Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Universitet i Oslo-17.10.2017
Nicolas Jaramillo
In the year 865 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms beheld the arrival of a wolfish force that
brought havoc and disruption into the stablished order. This force is called in the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle “The Great Heathen Army” (mycel hæþen here).1 Between this date and
the year 871 the Heathen army conquered most of the kingdoms but Wessex.2 Although
luck, and geographical dispositions of Wessex had a role to play in the inability of the
Norsemen to conquer the realm, there were some characteristics and circumstances that
favored the salvation of the last Saxon kingdom that made it different from the other
this essay.
Since the end of the 820’s, the preeminence of Wessex in the south, east and west would
be almost undisputable. While the sources also favored the position of the West Saxons, the
bias reflects a kernel of truth, being Wessex the only survivor of the onslaught done by the
Great Army. It is worth of notice, that the dire dynastic situation of Northumbria was
exploited by the invaders successfully, as they also did in some of the other kingdoms.
Whereas the dynastic problems affected the Mercian dominance in southern England, and
weakened the kingdom so much that by 825 Beornwulf, the Marcian king, lost control of
Kent and his life by East Angles, the West Saxons were consolidating a powerful
1
The hegemony of Wessex in the 830’s under King Ecgberht shows one of the aspects
that made Wessex so successful where the other kingdoms failed: the power was stablished
in centralized power under the ruler of the West Saxons. The relation between succession
and centrality of power in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was always a problem, and the
evidence highlights that the primogenitors were not in the first line of succession, since
more often than not, brothers and other prospects inherit the kingship. 4 Equally problematic
was the relation of lord and retainer, since it was so inherently personal that demanded a
formal alliance between the parties. In the case of Wessex, since the times of Ecgberht, the
alliance was given to the throne and not the individual holding the royal cloth.5
This movement towards centrality was accompanied by a change in the way the system
of power function in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, since the council of the king,
witenagemot, became evidently a royal council and ceased to be a freemen council that
worked along the power of the king, this movement is in a state of development still at the
time of Ælfred, but it was no longer just a body of individuals that legitimized the
following of the law as in previous times, but was a body that assisted the monarch with the
Finally, the West Saxons had developed by the 850’s an important sense of identity that
was also supportive of the regional administration. Since the end of the seventh century, the
predominant identity of the West Saxons was on the level of the realm and the ealdormen
served as regional administrators on the king’s behalf. The shires and the officers that
preside over them had some autonomy in matters that were of little or no importance to the
kingdom, but the main function was to maintain the proper observance of the law. The
4
Peter Hunter Blair, An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003). 215-221.
5
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 198-204.
6
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 198-204.
2
distribution of functions united to the sense of West Saxon identity allowed the West
Saxons kings to expand maintain their hegemony over the kingdom, making their subjects
compete for diverse charges or appointments serving all to the status quo.7
II
[on sumum lande be:oð men a:kende, θa: be:oð on lenge syks fo:tmæ:la. Hy: hab:að
beardas oð kne:ow si:de, and feaks oð he:lan. Homodubi: hy: syndon ha:tene –θæt be:oð
“twi:-men”– and be: hre:awum fiksum hy: lifiað and θa: etað. Kapi ha:t:e se:o e:a in
θæ:reilkan sto:we θe is ha:ten gorgoneus– θæt is, “wæl-kyrging.” θær be:oð kende æ:metan
swa: mitʃle swa: hundas. Hy: hab:að sweltʃe fe:t swa: græshop:an. Hy: syndon re:ades
III
a) Those Ants dig gold up of earth from before night until the fifth hour of the day. Then
men who to that extent daring are that they that gold take, then lead they with them camels,
mares with theirs foals and steeds. Those foals they tie ere they over the river travel. The
gold they load on the mares and they selves on-sit and the steeds there abandon.
b) Those ants dig up gold from the earth from before night to the fifth hour of the day.
Then, there are men who are so daring that they would take that gold. They will then take
with them camels, both the females with their foals and male camels. They will tie the foals
before they pass over the river. Then they would load the gold on the mares and sit
themselves over them and abandon the male camels on the spot.
7
Hunter Blair, Anglo-Saxon England, 227-229.
3
IV
a)
Sumum lande: Neuter, dative, singular, indirect object. Hrēawum fixum: Masculine, dative,
b)
bēoð ācende: indicative active, 3rd person, plural, present, irregular verb. ācende is weak I.
Habbað: indicative active, 3rd pers, plural, present, weak III. Nemnaþ: indicative active, 3rd
pers, present, weak I. lifiað: indicative active, 3rd pers, plural, present, weak III, infinitive
lifian.
c)
þonne hy cennan willað: the verb is in final position, in plural present tense. Þonne farað hy
on scipum to Indeum: verb in second position, the on, demands that the ships be in dative.