The Early Middle Ages | England in the Age of Alfred (Lecture 20)

Lecture 20: The Viking attacks on Britain differed from those on the Continent in that Vikings conquered a number of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, made themselves the new rulers in those kingdoms, and settled a large section of eastern and northern England known as the Danelaw. King Alfred of Wessex stopped the Viking advance in the late 9th century and even succeeded in retaking the Danelaw, thus achieving a degree of political unification that had not existed before the Viking attacks. England, unlike the Continent, then experienced a second wave of highly successful Viking attacks beginning in the 980s. However, the Vikings themselves did not become the new masters of England. Rather, as a result of the Norman Conquest of 1066, a group of Christianized, French-speaking Viking descendants became the new ruling class in England.

Suggested Readings:
Richard Abels. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship, and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Longman, 1998.
James Campbell, ed. The Anglo-Saxons. Penguin Books, 1991 (first published in 1982).
Frank Stenton. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford University Press, 2001 (first published in 1971).

Lecture 21: https://www.bitchute.com/video/aJVDlVEey8fw/