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87-591: The House of Wessex became rulers of a unified English nation under the descendants of Alfred the Great (871–899). Edward the Elder , Alfred's son, united southern England under his rule by conquering the Viking occupied areas of Mercia and East Anglia . His son, Æthelstan , extended the kingdom into the northern lands of Northumbria , which lies above the Mersey and Humber , but this

174-489: A West Saxon contingent in a successful joint campaign. In the same year Burgred married Æthelwulf's daughter, Æthelswith. In 825, Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf to invade the Mercian sub-kingdom of Kent , and its sub-king, Baldred , was driven out shortly afterwards. By 830, Essex , Surrey and Sussex had submitted to Ecgberht, and he had appointed Æthelwulf to rule the south-eastern territories as king of Kent. The Vikings ravaged

261-428: A brother of King Ine), but the material may well date back to the earliest reconstructable version of the collection, c.  796 ; and possibly still further back, to 725–726. Compared to the later texts, this pedigree gives an ancestry for Ceolwald as son of Cuthwulf son of Cuthwine which in the later 9th-century texts sometimes seems confused; and it states Cynric as son of Creoda son of Cerdic, whereas

348-485: A continuation of a unified line of kingship descended from a single original founder. One apparently earlier pedigree survives, which traces the ancestry of King Ine back to Cerdic. This first appears in a 10th-century manuscript copy of the " Anglian collection " of Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies . The manuscript is thought to have been made at Glastonbury in the 930s during the reign of King Æthelstan   (whose family traced their own royal descent back to Cerdic via

435-547: A counter-attack because the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned. The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshalled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but in the case of the Viking raids, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that

522-474: A fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset , and from that fort kept fighting against the foe". Considering the fate of the Mercians' kingdom under similar Viking pressure and an analysis of charter signatories either side of the raid it has been suggested that Alfred may have fallen prey to a Witan coup at Chippenham rather than simply being surprised by a Viking attack. From his fort at Athelney, an island in

609-519: A means of obstructing the river to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred, struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth . The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria , some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England returned to the continent. The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in

696-598: A new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames. This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred. In 888, Æthelred, the archbishop of Canterbury , also died. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and

783-577: A permanent union between Wessex and Kent because they both appointed sons as sub-kings, and charters in Wessex were attested (witnessed) by West Saxon magnates, while Kentish charters were witnessed by the Kentish elite; both kings kept overall control, and the sub-kings were not allowed to issue their own coinage. Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf

870-532: A prize by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. He must have had it read to him because his mother died when he was about six and he did not learn to read until he was 12. In 853, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV , who "anointed him as king". Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to

957-411: A road system maintained for army use (known as herepaths ). The roads allowed an army quickly to be assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader. The road network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for them. The Vikings lacked the equipment for

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1044-423: A siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft , having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission but this gave the king time to send his field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the army roads. In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by

1131-586: A system of scouts and messengers. Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire . He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later, the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son. According to Asser, The unbinding of

1218-464: A winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district. Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year, the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km) north of London. A frontal attack on the Danish lines failed but later in the year, Alfred saw

1305-614: Is known) in contemporary Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Latin , the prevalent languages of record at the time in England. This was a period in which spellings varied widely, even within a document. A number of variations of the details below exist. Among these are the preference between the runic character thorn (Þ, lower-case þ, from the rune of the same name ) and the letter eth (Ð or ð), both of which are equivalent to modern ⟨th⟩ and were interchangeable. They were used indiscriminately for voiced and unvoiced ⟨th⟩ sounds, unlike in modern Icelandic . Thorn tended to be more used in

1392-548: Is largely based on the late 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List (reproduced in several forms, including as a preface to the [B] manuscript of the Chronicle), and Asser 's Life of King Alfred . These sources are all closely related and were compiled at a similar date, and incorporate a desire in their writers to associate the royal household with the authority of being

1479-563: Is no existing evidence that the male line of the Cerdicings continued beyond Edgar Ætheling. Edgar's niece Matilda of Scotland later married William's son Henry I to consilidate his claim to the throne, since his father, William the Conqueror already had a tenuous claim to the English throne, and he had an even more tenuous one, forming a link between the two dynasties. Henry II was a descendant of

1566-544: Is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers Æthelbald and Æthelberht. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army of Danes landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms which constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865. Alfred's public life began in 865 at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18-year-old Æthelred. During this period, Bishop Asser gave Alfred

1653-609: The Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset). Æthelred died shortly afterwards in April 871. In April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold . This was in accordance with

1740-525: The Battle of Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney , on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex , where they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex. They then went to Essex and after suffering another defeat at Benfleet , joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury . Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that

1827-588: The Danelaw ). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints—at least for the time being. In 825, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had recorded that the people of Essex, Sussex, Kent and Surrey surrendered to Egbert , Alfred's grandfather. From then until the arrival of the Great Heathen Army , Essex had formed part of Wessex. After the foundation of Danelaw, it appears that some of Essex would have been ceded to

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1914-511: The Isle of Sheppey in 835, and the following year they defeated Ecgberht at Carhampton in Somerset, but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down , reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom . When Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne, he appointed his eldest son Æthelstan as sub-king of Kent. Ecgberht and Æthelwulf may not have intended

2001-695: The Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter . The fate of the other place is not recorded. The force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley , possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia , Wiltshire and Somerset and forced to head off to

2088-549: The River Stour , the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number), and a battle ensued. The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious, and as Henry of Huntingdon writes, "laden with spoils". The victorious fleet was surprised when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in

2175-476: The chrisom on the eighth day took place at a royal estate called Wedmore . At Wedmore, Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore , but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed. Under the terms of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore, the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879

2262-452: The law code of King Ine of Wessex , issued in c.  694 : If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service Wessex's history of failures preceding Alfred's success in 878 emphasised to him that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to

2349-521: The Anglo-Saxons were closely related – to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander. In 868, Alfred was recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in a failed attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia . The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with mixed results;

2436-617: The Bald , king of West Francia . In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith , daughter of the Mercian nobleman Æthelred Mucel , ealdorman of the Gaini, and his wife Eadburh, who was of royal Mercian descent. Their children were Æthelflæd , who married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians ; Edward the Elder , Alfred's successor as king; Æthelgifu , abbess of Shaftesbury ; Ælfthryth , who married Baldwin , count of Flanders ; and Æthelweard . Alfred's grandfather, Ecgberht , became king of Wessex in 802, and in

2523-535: The Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. He negotiated a peace that involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor . The Danes broke their word, and after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon. Alfred blockaded

2610-454: The Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer. Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, but Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder. After travelling up

2697-511: The Danes' advantage. While the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements for plunder, they employed different tactics. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall , advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshalled against them in defence. The Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays to avoid risking their plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their tactic

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2784-415: The Danes, but how much is not clear. With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum , an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people began settling East Anglia , Guthrum was neutralised as a threat. The Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878–879, sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879 to 892. There were local raids on

2871-673: The English Civil War; currently the bones rest jumbled in different mortuary chests in the current cathedral . Though London was already a prominent city in pre-Conquest England, only one king from the House of Wessex was buried there ( Æthelred the Unready , at Old St. Paul's , now lost). Edward the Confessor favored Westminster as a residence, and his construction of a large Romanesque church there would lead to its later prominence . Other kings from

2958-585: The House of Wessex in the female line, something that contemporary English commentators noted with approval. The House of Wessex predominantly ruled from Winchester ( Wintan-ceastre ). Going back to Cynegils , several kings and consorts of the dynasty were buried at the cathedral in Winchester, first in the Old Minster and then the New Minster . The remains of many of these rulers and others were vandalized during

3045-508: The Saxon quarter in Rome from taxation, probably in return for Alfred's promise to send alms annually to Rome, which may be the origin of the medieval tax called Peter's Pence . The pope sent gifts to Alfred, including what was reputed to be a piece of the True Cross . After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace,

3132-522: The Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester. The formal Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum , preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as Quadripartitus , was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed. That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms,

3219-528: The Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England. Alfred began styling himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons" after reoccupying London from the Vikings. Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser . Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English rather than Latin, and improving

3306-567: The Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries. Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been called trinoda necessitas or trimoda necessitas . The Old English name for

3393-478: The Viking ships in Devon, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878, the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham , a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made

3480-401: The Vikings silver to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year. Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/872 have been excavated at Croydon , Gravesend and Waterloo Bridge . These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England. In 876, under Guthrum, Oscetel and Anwend,

3567-459: The Wessex dynasty are buried at Sherborne , Wimborne , and Brookwood . For a family tree of the House of Wessex from Cerdic down to the children of King Alfred the Great, see: A continuation into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( Old English : Ælfrǣd [ˈæɫvˌræːd] ; c.  849 – 26 October 899) was King of

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3654-502: The West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh , who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald , Æthelberht and Æthelred , reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England. After ascending

3741-467: The agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise

3828-604: The boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea , follow the Lea to its source (near Luton ), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford , and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street . Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged Kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as

3915-444: The burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before. The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds. The burhs were connected by

4002-436: The coast of Wessex throughout the 880s. In 882, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Two of the ships were destroyed, and the others surrendered. This was one of four sea battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , three of which involved Alfred. Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades. In 883, Pope Marinus exempted

4089-528: The court of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks , around 854–855. On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald . With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to form a compromise. Æthelbald retained the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf ruled in the east. After King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred . Alfred

4176-533: The demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom". King of the West Saxons This is a list of monarchs of the Kingdom of the West Saxons (Wessex) until 886 AD. While the details of the later monarchs are confirmed by a number of sources, the earlier ones are in many cases obscure. The names are given in modern English form followed by the names and titles (as far as

4263-462: The fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy , or fyrd , and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended. The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve; those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land. According to

4350-457: The fine due for neglecting military service was fierdwite . To maintain the burhs , and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The hide was the basic unit of the system on which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A hide is thought to represent the amount of land required to support one family. The hide differed in size according to

4437-415: The fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn, and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return. The first written account of the legend appears a century after Alfred's death, though it may have earlier origins in folklore . In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide , Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he

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4524-456: The founder of the West Saxon dynasty . This made Ecgberht an ætheling – a prince eligible for the throne. But after Ecgberht's reign, descent from Cerdic was no longer sufficient to make a man an ætheling. When Ecgberht died in 839, he was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf; all subsequent West Saxon kings were descendants of Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, and were also sons of kings. At the beginning of

4611-475: The invaders from his kingdom. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them. Although the terms of the peace are not recorded, Bishop Asser wrote that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise. The Viking army withdrew from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Alfred probably paid

4698-575: The king was forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in Kent , an allied kingdom in South East England , during the year 885, which was possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester , where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against

4785-564: The king's joint military forces. Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and stormed a half-built, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia. Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at

4872-470: The larger body at Appledore, Kent , and the lesser under Hastein , at Milton , also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them, indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces. While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son Edward, and were defeated at

4959-404: The legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" from as early as the 13th century, though it was only popularised from the 16th century. Alfred is the only native-born English monarch to be labelled as such. Alfred was a son of Æthelwulf , king of Wessex , and his wife Osburh. According to his biographer, Asser , writing in 893, "In

5046-549: The letters W and U. W was occasionally rendered VV (later UU), but the runic character wynn (Ƿ or ƿ) was a common way of writing the /w/ sound. Again the West Saxons initially preferred the character derived from a rune, and the Angles/Engle preferred the Latin-derived lettering VV, consistent with the thorn versus eth usage pattern. Except in manuscripts, runic letters were an Anglian phenomenon. The early Engle restricted

5133-544: The marshes near North Petherton , Alfred was able to mount a resistance campaign, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire . 878 was the nadir of the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was resisting. Having fled to the Somerset Levels , Alfred was purportedly given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, asked him to mind some wheaten cakes she left baking by

5220-564: The midland kingdom of Mercia , and as late as 844, a charter showed that it was part of Mercia, but Alfred's birth in the county is evidence that, by the late 840s, control had passed to Wessex. He was the youngest of six children. His eldest brother, Æthelstan , was old enough to be appointed sub-king of Kent in 839, almost 10 years before Alfred was born. He died in the early 850s. Alfred's next three brothers were successively kings of Wessex. Æthelbald (858–860) and Æthelberht (860–865) were also much older than Alfred, but Æthelred (865–871)

5307-467: The national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It was only after the raids had begun that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. Although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum. With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on

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5394-487: The ninth century, England was almost wholly under the control of the Anglo-Saxons . Mercia dominated southern England, but its supremacy came to an end in 825 when it was decisively defeated by Ecgberht at the Battle of Ellendun . Mercia and Wessex became allies, which was important in the resistance to Viking attacks. In 853, King Burgred of Mercia requested West Saxon help to suppress a Welsh rebellion, and Æthelwulf led

5481-486: The north-west, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington . (Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye , others with Buttington near Welshpool .) An attempt to break through the English lines failed. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester . The English did not attempt

5568-558: The person of Edgar the Ætheling , a grandson of Edmund Ironside who had originally been passed over in favour of Harold, were unsuccessful and William's descendants secured their rule. Chroniclers describe conflicting stories about Edgar's later years, including a supposed involvement in the First Crusade ; he is presumed to have died around 1126. A Northumberland pipe roll mentions an "Edgar Adeling" in 1158, and 1167, by which time Edgar would have been over 100 years old. Beyond this, there

5655-560: The places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs , possibly near Compton or Aldworth . The Saxons were defeated at

5742-401: The previous engagement. A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again. Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law Æthelred , ealdorman of Mercia. Soon afterwards, Alfred restyled himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around

5829-531: The relatively peaceful years following his victory at Edington with an ambitious restructuring of Saxon defences. On a trip to Rome Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald, and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings had dealt with Viking raiders. Learning from their experiences he was able to establish a system of taxation and defence for Wessex. There had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia that may have been an influence. When

5916-597: The south ( Wessex ) and eth in the North (Mercia and Northumbria). Separate letters th were preferred in the earliest period in Northern texts, and returned to dominate by the Middle English period onward. The character ⁊ ( Tironian et ) was used as the ampersand (&) in contemporary Anglo-Saxon writings. The era pre-dates the emergence of some forms of writing accepted today; notably rare were lower case characters, and

6003-544: The stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham in West Sussex. The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton in Devon, to large fortifications in established towns, the largest being at Winchester. A document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how

6090-420: The system worked. It lists the hidage for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. Wallingford had a hidage of 2,400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (1.88 miles; 3.0 kilometres) of wall. A total of 27,071 soldiers were needed, approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex. Many of

6177-427: The throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. It may be based upon the fact that Alfred later accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at

6264-495: The throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw , composed of Scandinavian York , the north-east Midlands and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against

6351-573: The unique title of secundarius , which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic tanist , a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. It was a well known tradition among other Germanic peoples – such as the Swedes and Franks to whom

6438-473: The use of runes to monuments, whereas the Saxons adopted wynn and thorn for sounds which did not have a Latin equivalent. Otherwise they were not used in Wessex. The chart shows their (claimed) descent from the traditional first king of Wessex, Cerdic , down to the children of Alfred the Great . A continuation of the tree into the 10th and 11th centuries can be found at English monarchs family tree . The tree

6525-524: The value and resources of the land and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many hides he owned. The foundation of Alfred's new military defence system was a network of burhs, distributed at tactical points throughout the kingdom. There were thirty-three burhs, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a day. Alfred's burhs (of which 22 developed into boroughs ) ranged from former Roman towns , such as Winchester, where

6612-413: The victory". Æthelwulf died in 858 and was succeeded by his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, as king of Wessex and by his next oldest son, Æthelberht, as king of Kent. Æthelbald only survived his father by two years, and Æthelberht then for the first time united Wessex and Kent into a single kingdom. According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as

6699-456: The view of the historian Richard Abels , it must have seemed very unlikely to contemporaries that he would establish a lasting dynasty. For 200 years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdic ,

6786-533: The year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage , in the district known as Berkshire ("which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly"). This date has been accepted by the editors of Asser's biography, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge , and by other historians such as David Dumville , Justin Pollard and Richard Huscroft. West Saxon genealogical lists state that Alfred

6873-557: Was 23 when he became king in April 871, implying that he was born between April 847 and April 848. This dating is adopted in the biography of Alfred by Alfred Smyth , who regards Asser's biography as fraudulent, an allegation which is rejected by other historians. Richard Abels in his biography discusses both sources but does not decide between them and dates Alfred's birth as 847/849, while Patrick Wormald in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article dates it 848/849. Berkshire had been historically disputed between Wessex and

6960-510: Was a brief Anglo-Saxon restoration between 1042 and 1066 under Edward the Confessor , who was a son of Æthelred, who was later succeeded by Harold Godwinson , a member of the House of Godwin , possibly a side branch of the Cerdicings (see Ancestry of the Godwins ). After the Battle of Hastings , the victorious Duke of Normandy became William I of England . Anglo-Saxon attempts to restore native rule in

7047-470: Was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk . Guthrum's death changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting power vacuum stirred other power-hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves,

7134-412: Was defeated at Carhampton. In 850, Æthelstan defeated a Danish fleet off Sandwich in the first recorded naval battle in English history. In 851, Æthelwulf and his second son, Æthelbald, defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to this present day, and there took

7221-655: Was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water ), and they rejoiced to see him". Alfred's emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires . This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen , royal reeves and king's thegns , who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also suggest

7308-404: Was not fully consolidated until after his nephew Edgar succeeded to the throne. Their rule was often contested, notably by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard who invaded in 995 and occupied the united English throne from 1013 to 1014, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready and his son Edmund Ironside . Sweyn, his son Canute and his successors ruled until 1042 . After Harthacanute , there

7395-519: Was only a year or two older. Alfred's only known sister, Æthelswith , married Burgred , king of Mercia in 853. Most historians think that Osburh was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, but some suggest that the older ones were born to an unrecorded first wife. Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight . She was described by Alfred's biographer Asser as "a most religious woman, noble by temperament and noble by birth". She had died by 856 when Æthelwulf married Judith , daughter of Charles

7482-450: Was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested. While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive

7569-400: Was to launch small attacks from a secure base to which they could retreat should their raiders meet strong resistance. The bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with ditches, ramparts and palisades . Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with

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