| Battle of Edington | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theViking invasions of England | |||||||
 Memorial to theBattle of Ethandun erected in 2000 near thehillfort ofBratton Castle with a plaque[a] | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Wessex | Great Heathen Army | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Alfred the Great | Guthrum | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2,000–6,000 | ~4,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown, presumed heavy | ||||||
  Battle of Edington (England) Show map of England | |||||||
TheBattle of Edington orBattle of Ethandun[b] was fought in May 878 between the West Saxon army of KingAlfred the Great and theGreat Heathen Army led by the Danish warlordGuthrum. The battle took place nearEdington inWiltshire, where Alfred secured a decisive victory that halted the Viking advance intoWessex.
The engagement followed a period of sustainedDanish incursions into Anglo-Saxon territory. In early 878, Guthrum launched a surprise attack onChippenham, forcing Alfred into hiding in the marshes ofAthelney. After rallying local forces, Alfred confronted and defeated Guthrum at Edington, then laid siege to the Viking position, compelling their surrender.
Following the battle, Guthrum agreed to terms that included hisbaptism, withdrawal toEast Anglia, and the establishment of peace through theTreaty of Wedmore. The outcome preserved Wessex as an independent kingdom and marked a turning point in the Viking wars, laying foundations for the eventualunification of England.
The first Viking raid on Anglo-Saxon England is thought to have occurred between 786 and 802 atPortland in theKingdom of Wessex, when three Norse ships arrived; their men killedKing Beorhtric'sreeve.[2] ThePeterborough Chronicle says the year of the raid was 789.[3] At the other end of the country, in theKingdom of Northumbria, the island ofLindisfarne was raided in 793.[2]
From theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle about theViking raid on Lindisfarne:
This year dire forwarnings came over the land of the Northhumbrians, and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds, and lightnings; and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens; and a little after that, in the same year, on the 6th before the Ides of January, the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne through rapine and slaughter.[4]
After the sacking of Lindisfarne, Viking raids around the coasts were somewhat sporadic until the 830s, when the attacks became more sustained.[5] In 835, "heathen men" ravagedSheppey.[6] In 836, KingEcgberht of Wessex was defeated atCarhampton,[7] but in 838 he conquered a combined force of Vikings andCornishmen at theBattle of Hingston Down in Cornwall.[8]
The raiding continued and with each year became more intense.[8] In 865–866 it escalated further with the arrival of what the Saxons called the Great Heathen Army.[9] The annals do not report the size of the army, but modern estimates suggest between five hundred and a thousand men.[10] It was said to have been under the leadership of the brothersIvar the Boneless,Ubba, andHalfdan Ragnarsson.[10] What made this army different from those before it was the intent of the leaders. These forces began "a new stage, that of conquest and residence".[11] By 870, the Northmen had conquered the kingdoms of Northumbria andEast Anglia,[12] and in 871 they attacked Wessex.[13] Of the nine battles mentioned by theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle during 871, only one was a West Saxon victory, theBattle of Ashdown.[13][14] The victory did not halt Viking raids in Britain. Alfred succeeded his brotherÆthelred, who died after theBattle of Meretun.[15]
Mercia had collapsed by 874, and the army's cohesion went with it.[15] Halfdan went back to Northumbria and fought thePicts and theStrathclyde Welsh to secure his northern kingdom.[16] His army settled there, and he is not mentioned after 876, when "[the Danes] were engaged in ploughing and making a living for themselves".[17] Guthrum, with two other unnamed kings, "departed forCambridge in East Anglia".[18]
Guthrum and his men had adopted the usual Danish strategy of occupying a fortified town and waiting for a peace treaty, involving money in return for a promise to leave the kingdom immediately. Alfred shadowed the army, trying to prevent more damage than had already occurred. This started in 875 when Guthrum's army "eluded the West Saxon levies and got intoWareham".[19] They then gave hostages and oaths to leave the country to Alfred, who paid them off.[20]
The Danes promptly slipped off toExeter, even deeper into Alfred's kingdom, where they concluded in the autumn of 877 a "firm peace" with Alfred, under terms that entailed their leaving his kingdom and not returning.[21] This they did, spending the rest of 877 (by the Gregorian calendar) inGloucester (in the kingdom of Mercia).[22] Alfred spentChristmas at Chippenham (in Wessex), thirty miles (48 km) from Gloucester. The Danes attacked Chippenham "in midwinter afterTwelfth Night",[17] which was probably during the night of 6/7 Jan 878. They captured Chippenham and forced Alfred to retreat "with a small force" into theSomerset marsh ofAthelney, protected by the natural defences of the country.[19][23]
Alfred seems at this time to have ineffectually chased the Danes around Wessex, while the Danes were in a position to do as they pleased.[24] TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle attempts to convey the impression that Alfred held the initiative; the academicAlfred Smyth writes that it is "a bland chronicle which laconically charts the movements of the Danish victors while at the same time disingenuously striving to convey the impression that Alfred was in control", although it fails.[20]
Even if Alfred had caught up with the Danish force, it is unlikely that he could have accomplished anything. The fact that his army could not defend the fortified Chippenham, even in "an age... as yet untrained in siege warfare"[20] casts great doubt on its ability to defeat the Danes in an open field, unaided by fortifications. There was little that Alfred could do about the Danes from 875 and the end of 877, beyond repeatedly paying the invaders off.[25]
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With his small warband, a fraction of his army at Chippenham, Alfred could not hope to retake the town from the Danes, who had in previous battles (for example at theBattle of Reading in 871) proved themselves adept at defending fortified positions. After the disaster at Chippenham, Alfred is next recorded aroundEaster 878, when he built a fortress at Athelney.[27] In the seventh week after Easter, or between 4–7 May 878,[28] Alfred called alevy atEcgbryhtesstan (Egbert's Stone). Many of the men in the counties around (Somerset, Wiltshire, andHampshire) who had not already fled rallied to him there. The next day, Alfred's host moved to Iley Oak, which Guthrum had camped about 7 miles (11 km) away.[29] The day after that toEðandun.[30] There, on an unknown date between 6–12 May 878,[31] they fought the Danes.
According to theLife of King Alfred:
Fighting ferociously, forming a dense shield-wall against the whole army of the Pagans, and striving long and bravely...at last he [Alfred] gained the victory. He overthrew the Pagans with great slaughter, and smiting the fugitives, he pursued them as far as the fortress [Chippenham].[32]
After the victory, when the Danes had taken refuge in the fortress, the West Saxons besieged the fort, and waited for two weeks.[33] The Danes sued for peace and gave Alfred hostages and solemn oaths that they would leave the kingdom, and promised that Guthrum would be baptized.[34] The primary difference between this agreement and the treaties at Wareham and Exeter was that Alfred had decisively defeated the Danes at Edington, rather than just stopping them, and therefore it seemed more likely that they would keep to the terms of the treaty.[35]
One reason for Alfred's victory was possibly the relative size of the two armies. The men of even oneshire could be a formidable fighting force, as those ofDevon proved in the same year, defeating an army under Ubba at theBattle of Cynwit.[36] In 875 Guthrum had lost the support of other Danish lords, including Ivar the Boneless and Ubba.[37] Further Danish forces had settled on the land before Guthrum attacked Wessex: in East Anglia and inMercia between the treaty at Exeter and the attack on Chippenham; many others were lost in a storm off Swanage in 876–877, with 120 ships wrecked.[28] Some historians, such as Richard Abels, have suggested that Guthrum's defeat at Edington may have reflected not only military failure but also diminishing internal cohesion.[38]
The primary sources for the location of the battle areAsser'sLife of King Alfred, which names the place as "Ethandun" and theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which hasEðandun.[39] The chronicle was compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great and is thus a contemporary record.[40][13] It is believed that Asser'sLife was originally written in 893; however, no contemporary manuscript survives.[41][42] A version of theLife, written in about 1000 and known as theCotton Otho A. xii text, lasted until 1731, when it was destroyed inthe fire at Ashburnham House. Before its destruction, this version had been transcribed and annotated; it is this transcription on which modern translations are based.[41] Some scholars have suggested that Asser'sLife of King Alfred was aforgery.[c]
The location of the battle accepted by most present-day historians is at Edington, near Westbury in Wiltshire.[43] However, the location has been much debated over the centuries.[43] In 1904,William Henry Stevenson disputed the location and said "So far, there is nothing to prove the identity of thisEðandun [as named in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle] with Edington" but then goes on to say that "there can be little reason for questioning it".[44]
Edington, Wiltshire, is known to have been part of Alfred's family estate.[45] He left a manor calledEðandun to his wife in his will.[45] A charter records a meeting of the king's council atEðandun, although a later scribe has annotated the same document withEðandune.[46]
In 968, another charter reported that King Edgar had granted land atEdyndon to Romsey Abbey. TheDomesday Book of 1086 has an entry forRomsey Abbey holding land atEdendone in the county of Wiltshire at the time ofEdward the Confessor (before 1066) and also in 1086, and this is known to be atEdington, Wiltshire.[47]
Alternatives to Edington, Wiltshire, have been suggested since early times. TheTudor historianPolydore Vergil appears to have misread the ancient texts for the battle site, as he places it atAbyndoniam (Abingdon) instead of Edington.[48][49] In the 19th century there was a resurgence in interest of medieval history and King Alfred was seen as a major hero. Although most early historians had sited the battle as in the Edington area, the significant interest in the subject encouraged many antiquarians to dig up Alfredian sites and also to propose alternatives for the location of the battle.[50][51] Arguments for the alternative sites were generally name-based, although with the large interest in everything Alfredian in the 19th century, any site that had an Alfredian connection could be guaranteed large numbers of tourists, so this was also a driving force to find a link.[51][52]
Three weeks after the battle, Guthrum was baptised atAller inSomerset with Alfred as hissponsor.[40][53] It is possible that the enforced conversion was an attempt by Alfred to lock Guthrum into a Christian code of ethics, hoping it would ensure the Danes' compliance with any treaties agreed to. The converted Guthrum took the baptismal name of Athelstan, the name of Alfred's deceased older brother.[54]
Under the terms of the Treaty of Wedmore, the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia.[34] Consequently, in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way toCirencester (in the Kingdom of Mercia) and remained there for a year.[34] The following year the army went to East Anglia, where it settled, which started Viking activity inEast Anglia.[55] This allowed Alfred the Great to stabilise Wessex and reform administration and defence. This includes the establishment of fortified towns (burhs) and reorganisation of thefyrd (militia system).[56][57]
Also in 879, according to Asser, another Viking army sailed up theRiver Thames and wintered atFulham inMiddlesex.[53] Over the next few years this particular Danish faction had several encounters with Alfred's forces.[58]
In 885 Asser reports that theViking army that had settled in East Anglia had brokenin a 'most insolent manner' the peace they had established with Alfred, although Guthrum is not mentioned.[53] Guthrum reigned as king in East Anglia until his death in 890, and although this period was not always peaceful he was not considered a threat.[57][59]Sometime after Wedmore and before Guthrum's death, a treaty was agreed that set out the lasting peace terms between the two kings. It is known as the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum and defines the boundaries of their two kingdoms.[60] The kingdom of Mercia was divided up, with part going to Alfred's Wessex and the other part to Guthrum's East Anglia.[60] The agreement also defined the social classes of Danish East Anglia and their equivalents in Wessex. It tried to provide a framework that would minimise conflict and regulate commerce between the two peoples.[55] It is not clear how seriously Guthrum took his conversion to Christianity, but he was the first of the Danish rulers of the English kingdoms to mint coins on the Alfredian model, under his baptismal name of Athelstan.[61] By the end of the 9th century, all of the Anglo-Danish rulers were minting coins too.[61] By the 10th century, the Anglo-Saxon model of kingship seems to have been universally adopted by the Anglo-Danish leadership.[62]
After the defeat of Guthrum at the Battle of Edington, Alfred's reforms to military obligations in Wessex made it increasingly difficult for the Vikings to raid successfully.[63] By 896 the Vikings had given up, with some going to East Anglia and others toNorthumbria.[64] It was under Alfred that the Viking threat was contained. However, the system of military reforms and theBurghal Hidage introduced byEdward the Elder enabled Alfred's successors to retake control of the lands occupied in theNorth of England by the Danes.[65]
