The Vikings

by A. Mawer

In 835 the attacks on England were renewed after an interval of 40 years, but as they now stand in close connexion with contemporary invasions of Frankish territory there is every reason to believe that they were of Danish rather than of Norse origin. The attacks began in the south and west but they soon spread to East Anglia and Lindsey. In 842 the same army ravaged London, Étaples and Rochester. In 851 Aethelstan of Kent defeated the Danes at sea in one of the rare battles fought with them on their own element, and in the same year they remained for the winter in Thanet, probably owing to the loss of their ships. The size and importance of these attacks may be gauged from the fact that in this year a fleet of some 350 Danish ships sailed up the Thames. It was probably that same fleet, with slightly diminished numbers, which in 852 ravaged Frisia and then sailed round the British Isles, came to Ireland, and captured Dublin. In 855 the Danes wintered for the first time in Sheppey and we reach the same point in the development of their attacks on England to which they had already attained in Ireland. We pass away from the period of raiding. The Danes now came prepared to stay for several years at a time and to carry on their attacks with unceasing persistency.

The course of events in the Frankish empire ran on much the same lines as in England and Ireland during these years except that here trouble arose on the land boundary between Denmark and the Franks as well as on the sea-coast.

Alarmed by the conquest of the Saxons the Danish king Guðröðr collected a fleet at Slesvík and in 808 he crossed the Eider and attacked the Abodriti (in Mecklenburg-Schwerin), a Slavonic tribe in alliance with the Franks. He also sent a fleet of some 200 vessels to ravage the coast of Frisia, laid claim to that district and to Saxony, north of the Elbe, and threatened to attack Charlemagne in his own capital. The emperor was preparing to resist him when news arrived (810) of the death of Guðröðr at the hands of one of his followers and the consequent dispersal of the Danish fleet.

Soon after disputes over the succession arose between the family of Guðröðr and that of an earlier king Harold. Ultimately the contest resolved itself into one between the sons of Guðröðr, especially one Horic (O.N. Hárekr) and a certain Harold. It lasted for several years, the sons of Guðröðr for the most part maintaining their hold on Denmark. At one time during the struggle Harold and his brother Ragnfröðr went to Vestfold in Norway, 'the extreme district of their realm, whose chiefs and peoples were refusing to be made subject to them, and gained their submission,' showing clearly that at this time Denmark and Southern Norway were under one rule and rendering probable the identification of Guðröðr with Guðröðr the Yngling who about this time was slain by a retainer in Stifla Sound on the south coast of Norway. This king ruled over Vestfold, half Vingulmörk and perhaps Agðir. Both parties were anxious to secure the support of the emperor Lewis and in the end Harold gained his help by accepting baptism at Mainz in 826. He promised to promote the cause of Christianity in Denmark, while Lewis in return granted him the district of Riustringen in Frisia as a place of retreat in case of necessity. The Danes thereby gained their first foothold within the empire.

Sufficient has been said of the relation between Denmark and the empire on its land boundary: we must now say something of the attacks made by sea.

The first were made in 799 on the coast of Aquitaine and they were probably due to raiders from Ireland who followed a well-known trade route from South Ireland to the ports of Southern France. In 800 Charlemagne inspected the coast from the Somme to the Seine and gave orders for the equipment of a fleet and the strengthening of the coastguard against Northmen pirates. When Guðröðr's fleet plundered the islands off the Frisian coast in 810, Charlemagne gave orders for his fleet to be strengthened once more, but the results were meagre in the extreme. The passage of the Channel was no longer safe, and year after year, from some time before 819, Vikings harried the island of Noirmoutier at the mouth of the Loire, commanding the port of Nantes and the extensive salt-trade of the district. The Island of Rhé opposite La Rochelle, was raided in similar fashion.

The Frankish empire was free from attack between the years 814 and 833. During the same time the English coast was also unvisited, and it is probable that the struggles for the succession in Denmark had for the time being reduced that kingdom to inactivity. About the year 830 the Danish king Hárekr seems to have established himself firmly on the throne, while on the other hand the emperor Lewis was troubled by the ambition of his sons Lewis, Pippin and Lothair. It is probably no chance coincidence that these events synchronised with the renewal of Viking attacks on Frisia. Throughout their history the Vikings showed themselves well informed of the changing political conditions of the countries which they visited and ready to make the utmost use of the opportunities which these might give for successful invasion.

Frisia was the main point of attack during the next few years. Four times was the rich trading town of Duurstede ravaged; fleets sailed up the Veldt, the Maas, and the Scheldt; Antwerp was burned and the Island of Walcheren plundered, so that by the year 840 the greater part of Frisia south of the Vlie, was in Danish hands and so it remained till the end of the century. The Danish king Hárekr repeatedly denied all complicity in these raids and even promised to punish the raiders, but it is impossible to tell how far his denials were genuine. Equally difficult is it to say how far Harold in his Frisian home was responsible for these attacks. The annalists charge him with complicity, but Lewis seems to have thought it best to bind him by fresh gifts and (probably about 839) granted the district around Duurstede itself to him and his brother Roric (O.N. Hrœrekr) on condition that they helped to ward off Viking attacks. All the efforts of the emperor to equip a fleet or to defend the coast were to no purpose, and there was even a suspicion that the Frisian populace were in sympathy with the Vikings. So great was the terror of attack that when in 839 a Byzantine mission, including some Rhôs or Swedes from Russia, visited the emperor at Ingelheim, the Swedes were for a time detained under suspicion, as spies.

On the death of Lewis the Pious in 840 things went from bad to worse. The division of the empire in 843 gave the coast from the Eider to the Weser to Lewis, from the Weser to the Scheldt to Lothair, and the rest to Charles, removing all possibility of a united and organised defence, and soon these princes entered on the fatal policy of calling in the Vikings to assist them in their quarrels. Thus Lothair in 841 endeavoured to bind Harold to his cause by a grant of the Island of Walcheren and Harold is found in the following year with Lothair's army on the Moselle.