidence

  A few Anglo-Saxon objects found in Scandinavian graves testify to the looting of English monastic sites. They include mounts, such as the gilt copper alloy plaques stripped from book covers and placed in ninth-century Norwegian female graves at Bjørke and Alstad, shrines, and a silver hanging bowl found at Lejre, Sjælland (Denmark). There are also a number of Anglo-Saxon style swords from Denmark, and an Anglo-Saxon gold ring found in a ninth-century context at Hon, Haug (Norway) (Bakka 1963).

  Generally, however, finds of ninth-century Anglo-Saxon coins are comparatively rare in Scandinavia, and there are only 125 English and Frankish coins of the ninth century, distributed between some 50 finds (many of which are probably later deposits anyway), compared with some 4000 Arabic coins. There are several possible explanations. English coins may have been melted down, or perhaps conditions in Denmark allowed the hoarders to collect their treasure. Alternatively the ninth-century raiders may have settled rather than returned to Scandinavia, and used their loot as capital with which to settle.