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Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings Student Scholarship

2021-05-27

Heathens to Christians: Exploring Norse Interactions with Anglo- Saxons and Notions of Medieval Identity

Antonia Scholerman [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Scholerman, Antonia, "Heathens to Christians: Exploring Norse Interactions with Anglo-Saxons and Notions of Medieval Identity" (2021). Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings. 285. https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/aes/285

This Poster is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at Digital Commons@WOU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Academic Excellence Showcase Proceedings by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@WOU. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. Heathens to Christians: Exploring Norse Interactions with Anglo-Saxons and Notions of Medieval Identity Antonia Scholerman Dr. Elizabeth Swedo and Dr. Ricardo Pelegrin-Taboada Department of History, Western Oregon University

Introduction The Source Conclusions One fundamental document, finalized in c. 886CE, that signified a shift in Since their first raid in 793CE, the Norse invaded, traded, settled, Beginning in 793CE, for more than two and a half Anglo-Saxon society was the treaty between King Alfred of Wessex and the fought, farmed, reigned, and centuries, the Norse raided, traded, settled, and Norse ruler, Guthrum. The treaty established peace and defined the came to political power in England. As the Norse boundaries between their territories, thus establishing the Danelaw. Drafted integrated with the Anglo-Saxons. continued their activities in the British Isles during following a battle between King Alfred’s forces and King Guthrum’s forces in This variety of activities and this the ninth through eleventh centuries, this foreign 878CE, this treaty followed Guthrum’s surrender. As part of these terms, variety of experiences left an culture confronted the Anglo-Saxons’ sense of Guthrum was baptized, and he adopted Christianity as his new faith in that indelible mark on English history. In their own identity, especially as the Norse and same year. some areas, the Anglo-Saxons who Anglo-Saxon relationship developed from raiding interacted with more peaceful Norse to settlement and integration. “First concerning our boundaries: up the settlers were more likely to be Thames, and then up the Lea, and along tolerant of Norse people. In other areas where there was a lot of the Lea to its source, then in a straight raiding, the Anglo-Saxons were more Depiction of King Alfred the line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to likely to be hostile and violent Great of Wessex in an early Watling Street.” towards the Norse. Beginning their 14th century manuscript. legacy as heathens, the Norse in Detail from the Genealogical England changed their own identities Roll Chronicle of the English Guthrum’s conversion reflected what many other Norse settlers did as a as they adapted their lives to their Kings. way to become more accepted in Anglo-Saxon society. To smooth over new environment. Conversion contacts and potential relationships, Guthrum submitted to Alfred’s became a central piece of their new condition of adopting a new faith. Conversion was sometimes a political identity; however, the Anglo-Saxons Treaty Between tool, as was the case with Guthrum. This political agreement accommodated still regarded them as an unfamiliar Alfred and Guthrum and later Norse people in Britain because it established defined group even after generations of Guthrum c. areas of Norse control. In this region, which was comprised of fifteen shires, settlement. Perhaps not so different 886CE. st the Norse established settlements in coastal, urban, and rural areas. This from the 21 century, the pre- established population felt Corpus Christi treaty was a precursor to what came in the late tenth century: Danish rule challenged and uncomfortable with College, over England as a whole. Although the treaty established peace, the peace new foreign people migrating and Cambridge did not last, and for the next 150 years, tensions increased between the settling in their already inhabited MS 383 Anglo-Saxons and Norse settlers. areas.

Literature Cited “The Treaty Between Alfred and Guthrum.” In Alfred the Great, edited by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, 171-172. London: Penguin Group, 1983.