The Vikings

Vikings invading Britain - an 11th century drawing.

Saxon society flourished until England became one of the wealthiest countries in Europe.  Then during the late 8th century a new threat grew. Scandinavian pirates from Norway, 'Vikings', sailed over the North Sea in their long-ships and raided many coastal settlements around the British Isle.  The choice for the settlements was simple; either pay protection money or experience murder, burning houses, stealing and the taking of slaves.

By the mid 9th century, predominantly Danish Viking raids were impacting southern Britain and many coastal and riverside communities became untenable; there was a general shift to more defendable sites. Although in other areas such as the NE and Ireland the Vikings established trading posts and forts, it is not believed that they did so in our area.

Fleets of nearly 100 ships were becoming common on the Thames and one year over-wintered at Staines. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that fleets sailed up the Thames, even as far as Oxford, laying waste on each bank as they went. They particularly destroyed abbeys to make their point and it is likely that Chertsey Abbey would have been attacked many times.  It is possible that the community would have fled inland; perhaps to their largest inland estate at Chobham.  The records of Chertsey Abbey state that it was raided and sacked  during the 9^th Century, the Abbot Beocca and about 90 of the priests killed during this time.

With about 100 ships and perhaps some 5000 Danes over-wintering at Staines, frequent raids on the surrounding countryside would be necessary to obtain food.  Nearby Egham and Thorpe would have been first to feel the effects and once they had been stripped of stores then our area could easily have been next.  It was the Scandinavian habit to kill all the men of military age and to take the younger women as slaves. Perhaps at the end of a day of hard pillaging, they were not keen to spend time cooking a meal, washing up and keeping the camp clean. So they took many female slaves to do this work and, possibly to provide sex. At the end of the season the female slaves may have been released or shipped back to Scandinavia; perhaps to sell in the Baltic slave trade.  Once slaves outlived their usefulness their masters often abandoned them. In theory they were no longer slaves but free; in practise they were often starving and destitute.

Viking apparently killing an unarmed Saxon. Carving on West Portal of Hylestad church, Setesdal, Norway. Image: David Stokes

For the elderly and children who survived the attacks locally the outlook was not much better. Imagine, in the depths of Winter to be robbed of your stored harvest intended to see you through to the next year; to lose your seed-corn and to see your over-wintered cattle slaughtered.  Starvation was almost certain; and if you somehow survived the Winter then where were the fit adults who could farm the land in the Spring? The suffering amongst the peasants must have been immense. A graphic description of the devastation comes from the Bishop of Winchester who stated in a lease for an estate at Beddington in Surrey c 908, that 'when my lord (the king) first let it to me it was completely without stock, and had been stripped bare by the heathen men'. Unfortunately, the Bishop neglects to tell us of the plight of the peasants.

In NW Surrey inhabitants had only recently been converted to Christianity. Prior to that they had many gods and were in the habit of making offerings to whichever god they most needed help from.  The priests at Chertsey persuaded them to abandon their gods and adhere to the one god.  When the pantheistic Scandinavians decimated not just their homes but also the Abbey at Chertsey there must have been many who wondered if they had nailed their colours to the wrong flag. However, the church countered this very cleverly; it decreed that the wrath of the Scandinavians was God's way of punishing people for their sins; so instead of abandoning Christianity they needed to be even more god fearing.

The Danes

In the ten years after 865 the Danish army had captured almost all of the area now known as England except for Wessex.

From Roman times the London market was helpful to the economy of our area, in fact 'Surrey' is believed by some to simply mean the southern district of London. Although the Roman city was abandoned after the withdrawal of the legions, the Saxons established the trading station of Lundenwic just upstream  of the Roman city in the vicinity of what is now the 'West End'. Some of the most valuable lands given to Chertsey Abbey were trading beaches along the south bank of the Thames at London. In 871-2 the Danish 'Great Army' over-wintered in Lundenwic and eventually Lundenwic was abandoned as unviable by the Saxons. The loss of the London market probably badly damaged the fortunes of Chertsey Abbey and many of the peasants in the more prosperous Thames-side parts of our area. However in the poor heathlands of the Abbey's western lands around Chobham  food surpluses were rare and so conversely this area may not have felt the effects of the loss of the market. In 886 King Alfred reoccupied and refortified the walled Roman city.

The extent of the Danelaw Map: British Museum By 865 the Danes overran the Midlands and the North East; Anglo-Saxon kings of Wessex were forced to concede an area known as the Danelaw.

There are no Danish place names in our area, except 'Thorpe', so we can be confident that there were no long-term  settlement of the Danes. However, the Domesday survey does record 'Odin' (a possible Scandinavian) as being the major landholder in Chobham.

Eventually Alfred, King of Wessex, and later his heirs, began to develop effective defences against the Danes.  They raised an army and between 878 to 892 constructed a series of fortified centres across the South.  The nearest to our area was the fortified earthwork at Eashing (just west of Guildford) which had a strength of about 600 men (estimated from the Burghal Hidage).  Estate owners, such as the Abbot of Chertsey, were obliged to contribute one man for every hide of land.  So for instance, Chobham was assessed at about 10 hides so would contribute 10 men.  To put that into perspective, there were about 30 heads of household in Chobham - although some of which would have included sons of fighting age, some heads of household were infirm or elderly.  However, because the land still needed tending and families looking after, a rota system may have been implemented. It is likely that those not serving were expected to tend their own land and that of their neighbours who were serving.  

It may have been at about this time that Chobham village was formed and the common fields set up.  Some historians believe that the change from scattered farmsteads to centralised village life and the system of cultivating adjacent strips in common fields was developed to allow the rota to work effectively.  They believe that only war would be a sufficient driving force to achieve the huge cultural change that would have been required¹.

A picture evolves, similar to conditions experienced in Britain in the Second World War, of a country and a local community entirely geared for war.

The preparation began to pay off; between 910 and 920, Alfred's son Edward and daughter Aethelflaed heading separate armies 'liberated' Mercia and East Anglia and as far as the Humber.  By 928, Edwards successor Athelstan had conquered right up to Scotland.  The country was at last unified under one king - that of Wessex who called the land 'England'.

The Saxons made the mistake of ethnically cleansing the Danes in the areas which they captured.  The Danish king launched a rescue which was so successful that the Danes took control of all England: a Danish king was crowned King of England in London.

Subsequently, when the kingdom in Denmark faltered, power in England was handed back to a 'Saxon' king - Edward the Confessor, who had a Norman mother and had been raised and educated in Normandy. On Edward's death this led to a takeover by the Normans  (= Scandinavian 'northmen' who had settled in NW France) which lasted for the next three hundred years. 

What remained of the population of this area could now restock without fear of further raids.  However they had paid a heavy price; the king and his aristocracy were now all powerful; taxes and duties - once raised to fight the Danes had now become easily collectable.