OK, figured it out, I'll split it over two posts...


In the ninth century, did the Vikings pose a threat to Anglo-Saxon identity?

In his introduction to his article 'England in the Ninth Century: The Crucible of Defeat', N. P. Brooks posits that 'when Alfred died in 899'for most Englishmen the deepest impression [of the Danish impact] must have been of the defeat and destruction of the English polity and culture' . This suggests a sense of an impending apocalypse for the Anglo-Saxon identity but if this fear was actually felt by most Englishmen at the end of the ninth century it was, to some extent, misplaced. It belies both an underestimation of English organisational strength and cultural hardiness, and an exaggeration of the foreignness of Danish identity.

Argument has raged through medievalist historical journals regarding the exact size of the ninth century Danish military threat, particularly that of the great conquering armies, the micel here, of 866 and 892. Paul Sawyer has argued that The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, possibly under Alfred's direction, exaggerated the number of Danish ships and warriors in order to make the achievements of Wessex, in fending them off, all the greater . Sawyer puts the membership of the great Danish armies in the hundreds rather than thousands, with fleet levels estimated at considerably less than the 'two hundred and fifty ships' claimed by the Chronicle entry for 892. Brooks, however, convincingly challenges Sawyer's theory by favourably comparing the Chronicle's estimates with similar figures presented in continental sources such as the Frankish Annals de Saint-Bertin or the Irish Annals of Ulster . Many of these foreign sources depict fleets in the hundreds and, even accounting for occasional exaggeration on a large scale such as in the fantastic writings of Abbo, Brooks concludes that there is enough evidence to suggest that 'fleets of 100-200 ships were by no means rare' .

Brooks demonstrates that the micel here must have consisted of thousands of men for otherwise they would have been unable to 'maintain an effective guard on the 2180 yards of'ramparts at Wareham' or have survived living in 'enemy territory year in year out' . His argument is persuasive until he quotes the Anglo Saxon Chronicle accounts of the Danish army of 875 who purportedly 'slipped into' Wareham and on another occasion 'stole away' by the cover of night . Elusiveness is not usually a characteristic of armies numbering thousands of men. This discrepancy, however, may be partially explained if the 'great host' was split into many guerrilla-style groups. This is a possibility for it was the lauded Danish mobility, both on land and sea, which made them such difficult opponents to defeat.

Whatever the precise makeup of the Danish host, their military, and hence political, impact was formidable. Initially the Scandinavian martial force was felt by the rich monasteries of the east coast such as in the Norwegian raid on Lindisfarne in 793, but by the 850s and 60s the Danes were posing a significant political threat to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of northern and eastern England. The Chronicle states that in 851 'the heathen for the first time remained over the winter' and 'put to flight Beorhtwulf, king of Mercia' . In 865 the 'Kentish men promised [the Danes] money in return for peace' . In 867 the raiders demonstrated an opportunist and politically aware streak as they pillaged Northumbria exploiting 'a great dissension of the people amongst themselves' . The Danes often specifically captured and overwintered in Anglo-Saxon royal and administrative centres in order to emphasise their dominance over the old order.

By 886 King Alfred of Wessex had signed a treaty with Guthram of the Danes establishing, what has become known as, the 'Danelaw', cementing the Danish territorial gains, and temporarily ceasing the raids into Wessex. A boundary was drawn separating the Danelaw from Wessex and English Mercia. It ran 'up the Thames, and then up the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street' with everything to the north and east coming under Danish political dominion. This Saxon acknowledgement of Danish power is the culmination of a 40 year spell between 850 and 890 in which much of the former political nobility of eastern England had been slaughtered, displaced or had been forced to pay tribute to the Danish warlords. This is likely to have been a massive shock to Anglo-Saxon political identity not only in the shattered east but also in resistant Wessex.

However, dynastic power struggles between warlords over the lordship of the English kingdoms were nothing new. The Danes exploited existing English intrigues and interregional jealousies and, in turn, were courted by power-hungry native pretenders. Ceolwulf, demeaned in the pro-Wessex Chronicle as 'a foolish king's thane' but probably a legitimate heir to the Mercian throne, swore tribute to the Danes in 873 in what may be seen as a shrewd political move or, as the Chronicle implies, a cowardly act. Ceolwulf, notes Pauline Stafford, was 'doing what other'would-be rulers had done before him: coming to terms with the Vikings in a way which advanced his own interests but also provided the tribute which the Vikings sought, that tribute which had been the hallmark of political domination since the sixth century' .
Wessex, who 'hijacked Englishness for its own purposes', portrayed the northern Saxon leaders' acquiescence to Danish demands as craven and almost unpatriotic in order to gain political capital in the event of the Danish hold on the north and east slipping. This perhaps demonstrates a self-confidence in Wessex's own ability to resist the Danes and emerge as the strongest English power. Furthermore, these political machinations display a continuity in the power struggles of Anglo-Saxon dynasties, but one in which an extremely powerful new faction had emerged onto the scene, eroding some of the old Anglo-Saxon political dynamics and invigorating others.

In Viking culture, Henry Loyn suggests, 'the same men could be pirates one day, colonizers the next, and peaceful traders again the third'. This flexibility of identity is reflected in the Danish invaders variable relationship with English Christianity in the ninth century. The English ecclesiastical community in the north and east was massively disrupted by the pillaging of religious centres and, later, the settlement and domination of an initially pagan ruling class. Evidence for this disruption may be seen in the anxious wording of several ninth century charters by which rights were granted 'as long as the Christian faith should last in Britain' , or in the disappearance of several Kentish monasteries and the accelerated decline in Latin scholarship in Canterbury in the latter half of the ninth century.