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At the Battle of Edington an army of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May AD 878. The primary sources locate the battle at "Ethandun" or "Ethandune", and until a scholarly consensus identified its location with the present-day Edington in Wiltshire it was known as the Battle of Ethandun, a name which continues to be used. The battle soon resulted in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year. ==Events before the battle== The first Viking raid on Anglo-Saxon England is thought to have been between AD 786 and 802 at Portland in the Kingdom of Wessex, when three Norse ships arrived and killed King Beorhtric's reeve.〔Sawyer, ''Illustrated History of Vikings'', p. 50〕 At the other end of the country, in the Kingdom of Northumbria, during AD 793 the Holy Island of Lindisfarne was raided.〔Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 793: "This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island (Lindisfarne), by rapine and slaughter."〕 After the sacking of Lindisfarne the raids around the coasts were somewhat sporadic till the 830s, when the attacks became more sustained.〔Sawyer, ''Illustrated History of Vikings'', p. 52〕 In 835, "heathen men" ravaged Sheppey.〔 In 836, Ecgberht of Wessex met in battle a force of thirty-five ships at Carhampton,〔 and in 838 he faced a combined force of Vikings and Cornishmen at Hingston Down in Cornwall.〔 The raiding continued and with each year became more and more intense.〔 In 865/866 it escalated further on the arrival of what the Saxons called the Great Heathen Army.〔 The annals do not report the size of the army, but modern estimates suggest between five hundred and a thousand men.〔 It was said to have been under the leadership of the brothers Ivar the Boneless, Ubba, and Halfdan Ragnarsson.〔Jones, ''A History of the Vikings'', p. 219〕 What made this army different from those before it was its intent. Its arrival began "a new stage, that of conquest and residence".〔Jones, ''A History of the Vikings'', p. 218〕 By 870, the northmen had conquered the kingdoms of Deira and East Anglia, and in 871 they attacked Wessex. Of the nine battles mentioned by the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' during that year, only one was a West Saxon victory; but in this year Alfred succeeded his brother Ethelred, who died after the Battle of Merton.〔Garmonsway, ''The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', pp. 70-73〕 Mercia had collapsed by 874, and the Army's cohesion went with it. Halfdan went back to Deira and fought the Picts and the Strathclyde Welsh to secure his northern kingdom.〔Jones, ''A History of the Vikings'', p. 221〕 His army settled there and he is not mentioned after 876, when "(Danes ) were engaged in ploughing and making a living for themselves".〔 Guthrum, with two other unnamed kings, "departed for Cambridge in East Anglia".〔 He made several attacks on Wessex, starting in 875, and in the last nearly captured Alfred in his winter fortress at Chippenham.〔 By 878, the Danes held the east and north east of England, and their defeat at the Battle of Ashdown had paused but not halted their advance. Alfred the Great had spent the winter preceding the Battle of Edington in the Somerset marsh of Athelney, the nature of the country giving him some protection. In the Spring of 878, he summoned his West Saxon forces and marched to Edington, where he met the Danes, led by Guthrum, in battle. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Edington」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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