The Viking invasion of England - causes and consequences. The tragedy of English history Viking invasion of Britain
According to legend, the Scandinavian Vikings attacked England in retaliation for the death of Ragnar Lodbrok, who was thrown into a pit of snakes by a Northumbrian rabbit. In fact, the overpopulation of their own country prompted the pagan Scandinavians to take decisive action. The increased military power and the increasing wealth acquired through trade with the northern and southern countries made it possible for the Scandinavians to push their more civilized neighbors to the south. Easily combining the role of a merchant and a warrior, many Scandinavians became. In 865 East Anglia was temporarily occupied by their huge army. In the same year, the Vikings defeated the Northumbrian army. And in 867 they returned to the south. To defend Nottingham against the combined forces of Merck and Wessex.
Disasters that lasted for decades came to the land of the English and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Christian chroniclers claimed that the Vikings had a huge battle fleet and an equally huge army, consisting of thousands of fierce warriors. In fact, no more than 100 people took part in the raids, sailing on several ships. In addition, the Scandinavians, who preferred to pay off to avoid a bloody battle, were no more cruel than their enemies. But in technical terms, they had some superiority. It is common knowledge that the Vikings had magnificent ships. Having borrowed the stirrup from the Avars and Magyars, the Scandinavians found it more widely used than their opponents, the Britons and Anglo-Saxons. In Britain, fighting stirrups came into use only at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century, after the second. These warriors preferred the bow to any other weapon, which played a decisive role in their victory over the Celts. Most Scandinavians used a longbow, sometimes a reinforced bow borrowed from the eastern peoples. The warriors of the far north of the country used flat bows.
The Scandinavian helmet was not "horned" contrary to popular belief. Rather, it resembled a bell-shaped hat with brim. The references to "winged" and "horned" helmets in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were probably poetic images. The Scandinavian battle ax was also available to their opponents - the Celts and Anglo-Saxons. The Viking sword, sharpened on one side, originated from the usual Germanic Saxon of the first centuries.
Causes and consequences of the Viking invasion of England
The biggest impetus for the Viking invasion came from the emergence of kingdoms in Scandinavia. One of which was the Danish kingdom of York, which later became the kingdom of Dainlo. It stretched from the borders of Scotland to the line linking the River Thames with the Mersey. And although in the middle of the 10th century Dainlo was destroyed by the kingdom of Wessex, it had a strong influence on the military orders of England at the end of the Anglo-Saxon rule. Danish settlers took over the existing districts. And then they issued a law according to which military service was carried out by everyone who owned six plots of land. Many Danes settled in the major cities, improving on the defensive fortifications built by the Romans. Other cities became military bases. Especially after the kingdom of Dainlo had to take a defensive position, repelling the retaliatory attacks of the Anglo-Saxons.
The military order in Wessex also underwent changes as a result of the invasion of the Scandinavians. After the crushing defeat of the army of King Alfred in the winter of 876-877. the inhabitants of the kingdom were exclusively occupied with the problem of survival. For many months his men waged a guerrilla war against the impenetrable marshes of Somerset. From 879 to 954, after the conquest of the Scandinavian kingdom of York, Wessex, controlled by the Anglo-Saxons, became combat-ready again. Among other things, King Alfred changed some military laws.
Influence of the Scandinavians on England
The changes that had taken place urged everyone to defend their fellow men with greater courage. As well as relatives of the local ruler, without turning to the king for help. This made the defense system more flexible, but led to the fragmentation of power. In parallel with this, there was a process of dying out of old tribal traditions and an increase in the power of local rulers. The fortified burghs became centers of local defense and local government. At the beginning of the 10th century, many such fortresses were built to defend cities. They served people from the surrounding areas. The fortifications of the cities once built by the Romans, which had a strategic purpose, were restored. Some of these ancient defensive structures have survived to this day. The cities of Cantenbury, York and Nottingham expanded beyond the walls built by the Romans.
The Scandinavians have influenced life to varying degrees. They left a significant mark in Scotland. The Vikings changed a lot in the life of the Irish, especially in the military field. But their intrusion into the life of Wales was quite insignificant. For several centuries, the island kingdom, which was completely Scandinavian, included Shitland, Orkney, Hebride and the Isle of Man.
What did Scandinavian warriors look like?
1. 10th century Scandinavian mercenary.
Possibly a Swedish warrior. His outfit is East Scandinavian style. Plate armor from several segments betray a strong Asian influence, which probably penetrated into Byzantium along the "Varangian road" through Rus'. Silver decorations on the hilt of the sword, sharpened on one side, indicate that this weapon was brought from Hungary or Byzantium.
2. Anglo-Danish warrior, IX-X centuries
In addition to the so-called "Danish ax", widespread among the Scandinavians who settled in England, the Anglo-Danish warriors used a longbow. The Vikings had no technical advantages over the Anglo-Saxons, except for the ax, which was quickly adopted by the Saxons and by the 11th century was associated with the image of an English warrior.
2. Scandinavian warrior of the early 11th century.
Documents indicate that some Scandinavians who settled in Scotland and the islands adopted their costume from the Celts. While the Scandinavians habitually wore harem pants, the Celtic nobility, who borrowed clothes from the Romans, dressed in tunics. Many Scandinavian warriors used Celtic bows in battle. However, the saddle on the frame and the iron stirrups of this warrior are purely Scandinavian.
The Anglo-Saxons were land people. Their Scandinavian neighbors, the Vikings, were seafarers. The Norwegians for a long time attacked Scotland and the settlements along the shores of the Irish Sea, while the Danes rampaged along the North Sea coast and invaded deep into France. Drakkars served as a means of transportation - long and narrow wooden ships with a high bow and stern. These were warships capable of sailing 80 kilometers a day with sixty people on board with a draft of about a meter. On deck were blond berserk warriors, desperate and fearless; the bow of the ship was necessarily decorated with the image of some pagan god. The word "Viking" in those days was even used as a verb, the expression "to go Viking" meant "to engage in sea robbery, piracy." Entire fleets of Drakkars crossed the Atlantic, reaching Iceland and Greenland. On their ships, the Vikings made pirate expeditions to the shores of France, climbed up the Seine and robbed Paris, even entered the Mediterranean Sea. They also reached Constantinople, where the protection of the patriarch consisted of the Vikings (Varangians). The Varangians penetrated along the rivers into the territory of Ancient Rus', settled in Kyiv. Like the Spanish conquistadors, at first they only hunted for prey, but gradually began to establish settlements, creating centers of Norman culture along the shores of Europe.
In 790, three drakkars landed in the kingdom of Wessex. A messenger rode up from Dorchester to greet the guests and ask why they had come. They killed him on the spot. Three years later, all of Northumbria was shocked by the daring sack and destruction of a monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, which resulted in the loss of hundreds of precious manuscripts. Chronicles testify that "the pagans poured the blood of the monks on the floor around the altar and trampled their bodies in the temple of the Lord, like street dirt." Those spared by the sword were taken into slavery. In 806, the same terrible fate befell the 200-year-old monastery of St. Columba on the island of Iona, the oldest of all the churches of Celtic Christianity, the tomb of the Scottish kings. The destruction was so merciless that the ruins were abandoned for a long time, and only in the XIII century. the monastery was restored.
By the beginning of the IX century. Viking attacks become regular. The most massive, obviously prepared in advance, attack on England began in 835, when the Vikings landed on the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames estuary. Then, in 845, the red-bearded marauder Ragnar Lodbrok (Broad Pants) was defeated off the coast of Northumbria. The king ordered him to be thrown into a pit with poisonous snakes, where, as the saga tells, he died a painful death, conjuring his sons, Halfdan and Ivar the Boneless (Ragnarsson), to avenge him. And they didn't have to ask. Ivar had already captured Dublin by that time.
In 865, the "great host of the Gentiles," as the chroniclers call it, attacked East Anglia. The king of Northumbria was subjected to a painful execution: his lungs were torn out through his back - this was called the "bloody eagle". York fell and became Jorvik, a Viking trading post. The Vikings then moved on to Mercia and Wessex. Anyone who resisted was killed. King Edmund of East Anglia was killed, tied to a tree and shot with bows. After the death of Edmund the Martyr was canonized by the church, later around the Benedictine abbey in which he was buried, the city of Bury St. Edmunds arose.
The conquerors reached Reading in 871 and in 876 took Wareham.
Gradually, the invasion began to turn into an occupation. Part of the conquerors settled in the occupied lands south and north of the Humber River. As a result of intermarriages, the Danish language was mixed with the language of the local population. New laws and toponyms appeared, ending in "thorp", "bi" and "gill". The territory, instead of the Saxon hundreds, was divided into ridings and uepontekes. Five new fortified burgh cities were built: Lincoln, Stamford, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. England from the River Tees to the Thames became known as the Danelaw. It was not until the Danes reached Wessex that they really encountered serious resistance from two kings, Æthelred and his brother Alfred (871–899). The struggle lasted from 870 until 877, or the "year of battles," after which Alfred fled to Athelney in the marshes of the Somerset Levels. Here, in the legendary land of King Arthur, he pondered how to organize resistance to the invaders, but became famous only for the fact that, while thinking, he burned the cakes of a poor woman on the fire.
However, a year later, Alfred returned to defeat a Danish commander named Guthrum at the battle of Edington, near Chippenham. This battle was a turning point in the history of England. If the Danes had won, Guthrum would have spread the Danelag, and thus paganism, throughout the kingdom of Wessex. England would have completely fallen under the rule of the Danes and become part of the Scandinavian confederation, which in this case could resist the Norman Conquest. But it happened differently: the defeated Guthrum was baptized, and King Alfred became his godfather. The Danes left Wessex, but remained in the Danelaw they occupied, making up perhaps a third of the population of England. Although Guthrum was defeated, Danish raids continued in Kent, Devon, and elsewhere throughout the reign of King Alfred. London remained in the hands of the Vikings until 886.
Alfred is the first English monarch of whom we have a more or less complete picture. He reorganized the Wessex army, abandoning the popular militias and creating permanent armed formations, where people were selected on a territorial basis: one warrior from each "hyde" (five households) or each farm of a free farmer. Along the borders of Wessex, he built fortified towns, burghs, surrounded by fortified walls to protect against possible raids. He created a fleet by building a large number of ships and hired Danish sailors to run them. Thanks to this, he managed to win a number of victories in naval battles with the Vikings, including in 892 off the coast of Kent to defeat an enemy armada, which, according to some evidence, consisted of 250 ships. This flotilla appeared not from Denmark, but from the mouth of the Seine, where the Vikings under the command of Rollo were soon to receive the lands of Normandy from the French king, and Rollon himself became the first Duke of Normandy (under the name Robert I) and founded the Norman dynasty. So the future Normans were not French - they were Vikings to the core.
Alfred redesigned his capital at Winchester along the Roman lines, with streets intersecting at right angles and square blocks of equal area, a layout that has survived to this day. It grieved the king that after decades of destruction of the monasteries by the Vikings, there was not a single Latin-speaking clergyman left in all of Wessex. Therefore, he invited scientists from the continent and directed half of the income of the royal treasury to church schools: the king wanted the British to be literate people and so that his capital could compete with the royal courts of Europe. Latin texts were translated into Anglo-Saxon, one work of a Roman philosopher of the 6th century. Boethius was translated by Alfred himself. In about 890 the king ordered the keeping of a chronicle, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the main source of our knowledge of the period after Bede the Venerable. Alfred said: "I do not know anything worse in a person than the lack of desire for knowledge."
A new set of laws, the so-called "Truth of King Alfred", based on the previously adopted lawsuits of Ethelbert of Kent and Offa of Mercia, streamlined the emerging English legislation on the basis of case law. “The laws that our ancestors observed and which I like ... and many that I didn’t like, I rejected on the recommendation of advisers,” Alfred said. One of the articles said that if a person is killed by a tree that has fallen on him, then the tree must belong to his family. The subjects must be loyal to their kings, but the kings, in turn, are obliged to ensure the rule of law in the state and the safety of the subjects. If Offa subjected the kings to the church, then Alfred subjected them to the law. Thus was born the idea of agreement with the authorities, which was often referred to by subsequent generations of jurists.
When Alfred the Great died in 899, his son Edward the Elder succeeded to the throne, and then his grandson Æthelstan (924–939). Educated, pious, "golden-haired" Æthelstan was the first king of England to remain unmarried. He secured his throne by marrying off his sisters to the kings of the Saxons, Franks, and Burgundians. As a gift from his sons-in-law, he received legendary relics - the sword of Constantine the Great and the spear of Charlemagne. But the period of Æthelstan's reign was not without conflict. In 937, the king had to repel the attack of the combined army of the Welsh, Scots and Dublin Vikings, led by local rulers and clan leaders. At the Battle of Brunanburgh (perhaps Cheshire), which chroniclers call "the greatest battle won by the sword's edge" on English soil, "five kings fell on the battlefield."
Æthelstan was not among them, although he died shortly after the victory. The supremacy of Wessex was threatened by intra-family strife over inheritance. This continued until the reign passed to Edgar (959-975). He managed to reconcile and unite the kingdoms of England. His coronation festivities took place in Cheshire in 973, and the records tell that the kings of Wales, Cumbria, Strathclyde, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, as loyal vassals, rowed in the king's boat on the River Dee. But none of the first monarchs could guarantee that his descendants would inherit the throne. The death of Æthelstan again plunged the country into dynastic strife, which escalated in the ill-fated 38 years of the reign of Æthelred II the Unreasonable, or Unready (978-1016), who, through the efforts of his mother, ascended the throne at the age of 10. However, the nickname he was awarded implied not only an early age, but also the complete incompetence of the young monarch. At his coronation, Edgar's closest adviser, the aged Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury, predicted that "the English people would be in trouble such as they had not known since they came to England." Interestingly, he spoke of the British as a foreign people.
Æthelred came to rule at an extremely difficult time, and his reputation was greatly damaged by what was written about him during the period of anarchy that swept England shortly after his death. In 991, the Danes attacked the kingdom of Essex with a flotilla of 80 ships. The only thing the boy monarch could do was pay off the threat. This is how danegeld (Danish money) was born, and every Viking realized that in England it was enough to threaten an attack to get booty. For ten years, the Vikings have significantly reduced the reserves of gold and silver in the English treasury, not to mention the robbery of monasteries and churches. In 1002, in response to an attack by Sven Forkbeard, Æthelred ordered the massacre of all Danes in East Anglia (the so-called "Massacre of the Danes on St. Bryce's Day"). Sven's sister in the Danish enclave in London begged Æthelred for mercy, but she too was killed.
The consequences were predictable. Sven returned in a rage, and Æthelred had to scour all of England to collect the danegeld. This time, the amount was four times the entire cash income of his kingdom. Due to the annual attacks of the Danes, by 1013 Æthelred had lost control of England so much that he was forced to flee to Normandy. There he married Emma, daughter of the Duke of Normandy, who bore him a son, the future King of England, Edward the Confessor. When Sweyn died in 1014, the Witan, the Anglo-Saxon parliament, asked Æthelred to return, promising him "good government". It was the first known treaty of its kind in history between English kings and their subjects.
But the consequence of Æthelred's return was that in 1015 the Danes again invaded England. An army of twenty thousand, led by Sven's son, Knud (Kanut), sailed on two hundred drakkars from the shores of Northern Europe. According to the chronicler, “there were so many different shields that one might think that armies from all over the world had gathered. Who could look at these bulls with gilded horns on ships threatening death without fear? How not to be afraid of a king commanding such a force? Moreover: there was not a single slave, not a single freed from slavery, not a single rootless or decrepit. Everyone was noble." A year of continuous fighting followed between the armies of Canute and Æthelred's brave son, Edmund Ironside. Walled London fell, the kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria fell. Although Cnut failed to conquer all of England, the death of Æthelred and Edmund allowed him to proclaim himself king. On Christmas Day 1016 Canute (1016-1035) was crowned in London. The great kingdom of Alfred turned into a wasteland, where gangs of marauders rampaged. Six months later, Canute married Æthelred's widow Emma, partially legitimizing his position and annexing England to the Viking empire, which eventually stretched from Wessex to Denmark and north to Norway. It was this event, and not the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066, half a century later, that marked the real end of Saxon England.
Northern sagas describe Canute as a man of unusually tall and strong, "the most beautiful of men, if not for the nose, thin and hooked." He was constantly on the move, plying between his possessions - England, Denmark and Norway. After the ruler of Scotland, Malcolm II, recognized his vassal dependence on Canute, the latter went on a pilgrimage to Rome in order to restore Christianity in Scandinavia. No other English king until Henry II ruled such a large territory. What kind of a man Canute was, we can judge from one amazing legend, the meaning of which is often misunderstood. As the chronicle of the twelfth century tells, once Knud put his chair on the shore, near the water, in order to force the waves to flow back with his command. But this was not a manifestation of stupidity, as children are sometimes told, quite the contrary! When the wave came, the king jumped back and shouted: "Let everyone know how empty, how useless the power of kings!"
When Knud died in 1035, strife broke out between his sons. This allowed one of the courtiers, Godwin of Essex, to influence the election of the king. Cunning, merciless and interested only in material gain, Godwin enthroned Ethelred's son, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), who was already 41 years old. Although Edward had previously taken a vow of celibacy, Godwin married him to his daughter and made him, in fact, his puppet. Edward surrounded himself with French-speaking courtiers and became, in effect, the first Norman ruler of England. It was from the beginning of his reign, and not after the Norman Conquest, that government documents in England began to be drawn up in French. Edward established a large Norman abbey at Westminster and established the institution of royal sheriffs, or local representatives of the royal authority, with the aim of creating a structure parallel to the territorial administration already existing in the Saxon shires, headed by aldermen. This dualism between the representatives of the monarch and the territorial administration was to play in the future either an explosive and destructive, or a creative role in the state structure of medieval England.
A dualism also arose at court between Godwin's supportive Anglodans and Edward's French-speaking Normans. The power of Godwin could not but arouse the displeasure of other representatives of the Anglo-Saxon nobility, primarily Leofric, earl of Mercia, Godiva's husband (from Godifu, or God's Gift, - the gift of God). It was about her that she was told that she rode naked through the whole of Coventry in protest against the fines imposed on her husband. True, there is not a single piece of evidence from contemporaries that would confirm this legend, but in the Middle Ages it was considered undeniable. In 1051, the Witan narrowly prevented a civil war between Godwin's supporters and Edward's entourage by exiling Godwin and his family to France, one of the first acts of strength on the part of the king's advisers. Around this period, Edward was visited by his mother's great-nephew, the 23-year-old Duke Guillaume (William) of Normandy. This visit, at that time unnoticed by anyone, as it turned out later, was of great importance. William subsequently claimed that it was during this visit that Edward approved and supported his claim to the royal throne. But then, at a crucial moment in the history of England, no one kept minutes.
The following year, the Godwin family returned to London on a wave of anti-Norman sentiment, as a result of which the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert, was expelled from the country, replacing him with the Anglodan Stigand. Harold, son of Godwin, became Earl of Wessex and, in fact, the ruler of England for almost the entire last decade of Edward's life. However, it was Harold's turn to make it harder for himself to inherit the English crown. While sailing along the English Channel, he was wrecked off the coast of France and found refuge at the court of William, even took part with him in some kind of military campaign. And, according to the Normans, during his stay in Normandy, Harold allegedly confirmed that Edward the Confessor actually recognized William as heir to the English throne and swore an oath of allegiance to the Duke of Normandy. Of course, William accepted this as indisputable proof of his right to the English throne.
However, lying on his deathbed at the beginning of the fateful year 1066, Edward turned to Harold and "handed over England under his protection." The de facto earl was already its ruler, and the Witan, a collection of aldermen, thegns and bishops, clearly saw him as the most likely candidate for the throne. Although Harold was not an heir by blood, he was the best of all, a seasoned warrior and, in fact, already ruled the kingdom. Harold was duly enthroned. Upon learning of this, William was furious and sent him from his capital, Rouen, a message reminding him that Edward had blessed him, not Harold, and that Harold himself had sworn allegiance to him. But the Witan this time clearly demonstrated his almost constitutional power and rejected his claims. The country already had a king.
This text is an introductory piece.The future great king Knud was born at the very end of the 10th century in the family of the Danish prince Svein Forkbeard, son, the baptist of Denmark. But neither the place nor the exact date of Canute's birth is known. Very little information has been preserved about his childhood. It is only known that he was brought up and trained in military affairs by Torkel the Long, one of the leaders of the legendary Jomsvikings - mercenaries famous in all the northern seas. In addition, it is mentioned that Cnut's first combat experience was participation in one of his father's raids on England in 1003-1004. But all this information is based on sagas and legends, and not on more reliable sources.
It is authentically known that in 1013 Knud participated in under the banner of his father Svein Forkbeard. The Vikings successfully subdued the Angles and Saxons, the former ruler Ethelred the Unreasonable fled to Normandy, and Sweyn proclaimed himself the new king. True, he did not sit on the throne for long. On February 3, 1014, he died and the Danes who lived in England elected Cnut as ruler. The English feudal lords were not very happy with this turn of events. They did not at all want to endure a Dane on their throne, and they helped the exiled Æthelred return to the country, equipping an army for him. Canute was forced to flee, slaughtering all the noble Englishmen who were within reach along the way.
Returning to Denmark, Knud discovered that his younger brother Harald had taken his father's throne. This situation did not suit the elder brother very much, and he began to insist on, at a minimum, joint rule. Harald balked, but there was little he could do: after all, Knud was indeed Svein's eldest son.
Harald II. (en.wikipedia.org)
The brothers managed to reach an agreement without bloodshed. Harald agreed to provide his brother with an impressive army and navy, as well as provisions and money for a new campaign against England, and in exchange for this, Canute left the younger alone. For a new campaign in foggy Albion, the exiled monarch gathered a whole international. He was followed by Poles, Swedes, Norwegians. In the summer of 1015, a fleet of over two hundred ships set off, carrying over ten thousand warriors from all over Scandinavia and beyond.
Battle for England. Take two
The start of the campaign was incredibly successful. Until January 1016, Canute's army reached almost London. The Vikings were helped by the fact that at the head of the mercenaries who fought on the side of the British was Thorkel the Long, the former mentor of Canute. The teacher went over to his pupil along with most of the mercenaries. By April London was surrounded. The son of Æthelred the Foolish, Edmund Ironside, was a gifted military leader and withstood the siege of London for several months. He fought several major battles in which both sides suffered such heavy losses that it would not be very reasonable to call them someone else's victory.
In October 1016, after a series of major battles, both sides finally bled each other and began negotiations. Knud and Edmund decided that everything north of the Thames would be the domain of the Danish prince, and everything south, including London, would remain under the control of the British. Both kings were to hold their lands for life. After the death of the one who died first, all of England was to go to the survivor. Edmund was the first to die, and under suspicious circumstances. The English, who already respected the laws then, recognized Canute as their ruler. His coronation took place in London in early 1017.
Source: wikipedia.org
First of all, the new king promised his subjects protection from Viking raids. It was not so difficult to do this: most of these same Vikings were under his command. Knud entrusted the payment of wage arrears to his soldiers to the British conquered by them. And then he also introduced a tax on the upkeep of the army. Then the king turned to potential rivals: many noble Englishmen were executed, and the surviving representatives of the former dynasty fled England. The widow of the late Æthelred was taken by the new king as his wife.
The king divided the country into four large administrative and tax districts. The king ruled the capital district personally, and distributed the other three to his closest associates, appointing them earls. Ensuring the rotation of personnel, Knud often changed governors, who, along with the position, lost their heads.
Household chores: how to become a great king
In 1018, Canute's childless brother Harald died, and the king of England also became king of Denmark. He had to spend two years at home, pacifying the Danes who were dissatisfied with the new king. The anger of fellow countrymen caused a ban on the robbery of England. They perceived this occupation as a kind of seasonal fishing: fishermen catch fish, hunters get animals, and the Vikings rob England. The clans that adhered to these outdated customs were pacified, and their leaders were either executed or bought. Having calmed down his native land, Knut returned to London.
In 1026, the Norwegian king Olaf Haraldson decided to take advantage of the fact that the Danish king had not been seen in Denmark for a long time. It was not difficult for him to defeat the regent planted by Knud, and the legitimate monarch had to urgently collect a fleet in England, and sail personally, to understand the situation. The return of the king was successful - the Norwegians and their Swedish allies were thrown out of Denmark, and the governor appointed by the conquerors was executed.
King Knud. (wikipedia.org)
In 1027, having successfully dealt with domestic affairs, Canute went to Rome. Formally - for absolution, but in fact - to discuss with the Pope the division of Europe into church districts. On this journey, he showed himself to be a real Christian: he observed all the rituals, donated to charity and was emphatically respectful with the clergy. Returning to England in 1028, Canute learned that the Norwegians were again up to something evil. At the head of a fleet of fifty ships, he hurried north. Olaf Haraldson, not wanting to repeat the defeat of two years ago, hastily retreated to Norway. But even the local nobility did not support him: she was more comfortable with a king who would rule from distant England. As a result, Canute became the ruler of England, Denmark, Norway and part of Sweden, as he called himself in letters. The expansion of Canute's dominions did not end there. In 1031, without a war, he annexed the lands of three Scottish kings, making his state in the British Isles even more powerful.
By this time, there is a beautiful legend about how Knud taught a lesson to excessively flattering courtiers. When another sycophant pompously proclaimed that “the king is so great that even the sea must obey him,” Canute, together with the court, went to the coast. He loudly asked the sea to calm down, and then demanded from the flatterer to convey his request to the depths of the sea. The nobleman wandered helplessly along the shallows knee-deep in water and confessed his impotence. Then the wise Knud said: “Remember that not everything is in the power of kings!”
Egbert, king of Wessex, managed to unite almost all of England under his rule. Let me remind you that after the victory at Ellendun in 823 over the Mercians, a chain reaction of recognition of the supreme power of Egbert began. In 825 Mercia recognized the sovereignty of Wessex, then the kings of Kent and Essex, who had previously been clients of Mercia, also recognized the overlordship of Wessex. Then came the turn of Sussex, East Anglia and Northumbria. On the wave of success, Egbert set about conquering the Welsh lands and captured Chester and the island of Anglesey, which was the center of the Celtic religion of all the British Isles. At the end of his life, the Celts rebelled in Cornwall, but Egbert managed to crush their resistance, and finally subjugated all of Cornwall to his power in 835.
In 839, Egbert died, and descendants began to call him the eighth "Brettwald". It would seem that everything was fine, and Wessex could continue its conquests. But...
Simultaneously with the processes we have described, other events took place in Western Europe. Such a grandiose event as the re-creation of the Empire by Charlemagne attracted the attention of the whole world. And some minor events accidentally fell into the pages of the chronicles in those years when nothing happened. So in 742, a monk described the first Viking landing in Europe. Nothing special happened: most likely, it was one of the reconnaissance flights. But then the Vikings began to appear more and more often: first, the usual robbery, then the capture of small settlements and theft of captives. Viking appetites grew, and the British Isles found themselves in the path of the main stream of the Viking invasion.
The Saxon chronicle records regular, that is, annual, raids by the Vikings, beginning in 789. In 793, the Danes captured and completely plundered the monastery of St. Cuthbert on the island of Lindisfarne, in 794 the monastery in Yarrow was burned, the same one in which Beda the Venerable lived and worked, and in 795 the Vikings appeared immediately off the coast of East, South and West England and off the eastern coast of Ireland.
So when Egbert united England, predators were already biting her from all sides. They began to tear it apart a little later. And Egbert managed to inflict several defeats on the Vikings, the largest at Hengestden, and cool the interest of the Vikings in Wessex for several years. But not to the British Isles... By the way, some data suggest that the uprising in Cornwall was provoked and supported by the Vikings. So, the Danes attacked England mainly from the east and south, and the Norwegians - from the north and west. The Norwegians quickly conquered the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which became their possessions for several centuries, landed in northern and central Ireland, on the Isle of Man, which they made one of their main strongholds, in Western England and Wales.
Until the thirties of the IX century, the Vikings attacked settlements and monasteries located on the coast and at the mouths of the rivers. They rarely traveled more than 10-15 kilometers from the coast. The raids usually took place in the summer, and then the Vikings went home with the loot until the next year. For contemporaries, the annual Viking raids were a far worse disaster than pestilence or famine. An anonymous chronicler wrote:
"Almighty God sent crowds of fierce pagans - Danes, Norwegians, Goths and Svei; they devastated the sinful land of England from one seashore to another, killed people and cattle and did not spare either women or children."
The English kingdoms continued their internecine wars and were unable to rally for a united rebuff to the Vikings. In addition, the Angles and Saxons for several centuries of life on the island lost their sailing skills and were defenseless against the attacks of tens or even hundreds of ships from which well-armed and ruthless young warriors landed on the shore. And their allies often became the Welsh and Celts. From the mid-thirties of the 9th century, the Viking raids began to acquire a more organized character.
The Norwegians first stepped up the pressure on Ireland. In 832, their leader Turgeis landed in Northern Ireland with a retinue, captured Ulster and the religious center of Armach, and then marched through all of Ireland with fire and sword and became its supreme ruler. Some of the Irish joined the conquerors, but most of the tribes continued to fight them. In 845 Turgeis was captured and executed. There was a lull for several years, but soon the Norwegians gathered fresh forces and in 853, led by King Olaf the White, approached Dublin. Seeing the weighty arguments of the Norwegians, the Irish recognized the authority of Olaf, paid the due tribute, as well as a solid wergeld for Turgeis. The Norwegian kingdom with its center in Dublin existed for more than two centuries and was, along with the Isle of Man captured back in 796, the main stronghold in the seizure and colonization of territories in Western England and Wales, which began in the same 853.
The Danes began organized campaigns against England a little later, in 835, but the scale of their expansion was more significant. First they ravaged East Anglia, Kent, Cornwall and the Isle of Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames. As I said before, Egbert managed to stop the Viking raids a bit. After his death, the new king Æthelwulf had to deal with them almost immediately. At the first battle of Sharmut he was defeated. The Welsh immediately raised their heads and joined the Vikings in their fight against Wessex. But at the battle of Akli, Æthelwulf personally led his troops, and he managed to win an important victory. Immediately after this victory, he pacified the Welsh. But raids and battles continued every year, until at the mouth of the Perret River, Æthelwulf inflicted a crushing defeat on the Vikings. There was a lull for several years, and the Vikings hardly disturbed Wessex, which cannot be said about other territories. Even after the death of Æthelwulf in 858, the Vikings did not attack Wessex for another eight years. They already had enough other things to do in other places!
In the meantime, significant changes had taken place in the tactics of the Danish campaigns. Already in 840 they first arrived in England with horses. In 851, for the first time in the fall, they did not leave for their homeland, but remained to winter in England. Thus began the Danish colonization of England. One of the most colorful figures of this era was the famous leader of the Danes, Ragnar Lodbrok (Leather Pants), about whose exploits a separate saga and records in English chronicles have been preserved. He stood out among his warriors for his huge growth, terrible strength and incredible cruelty, and his clothes consisted of animal skins, for which he received his nickname. He made several successful trips to England and believed in his invincibility. On his last trip to York, he went with a small detachment, but ran into the royal army (well, no luck man!). His entire detachment was killed, and Ragnar himself was thrown into a pit with snakes, where he died singing battle songs. His sons swore to avenge his death and kept their vow. But more on that later.
After the death of Æthelwulf and the short reign of his two eldest sons, the crown of Wessex went to Æthelred, Æthelwulf's third son. But he did not enjoy the peace for long. In 865, the "Great Army" of the Danes approached the shores of England, so called the "Saxon Chronicle". It was led by eight kings and about twenty jarls, and the entire fleet consisted of several hundred ships. It was already an invasion. The main force landed in East Anglia, but a small detachment also penetrated the mouth of the Thames. Among the leaders of the Danes were the sons of Ragnar Lobdrok, Ingvar the Boneless and Halfdan. The local authorities treated the newcomers quite loyally and provided them with food and horses.
The first blow of the Vikings fell on Northumbria, where at that time two pretenders disputed the throne from each other. At the sight of a common enemy, the pretenders united their troops, but were defeated and laid down their heads under the walls of York. On November 1, 866, the Danes entered York. Southeastern Northumbria went to the Danes, and northwestern to the Norwegians, who at the same time attacked Northumbria. It is difficult to say how coordinated this action was. Ingvar and Halfdan, as the saga says, captured one of the leader of the Northumbrians (king?) named Ella and put him to a painful death, carving the image of an eagle on his back. Thus was their father's death avenged!
Now the threat loomed over Mercia, to whose aid Ethelred came with his army, and after several battles concluded a peace with the Danes in 868 in Nottingham, according to which the Danes renounced their claims to Mercia and Wessex. Yes, these lands were not subsequently colonized by the Danes, but the peace turned out to be fragile. However, the Danes first moved to Fen, where they ruined several rich abbeys, and then put Peterborough, Crowland and Ely to fire and sword. Almost all the monks were killed, and the monuments of literature and art were looted or destroyed. Then the Danes unexpectedly attacked East Anglia, which received them so friendly. Her army was defeated, and the last king of East Anglia, young Edmund, was taken prisoner. The leader of the Danes, Guthrum, ordered him to be tied to a tree and shot with bows. This happened on November 20, 870. Subsequently, Edmund was canonized, his images are often found in the stained glass windows of churches on the east coast of England, and the majestic building of St. Edmundsbury Abbey was built over his grave.
Guthrum put on the crown of Edmund, and a few years later he distributed all the lands of the kingdom to his soldiers for cultivation. Mercia shuddered from such a blow and already in 870 recognized the Danes as its overlords and paid the due tribute, since Ethelred no longer provided any real help to Mercia after the campaign in Nottingham. All England north of the Thames was lost to Wessex, and the very existence of an independent Wessex was in question.
From 793, new conquerors began to make regular raids on the British Isles - vikings (ancestors of the Norwegians) and are given (in England, all Scandinavians were called so). In the 870s East Anglia was completely conquered by the Vikings. This area became known as "Danelaw" ("Area of Danish law"). In this area, the Vikings established their own laws. England was ruled by a king Æthelred (Ethelready - Unreasonable). He allowed conflicts with the Vikings, as a result of which many territories were lost. England was on the verge of collapse as an independent state.
At this time, the king came to power Alfred the Great (871- 899), which considered the first English eminent monarch and reformer who.
"agreed peace with the Vikings (England began to pay tribute to them, as a result of which the aggression of the Vikings was stopped, which saved England from death and made it possible to gather strength);
"used a respite in the war with the Vikings to build fortresses and ships;
"became the founder of the British Navy;
He was the first to seek the expansion of England's international contacts, to overcome its "island" isolation from the rest of Europe ("cut a window" into continental Europe for England);
He contributed to the emergence and development of international maritime trade (before that, trade was predominantly within the island);
actively encouraged the dissemination of knowledge, culture, science;
Participated in the compilation of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle (chronicle);
Wrote a collection of laws King Alfred's Code (King's Code Alfred or Alfred's laws) the most important source of English law of that time.
Under Alfred the Great, England became so strong that its military conquest by the Vikings became impossible. The Vikings were finally defeated and expelled from England after 150 years under the king Edward the Confessor, who ruled in 1042-1066.
Norman conquest of England in 1066 French domination and its aftermath
1. Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and the 300-year (with short breaks) French domination that followed it had the strongest (after the Romans) influence on the formation of modern Great Britain, its state structure, language and culture.
Almost immediately after the overthrow of the 150-year-old domination of the Vikings (over part of England), the British Isles were attacked by a new aggressor - the Normans.
2. Normandy - feudal medieval state formation (duchy), which was located on the territory
rii of modern Northern France (on the other side of the English Channel). For Normandy of that time were characteristic.
Very strong state power;
Developed feudal relations;
military power.
3. In 1066, the well-armed and disciplined army of the Norman ruler William the Conqueror landed from Normandy in the British Isles.
In historical Battle of Hastings October 10, 1066 The English army was defeated by the Normans. The king of England was killed in battle Harold and key military leaders. England lost its independence for 300 years.
4. The power of the Normans was established on the territory of England. Wilhelm Conqueror (William the Conqueror) at the end of 1066 was crowned as king of England and held the throne for 21 years (1066-1087). The Norman Conquest led to major changes in the political and economic systems of England:
a very strong (the strongest in Europe) royal power was established:
king(William the Conqueror) was announced owner of all land- a rare case in Europe, where the owners of land (whole provinces) were feudal lords, equal in status to the king;
land was given out only for the service of the king;
the role of feudal lords(compared to the rest of Europe) significantly less(they were not sovereigns (suzerains), but only servants of the king);
In contrast to the European principle "the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal" (that is, each at his own level of the feudal hierarchy was an absolute master), in England the vassals of vassals were also vassals (servants) of the king;
Traditions of reverence and recognition of the absolute sovereignty of the English monarch were established (he was not "first among equals" like other European kings); finally fixed (including legally) rigid feudal relationship, class hierarchy based on inequality: in 1086 William the Conqueror was carried out general census of population and land, the results of which were recorded in a special book, popularly called "The Book of the Last Judgment" ("Domesday Book");
The census was carried out very harshly - for refusing to participate in it or hiding information, the death penalty came;
The population was taxed;
According to the census results (and entries in the Book) only about 10% of the population remained free;
90% of the population received a dependent status of various levels(about 40% - serfs (villeins); 10% - completely disenfranchised slaves (serf); 30% - formally free, but poor and dependent farmers (cotters); 10% - wealthy dependent peasants).
5. For almost the entire medieval period, a clear manor system,
Manor(feudal estate received for service to the king) became the basic unit of society. Economic and social life evolved around the manor:
headed the manor lord (baron) who received land from the king for service (often military) and was subordinate to the king;
Next came the smaller feudal lords - knights, those who received land from the lord were subject to both the lord and the king; knights (both in organizing the economy and in case of war) had to act in concert with their lord (they made up the "team" of the lord), the lord went on a military campaign with his knights;
After the lord and knights in the hierarchy came free people, settled around the manor (artisans, merchants, wealthy peasants) - they carried out a connection between this manor and other manors, as well as trade and craft services for the manor;
At the next stage - serfs, administratively assigned to the manor and obliged to work for the lord (they were, as it were, part of the manor as a property complex - the manor was issued by the king simultaneously with the peasants);
6. After the death of William the Conqueror in 1087, power passed to his descendants from the Norman dynasty, who were gradually assimilated by the British, but were carriers of French culture.
The next round of the French conquest took place in 1154Great French feudal lord Heinrich (Henry) Plantagenet of Anjou, possessing great wealth, abilities and striving for pan-European influence, conquered England and was proclaimed king of England. During the 35-year reign of Henry II Plantagenet (1154-1189):
England and France actually became one state;
There was a merger between the English and French elites; the leading role in this was taken by the French;
There has been a strong French influence on the English language AND culture.
But this phenomenon was temporary. Because of the ambitions of politicians, the natural geographical separation by the strait, and other differences, England and France did not become one state. After the death of Heinrich Plantagenet in 1189, their dynastic and state separation took place. Despite the fact that England continued to be ruled by the French (the Angevin dynasty, feudal lords), their interests with France, the French elite began to diverge. England and France took the path of creating separate states, gradually their state structure, culture, language and interests began to differ greatly. Subsequently, England and France became irreconcilable enemies and competitors both in Europe and in overseas possessions. The largest Anglo-Franius military clashes were.
Hundred Years' War (1337-1453);
the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), as a result of which Great Britain conquered most of the North American colonies from France, including Canada;
The wars of Great Britain against revolutionary and Napoleonic France (1793-1815), as a result of which Napoleon was overthrown.
Only in 1904 Great Britain and France settled numerous disputes and entered into an alliance "Entente Cordiale"(" "heartfelt consent" as a result of which Great Britain and France moved from enmity to reconciliation and became allies in two world wars.
7. French domination imposed a strong printed current in English:
for about 300 years in England, French was the official language; almost the entire elite of England (the king, the feudal lords, the military) spoke French;
English was the language of the poor and the lower classes; in modern English there is a clear pattern - almost all words related to the life of the upper classes are of French origin (manor, monarch, lord, guard, palace (palace), lunch, weekend, etc.) and there are almost no French words in the names of objects of life of the common people;
Until now, a number of British ceremonials are performed in French;
English and French have many common grammatical patterns (for example explicit discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation);English and French have similar phonetics (pronunciation), not typical for other European languages (fuzziness of pronunciation of some sounds (for example [p]), long vowels, a sound intermediate between [y] and [V]);
about 40% of English words and word formations have Latin korpi, brought through French.
England in the XIII-XIV centuries. The formation of a class-representative monarchy. Magna Carta (1215). Parliament (1265)
1 . By the XIII century. in England has developed strong centralized government
which relied on the support of chivalry, cities and free peasantry. Worked under the king royal council, who was in charge finance and the judiciary. Royal power was most strengthened under the Plantagenet dynasty, especially under its founder Henry 11(1154-1189). which:
Strengthened the state by holding judicial reform (common law system) - introduced royal Court, to which any subject could apply;
introduced the treasury in England (Exchequer). Finances were separated from the royal council.
Son of Henry II Plantagenet Richard the Lion-Hearted Plantagenet (1189-1199) continued his father's policy of strengthening the power of the king. He especially sought to strengthen the influence of England and the English king abroad. He spent most of his life outside of England. Participated in the third crusade (1189-1192), in the wars with France and Spain. The authority of the king at that time was very high. However, not all of the English aristocracy desired such an increase in royal power.
Contradictions escalated under the king John the Landless (1199-1216) - brother of Richard I the Lionheart (according to the most common version, the nickname "Landless" is due to the fact that John inherited only the County of Maine from his father (Henry II Plantagenet), who inherited the throne in 1199. During the reign of John Landless, the balance of political forces in favor of the king was violated. Due to the huge costs of waging war with France (unsuccessful) exacerbated social conflicts. The aristocracy and free subjects did not want to bear the burden of the war they did not need. Open disobedience to the king was shown by the barons - large feudal lords, who started a war against the king.
In 1215 during the war King John the Landless was taken prisoner And June 15, 1215 in Rapnymede Meadow near Windsor was forced sign the demands made to him.
This document, consisting of 63 articles, was called Magna Carta 1215- The Great Charter (eng.) Magna Charta Libertatum (lat.);Magna Carta (the name is now used as official) - the first constitutional act in British history.
IN present time The Magna Carta of 1215 is one of the founding acts of the unwritten British constitution.
According to the charter: was limited the power of the king in the tax(financial) and judicial areas. Feudal lords could only be judged by a court of equals. This the idea of \u200b\u200blimiting the power of the king, embodied in the charter, will then become the basis for the creation of parliament (Section 39 stated: "No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or dispossessed, or expelled without the decision of a council of peers." This requirement applied only to free men);
Was created a committee of 25 barons, which oversaw the action of the king, the observance of the Magna Carta;
Was introduced unified system of measures and weights. This contributed to the development of trade and economic life in general;
Civil wars were legalized.
In general, the Magna Carta was progressive character (except for some points that overly expand the rights of feudal lords).
It still exists thanks to her. peer system, they enter the House of Lords. Peers are divided into five categories:
duke (duke);
marquis (marquess);
Graph (earl);
Viscount (viscount);
Baron (baron).
Untitled nobles - baronet, knight (knight) are not peers (lords) and therefore do not enter the House of Lords.
2. The charter of 1215 underwent a complex evolution. As further actions of the king (John the Landless) showed, he was not at all going to comply with it and signed this document only in order to escape from captivity. A year later, he abandoned the charter and the war resumed. During this war, in 1216, John the Landless died without recognizing the Charter. Henry III (1216-1272), son of John Landless, considered himself little bound by the Magna Carta. When in 1257, due to famine caused by floods and crop failure, the feudal lords were unable to pay taxes to the treasury, he demanded 1/3 of the property instead of tax.