Migration (Medieval)

• By 650CE, England was divided into seven separate kingdoms known as the heptarchy, The kingdoms were Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex. Mercia was the largest, but Wessex was the most powerful. The borders of the kingdoms kept changing as the rulers fought.
• worshipped their own gods. Christian churches and monasteries were full of jewels and other valuables. Making them a good target for raiders
• In the late 8th-century, England was one of the wealthiest places in Europe. This was due to successful farming and trade, rich in resources like salt, iron and wool
• successful farming and trade. England was rich in resources, including salt, iron, and wool
• and traded these items with other European countries.. People also paid taxes to their king,
• to local nobles, and to the Christian Church.
• Heptarchy – a country which is divided into seven kingdoms.
• Monasteries – a religious building run by monks.
• Monk - a member of Christianity who has chosen to live a poor life.
• Raiders – people who attack enemy territory, often to steal.
• The Anglo-Saxon heptarchy
• The Vikings were warriors from Scandinavia who were active throughout Europe from the
• 8th-11th centuries. They were great traders who had established trade route which reached
• as far as modern-day North America, the UK and Ireland, Russia, the Mediterranean, and
• the Middle East. In the late 8th-century, the Vikings began to stay through the winter months
• too, before beginning a new round of raids in the spring.
• In 865, the Vikings' 'Great Heathen Army' landed in East Anglia on the eastern coast of

  
• England. Rather than simply raiding, this army was interested in conquest, first capturing
• the heavily fortified York, the most important city in the north, before spending 14 years
• fighting the Anglo-Saxons for control of the land.
• By 878, the once great kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia had been
• conquered, with only Wessex remaining as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. After devastating
• battles between the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, the king of
• Wessex, Alfred, decided to try to create peace with the
• main Viking leader, Guthrum. Over 12 days together in 878,
• Alfred oversaw the conversion of the Vikings to
• Christianity. In exchange, the two kings agreed that
• England would be split into two; the Vikings would have
• the North and East of England, creating a new kingdom,
• the Danelaw, and Wessex would remain as an Anglo-Saxon
• kingdom. The Vikings were responsible for governing the
• Danelaw, bringing their own institutions to rule over the Anglo-
• Saxons who lived there. They managed public life by bringing their own laws, place names,
• customs, and farming techniques.
• However, this treaty did not end the battles between Vikings and Saxons, with the Wessex
• king, Athelstan, fighting to take over control of all of England in the 10th century. He became
• the first king of the whole of England in 937, defeating a combined Scottish and Danish
• The victory of the Anglo-Saxons would last less than sixty years. From the 990s, Viking
• armies repeatedly attacked England, forcing the English crown to pay them vast fortunes,
• including 10,000 pounds of silver in 991 alone, to leave England and stop fighting. This