fandomhigh | History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 2: Dark Ages Britain

Turn in next Tuesday's homework here. Your homework, which should sound familiar already is to select a topic from your readings (http://britannia.com/history/h50.html) and ~~cut and paste~~ give me at least 100 words.

St. Oswald's Priory in Gloucester was founded by the last King of Mercia, Aethelred II, and his formidable wife, Lady Aethelflaed, in about 890. Aethelflaed was the daughter of her husband's overlord, the powerful King Alfred the Great of Wessex. She had been virtually ruling the Kingdom of Mercia since her husband had been struck down with a debilitating illness about two years before. Perhaps the foundation was undertaken in the hope of some divine relief for the ailing monarch. It was certainly part of a major rebuilding programme in the city, as the place was being fortified as part of a string of Mercian defensive burghs.

When Anglo-Saxon settlers first moved into Britain in the 450s, they quickly began to divide Britain up into numerous petty kingdoms. Though London fell within the Kingdom of the East Saxons, its importance was obviously recognised by these newcomers and the city was often taken under direct control of the Essex overlords: variously Kings of Kent, Mercia or Wessex. The area within the old Roman walls was left almost wholly deserted, though there may have been an Essex Royal Palace somewhere nearby. Soon after the arrival of Christianity in the Saxon parts of Britain in 597, however, King Aethelbert of Kent built the first St. Paul's Cathedral within the Ludgate, supposedly replacing a pagan Saxon temple.

((OOC: NOT MY ACTUAL HOMEWORK, but I found it on my hard drive and couldn't resist. Wrong time period for today's homework, and slightly edited from the original to make it FH-friendly. Also, I am possibly insane.))

The Conversion of Northumbria
As told by the Venerable Bede.
Reenvisioned by Zero Hopeless-Savage.
A drama.

MISSIONARY DUDE (aka BISHOP PAULINUS): Hey. You should all be Christians.
KING EDWIN: Works for me. Let me talk to these other guys for a minute. Hey, guys, what do you think?
SOME GUY: Life...is like a sparrow. Flying into Caritas on a winter's day.
KING EDWIN: Wait. What?
SOME GUY: It is warm for a moment, and it poops on some poor student's head, and then it is gone. And cold.
KING EDWIN: Oooookay. Grand High Priest Coifi, what say you?
GRAND HIGH PRIEST: My Lord, long have I thought our religion was false and without virtue.
KING EDWIN: Wait, what?
GRAND HIGH PRIEST: Indeed, give me a stallion and arms, that I may--
KING EDWIN: Dude, swords don't grow on trees.
GRAND HIGH PRIEST: --That I may proclaim this new religion, which is clearly the one true way, to your subjects.
KING EDWIN: I'm sorry, Grand High Priest of what, exactly? I think I missed something here.
GRAND HIGH PRIEST: Oh, and we should burn all our temples, too.
KING EDWIN: Works for me!

[curtain]

((NOW WITH ACTUAL ~~C&P~~ HOMEWORK))

*stapled to Zero's strange little play*

Aethelred, called the Unready, succeeded to the throne after the murder of his half-brother, Edward II, the Martyr, at the age of ten. His reign was plagued by poor advice from his personal favorites and suspicions of his complicity in Edward's murder. His was a rather long and ineffective reign, which was notable for little other than the payment of the Danegeld, an attempt to buy off the Viking invaders with money. The relentless invasions by the Danish Vikings, coupled with their ever-escalating demands for more money, forced him to abandon his throne in 1013. He fled to Normandy for safety, but was later recalled to his old throne at the death of Svein Forkbeard in 1014. He died in London in 1016.

Canute (or Cnut) I, or Canute the Great (Danish: Knud II den Store, Norwegian: Knut den mektige) (994/995 – November 12, 1035) was king of England, Denmark and Norway and governor or overlord of Schleswig and Pomerania. He was the son of sea-king Sweyn Forkbeard who was an avid supporter of the old faith and reputedly a member of the Jomsvikings. Canute's mother was Gunhild (formerly Swiatoslawa daughter of Mieszko I of Poland).

Accompanying his father on his successful invasion of England in August 1013, Canute was proclaimed king by the Danish fleet on Sweyn's death the following February, but returned to Denmark (April 1014) on the restoration of the defeated king Ethelred the Unready by the Witenagemot of English nobles.

Invading England once more (August 1015), Canute fought a series of inconclusive conflicts with the English led by Ethelred and (from April 1016) by Ethelred's son, Edmund II of England until his crushing victory (October 1016) at the Battle of Assandun (probably either Ashingdon or Ashdon (known as Ascenduná in the Little Domesday Book of 1086), both in Essex, England). Meeting on an island in the river Severn, Canute and Edmund agreed to divide the kingdom, but Edmund's death (November 1016) left Canute as sole ruler, leading to his acclamation as king by the Witenagemot in January 1017.

By dividing the country (1017) after the Danish fashion into the four great earldoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria, he instituted the system of territorial lordships which would underlie English government for centuries. The very last Danegeld ever to be paid, a sum of £82,500, was paid to Canute in 1018. He felt secure enough to send the invasion fleet back to Denmark with a payment of £72,000 that same year.

Canute is generally regarded as a wise and successful king of England, although this view may in part be attributable to his good treatment of the church, which controlled the history writers of the day. Thus we see him described even today as a religious man, despite the fact that he lived openly in what was effectively a bigamous relationship, and despite his responsibility for many political murders.

He is perhaps best remembered for the legend of how he commanded the waves to go back. According to the legend, he grew tired of flattery from his courtiers. When one such flatterer gushed that the king could even command the obedience of the sea, Canute proved him wrong by practical demonstration at Thorney Island, his point being that even a king's powers have limits. Unfortunately, this legend is sometimes misunderstood to mean that he believed himself so powerful that the natural elements would obey him, and that his failure to command the tides only made him look foolish. It is quite possible that the legend is simply pro-Canute propaganda.

Danelaw

From about 800 AD, waves of Viking assaults on the coastlines of the British Isles were gradually followed by a succession of settlers. These enclaves rapidly expanded, and soon the Viking warriors were establishing areas of control of such extent that they might reasonably be described as kingdoms.

The reasons for these wave of immigrations are complex and bound to the political situation in Scandinavia at that time; moreover, they occurred at a time when the Viking forces were also establishing their presence in the Hebrides, in the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, in Iceland, in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (see Kievan Rus').

The Danelaw was formally established as a result of the Treaty of Wedmore in the late 9th century, after Alfred the Great had defeated the Viking Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. The Danelaw represented a consolidation of power for Alfred; the subsequent conversion of Guthrum to Christianity underlines the ideological significance of this shift in the balance of power.

The Danelaw was gradually eroded by Anglo-Saxon raids in later years. Edward the Elder (reigned 899 - 924) later incorporated it to his newfound Kingdom of England.

Attacks from Viking Raiders started in earnest around Britain in the 830s and it wasn't long before they moved on London. There were attacks in 842 & 851. Then in 865, the 'Great Heathen Army' invaded East Anglia and began to march across the country, raping and pillaging as it went. The Vikings spent the winter of 871-2 in London, presumably within the walls. It is unclear what happened to the traders to the west at this time. By 878 though, King Alfred the Great had become King of all the English and forced the Viking leaders to sue for peace. Eight years later, he re-established Lundenburg, within the city walls, as one of a system of defensive burghs around the country. A South-Werk was also constructed across the river to protect the ferry crossing. With the Roman walls repaired and the ditch recut, Alfred handed the city over to Ealdorman Aethelred of Mercia. The latter established Aethelred's Hythe (Queenhythe) and Billingsgate Market and a new street system began to emerge. Trade prospered and Lvndonia coins were minted in the city, but development was slow at first. Lundenwic was abandoned, though the name survives today as the Auld-Wych.

The monk Gildas wrote the a book about "The Loss of Britain" in 540. It is not a good history. It and Bede's book are the first to tell the story of the coming of the Saxons to Britain. (If what they say is actually true. We don't know that.) The Saxons' success, which Gildas thought was God's vengeance against the Britons for their sins, was a pretty much the same thing Bede thought. But Gildas said that, in his own day, the Saxons were not fighting the Britons after all. But most of the Britons who were already there survived and so things worked out o.k.

Æthelwulf was the son of Egbert and a sub-king of Kent. He assumed the throne of Wessex upon his father's death in 839. His reign is characterized by the usual Viking invasions and repulsions common to all English rulers of the time, but the making of war was not his chief claim to fame. Æthelwulf is remembered, however dimly, as a highly religious man who cared about the establishment and preservation of the church. He was also a wealthy man and controlled vast resources. Out of these resources, he gave generously, to Rome and to religious houses that were in need.

St. Winifred

Gwenfrewy, more commonly called Winifred, was a descendant of the early Kings of Powys and the daughter of Tyfid, a great and rich man in North Wales: Lord of the townships of Abeluyc (Trefynnon alias Holywell), Maenwen & Gwenffynnon in Tegeingl. After being harassed by some young Princes of Powys, her uncle, St. Beuno, decided to move home with his family and offered to become Winifred's teacher in return for some land on which to build a church. Tyfid gave him Abeluyc and here, in the steep Valley of Sechnant, Beuno set up house. Daily, he instructed Winifred in the little church he had built and, eventually, gave her the religious veil, with the approval of her father and mother.

One day, Winifred's parents and their servants were all at church, Beuno was officiating, and Winifred was left alone in the house. While they were out, Caradog, son of Prince Alaog, Lord of Pennarlag (Hawarden alias Pennard Halawg) rode by and stopped at the house to ask for a drink. He was so overcome by Winifred's beauty, that he made improper suggestions and, when rejected, moved to force himself upon her. Winifred fled to join her family at Abeluyc. The young horseman easily overtook her, however, and, in a fit of rage, cut off her head on the steps of the church (22nd June).

Caradog stood with his sword in his hand, unable either to stir from the spot or to repent. At all the commotion, St. Beuno came rushing outside. Distraught, he cursed the young prince for his terrible crime, who immediately dropped down dead and was whisked away by devils. Beuno informed the assembled Christians that Winifred had vowed to die a martyr to her virginity and Christianity. Then he took up her head from the ground and set it back in its rightful place. From where it had fallen, there instantly sprang up a well of pure clear water. At the same time, he commanded the congregation to pray that Winifred might be restored to life and fulfil her vow; and, when they arose from praying, she arose with them. For the rest of her life she had a red mark round her throat where it had been sliced through.

*mun coughs* Commonly. As in, a name from a culture that wasn't hers and she never would have been called by except in records written by the invaders?

*Methos hits mun on head to shut her up* I apologize, Mr. Adama. She gets a little insane around Welsh things. *Methos ties mun up and locks her in closet*

History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 2: Dark Ages Britain

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