Vengeance on the Vikings
Mass burials in England attest to a turbulent time, and perhaps a notorious medieval massacre
By NADIA DURRANI
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
A mass grave found on the grounds of St. John’s College at the University of Oxford in 2008 presented a medieval mystery. Could the dead have been victims of a notorious massacre a thousand years ago?
On November 13, A.D. 1002, Æthelred Unræd, ruler of the English kingdom of Wessex, “ordered slain all the Danish men who were in England,” according to a royal charter. This drastic step was not taken on a whim, but was the product of 200 years of Anglo-Saxon frustration and fear. Vikings, who had long plagued the Isles with raids and wars, had taken over the north and begun settling there. Concerns were growing that they had designs on Æthelred’s southern realm as well.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/109-1311/features/1421-viking-england-st-brices-day
