The Oxford Massacre

One site of the St. Brice's Day Massacre in 1002 seems to have been Oxford. Æthelred called it in a 1004 charter "a most just extermination" of Danes, because of the rumor that they intended to kill him and all his council and take over the entire island, not just the part known as the Danelaw.

The problem in Oxford was that the Danes there saw it coming and decided to take advantage of sanctuary. Sanctuary allowed anyone to take refuge in a church. Sanctuary had a time limit of 40 days, but in that time the refugee could get aid from outside to create a defense on their behalf against the persecutors.

The Danes in Oxford went to St Frideswide's Church (now Christ Church Cathedral), which Æthelred's charter tells:

For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defense for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs;

This should have been recognized as a safe haven for them,

...but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me.

Were the Danes all stuck inside while it burned? Or did they flee and meet the angry mob outside?

In 2008, an archaeological dig found the remains of 37 people who had been massacred. So far as could be determined, they were all male, between there ages of 16 and 25, and some had scars suggestive of previous injuries such as would be incurred by warriors. There were, however, newer injuries that did not have time to heal all over the bodies, as if attacked by a crowd from all sides. Radiocarbon dating suggests they all died between 960 and 1020 CE.

This was not the only site of aggression against Danes, but the king's decree and stories about St. Brice's Day may have been the impetus for what Sweyn Forkbeard did next. Let's get back to him.