Англосаксонская Англия: от основания до Норманнского завоевания

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Anglo Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from soon after the end of Roman Britain until the Norman Conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939). It became part of the short lived North Sea Empire of Cnut, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. The Anglo Saxons migrated to Britain (Pretanī, Prydain) from mainland northwestern Europe after the Roman Empire withdrawal from the isle at the beginning of the 5th century. Anglo Saxon history thus begins during the period of sub Roman Britain following the end of Roman control, and traces the establishment of Anglo Saxon kingdoms in the 5th and 6th centuries (conventionally identified as seven main kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex); their Christianisation during the 7th century; the threat of Viking invasions and Danish settlers; the gradual unification of England under the Wessex hegemony during the 9th and 10th centuries; and ending with the Norman Conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. The Normans persecuted the Anglo Saxons and overthrew their ruling class to substitute their own leaders to oversee and rule England. However, Anglo Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman Conquest, came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule, and through social and cultural integration with Romano British Celts, Danes and Normans became the modern English people.

Bede completed his book Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) in around 731. Thus, the term for English people (gens Anglorum; ) was in use by then to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent (Old Saxony in Northern Germany). It is certain that the concept of "Englishness" only developed very slowly.

As the Roman occupation of Britain was coming to an end, Constantine III withdrew the remains of the army in reaction to the Germanic invasion of Gaul with the Crossing of the Rhine in December 406. The Romano British leaders were faced with an increasing security problem from seaborne raids, particularly by Picts on the east coast of England. The expedient adopted by the Romano British leaders was to enlist the help of Anglo Saxon mercenaries (known as foederati), to whom they ceded territory. In about 442 the Anglo Saxons mutinied, apparently because they had not been paid. The Romano British responded by appealing to the Roman commander of the Western empire, Magister militium Aetius, for help (a document known as the Groans of the Britons), even though Honorius, the Western Roman Emperor, had written to the British civitas in or about 410 telling them to look to their own defence. There then followed several years of fighting between the British and the Anglo Saxons. The fighting continued until around 500, when, at the Battle of Mount Badon, the Britons inflicted a severe defeat on the Anglo Saxons.

There are records of Germanic infiltration into Britain that date before the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is believed that the earliest Germanic visitors were eight cohorts of Batavians attached to the 14th Legion in the original invasion force under Aulus Plautius in AD 43. There is a recent hypothesis that some of the native tribes, identified as Britons by the Romans, may have been Germanic language speakers, but most scholars disagree with this due to an insufficient record of local languages in Roman period artefacts. It was quite common for Rome to swell its legions with foederati recruited from the German homelands. This practice also extended to the army serving in Britain, and graves of these mercenaries, along with their families, can be identified in the Roman cemeteries of the period. The migration continued with the departure of the Roman army, when Anglo Saxons were recruited to defend Britain; and also during the period of the Anglo Saxon first rebellion of 442. If the Anglo Saxon Chronicle is to be believed, the various Anglo Saxon kingdoms which eventually merged to become England were founded when small fleets of three or five ships of invaders arrived at various points around the coast of England to fight the sub Roman British, and conquered their lands. The language of the migrants, Old English, came over the next few centuries to predominate throughout what is now England, at the expense of British Celtic and British Latin. The arrival of the Anglo Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a general movement of Germanic peoples around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period (also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung). In the same period there were migrations of Britons to the Armorican peninsula (Brittany and Normandy in modern day France): initially around 383 during Roman rule, but also c. 460 and in the 540s and 550s; the 460s migration is thought to be a reaction to the fighting during the Anglo Saxon mutiny between about 450 to 500, as was the migration to Britonia (modern day Galicia, in northwest Spain) at about the same time. He suggested a mass immigration, with the incomers fighting and driving the sub Roman Britons off their land and into the western extremities of the islands, and into the Breton and Iberian peninsulas. This view is based on sources such as Bede, who mentions the Britons being slaughtered or going into "perpetual servitude". According to Härke
the more modern view is of co existence between the British and the Anglo Saxons. He suggests that several modern archaeologists have now re assessed the traditional model, and have developed a co existence model largely based on the Laws of Ine. The laws include several clauses that provide six different wergild levels for the Britons, of which four are below that of freeman. Discussions and analysis still continue on the size of the migration, and whether it was a small elite band of Anglo Saxons who came in and took over the running of the country, or mass migration of peoples who overwhelmed the Britons. An emerging view is that two scenarios could have co occurred, with large scale migration and demographic change in the core areas of the settlement and elite dominance in peripheral regions. According to Gildas, initial vigorous British resistance was led by a man called Ambrosius Aurelianus, from which time victory fluctuated between the two peoples. Gildas records a "final" victory of the Britons at the Battle of Mount Badon in c. 500, and this might mark a point at which Anglo Saxon migration was temporarily stemmed. However, it was to be 50 years before the Anglo Saxons began further major advances. The next major campaign against the Britons was in 577, led by Ceawlin, king of Wessex, whose campaigns succeeded in taking Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath (known as the Battle of Dyrham). This expansion of Wessex ended abruptly when the Anglo Saxons started fighting among themselves resulting in Ceawlin retreating to his original territory. He was then replaced by Ceol (who was possibly his nephew). Ceawlin was killed the following year, but the annals do not specify by whom. Cirencester subsequently became an Anglo Saxon kingdom under the overlordship of the Mercians, rather than Wessex.

By 600, a new order was developing, of kingdoms and sub Kingdoms. The medieval historian Henry of Huntingdon conceived the idea of the Heptarchy, which consisted of the seven principal Anglo Saxon kingdoms (Heptarchy literal translation from the Greek: hept – seven; archy – rule). By convention, the Heptarchy period lasted from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, until most of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms came under the overlordship of Egbert of Wessex in 829. This approximately 400 year period of European history is often referred to as the Early Middle Ages or, more controversially, as the Dark Ages. Although heptarchy suggests the existence of seven kingdoms, the term is just used as a label of convenience and does not imply the existence of a clear cut or stable group of seven kingdoms. The number of kingdoms and sub kingdoms fluctuated rapidly during this period as competing kings contended for supremacy.

Between the 8th and 11th centuries, raiders and colonists from Scandinavia, mainly Danish and Norwegian, plundered western Europe, including the British Isles. These raiders came to be known as the Vikings; the name is believed to derive from Scandinavia, where the Vikings originated. The first raids in the British Isles were in the late 8th century, mainly on churches and monasteries (which were seen as centres of wealth). The Anglo Saxon Chronicle reports that the holy island of Lindisfarne was sacked in 793. The raiding then virtually stopped for around 40 years; but in about 835, it started becoming more regular. In the 860s, instead of raids, the Danes mounted a full scale invasion. In 865, an enlarged army arrived that the Anglo Saxons described as the Great Heathen Army. This was reinforced in 871 by the Great Summer Army. He used this as a base from which to harry the Vikings. In May 878 he put together an army formed from the populations of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, which defeated the Viking army in the Battle of Edington. There followed a peace treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, which had a variety of provisions, including defining the boundaries of the area to be ruled by the Danes (which became known as the Danelaw) and those of Wessex. The Kingdom of Wessex controlled part of the Midlands and the whole of the South (apart from Cornwall, which was still held by the Britons), while the Danes held East Anglia and the North. After the victory at Edington and resultant peace treaty, Alfred set about transforming his Kingdom of Wessex into a society on a full time war footing. He built a navy, reorganised the army, and set up a system of fortified towns known as burhs. He mainly used old Roman cities for his burhs, as he was able to rebuild and reinforce their existing fortifications. These burhs (or burghs) operated as defensive structures. The Vikings were thereafter unable to cross large sections of Wessex: the Anglo Saxon Chronicle reports that a Danish raiding party was defeated when it tried to attack the burh of Chichester. Although the burhs were primarily designed as defensive structures, they were also commercial centres, attracting traders and markets to a safe haven, and they provided a safe place for the king's moneyers and mints. A new wave of Danish invasions commenced in 891, beginning a war that lasted over three years. Alfred's new system of defence worked, however, and ultimately it wore the Danes down: they gave up and dispersed in mid 896. Alfred's own literary output was mainly of translations, but he also wrote introductions and amended manuscripts.

From 874 to 879, the western half of Mercia was ruled by Ceowulf II, who was succeeded by Æthelred as Lord of the Mercians. Alfred the Great of Wessex styled himself King of the Anglo Saxons from about 886. In 886/887 Æthelred married Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd. When Æthelred died in 911, Æthelflæd succeeded him as "Lady of the Mercians", When Edward died in 924 he ruled all England south of the Humber. His son, Æthelstan, annexed Northumbria in 927 and thus became the first king of all England. At the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, he defeated an alliance of the Scots, Danes, Vikings and Strathclyde Britons. Along with the Britons and the settled Danes, some of the other Anglo Saxon kingdoms disliked being ruled by Wessex. Consequently, the death of a Wessex king would be followed by rebellion, particularly in Northumbria. The presence of Danish and Norse settlers in the Danelaw had a lasting impact; the people there saw themselves as "armies" a hundred years after settlement: King Edgar issued a law code in 962 that was to include the people of Northumbria, so he addressed it to Earl Olac "and all the army that live in that earldom". and more than 1,500 place names in England are Scandinavian in origin; for example, topographic names such as Howe, Norfolk and Howe, North Yorkshire are derived from the Old Norse word haugr meaning hill, knoll, or mound. In archaeology and other academic contexts the term Anglo Scandinavian is often used for Scandinavian culture in England.

Edgar died in 975, sixteen years after gaining the throne, while still only in his early thirties. Some magnates supported the succession of his younger son, Æthelred, but his elder half brother, Edward was elected, aged about twelve. His reign was marked by disorder, and three years later, in 978, he was assassinated by some of his half brother's retainers. Æthelred succeeded, and although he reigned for thirty eight years, one of the longest reigns in English history, he earned the name "Æthelred the Unready", as he proved to be one of England's most disastrous kings. William of Malmesbury, writing in his Chronicle of the kings of England about one hundred years later, was scathing in his criticism of Æthelred, saying that he occupied the kingdom, rather than governed it. Just as Æthelred was being crowned, the Danish Harald Gormsson was trying to force Christianity onto his domain. Many of his subjects did not like this idea, and shortly before 988, Sweyn, his son, drove his father from the kingdom. In 991 the Vikings sacked Ipswich, and their fleet made landfall near Maldon in Essex. Æthelred seems to have just hidden, out of range of the raiders. Every five or six years the coinage in circulation would cease to be legal tender and new coins were issued. The need indeed arose after the battle of Maldon, as Æthelred decided that, rather than fight, he would pay ransom to the Danes in a system known as Danegeld. As part of the ransom, a peace treaty was drawn up that was intended to stop the raids. However, rather than buying the Vikings off, payment of Danegeld only encouraged them to come back for more. The Dukes of Normandy were quite happy to allow these Danish adventurers to use their ports for raids on the English coast. The result was that the courts of England and Normandy became increasingly hostile to each other. Then, on St. Brice's day in November 1002, Danes living in England were slaughtered on the orders of Æthelred.

In mid 1013, Sven Forkbeard, King of Denmark, brought the Danish fleet to Sandwich, Kent. From there he went north to the Danelaw, where the locals immediately agreed to support him. Some English leaders decided to support Cnut, so Æthelred ultimately retreated to London. In 1017, Edmund died in mysterious circumstances, probably murdered by Cnut or his supporters, and the English council (the witan) confirmed Cnut as king of all England. In the summer of 1017, Cnut sent for Æthelred's widow, Emma, with the intention of marrying her. It seems that Emma agreed to marry the king on condition that he would limit the English succession to the children born of their union. Cnut already had a wife, known as Ælfgifu of Northampton, who bore him two sons, Svein and Harold Harefoot. When Cnut's brother, Harald II, King of Denmark, died in 1018, Cnut went to Denmark to secure that realm. Two years later, Cnut brought Norway under his control, and he gave Ælfgifu and their son Svein the job of governing it. Emma supported her son by Cnut, Harthacnut, rather than a son by Æthelred. Her son by Æthelred, Edward, made an unsuccessful raid on Southampton, and his brother Alfred was murdered on an expedition to England in 1036. and when Harthacnut died suddenly in 1042 (probably murdered), Edward (known to posterity as Edward the Confessor) became king. The Godwins fled rather than face trial. The king and Godwin were reconciled, On Godwin's death in 1053, his son Harold succeeded to the earldom of Wessex; Harold's brothers Gyrth, Leofwine, and Tostig were given East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.

On 26 December 1065, Edward was taken ill. On 5 January 1066 Edward the Confessor died, and Harold was declared king. It is believed that Edward had promised the crown to William. Harald Hardrada ("The Ruthless") of Norway also had a claim on England, through Cnut and his successors. William was not ready to get involved so Tostig sailed from the Cotentin Peninsula, but because of storms ended up in Norway, where he successfully enlisted the help of Harald Hardrada. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle has a different version of the story, having Tostig land in the Isle of Wight in May 1066, then ravaging the English coast, before arriving at Sandwich, Kent. They marched towards York, where they were confronted, at Fulford Gate, by the English forces that were under the command of the northern earls, Edwin and Morcar; the Battle of Fulford followed, on 20 September, which was one of the bloodiest battles of medieval times. The English forces were routed, though Edwin and Morcar escaped. The victors entered the city of York, exchanged hostages and were provisioned. Hearing the news whilst in London, Harold Godwinson force marched a second English army to Tadcaster by the night of the 24th, and after catching Harald Hardrada by surprise, on the morning of 25 September, Harold achieved a total victory over the Scandinavian horde after a two day long engagement at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold gave quarter to the survivors allowing them to leave in 20 ships. Harold marched his army back down to the south coast, where he met William's army, at a place now called Battle just outside Hastings. Harold was killed when he fought and lost the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. The Battle of Hastings virtually destroyed the Godwin dynasty. Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine were dead on the battlefield, as was their uncle Ælfwig, Abbot of Newminster. Tostig had been killed at Stamford Bridge. Wulfnoth was a hostage of William the Conqueror. The Godwin women who remained were either dead or childless. William marched on London. The city leaders surrendered the kingdom to him, and he was crowned at Westminster Abbey, Edward the Confessor's new church, on Christmas Day 1066. It took William a further ten years to consolidate his kingdom, during which any opposition was suppressed ruthlessly; in a particularly brutal process known as the Harrying of the North, William issued orders to lay waste the north and burn all the cattle, crops and farming equipment and to poison the earth. According to Orderic Vitalis, the Anglo Norman chronicler, over 100,000 people died of starvation. Figures based on the returns for the Domesday Book estimate that the population of England in 1086 was about 2.25 million, so 100,000 deaths, due to starvation, would have equated to 5 per cent of the population. By the time of William's death in 1087 it was estimated that only about 8 per cent of the land was under Anglo Saxon control.