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- [00:00]
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- [00:19]
Narrator
It is late afternoon on July 25, 1939. The sun beats down on the grounds of the Sutton Hoo Estate, an Edwardian country home in Suffolk in the east of England. A middle aged woman walks across the vast lawns, heading towards a group of people gathered beside a larch trench that has been dug through the land. She is the owner of the house, Edith Pretty, and she has invited her friends here for a rather unusual sherry party. Moving through the crowd, she greets men in dark suits and women in elegant cocktail dresses. A brass band plays the joyful music, mingling with the guests laughter in the warm summer air. She takes a delicate glass from a tray carried by a passing servant and steps forward, tapping lightly on it to get her guests attention. Thanking them for coming, she now introduces today's guest of honor, Cambridge archaeologist Charles Phillips. An expectant hush falls as Charles clears his throat, but as he begins to speak, he is drowned out by a deafening roar. Those assembled instinctively look up as just a few hundred feet overhead, a Spitfire tears through the cloudless sky, an uncomfortable reminder of the coming war with Germany, if the nightly news reports are to be believed. As the plane recedes, Charles starts again. He invites the guests to step onto an earthen platform and study the trench. What they are looking at, he tells them, is a tomb. After excavating a large mound, they discovered the imprint of an 87 foot sea going vessel which must have been dragged uphill for half a mile from the River Dieben. But even more exciting is the dazzling treasure found inside. It is an enormous ship burial, the largest ever found in England. An excited murmur runs through the group as he explains that it is likely the resting place of an Anglo Saxon king. Edith watches as Charles calls forward the dark haired woman standing behind him. Peggy Piggott is part of the excavation team, another Cambridge trained archaeologist, the first person to discover gold at as Charles describes the items they're found, Peggy displays them one at a time. The onlookers gasp at garnet encrusted sword fittings and a gold belt buckle decorated with intricate swirling patterns, metalwork of extraordinary beauty. There are even pieces of what was once a helmet, complete with metallic eyebrows and mustache. Despite their centuries under the earth, many of the objects glitter in the sunshine, as bright as the day they were buried. The presentation complete, Edith leads a round of applause before ushering the guests back to the house for more sherry. Everyone is still chattering about what they have just seen. Precious evidence of England's Anglo Saxon past. But with war looming, the finds cannot stay here. In the days that follow, the objects are sent to the British Museum for safekeeping. And as the site becomes a training ground for military vehicles, Sutton Hoo, once the resting place of an Anglo Saxon warrior, becomes a witness to war once again. The Sutton Hoo helmet, now on permanent display at the British Museum, is one of the most famous artifacts from English history. It is certainly the best known image of the so called Dark Ages, as the Anglo Saxon period is sometimes known. Stretching from the withdrawal of Roman forces in 410 AD to the conquest of England by William of Normandy in 1066, this period can seem the stuff of legend. Anglo Saxon England, after all, is the setting for the stories of heroes like Beowulf and King Arthur. But despite the dearth of surviving written records, we know this was a time populated by very real historical figures. Alfred the Great, King Canute and Harold Godwinson. King Harold, whose death at the Battle of Hastings brought an end to Anglo Saxon rule. But who were these people who came to the island of Great Britain in the chaotic aftermath of the Roman withdrawal? What happened to the native population they displaced? And how did the Anglo Saxon period shape England as we know it today? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network. This is a short history of the Anglo Saxons. Starting in 43 AD, the Roman occupation of Britain lasts for over three and a half centuries. They call the province Britannia, covering roughly today's England and Wales. But as the 5th century dawns, Rome's vast empire, all conquering, seemingly unassailable, is rocked by political instability within and menaced from without. Struggling with attacks on multiple frontiers, the overstretched Roman army is finally withdrawn from Britain. In the aftermath, the villas and towns built by the Romans are abandoned. Britannia is cut off from trade with the rest of the empire. And the north is attacked by the Picts and Scots, once held back by Hadrian's Wall. Society collapses, people are hungry. And with the Roman soldiers gone, looting and pillaging are widespread. Into this uncertain situation come tribes from across the sea. James Clark is professor of History at the University of Exeter.
- [07:13]
James Clark
The people who come to the British Isles as the Roman presence in Britain is beginning to recede are coming from the the mainland of Europe, from the area that we now know as Germany, and from Denmark, in fact from Jutland, which is a region of Denmark, but predominantly from the territory of Germany, from the Rhineland area. Traditionally, historians understood these peoples to be Angles, Saxons and Jutes, which is a very blunt overview of different Germanic and Scandinavian peoples really coming into England. Essentially, there are no longer permanent deployments of Roman troops in England. And that gives the opportunity for these Germanic and Scandinavian peoples not simply to carry the coast of England, as they have been doing for a number of decades, but actually to begin to think about colonizing.
- [08:39]
Narrator
Wherever they come from. These Germanic and Scandinavian peoples are often known collectively as just Saxons, the name deriving from the short knife or sword with which they often fight, Known as a ceax. Some sources suggest that they are actually invited to England as mercenaries to replace the Roman troops that have left to help guard Britain against foreign invasion. If this is the case, the Saxons quickly turn on those who issue the invitation and begin to conquer England for themselves. Later stories will be told about a legendary British hero, King Arthur, who fought off these Saxon invaders. The reality, though, is very different. Despite outnumbering the new arrivals, without the might of the Roman army, the native British population is unable to repel repeated waves of migration and colonization.
- [09:38]
James Clark
They are icing their way into mainland England against a Romano British population, which has lost its defenders. And so, with a combination of significant force on the part of the Saxon peoples, but also the absence of the means to resist among the Romano British, their presence really does put down roots and they become established.
- [10:14]
Narrator
According to one British monk writing in this period, it's his people's sinfulness that has brought about their destruction. Whatever the reason, gradually the indigenous British population is pushed to the edges of the map into northwest and southwest England, into Wales and Scotland. The rest of the island is now mostly taken up by the immigrants.
- [10:38]
James Clark
Historians traditionally have taken the view that if there were broadly three Germanic and Scandinavian peoples in England established through this process of incursion, the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, that they do concentrate themselves in distinct ways. Regions. So Angles and Jutes into the central, eastern, and eventually the northeastern coastal regions of the country, and then Saxons predominantly in the southeast and the south central regions.
- [11:21]
Narrator
It takes the best part of 200 years, but by the 7th century, the Germanic and Scandinavian settlement of Britain is all but complete. To begin with, the settlers are likely of fairly modest means. While there is still some debate about whether they came as mercenaries, the archaeology of the period suggests most are farmers who work a small patch of land with their families alongside perhaps a few enslaved hands. But then, in the middle of the sixth century, everything changes. A volcano erupts, probably in Iceland, one of several seismic events to hit the continent. The dust veil that follows this eruption has cataclysmic effects across northern Europe, plunging it into what is known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age. Years of bad weather and failed harvests lead to mass starvation and societal breakdown in England. Desperate people become willing to submit to the authority of warlords who can offer them bread, riches and protection in exchange for tribute. From this period onwards, archaeologists have discovered more ostentatious burials coupled with building projects on a much grander scale, because as warlords gain control over vaster territories, the strongest of them become kings, conquering weaker neighbors to increase their own power and landholdings. From this, the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of England begin to emerge.
- [13:02]
James Clark
So the Saxon presence is in East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and the central, southern and southwestern region of England, what is now Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, which is where we see a presence of West Saxons and which eventually emerges as the Kingdom of Wessex. Then we have a presence in central England, which is really the area north of the River Thames as it runs westward into Oxfordshire, all the way up really to the borderlands of Cheshire and the beginnings of northwestern England, that broad central area becoming, in the course of the seventh century, the Kingdom of Mercia and then the region, particularly in the north eastern part of mainland England, emerging as the Kingdom of Northumbria.
- [14:17]
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- [14:49]
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- [15:22]
Narrator
Mainland England is divided into roughly seven distinct kingdoms known as the Heptarchy Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex and East Anglia. They do not coexist peacefully.
- [15:38]
James Clark
It's not a peaceable or stable settlement. And over the centuries that follow, there is continuous continued rivalry and struggle for dominance, for, as it were, overlordship between these different kingdoms.
- [16:00]
Narrator
This is the world vividly brought to life in the old English epic poem Beowulf, a tale of heroism, monsters and revenge. Much later, the period will also be used as inspiration for the Kingdom of Rohan in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. It is a time of kings who feast in great wooden halls and who give out gold arm rings to the mead drinking warriors who follow them. An age of blood feuds and violence. And it's one of these early Anglo Saxon kings to whom the golden treasures found at Sutton Hoo belongs. A man by the name of Radwald, King of the East Angles, who is buried sometime around the year 624. Even as Radwald is receiving a pagan ship burial, a new religion is spreading through the Anglo Saxon kingdoms. Christianity.
- [17:00]
James Clark
The Germanic and Scandinavian peoples who make their incursions into mainland England from early in the 5th century are pagans. They're not Christians, but they are pagans, arriving in what is already a Christian country. But the roots of that Christianity are probably quite shallow. And certainly from the point of view of the international Christian Church, centered already in Rome with a Pope in the 6th century, it's perceived that as the Romano British presence has receded, there is a pressing need for Christianity and the authority of the Church to be reinforced, reasserted in Britain, and especially in this territory of mainland England which has suffered the incursions of these pagan Germanic peoples.
- [18:04]
Narrator
In 597, the Pope sends a group of missionaries led by a man named Augustine to convert the Anglo Saxons. They land in the Kingdom of Kent and are given a warm welcome by King Ethelbert. Having already been exposed to Christianity by his wife, a Frankish princess, Ethelbert gives Augustine a church in his capital at Canterbury and allows him to preach to his subjects. Within a year, Augustine and his missionaries have baptized 10,000 people, including the King himself. Soon, Christianity has taken hold. With Canterbury at the centre of the.
- [18:42]
James Clark
English Church, it's really only a century or so from the arrival of those first missionaries in 597 that there is a secure Christian presence across Saxon England. Really, from the middle years of the 7th century, Saxon England is set on a path towards becoming a highly developed Christianized country.
- [19:16]
Narrator
But why are pagan Anglo Saxon kings so willing to allow these foreign missionaries into their kingdoms and so keen to be baptized themselves? For these rulers, the Church offers them another means to exert their control over their own and neighboring kingdoms.
- [19:35]
James Clark
By the end of the 7th century, there are monasteries established across the territory of Saxon England. And these are very useful outposts of royal authority for the Saxon monarchs. They are useful centers of administration for them. They are places where they can concentrate their financial power, so quite literally, coinage is stored in these places. They are very useful positions of defence in their territory. And perhaps above all, monasteries and the churches of the growing network of bishops in this Christian Saxon territory provide legitimation for the ambitions of these monarchs.
- [20:32]
Narrator
As well as acting as outposts of royal authority. Monasteries in Anglo Saxon England are centers of learning and art. In the 680s, two such sites in the north of England are decimated by plague. Afterwards, they merge to form the community of Monk Wearmouth Jarrow. This abbey produces some of the finest manuscripts in Europe, including one that still survives today. Known as the Codex Amiatinus, it is the oldest single volume version of the Latin Bible. As well as painstakingly copying out the text, the monks illustrate their work with brightly colored paintings of saints and apostles. At around the same time, another monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast, produces an illuminated book of the Gospels, one that combines Mediterranean, Anglo Saxon and Celtic artistic styles. Later, a leather binding encrusted with jewels is fashioned to protect this precious volume. Though it's hard to look at such works of art and believe that this period was ever known as the Dark Ages, it largely earns the name thanks to the lack of written records produced at the time. What records we do have about the period are often written by the monks who lived in monasteries like these. The venerable Bede, whose history of England we have to thank for much of our evidence of the early Anglo Saxon period, is only able to write because he lives at Monk Wearmouth Jarrow, with its extraordinary library. But while the establishment of monasteries leads to a flourishing of English culture, the coming of Christianity does little to end the brutal struggle for domination between the Anglo Saxon kingdoms. It is early August, 642 AD, on a rocky hillside on the Welsh border. The sun shines brightly overhead. But rather than the usual birdsong and the gentle bleating of sheep, today the air is alive with the sounds of a ferocious battle between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia. Broken bodies and fallen weapons litter the ground. The grass is slick with blood and its iron tang fills the nostrils of those soldiers still fighting. Injured men lie groaning or attempting to drag themselves from the field of battle. A Yasif, part of the retinue of King Oswald of Northumbria pauses for a moment to wipe his face. Sweat stings his eyes, mingling with the blood from a deep gash to his forehead caused by a short handled dagger, or seax. The man who was wielding it now lies at his feet. There is a lull in the fighting around him and the Yasith takes the opportunity to catch his breath. It was a long march to get here and he has barely slept in days. He rolls his shoulder, which aches from carrying his heavy round shield, and flexes his sword arm as he glances around. It seems as though more of his comrades are lying on the ground than standing. But one person he can no longer see is his king. But on full alert, he now scans the carnage for a glimpse of King Oswald's distinctive gold and purple banner. And when he hears a cry, he finally spots it. The monarch is fighting for his life. Surrounded by a tight knot of enemy soldiers, the Yasith takes off running towards Oswald, stumbling on the uneven ground, slashing left and right at enemy troops, parrying thrusts from spears and swords alike. Without waiting to see if these men fall, he struggles on through the densely packed wall of soldiers. Oswald is fighting back to back with a few of his closest companions, but they are badly outnumbered by the surrounding Mercians. The Northumbrian standard bearer soon falls and the gold and purple stripes are trampled into the mud. And then King Penda of Mercia himself steps forward. He swings a vicious sword with an ornate gold hilt. As he advances towards the helpless Oswald, the Yasith closes his eyes. The last thing he hears is a whispered prayer and the thud of his master's body hitting the ground. After the death of the Christian king Oswald of Northumbria, in 642, the victorious Penda of Mercia has his body dismembered, cutting off his head and hands and displaying them on stakes. Oswald's defeat is part of Penda's attempt to dominate the other Anglo Saxon kingdoms. It is a bloody campaign involving the deaths of three East Anglian rulers alongside the Northumbrian sovereign. But he does not get to enjoy his success for long. In 655, Penda, the last of the great pagan Anglo Saxon overlords, also falls in battle. Over the 7th and 8th centuries, the various English kingdoms are often at war, fighting each other for territory and riches or to exert control over neighboring lands. And although these struggles for supremacy mostly play out on the battlefield, kings employ other strategies as well.
- [26:47]
James Clark
Monarchs are able to maintain their position by defending their territorial frontiers, by securing the loyalty of those they have defeated and through financial superiority, by ensuring that those that they would like to assert their authority over, if they cannot defeat them, then in effect they buy their support also. And each of the competing Saxon monarchies, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, reach out in fact beyond England to the networks of the Christian church in mainland Europe and even to the papacy in Rome, to secure support and recognition for their position as monarch and for their ambitions, so to extend their territory.
- [27:45]
Narrator
Perhaps the most famous of the Anglo Saxon kings in this period is Offa, who comes to power in Mercia in the middle of the 8th century. Rather than simply forcing rival monarchs to submit, Offa has a new vision to annex and absorb his neighbors into a Mercian empire. And he is remarkably successful. By 785, the once mighty kingdom of Kent is no longer independent. He brings Wessex under his influence too, and has even had diplomatic relations with Charlemagne, the Frankish emperor. Offa is also responsible for one of the most notable archaeological remnants of Anglo Saxon England. Offa's dike. This 150 mile long earthwork runs roughly along the English border with Wales and is longer even than Hadrian's Wall in the north. Offa builds it to guard against the threat posed by the native Britons who have been pushed into the rugged terrain of the west. As the Anglo Saxon kingdoms rise, the native British position declines. But even in Offa's day, they continue to raid English territory. Offa's dyke marks the extent of Anglo Saxon rule and also sends a clear signal. The Britons who live beyond it are ethnically different from the people who now control England. And they are unwelcome in the lands that were once theirs. The Anglo Saxons called them waelas, or foreigners. It is from this word that the name Wales derives. The word also forms the basis for the name of another Celtic sanctuary, a remote peninsula down in the southwest, home to the foreigners of the headland or cernwallas, from which we get the name Cornwall. In the end, the threat to the Anglo Saxon kingdoms does not come from Wales, but from overseas. Starting in the late 1700s, there are new waves of incursion and invasion by pagans from Scandinavia. With their striped sails and lightning fast boats with dragon shaped prows, these invaders have since sailed into history. They are the Vikings.
- [30:12]
James Clark
They first begin to carry the southern and eastern and northeastern coasts of Saxon England. In the later 8th century. They attack first, in fact the Dorset coast. Then they attack the Northumbrian coast and lay waste the monastery of Lindisfarne. At first the Viking attacks are just that. They are lightning raids on the kingdom of Saxon England. And they are savage and repeated. Because Saxon England has emerged even as early as the end of the 8th century, it's emerged as a well developed and prosperous territory.
- [31:06]
Narrator
While to begin with the Viking threat is limited to small scale raids. This changes within a few short decades. In 865, a Viking force that Christian chroniclers named the Great Heathen army arrives on English shores. It spells disaster for Anglo Saxon England.
- [31:28]
James Clark
One by one, kingdoms other than Wessex really fall prey to the advance of the Vikings. By the last quarter of the 9th century, the Viking presence has reached all the way down from the northeastern coast of England far south, breaking even over the line of the River Thames running through the sort of southern midlands of England into central southern England.
- [32:06]
Narrator
The following year, 866, the Kingdom of East Anglia makes peace with the marauding army and supplies it with horses, Winning for itself a temporary reprieve. Northumbria is not so lucky. The Viking army turns north and York is captured. In 867, the Vikings install a puppet king to rule in their stead. In the following years, the great heathen army returns to East Anglia. And this time there is no peace to be made. In 869, the King of the East Angles is killed in battle. His royal line ended just like that, another ancient Anglo Saxon kingdom ceases to exist. In the years to come, the King Edmund will be considered a Christian martyr for meeting his death at the hands of the pagan Scandinavians. Next to fall is Mercia, which is conquered by the Vikings. In 873, its ruler flees to Rome where he lives out his days in exile. When the great army first landed, the seven Anglo Saxon kingdoms had already been whittled down to four. After 873, only one is still standing.
- [33:35]
James Clark
It is only the Saxon kingdom of Wessex that is remaining either undefeated or that has simply not submitted to the overlordship of these kingdom rapidly advancing Viking peoples.
- [33:53]
Narrator
Save for a few battles in the early 870s, the Vikings do not turn their attention to Wessex. But this uneasy peace cannot hold forever.
- [34:07]
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- [34:39]
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- [35:12]
Narrator
It is January 878 AD Twelfth Night, the festival that marks the end of Christmas, and on this cold, clear evening in Chippenham, a royal estate in the kingdom of Wessex in southwest England, a celebration is in full swing. A servant enters the great hall bearing a platter of loaves still warm from the oven. He breathes deeply, inhaling the scents of the roasted meats already being torn apart by greasy fingered revelers. He walks to the long central table and sets the loaves down amidst the dishes of mutton and rabbit and thick stews of vegetables and beans. Then he walks around the table lit with the flickering flames of torches set in the walls, and refills cups with mead and weak wine. At the head of the table sits Alfred, King of Wessex. A circlet of gold sits atop his wavy, shoulder length hair, and gold glints on the pin holding the folds of his cloak together. The servant is just refilling Alfred's cup when the door bangs open. A messenger staggers in, splattered with mud. Gasping for breath, he relays his news despite the peace that Alfred had recently made with them. An army of Vikings, or Danes as they call them, has launched a surprise attack on the kingdom. It has swept through Wessex and now threatens Chippenham and the royal court itself. There is immediate uproar, but Alfred remains calm. He grabs the servant's arm and tells him to run to the stables and have horses saddled. As the young man hastens from the room, he hears the king shouting for someone to rouse his wife, Aelsweeth, and their children from their beds and for a wagon to be prepared with essential supplies. Panting hard, the servant reaches the stables and relays the king's orders. He stands back as the grooms get to work. Soon the courtyard is a hive of activity. Once the horses are ready, the servant watches as Alfred leads his family away from Chippenham, riding as fast as they dare through the darkness, their path illuminated only by the cold, wintry light of the moon. As the hooves fade, he turns, peering in the direction of another sound, distant but drawing closer. It's unmistakable. Battle cries and the pounding of feet and hooves can only be a large army. The servant glances around at the other men left in the courtyard. Their king may be safe, but what will happen to them when the Vikings arrive? Alfred's flight from Chippenham marks one of the lowest points in the history of Anglo Saxon England. The fate of the country hangs in the balance. Will Alfred be able to win back his kingdom? Or will the entirety of England fall under Scandinavian rule? Unlike other Saxon kings, Alfred does not flee to safety abroad. He rides south and west into the forests and marshes of Somerset. Famously, Alfred spends part of it incognito, at one point taking shelter with an old woman. When he falls asleep by the fireside, failing to prevent her cakes from burning, she is said to have boxed his ears. Sadly, this story is almost certainly untrue, not appearing in texts until at least a century after Alfred's death. Over the following months, Alfred rallies his troops, fights back and wins. At the Battle of eddington in May 878, he destroys the Viking army with great slaughter. According to his biographer Assa, on his return, in which he brings hope to the people of Wessex and reclaims his throne, he is remembered as King Alfred the Great. After Eddington, Alfred makes peace with the Viking leader Guthrum, who is baptized with the King of Wessex acting as his godfather. Guthrum and his army leave Alfred's lands in 879 and return to settle Mercia a few years later. This piece is set down in writing when Alfred and Guthrum sign an important treaty. It establishes the borders between their kingdoms, demarcating Wessex from the Danelaw, the territory ruled by the Scandinavians. Alfred rules over south and west England, while the Vikings get the northern and eastern parts of the country. Though Alfred's laws hold sway in his own territory, as the term Danelaw suggests, the Scandinavians are allowed to follow their own laws in their own territory. Although the Viking threat remains, they never again come so close to conquering Wessex. Instead, Alfred sets about expanding his territory, winning land that once belonged to the other Anglo Saxon kingdoms. In 886 in London, the remaining Mercians submit to Alfred. After this, his biographer begins to describe him not just as King of Wessex, but King of the Anglo Saxons.
- [41:10]
James Clark
In the face of the continuous Viking threat, and given the success of Wessex in resisting it, it does help to secure Wessex's position as the dominant kingdom. And by the time that we move into the early 10th century, really enabled Alfred's successors as kings of Wessex. To build their position and their legitimacy as kings over all of Saxon England.
- [41:45]
Narrator
Alfred's successors continue his work, expanding their territory further north from the old Wessex heartlands in south and southwest England. In 927, Alfred's grandson Athelstan wins a stunning victory against the Vikings, destroying their fort in York. A decade later, he is in the north again, fighting a combined Viking, Scottish and native British army. Athelstan is once again victorious and the Scots king is forced to submit to him. After 954, there are no more independent kings in the north.
- [42:21]
James Clark
The House of Wessex, and Alfred in particular, are responsible not only for forming a single and increasingly cohesive kingdom from seven regional kingdoms which had been the story of earlier Saxon England, but they are also responsible for beginning to generate a coherent sense of shared identity, of common cultural understanding across what had been for centuries a very regionally diffuse and often divided territory.
- [43:18]
Narrator
One way that Alfred starts to build an English identity is very literal. He commissions the construction of a series of fortified towns or burghs that become focal points of military defence and royal administration. He also employs a softer instrument of power in the form of literature.
- [43:39]
James Clark
What Alfred recognizes is that a kingdom, increasingly in 9th century Europe, must harness the power of the written word. He recognizes for that to be effective for wider society, that cultural activity needs to be in the language that is spoken by everybody, that is the language of the Saxons, which we call Old English. And that becomes the focus of his attention. He commissions translations of key church texts for teaching into English to ensure that the rising generation, the generation coming after him, are equipped with that education, with an ability to use the spoken and written word and to use it as an instrument of authority and power.
- [44:44]
Narrator
Wessex triumph is made clear on May 11, 973, in the city of Bath. Edgar, one of Alfred's descendants, is given an imperial coronation. He is anointed by an archbishop and named King of all Britain, and at the feast afterwards is crowned with laurels like a Roman emperor. Within a century of Alfred nearly losing his kingdom, his royal line now rules all the people of England. But the triumph of Wessex does not last. Edgar is succeeded by his young son, Ethelred, meaning good or noble counsel. He later becomes known as the Unready, meaning ill counselled in Old English, a play on words to give him the name well advised, the ill advised. It is no wonder his reign goes down in history as particularly disastrous, starting inauspiciously with the murder of his half brother, most likely ordered by Aethelred's mother. Scandinavian fleets once again begin to raid the coast of England, and Aethelred is forced to pay them off. This protection racket, extorting what is known as Dane Geld, makes the Vikings rich, but does little to stabilize Aethelred's grip on power. As the country approaches the year 1000, a time many predict will mark the end of the world, the mood in England is tense. The calendar ticks over into the new millennium without incident. But the apocalypse has not been avoided entirely. In 1013, in the fourth decade of Aethelred's reign, the Vikings make a spectacular return.
- [46:38]
James Clark
Sweyn, who is king of Denmark, he's known in contemporary sources as Svein Forkbeard. He begins to harry the coast of England and to lead ever more devastating raids on England and incursions into mainland England early in the 11th century. And then, in the year 1013, he launches a full scale invasion.
- [47:07]
Narrator
Faced with this threat, Aethelred flees to Normandy with his wife and their children, leaving England to be taken by the Vikings. In the end, Sweyn is only king for a number of weeks before he dies, perhaps falling from his horse, and Aethelred attempts a comeback. But by 10:16, he too is dead, and Sweyn's son, Cnut, takes the throne. He also takes Aethelred's widow, Emma of Normandy, making her Queen of England twice over, albeit with a different king second time around. Given the instability that brought him to the throne, England is relatively peaceful under Cnut, helped no doubt by his experienced queen. A capable, sagacious ruler, he is perhaps best known for a story, most likely apocryphal, in which he demonstrates the limit of his powers by standing at the sea's edge to prove he cannot turn back the tide. But upon his death in 1035, there are multiple claimants to the throne, both Scandinavian and English. One of these men is Emma and Ethelred's son, Edward.
- [48:27]
James Clark
In theory, with the death of Cnut, there should be a united Viking kingdom that includes Scandinavia and England being passed to his son. But in practice, what happens is a division between the Scandinavian part of this vast kingdom and the English part. And Canute's sons do not themselves go on to live long. His son, who claims the English part of the inheritance, half Cnut, lives no more than two years, dies suddenly in 1042. And it's possible for Aethelred's remaining son, so in a sense, the remaining representative of that Wessex dynasty that had united the Saxon kingdom of England, Edward is able to return out of exile in France and take the throne in 1042.
- [49:25]
Narrator
Edward, known later as Edward the Confessor for his Christian piety, is king for a quarter of a century, most notably during his long reign, he builds Westminster Abbey. From the start, he faces many of the same issues that plagued his unfortunate father. Externally, he contends with continued Scandinavian raids. Internally, threats to his reign come from an English family who came to power under Cnut the Godwins. Godwin, Earl of Wessex, is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. When Edward becomes king, he makes Godwin's sons earls too, and even marries Godwin's daughter. But this does little to buy the family's loyalty.
- [50:13]
James Clark
The challenge from Godwin and his sons reaches a high point, almost a breaking point, at the beginning of the 1050s, when Edward is on the point of facing open rebellion and perhaps even the challenge of assassination, of being deposed by the Godwins, by Earl Godwyd and his sons. With their own power bases, they pull back from that ultimate challenge to Edward's authority as king. And Godwin himself then dies, removing perhaps the immediate prospect of challenge. But Edward, for the rest of his reign, faces the prospect of rebellious sons of Godwyn who are ever present, even if they're not quite challenging his position as king. At this point.
- [51:09]
Narrator
One source of tension between Edward and the Godwins is the issue of his succession. By the 1050s, Edward and his wife still have no children, thanks to the turbulence of the last half century. He also has no surviving English male relatives. So who will be king after him? The sources are unclear on this point, colored by later events. Many suggest that Edward wants the throne to pass to his cousin once removed, William, Duke of Normandy. If so, this proves an unpopular idea with Edward's English lords and possibly leads the Godwins to rebel against him. Others will later claim that Edward leaves the throne to his brother in law, Harold Godwinson.
- [51:58]
James Clark
By the latter part of the year 1065, Edward is gravely ill. Sources tell us he suffered a stroke. And at Christmas 1065, he's very evidently on his deathbed. He dies just after the turn of the year, in early January 1066. At that point, he seems to have been reconciled and accepting that the logical heir to his kingdom is indeed Harold, son of Earl Godwin, forgiving, if not forgetting, the record of rebellion and challenge that he's experienced from the Godwins for much of his reign. And Harrold does indeed take the throne and is crowned as Edward's successor as King of England. Early in 1066.
- [52:56]
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- [54:26]
Narrator
Harold immediately faces the same problems that dogged his predecessors. In the early autumn of 1066, England is invaded once more by a Viking army, this time led by Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. He is supported in his attack by Harald Godwinson's own brother. On 25 September, the two armies meet at Stamford Bridge, five miles east of the city of York in the north of England. Initially, a single Viking blocks the bridge, preventing the English from crossing. He takes down 40 men before he is slain. When the two forces finally come face to face, the Scandinavians are without their armor. Harold Godwinson has marched his army north so quickly that the Vikings are taken by surprise and are forced to ride out to meet him ill equipped. But the delay at the bridge buys them time to at least assemble a shield wall before the English are upon them. The battle is bloody by the end. Harald Hardrada lies dead and the English are victorious. Godwinson has fought off this threat to his crown, but another one is on the horizon.
- [55:49]
James Clark
It's at this point that Duke William of Normandy sees an opportunity to invade, to assert what he understood was to be his very strong claim to the kingdom of England. William invades the coast of Sussex in October 1066, takes advantage of the exhaustion of Harold and his forces, having been driven south to north across the kingdom to repel other challenges, and relatively easily defeats Harold at Hastings on 14 October 1066. He then marches north and has himself crowned king at Westminster, a public spectacle of claiming the throne, which is a very good proxy for having actually conquered the kingdom.
- [56:49]
Narrator
The death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings marks the end of the Anglo Saxon period in England. The English ruling elite is swiftly replaced by William's followers. Ironically, men of Norse descent, Northmen, Normans, who have adopted the ways of the French. The language and culture of Anglo Saxon England will be forever changed. The landscape too is altered as Norman style castles are constructed from which to rule over the English population. Although William faces constant rebellions, he defeats them all. By the time he dies in 1087, there is a secure Norman hold over this formerly Saxon kingdom. The Norman conquest of England does not, however, completely eradicate the memory of the Anglo Saxons.
- [57:44]
James Clark
We tend to treat the conquest of the Normans in 1066 as a watershed moment in England's history. We shouldn't see it also as the moment when the Saxons sort of cease to be relevant to us. So much, of course, abounds not just subsequent history, but our understanding of England today. England's culture is rooted in that Saxon past.
- [58:15]
Narrator
The Anglo Saxon legacy is very much still with us. It is thanks to the Anglo Saxons that the Church of England is centered in Canterbury, that there are such strong northern and southern English identities, that we speak a Germanic language, albeit with a Norman French influence rather than a romance one derived from Latin. The Anglo Saxons live on in four of our five days of the week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, named after the pagan gods they once worshipped. Tew, Woden, Thunor and Frigg. There are echoes in the region we call East Anglia, or in counties of Essex, Sussex and Middlesex, named for the east, south and middle Saxons who once lived there. Though the Anglo Saxon world, with its blood feuds, warlord kings and expansive wooden halls, may seem far removed from our modern lives, it set the scene for what became the England we know today. And it was in this period that a sense of English identity was first forged. The radical idea that the people who live in the larger lowland part of a small island are not disparate squabbling tribes, but one people with a common history and shared future.
- [59:36]
James Clark
By studying the Saxon period, we understand what is still in fact, very important to us today, which is the regionality of England. England isn't one single place, one single polity, but it's the combination of regions and identities with their own cultural traditions, which are as distinct as the different topographies of the different parts of England. And by studying those dominant regional kingdoms of Saxon England and how they both battled and negotiated their way towards a often rather troubled and rather unstable cohesive whole, is, in fact, a story that resonates today.
- [60:27]
Narrator
Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of the Romanovs.
- [60:33]
John Hopkins
The Roanovs were a very old, distinguished servitor family inside the Moscow principality, dating back really to the 14th century, even.
- [60:43]
James Clark
A little bit before.
- [60:45]
John Hopkins
Part of the Romanov tradition isn't just autocracy. Part of that tradition is also liberalism, the Enlightenment reason, westernization. These two trends in our minds today might seem contradictory, come together in Russia as it does in other places, to produce a very dynamic, complicated culture and country. Right now, Russia is pulling on some of the threads that it has received from the past, but it could just as easily pull on some of the others. When it comes to Russia, nothing is etched in stone.
- [61:31]
Narrator
That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiza Plus. Head to www.noiza.comscriptions for more information.
- [61:49]
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- [62:18]
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