The Great Heathen Army, also known as the Great Danish army and the Viking Great Army,Hadley. "The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872–3, Torksey, Lincolnshire", Antiquaries Journal. 96, pp. 23–67 was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors mainly originating in Denmark who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
The name Great Heathen Army is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The force was led by three of the five sons of the semi-legendary Ragnar Lodbrok, including Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless and Ubba. The campaign of invasion and conquest against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms lasted 14 years. Surviving sources give no firm indication of its numbers, but it was described as amongst the largest forces of its kind.
The invaders initially landed in East Anglia, where King Edmund provided them with horses for their campaign in return for peace. They spent the winter of 865–866 at Thetford, before marching north to capture York in November 866. York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. During 867, the army marched deep into Mercia and wintered in Nottingham. The Mercians agreed to terms with the Viking army, which moved back to York for the winter of 868–869. In 869, the Great Army returned to East Anglia, conquering it and killing its king. The army moved to winter quarters in Thetford.
In 871, the Vikings moved on to Wessex, where Alfred the Great paid them to leave. The army then marched to London to overwinter in 871–872. The following campaigning season the army first moved to York, where it gathered reinforcements. This force campaigned in northeastern Mercia, after which it spent the winter at Torksey, on the Trent close to the Humber. The following campaigning season it seems to have subdued much of Mercia. Burgred, the king of Mercia, fled overseas and Ceolwulf, described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a foolish king's thegn" was imposed in his place. The army spent the following winter at Repton on the middle Trent, after which the army seems to have divided. One group seems to have returned to Northumbria, where they settled in the area, while another group seems to have turned to invade Wessex.
By this time, only the kingdom of Wessex had not been conquered. In May 878 Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington, and a treaty was agreed whereby the Vikings were able to remain in control of much of northern and eastern England, a region later known as the Danelaw, which was formalised in the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention the reason for this invasion, perhaps because Viking raids were fairly common during that period. The Tale of Ragnar's Sons, on the other hand, mentions that the invasion of England by the Great Heathen Army was aimed at avenging the death of Ragnar Lodbrok, a legendary Viking ruler of Sweden and Denmark. In the Viking saga, Ragnar is said to have conducted a raid on Northumbria during the reign of King Ælla. The Vikings were defeated and Ragnar was captured by the Northumbrians. Ælla then had Ragnar executed by throwing him into a pit of venomous snakes. When the sons of Ragnar received news of their father's death, they decided to avenge him.Kane. History of the Vikings and Norse Culture. pp. 72–74
Background Viking raids began in England in the late 8th century, primarily on monasteries.Sawyer. The Oxford Illustrated History of Vikings. pp. 2–3 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for AD 787 reports the first confrontation with the Vikings in England.Giles Tr., J.A, ed. Six Old English Chronicles: Æthelweard's Chronicle. p. 19
This incident is regarded, by some, as the first raid on England.Forte et al. Viking Empires. p. 125 Æthelweard's version of the Chronicle, known as the Chronicon Æthelweardi, has a slightly different version of events, saying that the reeve, a certain Beaduheard, had spoken to the visitors in an "authoritative tone" and this is why they killed him. The designation of these "Hæretha-landers" as Danes is somewhat problematic. Sara María Pons-Sanz states, in "Analysis of the Scandinavian Loanwords in the Aldredian Glosses to the Lindisfarne Gospels", that they were either men from Harthæsysæl (Hardsyssel) in Jutland, so actually Danes, or from Hörthaland in Norway, so that in the last case the word "Danish" refers to all Scandinavian people.
The first monastery to be raided was in 793 at Lindisfarne, off the northeast coast; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the Vikings as "heathen men".ASC 793 – English translation at Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 16 January 2013 Monasteries and minster churches were popular targets as they were wealthy and had valuable, portable objects.Starkey. The Monarchy of England, Vol. 1. p. 51 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 840 says that Æthelwulf of Wessex was defeated at Carhampton, Somerset, after 35 Viking ships had landed in the area.ASC 840 – English translation at Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 18 January 2013 The Annals of St. Bertin also reported the incident, stating:
Despite this, Æthelwulf had some success against the Vikings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has repeated references during his reign of victories won by ealdormen with the men of their shires.Janet L. Nelson, "Æthelwulf (d. 858)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 18 Jan 2013 However, the raiding of England continued on and off until the 860s, when instead of raiding, the Vikings changed their tactics and sent a great army to invade England. This army was described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a "Great Heathen Army" (OE: mycel hæþen here or mycel heathen here).ASC 865 – English translation at Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 16 January 2013Oliver. Vikings: A History. p. 169 – in 865 the Anglo Saxon Chronicle made mention of it ... Great Army mycel here..Great Heathen Army mycel heathen hereThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Manuscript B: Cotton Tiberius A.vi . Retrieved 20 August 2013. The entry for 867 refers to the Great Heathen Army as mycel hæþen here.
The size of the army
Historians provide varying estimates for the size of the Great Heathen Army.Richard Abels. "Alfred the Great, the micel hæðen here and the Viking threat" in Timothy Reuter. Alfred the Great. pp. 266–267 According to the 'minimalist' scholars, such as Pete Sawyer, the army may have been smaller than traditionally thought.Sawyer. The Age of Vikings. pp. 124–125See Hashall's Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450–900 Chapter 6 for a discussion on the size of medieval armies Sawyer notes that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 865 referred to the Viking force as a Heathen Army, or in Old English "hæþen here".Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 173, ff. 1v-32r. Retrieved 17 April 2013. * The entry for 865 refers to the Heathen Army as hæþen here. * The entry for 866 describes the Great Army as micel here.
The law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in about 694, provides a definition of here (pronounced ) as "an invading army or raiding party containing more than thirty-five men", thus differentiating between the term for the invading Viking army and the Anglo-Saxon army that was referred to as the fyrd.Attenborough. The laws of the earliest English kings. pp. 40–41 – "We use the term thieves if the number of men does not exceed seven. A band of marauders for a number between seven and thirty five. Anything beyond that is a raid'." The scribes who wrote the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle used the term here to describe the Viking forces. The historian Richard Abels suggested that this was to differentiate between the Viking war bands and those of military forces organised by the state or the crown. By the late 10th and early 11th century, here was used more generally as the term for an army, whether it was Viking or not.
Sawyer produced a table of Viking ship numbers, as documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and assumes that each Viking ship could carry no more than 32 men leading to his conclusion that the army would have consisted of no more than 1,000 men. Other scholars give higher estimates. For example, Laurent Mazet-Harhoff observes that many thousands of men were involved in the invasions of the Seine area. Mazet-Harhoff concedes that the military bases that would accommodate these large armies have yet to be rediscovered.Laurent Mazet-Harhoff. The Incursion of the Vikings into the natural and cultural landscape of upper Normandy in Iben Skibsted Klæsøe, Viking Trade and Settlement in Western Europe, p. 87Bernard Bachrach, Charlemagne's Early Campaigns (768–777): A Diplomatic and Military Analysis. (Volume 82 of History of Warfare) Brill, 2013. , p. 77 Guy Halsall reported that, in the 1990s, several historians suggested that the Great Heathen Army would have numbered in the low thousands and acknowledged that there "is still much room for debate".
The army probably developed from the campaigns in Francia, where there was a conflict between Emperor Louis the Pious and his sons. One of the sons, Lothair I, had welcomed the support from a Viking fleet.Sawyer. The Oxford Illustrated History of Vikings, pp. 9–11 and pp. 53–54 By the time the war had ended, the Vikings had discovered that monasteries and towns situated on navigable rivers were vulnerable to attack. In 845, a raid on Paris was prevented by a large payment of silver to the Vikings. The opportunity for rich pickings drew other Vikings to the area, and by the end of the decade all the main rivers of West Francia were being patrolled by Viking fleets. In 862, the West Frankish king responded to the Vikings, fortifying his towns and defending his rivers, making it difficult for the Vikings to raid inland. The lower reaches of the rivers and the coastal regions were left largely undefended. Religious communities in these areas moved inland away from the reaches of the Viking fleets. With the changes in Francia making raiding more difficult, the Vikings turned their attention to England.
Invasion of England The Viking leaders often joined together for mutual benefit and then dissolved once profit had been achieved. Several of the Viking leaders who had been active in Francia and Frisia joined forces to conquer the four kingdoms constituting Anglo-Saxon England. The composite force probably contained elements from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Ireland as well as those who had been fighting on the continent. The Anglo-Saxon historian Æthelweard was very specific in his chronicle and said that "the fleets of the viking tyrant Ivar the Boneless landed in England from the north".Æthelweard. Æthelweard's Chronicle. Bk. 4. Ch. 2
The Vikings had been defeated by the West Saxon King Æthelwulf in 851, so rather than land in Wessex they decided to go further north to East Anglia.Brøndsted. The Vikings, pp. 52–53 Legend has it that the united army was led by the three sons of Ragnar Lodbrok: Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless (Hingwar), and Ubba. Norse sagas consider the invasion by the three brothers as a response to the death of their father at the hands of Ælla of Northumbria in 865, but the historicity of this claim is uncertain.Munch. Norse Mythology: Ragnar Lodbrok and His Sons, pp. 245–251Jones. A History of the Vikings, pp. 218–219
Start of the invasion, 865
In late 865, the Great Heathen Army encamped in the Isle of Thanet and was promised by the people of Kent danegeld in exchange for peace. The Vikings did not abide by this agreement and rampaged across eastern Kent.