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The Viking Great Army
In AD 865, a Viking army landed in eastern England. For more than a decade, it raided across the country, but contemporary documents tell us little about it. Dawn M Hadley and Julian D Richards use the latest discoveries to track down the Army and see the changes it brought about, not just as raiders, but also traders and artisans who gave rise to an industrial revolution.
Between AD 865 and 878, a Viking army wreaked havoc on the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, leading to political conquest, large-scale settlement, and extensive Scandinavian cultural and linguistic changes. The raiders’ tactics moved away from the largely coastal hit-and-run affairs of previous Viking incursions on the British Isles, which had begun in the 790s as a quest for portable wealth in the form of silver and slaves, and they instead now penetrated deep into the countryside, moving rapidly by road and river, exploiting internal divisions, and overwintering at strategic locations. Their new aims were longer-term: land seizure and political conquest.
Fragment of a decorative coppe
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