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A contemporary portrayal of King Edgar in the New Minster Charter. The events of 1006 were typical of the calamity that befell England between 980 and 1016: a generation of escalating misery during which time Viking armies roamed practically unopposed across the rolling hills of southern England, looting and burning at will. A sense of […]

Bargains made and broken involving the exchange of hostages and the swearing of oaths were such an important part of Anglo-Saxon warfare that scarcely an event was recorded without such an accompaniment. It is the glue that held the model of the political world together. By looking at the nature of such agreements it can […]

Battle of Stamford Bridge, 1066. The English army under King Harold Godwinson fights off an invading Norwegian force led by King Harald Hardrada. On Edmund’s death in 946, he was succeeded by another brother Eadred (946–56), who in the first year of his reign conquered Northumbria and was granted oaths by the Scots ‘that they […]