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Full-Text Articles in History
The Great Heathen Failure: Why The Great Heathen Army Failed To Conquer The Whole Of Anglo-Saxon England, Ryan Macneill
The Great Heathen Failure: Why The Great Heathen Army Failed To Conquer The Whole Of Anglo-Saxon England, Ryan Macneill
Graduate Theses
In the year 865 CE, a coalition of Viking forces combined to form an army aimed at the conquest and settlement of England. Known as The Great Heathen Army, these Vikings managed to capture most of the territory that today constitutes England with the notable exception of the English kingdom of Wessex. And so, despite many successes, they failed to conquer all of English territory. Though these events, which transpired throughout the 860s and 870s, are well documented, the Viking perspective is rarely taken into account and there has yet to have been an argument that pinpoints how and why …
Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss
Behind The Shield-Wall: The Experience Of Combat In Late Anglo-Saxon England, Jordan Poss
All Theses
Most studies of the Anglo-Saxon military examine its structural ties to economic and social structures, rarely investigating Anglo-Saxon battle itself. This paper asks the question 'What was it like to have been in battle with the Anglo-Saxon army?' After introducing the topic in a study of the 991 Battle of Maldon and describing the development of the Anglo-Saxon military system between the fifth and eleventh centuries, this paper relies on case studies of the most thoroughly-documented Anglo-Saxon battles, those of 1066--Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, and Hastings--to reconstruct the conditions of Anglo-Saxon combat and their effects on the men who fought …