Battle of Thetford | |||||||
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Part of the Viking invasions of England | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Anglo-Saxons Norwegian Vikings | Danish Vikings | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Ethelred the Unready Olaf Haraldsson | Sweyn Forkbeard | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown |
The battle of Thetford occurred in 1004. Sigvat records the victory of King Ethelred, allied with Olaf Haraldsson, [1] over the Danes under Sweyn Forkbeard during the latter's campaigns in England.
The battle site was located in lands under the control of Ulfcytel Snillingr, then of East Anglia, at a site once thought to be near Wretham, [1] but now thought to be at Rymer in Suffolk. [2] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that the battle of Thetford occurred after an attempt by Ulfcytel and the "councillors in East Anglia" to negotiate a truce with Sweyn in return for a financial settlement; the Danes broke the truce, and marched on Thetford where they were met and engaged by a contingent of the East Anglian fyrd.
Æthelred II, known as Æthelred the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death in 1016. His epithet comes from the Old English word unræd meaning "poorly advised"; it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised".
Year 1016 (MXVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.
Sweyn Forkbeard was King of Denmark from 986 until his death, King of England for five weeks from December 1013 until his death, and King of Norway from 999/1000 until 1013/14. He was the father of King Harald II of Denmark, King Cnut the Great, and Queen Estrid Svendsdatter.
Edmund Ironside was King of the English from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King Æthelred the Unready and his first wife, Ælfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marred by a war he had inherited from his father; his cognomen "Ironside" was given to him "because of his valour" in resisting the Danish invasion led by Cnut.
The Danelaw was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian law. The term is first recorded in the early 11th century as Dena lage. The areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England, long occupied by Danes and other Norsemen.
Roger Bigod was a Norman knight who travelled to England in the Norman Conquest. He held great power in East Anglia, and five of his descendants were earls of Norfolk. He was also known as Roger Bigot, appearing as such as a witness to the Charter of Liberties of Henry I of England.
At the Battle of Edington, an army of the kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by the Dane Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May 878, resulting in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year. Primary sources locate the battle at "Eðandun". Until a scholarly consensus linked the battle site with the present-day village of Edington in Wiltshire, it was known as the Battle of Ethandun. This name continues to be used.
Halfdan Ragnarsson was a Viking leader and a commander of the Great Heathen Army which invaded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, starting in 865.
Thorkell the Tall, also known as Thorkell the High in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was a prominent member of the Jomsviking order and a notable lord. He was a son of the Scanian chieftain Strut-Harald, and a brother of Jarl Sigvaldi, Hemingr and Tófa. Thorkell was the chief commander of the Jomsvikings and the legendary stronghold Jomsborg, on the Island of Wollin. He is also credited as having received the young Cnut the Great into his care and taken Cnut on raids. The Encomium Emmae, a document aimed at the movers and shakers of the Anglo-Scandinavian court in the early 1040s, describes Thorkell as a great war leader and warrior.
Thorpe St Andrew is a town and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Yare, two miles east of the centre of Norwich, and is outside the boundary of the city. The civil parish has an area of 708 ha and had a population of 14,556 at the 2011 census; this was an increase from the 2001 figure of 13,762. It is the administrative headquarters of the Broadland district council.
Nacton is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. The parish is bounded by the neighbouring parishes of Levington to the east and Bucklesham in the north. It is located between the towns of Ipswich and Felixstowe.
The history of Anglo-Saxon London relates to the history of the city of London during the Anglo-Saxon period, in the 7th to 11th centuries.
UlfcytelSnillingr, or Snylling, was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman. He was apparently the ealdorman of East Anglia from 1004 to his death at the Battle of Ashingdon in 1016, although he is not called an ealdorman in any of the charters he witnessed. Scandinavian sources refer to him as Ulfkell Snillingr, the byname meaning bold.
Events from the 1010s in England.
Events from the 1000s in England.
The Kingdom of the East Angles, informally known as the Kingdom of East Anglia, was a small independent kingdom of the Angles during the Anglo-Saxon period comprising what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Fens, the area still known as East Anglia.
The Battle of Ringmere was fought on 5 May 1010. Norse sagas recorded a battle at Hringmaraheiðr; Old English Hringmere-hǣð, modern name Ringmere Heath.
The ruins of St. Edmund's Chapel are located in a field to the east of the village of Lyng in the English county of Norfolk. It was one of two religious buildings in Lyng, the other being St. Margaret's Church.
Viking activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Middle Ages, the 8th to the 11th centuries CE, when Scandinavians travelled to the British Isles to raid, conquer, settle and trade. They are generally referred to as Vikings, but some scholars debate whether the term Viking represented all Scandinavian settlers or just those who used violence.
In the autumn of 1016, the Danish prince Cnut the Great (Canute) successfully invaded England. Cnut's father, Sweyn Forkbeard, had previously conquered and briefly ruled England for less than five weeks.