 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Battle of Thetford" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Battle of Thetford | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theViking invasions of England | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Kingdom of England | Kingdom of Denmark | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Ulfcytel Snillingr | Sweyn Forkbeard | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Heavy | ||||||
The battle ofThetford occurred in 1004. TheAnglo-Saxon chronicle reports a clash between an East AnglianFyrd levied byUlfketill The Bold and a raiding army led by the King of Denmark,Sveinn Forkbeard
The battle site was located in lands under the control of Ulfketill, a leading noble ofEast Anglia, at a site once thought to be nearWretham,[1] but now thought to be at Rymer in Suffolk.[2] TheAnglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that the battle occurred after an attempt by Ulfketill and the councillors in East Anglia to negotiate a truce with Sweyn in return for a financial settlement; the Danes broke the truce, and plundered Thetford anyway. When returning to their ships however, they were met and engaged by a contingent of the East Anglian fyrd. Two of the Chronicle manuscripts state that the Danes later "admitted that they had never met with harder hand-play [fighting] in England than Ulfcytel gave them"
The Danes suffered heavy losses, and were probably only saved from destruction because Ulfketill’s order to destroy their ships was not carried out. They left England without causing any further devastation which has been recorded.