Thorkell the Tall

The Danish raid on Canterbury in 1011 included a leader named Thorkell the Tall. He was an important enough man that his name was recorded on a few runestones, such as the one pictured here in Sweden, commemorating the taking of Danegeld in England. (I actually mentioned Thorkell, though not by name, 12 years ago; same illustration, it turns out; there aren't many graphics available that can be linked to Thorkell.)

Legend says Thorkell helped raise the young Cnut, taking him on raids and teaching him warfare. The Encomium Emmae Reginae ("Encomium of Queen Emma"), about Emma of Normandy, tells us he was a great leader and warrior.

Landing with an army on the shores of Sandwich in the south-east in 1009, he began a progress through southern England either destroying or getting paid off. Canterbury initially gave them 3000 pounds of silver, which assuaged the Danes and sent them to London for their next attacks.

London's defenses and people were too much, however, and the Danes' siege failed to defeat the city, so they returned to Canterbury. Canterbury was besieged for two weeks. It finally fell due to treachery by Ælfmaer, Abbot of St Augustine's, who (according to William of Malmesbury and others) let the Danes into the city. (Cnut made him Bishop of Sherborne in 1023.) Canterbury Cathedral was burned, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Ælfheah, was captured for ransom. The Danes demanded an additional 3000 pounds of silver to let the captives go.

Ælfheah refused to be ransomed, and over seven months took the opportunity to speak to his captors and persuade many of them to convert to Christianity. On 19 April, during a feast in which the Danes got very drunk, they decided to kill Ælfheah.

Thorkell tried to save the archbishop. He begged the Danes to let Ælfheah live, offering them all that he possessed except his ship. The crowd would not be stopped. Ælfheah was pelted with stones and bones and finally beheaded by one impatient man.

More attacks across southern England produced a total of 48,000 pounds of silver, but Thorkell and men loyal to him split from the other Danes. Thorkell and 45 ships defected and offered themselves to King Æthelred as mercenaries.

This would mean that Thorkell would ultimately wind up on the other side of a battle with his own king and the son of that king, Cnut, whom Thorkell helped raise. I'll tell you how that went tomorrow.

A Noble End

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Alfheah (also called Alphege), was captured during an invasion of Vikings in 1011. Eadric Streona was supposedly sent to negotiate. Unfortunately, Eadric might not have been the ideal negotiator; on the one hand because he seemed to be King Æthelred's "enforcer," and on the other hand if we consider William of Malmesbury's opinion of the man:

...the dregs of mankind and a disgrace to his countrymen, a criminal debauchee and a cunning rascal, whose wealth owed its origin to his rank and had been increased by his skill in speech and his effrontery. A skilful deceiver with a ready invention, he sought out the king's intentions as his faithful servant, and spread them around as a common traitor. Often, when sent on a mission to the enemy to secure peace, he rekindled the war.

It is also possible that Eadric decided not to negotiate very diligently out of cowardice. In fact, when Eadric as Ealdormen of Mercia brought forces to join with Edmund Ironside and Æthelred against Cnut, Eadric abandoned the battle and later pledged his loyalty to Cnut. Cnut recognized that Eadric was untrustworthy and ultimately had him executed.

So Ælfheah was still in the hands of the Vikings. We are told that Ælfheah refused to have a ransom paid for his freedom, but I'm not sure how that information came to be known, and lying and reporting it to the king would be a way for Eadric to shirk the responsibility of effecting Ælfheah's release.

One version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports the death thusly:

... the raiding-army became much stirred up against the bishop, because he did not want to offer them any money, and forbade that anything might be granted in return for him. Also they were very drunk, because there was wine brought from the south. Then they seized the bishop, led him to their "hustings" on the Saturday in the octave of Easter, and then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle; and one of them struck him on the head with the butt of an axe, so that with the blow he sank down and his holy blood fell on the earth, and sent forth his holy soul to God's kingdom.

The date was 19 April 1012. Pope Gregory VII canonized Ælfheah in 1078 with a feast day of 19 April. Ælfheah's remains were place around the high altar of Canterbury cathedral along with Dunstan's, Ælfheah's friend. (The illustration is a memorial to him in the Church of St. Alphege in Greenwich.)

There was, however, one Viking leader who did not want to see Ælfheah toned, and tried to save him. I'll tell you about him tomorrow.

Ælfheah of Canterbury

Yesterday mentioned that Eadric Streona failed to negotiate the release of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ælfheah, from the Vikings. Ælfheah (we are told) did not want a ransom paid for his release.

Ælfheah is also known as Alphege. He was born c.953 and joined a monastery early in life, then a little later moving to another monastery and becoming an anchorite, removing himself from the world to devote himself to prayer while residing in a very confined space.

His reputation for piety eventually caused him to be offered the position of abbot of Bath Abbey (the Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul) by 982. In 984 he was elected Bishop of Winchester, it is believed to be with the influence of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan. As bishop, Ælfheah added a large organ to the cathedral, supposedly requiring two dozen men to operate and able to be heard a mile away.

He promoted the cults of St. Swithin and of Æthelwold of Winchester, Ælfheah's predecessor, bringing Æthelwold's body to a new tomb in the cathedral.

A Viking raid in 994 resulted in one of the raiders, Olaf Tryggvason, converting to Christianity. He was baptized by Ælfheah in one account, but another historian claims Olaf was already a Christian prior to this. In either case, Olaf vowed never to fight the English again.

In 1005, Archbishop of Canterbury Ælfric of Abingdon died, and Alfheah was chosen to succeed him in 1006. He needed to receive the pallium from Pope John XVIII. As archbishop he promoted Dunstan's cult and ordered the writing of a biography of the man. He also helped convince the Anglo-Saxon witenagemot to recognize Wulfsige of Sherborne as a saint.

Then came 1011 and a Danish raid on Canterbury in September. Ælfheah was captured, along with the Bishop of Rochester, the abbess of St. Mildrith's. The abbot of St. Augustine's Abbey, Ælfmaer, managed to escape, and there is some suspicion that he betrayed the others. We'll talk about Ælfheah's end tomorrow.

Eadric Streona

Eadric, the son of Ethelric, started as a relative unknown. His father was at the court of Æthelred the Unready, but was not distinguished. Something in Eadric caused him to get the attention of Æthelred, and he somehow became the king's enforcer.

This seems to have started in 1006 when he arranged the death of Ælfhelm, the Ealdorman of Northumbria. The Worcester Chronicle, which borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and supplemented the information, says:

The crafty and treacherous Eadric Streona, plotting to deceive the noble ealdorman Ælfhelm, prepared a great feast for him at Shrewsbury at which, when he came as a guest, Eadric greeted him as if he were an intimate friend. But on the third or fourth day of the feast, when an ambush had been prepared, he took him into the wood to hunt. When all were busy with the hunt, one Godwine Porthund (which means the town dog) a Shrewsbury butcher, whom Eadric had dazzled long before with great gifts and many promises so that he might perpetrate the crime, suddenly leapt out from the ambush, and execrably slew the ealdorman Ælfhelm.

Eadric was rewarded for his service. In 1007 he was made Ealdorman of Mercia. By 1009 he was married to Æthelred's daughter, Eadgyth.

His job was not only eliminating people. Vikings in 1011 had captured Archbishop of Canterbury Ælfheah. Eadric was tasked with negotiating Alfheah's release. (This was unsuccessful.)

The nickname "Streona" is translated as "The Acquisitive" or "The Grasper" because he was known to appropriate church lands and funds for himself, creating fake charters to support his claims to property. Of course many of the histories that write about him (like the page from Hemming's Cartulary, shown here, collected by a monk named Hemmings around the time of the Norman Conquest) came from clerics and monks, so his actions did not prompt them to write about him in a good light.

William of Malmesbury described him thusly:

the dregs of mankind and a disgrace to his countrymen, a criminal debauchee and a cunning rascal, whose wealth owed its origin to his rank and had been increased by his skill in speech and his effrontery. A skilful deceiver with a ready invention, he sought out the king's intentions as his faithful servant, and spread them around as a common traitor. Often, when sent on a mission to the enemy to secure peace, he rekindled the war.

He also arranged the deaths of two friends of Edmund Ironside, and then most egregiously abandoned the fight against King Cnut at the Battle of Assandun. After Cnut's victory, however, Eadric did not last long. Cnut no doubt realized the man was not trustworthy, and was ordered by Cnut on Christmas Day 1017 to be executed. We are told he was beheaded, his body thrown outside the city to rot, and the head displayed on a pole on the highest battlement of the Tower of London.

But what happened to Alfheah, the Archbishop of Canterbury whose release from the Vikings Eadric failed to gain? Let's find out tomorrow.