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The fyrd, in early Anglo-Saxon times, was an army that was mobilized from freemen to defend their shire, or from select representatives to join a royal expedition. Service in the fyrd was usually of short duration and participants were expected to provide their own arms and provisions. The composition of the fyrd evolved over the years, particularly as a reaction to raids and invasions by the Vikings. The system of defence and conscription was reorganised during the reign of Alfred the Great, who set up 33 fortified towns (or burhs) in his kingdom of Wessex. The amount of taxation required to maintain each town was laid down in a document known as the Burghal Hidage. Each lord had his individual holding of land assessed in hides. Based on his land holding, he had to contribute men and arms to maintain and defend the burhs. Non-compliance with this requirement could lead to severe penalties. Ultimately the fyrd consisted of a nucleus of experienced soldiers that would be supplemented by ordinary villagers and farmers from the shires who would accompany their lords. ==Origins and definition== The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd〔 and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.〔 In Anglo Saxon documents military service might be expressed as fyrd-faru, fyrd-foereld, fyrd-socne, or simply fyrd. The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire, in which all freemen had to serve, those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land.〔 According to the laws of Ine: It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom, however in the case of hit and run raids, particularly by Vikings, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough so was rarely summoned.〔Cannon. The Oxford Companion to British History. p. 398〕 Historians are divided about the people who were part of the fyrd. Was it the body of peasants as distinct from the thegns and mercenaries? Was it the peasants and thegns together? Or was it a combination of all three? Initially the force probably would have been entirely infantry. However, from Alfred's time there would have been a force of mounted infantry, who could gallop swiftly to any trouble spot, dismount, and drive off any raiding force.〔Preston et al. History of Warfare. p. 70〕〔Hollister.Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions. p. 3〕 Also, after Alfred's reorganisation there were two elements to his army. The first known as the ''select-fyrd'' was, most likely, a strictly royal force of mounted infantry consisting mainly of thegns and their retainers supported by earls and reeves. The second would be the local militia or ''general-fyrd'' responsible for the defence of the shire and borough district and would consist of freemen, such as small tenant farmers and their local thegns and reeves. In the 11th century the infantry was strengthened by the addition of an elite force of housecarls.〔Powicke. Military Obligation. Ch. 1〕〔Lavelle. Alfred's Wars. p. xvi - The names ''select~'' and ''general~'' are attributed to the historian C. Warren Hollister. See ''American Historical Review'' 73 (1968). pp. 713-714.〕 The Old English term that the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' uses for the Danish Army is ''"here"''; Ine of Wessex in his law code, issued in about 694, provides a definition of ''"here"'' as "an invading army or raiding party containing more than thirty-five men", yet the terms ''"here"'' and ''"fyrd"'' are used interchangeably in later sources in respect of the English militia.〔〔Attenborough. (The laws of the earliest English kings. pp. 40-41 ) - ''We use the term thieves if the number of men does not exceed seven. A band of marauders for a number between seven and thirty five. Anything beyond that is a raid'.''〕 Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding; the so-called ‘common burdens' of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. Even when a landholder was granted exemptions from other royal services, these three duties were reserved. An example of this is in a charter of 858 where Æthelberht of Kent made an exchange of land with his thegn Wulflaf , it stipulates that Wulflaf's land should be free of all royal services and secular burdens except military service, the building of bridges, and fortress work.〔Hollister. Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions. pp. 59-60〕〔 Wulflaf's land should be free of all royal services and secular burdens except ''military service, the building of bridges, and fortress work - absque expeditione sola pontium structura et arcium munitionbus...''.〕〔Lavelle. Alfred's Wars. pp. 70-71〕 According to Cnut's laws: 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「fyrd」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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