D) 410 to 1066 - Anglo-Saxon Britain, Viking raids, the Norman invasion

The breakdown of Roman law and civilisation was fairly swift after the Roman army departed in 410AD. To counter the raids from continental pirates, Vikings, Picts and Scots towns would bring in mercenaries from Europe to defend them from attack. These mercenary soldiers were Angles and Saxons from northern Germany.

The deal was that the mercenaries brought their families with them, and got paid with land which they could farm. Eventually, the Anglo-Saxon mercenaries realised that they were stronger than their employers and appear to have taken over the running of areas themselves.

The new Anglo-Saxon invaders were not organised centrally, as the Romans had been, or as the Normans would be. They slowly colonised northwards and westwards, pushing the native Celts to the fringes of Britain. Roman Britain was replaced by Anglo-Saxon Britain, with the Celtic peoples remaining in Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon areas eventually combined into kingdoms, and by 850AD the country had three competing kingdoms.

The three kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex, not only were competing between themselves, but they were also under sustained attack from Viking raids. The Viking incursions culminated with a "Great Army" landing in East Anglia in 865AD. It made wide territorial gains, and by 875 the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria had succumbed. Only Wessex remained as Anglo-Saxon.

The Vikings attacked Wessex in 878, and the Saxon king, Alfred had to flee to the Somerset marshes. However he was able to regroup and counter attack. His efforts and those later of his son and grandsons, gradually pushed the Vikings northwards and eventually into the sea. By 955, Alfred the Great's grandson Eadred, ruled over a united England. Government became centralised, and the king had the infrastructure to rule the whole country.

Next came another wave of Viking attacks. The net effect was that the English king, Ethelred the Unready, found his kingdom under attack on all coasts by Norsemen. On Ethelred's death in 1016, the Viking leader Cnut was effectively ruling England. But on Cnut's death, the country collapsed into a number of competing Earldoms under a weak king, Edward the Confessor.

The strongest of these earls was Harold, Earl of East Anglia. Through a series of battles and intermarriages, Harold controlled Wessex and was in a powerful position. So when Edward the Confessor died in 1066 without a male heir, Harold claimed the throne. His claim was disputed by William, Duke of Normandy, whose claim to the English throne was even more tenuous than Harold's.

There were two major influences on English life during this whole period of English history, at opposite ends of the aggression spectrum. One was the coming of Christianity to Britain, brought by Irish monks to places like Lindesfarne in 635, or Iona in Scotland in 563. The church had organised the whole country into dioceses, each under a bishop, by about 850. The other was the Viking raider. And it was the Viking raider that paradoxically allowed William to conquer Britain.

When Edward the Confessor died, the Vikings saw a chance to regain a foothold in Britain, and landed an army in Yorkshire in 1066. Harold marched north to take on the Vikings under Harald of Norway and Tostig (King Harold's brother). He defeated the Norsemen near York, but while celebrating his victory, learnt that William of Normandy had landed in southern England.

Within 13 days he had marched his army some 240 miles from Yorkshire to Sussex, where the Normans were camped near Hastings. The ensuing Battle of Hastings was won by the Normans who were fresh, and had better archers and cavalry. Harold died with an arrow through his eye. William was crowned William I in London on Christmas Day 1066.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1089