As the sun rose over snow-covered England on 13 November 1002 men from every region kissed their loved ones goodbye and left their homes armed for war. By day's end they had, under the king's direct orders, carried out an ethnic cleansing the like England had never before seen.π§΅
It was through the tireless work of King Alfred and his immediate descendants that what looked to be the end of times at the hands of Viking invaders was turned around and out of the chaos rose an England united. For as long as England was strong the Vikings dared not to return.
Under King Γthelred UnrΓ¦d, however, strength through incompetence was lost and what has been called by historians the Second Viking Age began. This second age differed from the first as the men who now sailed in number across the great North Sea were of a different sort entirely.
The men who in the 8th & 9th cs. harried England were raiders in the truest sense. They sought plunder and little more, once obtained most returned home. Those who settled in England converted to Christianity within a few years and assimilated enough to be accepted by the people.
Many Vikings of the 10th & 11th cs. were outcasts and fanatics. King Harald Bluetooth, from the 960s on, vigorously introduced Christianity to Denmark. Those who would not accept the new religion were exiled or fled, taking to the seas with a burning hatred for the Crucified One.
These men survived through raiding and force of arms, and there was no finer target than wealthy England under a weak king. However, their hatred for Christianity and believers in it led them to raid with ferocity far and above that necessary to extract plunder and exact tribute.
Time and again we read in the sources of the Viking's brutality. Across England the men, women, and children everywhere they visited would be slaughtered and their settlements razed. Southampton, Watchet, Folkestone and countless other places suffered such a cruel fate as this.
If their cruelty was as extreme in later years as it was early on, and it most likely was, then we can rightly cite an example of it:
"...they put to death everyone they found, and took away the children, tossing them on the points of their lances."
"...they put to death everyone they found, and took away the children, tossing them on the points of their lances."
Furthermore, as if such cruelty as above is not nigh unspeakable the Vikings also massacred all the livestock they did not take with them and burned all the crops they could. As such, those few souls who survived their terrible raids soon died miserable deaths from starvation.
For 20 long years England suffered the Northman's murderous rage. To complicate matters, over this time King Γthelred increasingly became reliant on Northern mercenaries. Many served him and some settled in England, taking an oath of loyalty. Such oaths were bound to be broken.
In AD 1001 a Dane named Pallig who had settled in Devon after swearing allegiance to the King went back on his oath, despite Γthelred having showered him with gifts, and joined a raiding party. Together they slaughtered and razed 4 major settlements as well as several minor ones.
This for the King was the final straw. It was one thing to commit atrocities, but in Old England breaking one's oath was nigh the worst crime a man could commit. Fearful that the other Danes resident in England might follow suit, King Γthelred began planning a mass extermination.
The Chronicler tells us more precisely the reason for this action, that "the king had been informed that they[the Danes] would treacherously deprive him, and then all his councillors, of life, and possess this kingdom afterwards"
The prospect of insurrection loomed over England.
The prospect of insurrection loomed over England.
Γthelred first consulted his leading men who at this time were the ealdormen Γlfric, Γlfhelm, and Leofwine as well as those in his household and together they discussed how to go about killing the Danes. Whether the leading churchmen participated in these discussions is unknown.
It was decided that Normandy must first be pacified. The Duchy had long given refuge to Vikings and happily bought their ill-gotten goods despite papally-sanctioned treaties forbidding it. The King married Emma, daughter of Richard I, and Normandy then closed itself to the Danes.
The full might of Anglo-Saxon government was then utilized and a flurry of writs were secretly sent out to the leading men of every town in England, ordering the deaths of every Dane within their reach and giving an exact day and time at which these massacres were to take place.
On the morning of 13 November 1002 across England ethnic Danish men, women and children, regardless of whether they were Christian or Pagan, were rounded up and massacred. Many of their killers may have lost loved ones to Danish brutality and they treated their victims no better.
When the killings began in Oxford many Danes broke into the monastery of St. Frideswide and hoped to defend themselves in it. Rather than storming it, the English torched the monastery and cut down all who fled the flames. The bodies of these victims have since been found.
In Devon a mass grave which contained the bodies of 50 Danes, all of whom had been beheaded, was also found. Such horrible sites as these are likely to be scattered across southern England, the greater part yet to be discovered.
According to the written sources many Danes were cut down in a frenzy by the sword, though many others were grouped together and "destroyed by fire". The aforementioned Pallig was murdered before his wife, then she was beheaded and their son was "transfixed with four spears".
Two years later in a charter he issued King Γthelred looked back and remembered this event as "a most just extermination" of "the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat". It is unlikely that the average Englishman thought much differently.
Although this terrible crime was meant to save England, and perhaps it did so from enemies internal, it brought down greater fury and destruction from the Danes. Vengeance began with more frequent and devastating raids, eventually culminating in King Sweyn's conquest of England.
The reign of King Cnut, Sweyn's son, saw a softening of relations between Englishman and Dane yet there remained an element of the "other". We can see this in a private letter in which the author levels an accusation of treason to race for the recipient's adopting Danish customs.
Bitter relations surely persisted for a long time, not in the elite who carried on though certainly among the people, invisible to chroniclers. By 1066 the two-way massacres would have still been within living memory though maybe grievances were set aside to resist a common foe.
If you would like to read about some of the English heroes during this grave time of ethnic conflict you can read on here:
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