The Forgotten History of Danish East Anglia - online with Dr Sam Newton FSA

Title-picture above: Bloody Point, Shotley, Suffolk, said to be named after the blood shed here at the Battle of Stourmouth in 885 (©Dr Sam Newton, 19th October 2011).

This online study-day aims to chart the largely forgotten history of Anglo-Danish East Anglia from the late ninth to early eleventh centuries, following the occasional refences in that Old Testament of English history, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as well as other English and Scandinavian sources, and landscape archaeology.

We shall begin with the famous Danish king Gúthrum, defeated, captured, and baptised by King Alfred in 878, but who then ruled in East Anglia until his death and burial at Hadleigh in 890. His successors contended with the rising power of Wessex and eventually submitted to West Saxon overlordship in 917.

Both the army and navy of the East Anglian Danes appear to have supported the West Saxon kings in their wars against the Northumbrian Danes and Scots later in the tenth century.

They also appear to have played an important part in the defence of East Anglia during the second wave of Danish invasions in the early eleventh century, especially under the leadership of Ulfcytel. His skill in the art of war

The quality of his leadership is clear from the record of great raid on East Anglia by the army of the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard in 1004. Although Ulfcytel was defeated, he earned the respect of his enemies. He fought another Danish army at the Battle of Ringmere, south of Thetford, in 1010, and was killed at the Battle of Assandún in Essex in 1016, when all England finally fell to Danish rule under Cnút, the son of Sweyn Forkbeard.

Provisional Timetable for the Day

10.15 –11.15: Gúthrum's Kingdom.

11.15 - 11.45: Coffee-break.

11.45 – 12.45: The Eastern Danelaw in the Tenth Century.

12.45 - 13.45: Lunch-break.

13.45 - 14.45: Ulfcytel the Valiant.

Above: St Mary's Church, Aldham, near Hadleigh, Suffolk, one of the possible sites of the burial of the Danish king, Gúthrum, in 890.

Below: Looking along the line of the old East Anglian defence work , now known as the Devil's Dyke, near Newmarket, behind which the Danish army retreated and held successfully against the West Saxon counter offensive in 902 (©Dr Sam Newton 8th September 2012 ).

Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading

Alexander, M., The First Poems in English (Penguin Classics 2008)

Backhouse, J. (ed.), The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art (British Museum, 1984)

Bengtsson, Frans G., The Long Ships, trans. M.Meyer (London 1954, 1956)

Farmer, D.H., The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford University Press, 1978)

Hart, C., The Danelaw (Hambledon 1992)

Jones, G., A History of the Vikings (2nd Edition, Oxford 1984)

Keynes, S., & M. Lapidge (ed. & tr.), Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and other contemporary sources (Penguin Classics 1983)

Lawson, M. K., Cnut, The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century, The Medieval World Series (Longman 1994)

Magnusson, Magnus, The Vikings ( rev.ed. Tempus 2000)

Page, R.I., Chronicles of the Vikings: Records, Memorials and Myths (British Museum Press, 2000)

Rumble, A. (ed.), The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark and Norway, Studies in the Early History of Britain Series, 10-26 (Leicester 1994)

Smyth, A., Scandinavian York and Dublin (Dublin 1975)

Smyth, A., Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles 850-880 (Oxford 1977)

Smyth, A., King Alfred the Great (Oxford 1995)

Stenton, F., Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford 1971)

Swanton, M., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Dent 1996; Phoenix 2000)

Turville-Petre, G., The Heroic Age of Scandinavia (London 1951, 1976)

Warner, P., The Origins of Suffolk (Manchester 1996)

Williamson, T., The Origins of Norfolk (Manchester 1993)

About Dr Sam Newton

Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at the University of East Anglia in 1991. He published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993, and his second, The Reckoning of King Rædwald, in 2003. He has also published several papers, some of which are available on his website or on Academia.

He has lectured widely around the country and abroad for over thirty years and has contributed to many radio and television programmes, especially Time Team (now back in business as Time Team Digital). He is Director of Wuffing Education and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

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