We may gather from the lay of Brihtnoth some notions of the manner of fighting in use among the Saxons. The battle was evidently fought on foot, horses being merely used to convey some of the warriors to the field of battle. The chief weapon seems to be the spear (gar or franca), and next to it the dart (dareth), though of course the sword (sweord) and dagger or knife (mece) are also used. The use of the bow and arrow (boga and flan) seems still to be rather exceptional, at any rate on the Saxon side. The chief arms of defence are the byrne or ringed coat of mail and the bord or shield made of linden wood. To “weave the war-hedge” (wyrcan thone wighagan) with closely interlocked shields is the first duty of an army on the defensive; to break the shield-wall (brecan thone bordweall) is the highest act of assailant valour.

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At the outset of the battle of Maldon we heard the messenger of “the sea men” suggesting the terms on which they were ready to sell an ignominious immunity from ravage. It was in 991, the very year of that battle, that the first payment of what is generally called Danegeld was made.[191] “And in that year,” says the chronicler, “it was first decided that men should pay gafol to the Danish men on account of the many terrible things which they wrought on the sea coast. That was at first 10,000 pounds. This was the counsel of Archbishop Siric” (Sigeric of Canterbury, 990–94).[192] Of course this easy and ignominious remedy for the miseries inflicted by the invaders was only a palliative, not a cure, and the short breathing-time purchased by the payment not having been utilised as it was by Alfred to put the country in a better state of defence, when the importunate beggars came again, they had to be bought off at a higher figure. The following table shows the dates and amounts of the successive payments of gafol:—

991Firstpayment 10,000 pounds (of silver)
994Second„ 16,000
1002Third„ 24,000
1007Fourth„ 36,000 (in two MSS. 30,000)
1009Localpayment, East Kent 3,000
1012Fifth„ 48,000
1014Sixth„ 21,000
158,000 pounds of silver.

This sum, if we take the pound weight of silver at fifty-four shillings, would be equivalent in intrinsic value to £426,600 sterling, or if we take the “purchasing power” of money in the tenth century at twenty times its present amount, it would be equivalent to a drain of £8,532,000 from a thinly peopled and exhausted country. Probably, as the drain went on, the purchasing power of the silver that remained would be enormously increased and the above estimate may therefore be too small. The chronicler in most cases simply records the fact that the king and his witan promised gafol to the army (sometimes gafol and food) on condition that they should cease from evil; but under the year 1011, after enumerating the districts of England, equivalent to sixteen of our present counties, all of which they had ravaged in that one year, he adds: “All these misfortunes befel us through evil counsel (un-raed) because people did not choose either to pay them gafol in time or else to fight with them; but when they had done about as much evil as they could possibly do, then people made truce and peace with them.... And nevertheless for all this truce and peace and payment of gafol, they went everywhere in bands and harried the country and captured and slew our poor people.”

In order to meet these terrible demands upon the treasury, Ethelred imposed the tax called Danegeld, which was possibly the first tax paid in money and not in kind. The amount of this tax in Saxon times does not seem to be clearly stated. Abolished by Edward the Confessor in 1052, it was revived and made much more oppressive by the Conqueror long after all fear of Danish invasion had ceased, and though its discontinuance was frequently talked of, it does not finally disappear from the treasury rolls till the year 1163.[193] So persistent is the clutch of the tax-gatherer when he has once fastened his claws upon his victim.

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In 992 we have the first of the long series of “inexplicable treasons”[194] of Elfric, ealdorman of Hampshire and Berkshire. The king and all his witan had decided that all the ships that were of any value should be collected in London. The command of this naval armament was entrusted to Ealdorman Elfric, with three colleagues, two of whom were bishops, and they were ordered to intercept the invading host while still upon the high seas. But Elfric gave private warning to the Danish leaders, and on the evening before the day on which the battle was to have been fought, he stole away by himself from the fyrd, to his great disgrace. The result was that the Danish fleet escaped, all save one ship, the crew of which was slain; and the Danes in their turn caught the ships of East Anglia and London at a disadvantage, and wrought a mighty slaughter among them, capturing the very ship, all armed and equipped, in which Elfric had been. As a punishment apparently either for this or for yet another treason, his son Elfgar was next year blinded by order of the king. And yet ten years later (1003), when a great fyrd had been collected out of Wiltshire and Hampshire, Ealdorman Elfric was again placed in command of it. “But,” says the chronicler, “he was again at his old tricks. As soon as the two armies were so near together that they could look into one another’s faces, he feigned himself sick and began retching and spewing, and called out that he was suddenly taken ill. Thus did he betray the folk that he should have led to battle. For when the general is cowardly, then is all the army terribly hindered.” This is the last time that Elfric is mentioned as in command of an army; but we hear of him (or another ealdorman of the same name) thirteen years later (1016) falling at the battle of Assandune. We may, perhaps, doubt whether he was really a deep-dyed traitor or only a man of weakly and nervous constitution, unable to face “the flight of spears” and quite unfit to be put in command of the smallest detachment of soldiers.

In 994 a united effort for the conquest of England was made by a Norwegian and a Danish chieftain. The Norwegian was Olaf Tryggvason, great grandson of Harold Fair-hair, hero of a hundred romantic stories, “fairest and strongest of all men and in prowess surpassing all men talked of by the Northmen”. He had already visited England as a foe and had borne a chief part in the battle of Maldon. The Dane was Sweyn, son of Harold Blue-tooth, whose early career has been already described. In the autumn of 994 the two comrades with ninety-four ships sailed up the Thames and fiercely attacked the city of London on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, thinking to set it on fire. “But there,” says the Chronicle, “God be thanked, they experienced more harm and mischief than they ever thought that any citizens should do unto them. For the holy mother of God showed her mild-heartedness unto those burghers and delivered them from their enemies.” The marauding bands then departed and “wrought the most ill that any man could do in burnings and harryings and man-slayings by the sea coast of Essex, in Kent, in Sussex and in Hampshire,” and after “they had worked indescribable evil,” the king and his witan decided to make the second great gafol payment of £16,000, and “the army” after once mustering at Southampton, was billeted through the whole land of Wessex while the silver was being collected. The terms of peace being thus settled, Ethelred sent a solemn embassage to Olaf, consisting of Elfheah and Ethelweard. Both these were in their different ways men worthy of note. Elfheah or Alphege, who was at this time bishop of Winchester, became twelve years later archbishop of Canterbury, and as we shall see suffered cruel martyrdom at the hands of the Danes. Ethelweard, an ealdorman of Wessex, seems to be clearly identified with the chronicler generally known as Ethelweard, who was of royal blood (being descended from Alfred’s elder brother, Ethelred I.), and whose turgid and obscure narrative occasionally sheds a glimmer of light on the dark places of Anglo-Saxon history. The English ambassadors conducted Olaf to Andover; and there he was led “with much worship” into the presence of Ethelred, who bestowed upon him kingly gifts and received him from the bishop’s hands, when the baptismal rite had been performed. Under the spell of these new religious influences, Olaf promised that “he would never again come against the English race in unfriendly guise,” a promise which, as the chronicler says, he well fulfilled. Next year (995) he made himself master of the Norwegian kingdom, and succeeded in inducing all the Norwegian chiefs, north and south, to become converts to Christianity. After a reign of five years full of romantic adventures,[195] the Norwegian hero fell in a great sea-fight against the combined forces of his former ally, Sweyn of Denmark, and his namesake, Olaf of Sweden. For fourteen years (1000–14) Norway lay under the yoke of the confederate kings. The increase of power thus obtained by Denmark may have had something to do with the success of Sweyn’s schemes for the conquest of England.

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