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Alfonso III (c. 848 – 20 December 910), called the Great (Spanish: el Magno), was the king of León, Galicia and Asturias from 866 until his death. He was the son and successor of Ordoño I. In later sources he is the earliest to be called "Emperor of Spain." He was also titled "Prince of all Galicia" (Princeps totius Galletiae[1]). Life Alfonso's reign was notable for his comparative success in consolidating the kingdom during the weakness of the Umayyad princes of Córdoba. He fought against and gained numerous victories over the Muslims of al-Andalus.[2] During the first year of his reign, he had to contend with a usurper, Count Fruela of Galicia. He was forced to flee to Castile, but after a few months Fruela was assassinated and Alfonso returned to Oviedo. He defeated a Basque rebellion in 867 and, much later, a Galician one as well. He conquered Porto and Coimbra in 868 and 878 respectively. In about 869, he formed an alliance with the Kingdom of Pamplona, and solidified this link by marrying Jimena, who is thought to have been daughter of king García Íñiguez, or less likely, a member of the Jiménez dynasty, and also married his sister Leodegundia to a prince of Pamplona. In the Reconquista The following year, 867, Alfonso had to attend to an uprising in the eastern part of the kingdom, in Alava, according to the Chronicle of Albeda. According to the Chronicle of Sampiro, the revolt was led by Count Eylo. Sampiro describes these events as follows: A messenger arrived from Álava, announcing that their hearts had inflated against the king: hearing that, the monarch decided to march there. Driven by the fear of their arrival, they quickly recognized their obligations and supplicants, lowered their heads before him and promised that they would remain faithful to his kingdom and authority, and that they would do what was commanded. In this way he submitted to his power an Alava lying before him, and Eylo, who presented himself as his count, brought him to Oviedo loaded with iron.[3] His father, Ordoño, had begun the resettlement of the border territories and Alfonso continued with it. His first successes were in Portuguese lands, where King Alfonso's troops succeeded in locating the southwestern frontier on the Mondego river. Count Vimara Perez in 868 conquered Porto and resettled the district. In 878, the army of King Alfonso III, with Count Hermenegildo Gutiérrez in command, faced the Muslim forces led by the emir of Cordoba, Mohammad I, who had started an attack against Porto. After defeating the emir's forces and expelling the Muslim inhabitants of Coimbra and Oporto, Gutiérrez' Christian troops occupied and repopulated other cities, such as Braga, Viseo and Lamego, with men taken from Galicia. Coimbra, Lamego and Viseo were conquered again in 987 by Almanzor and it was not until 1064 when they were finally reconquered by King Ferdinand I of León. Alfonso III had to face the offensive of the Umayyad prince al-Mundir, son of Mohamed I. Fighting occurred almost constantly between 875 and 883. The first Umayyad raids were aimed at León and El Bierzo, but failed. The Christian counteroffensive ended with the taking of Deza and Atienza. Abd al-Rahman ibn Marwan, the Galician, Lord of Mérida and rebel against the Emir of Córdoba, sent him to ingratiate himself with him to the Minister of this, Hashim ibn Abd al-Aziz.[clarification needed] Accordingly, in 878, Al-Mundir directed his armies back to Leon and Astorga, while Salid ben Ganim reached the Órbigo. Alfonso, hoping to prevent the union of both armies, went out to meet the second, which he defeated in the battle of Polvoraria, at the confluence of the Órbigo and Esla rivers. Al-Mundir then withdrew, but Alfonso III intercepted him in the valley of Valdemora, where he defeated him. Mohamed was forced to pay ransom and sign a three-year truce, the first time that Córdoba had asked for peace. Both kings considered the truce as a pause while preparing for the next assault: Mohamed raised a fleet to attack Galicia, but it was destroyed by a storm. Alfonso and Ibn Marwan descended through the Tagus Valley and defeated the Cordovan army on Mount Oxifer, next to the Guadiana River. As revenge, Mohamed attacked the kingdom of Zaragoza in 882, where Alfonso had sent his son Ordoño to be educated with the Banu Qasi, sons of Musa, advancing through the ancient Roman road to Leon. There was an exchange of prisoners and the Cordovans withdrew. They repeated the campaign in 883 with the same result. In 884 Mohamed I and Alfonso III signed a peace, since both began to have serious internal problems. The great king was met with a rising led by his brothers Fruela, Odoario and Bermudo, who became strong in Astorga, supported by several counts, but were quickly defeated and executed. In 901 the Umayyad rebel Ibn al-Qitt proclaimed Mahdi, preached holy war and attacked Zamora - "rebuilt and repopulated by Mozarabic Toledo [...] the most important advanced square of the Asturian kingdom" - which he was able to resist. The messianic leader, abandoned by his own, was defeated and killed in battle on what is known as the Day of Zamora. In those years, the emirate of Cordoba, wracked by civil disorder, stopped disturbing the kingdom of Asturias. Alonso faced off against his former allies in Mérida and the Ebro valley: allied with the Count of Pallars, he instigated a coup that managed to defeat the Banu Qasi and install a Navarrese, Sancho Garcés I, on the throne of Pamplona. He ordered the writing of three chronicles which held the theory that the kingdom of Asturias was the rightful successor of the old Visigothic kingdom. Alfonso was also a patron of the arts, like his grandfather before him. He built the church of Santo Adriano. According to a letter of disputed authenticity dated to 906, the Epistola Adefonsi Hispaniae regis, Alfonso arranged to purchase an "imperial crown" from the cathedral of Tours.[4] In 909, Alfonso moved the seat of his government to Oviedo. According to Sampiro, his sons (García, Ordoño, Gonzalo, Fruela and Ramiro) conspired against him, under the influence of García's father-in-law. Alfonso had García imprisoned but the conspirators were able to free him and he fled to Boiges. However, Alfonso later convinced García to join him in a campaign against the Moors. Alfonso died in Zamora of natural causes in 910, having reigned for 44 years. Ibn Hayyan likewise tells of an uprising, but says that Alfonso himself was imprisoned. Following his death, the kingdom was divided among his sons: his eldest son, García, became king of León; the second son, Ordoño, reigned in Galicia; and Fruela received Asturias with Oviedo as his capital. These lands would be reunited when García died childless and León passed to Ordoño, while on Ordoño's death the lands were reunited under Fruela. However, Fruela's death the next year started a series of internal struggles that led to unstable succession for over a century. Culture He convened the second Oviedo Council in 893. He ordered the elaboration of the Cross of Victory, which is included in the current flag of Asturias, which has become a symbol of the Principality. The Cross was made by goldsmiths from the Frankish kingdom. It ordered its elaboration[clarification needed] at the beginning of the tenth century, as a donation to the Cathedral of San Salvador. Today it is kept in the Holy Chamber of the Cathedral of Oviedo and a copy hangs on the bridge of Cangas de Onís. The discovery of the sepulcher of Santiago made Compostela the second apostolic seat after Rome, with authority over clerics from other Christian counties. Santiago became a destination for pilgrims, true transmitters of culture. With respect to the Asturian art, Alfonso's reign saw the post-Tramuntana stage of Asturian pre-Romanesque architecture, such as San Salvador de Valdediós, Santo Adriano de Tuñón and the basilica of Santiago de Compostela. He ordered the writing of three chronicles in which he remakes history, presenting the kingdom of Asturias as the heir of the Visigothic kingdom: The Albeldense Chronicle (c. 881). The prophetic Chronicle (c. 883). The Chronicle of the Visigoth Kings or Chronicle of Alfonso III (c. 911). Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England.[2] After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw, composed of Scandinavian York, the north-east Midlands and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England.[3] Alfred began styling himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons" after reoccupying London from the Vikings. Details of his life are described in a work by 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in English, rather than Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" in the 16th century and is only one of two English monarchs, alongside Cnut the Great, to be labelled as such. Family Further information: House of Wessex family tree Alfred was a son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh.[4] According to his biographer, Asser, writing in 893, "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage, in the district known as Berkshire[a] (which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly)." This date has been accepted by the editors of Asser's biography, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge,[5] and by other historians such as David Dumville and Richard Huscroft.[6] West Saxon genealogical lists state that Alfred was 23 when he became king in April 871, implying that he was born between April 847 and April 848.[7] This dating is adopted in the biography of Alfred by Alfred Smyth, who regards Asser's biography as fraudulent,[8] an allegation which is rejected by other historians.[9] Richard Abels in his biography discusses both sources but does not decide between them and dates Alfred's birth as 847/849, while Patrick Wormald in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article dates it 848/849.[b] Berkshire had been historically disputed between Wessex and the midland kingdom of Mercia, and as late as 844, a charter showed that it was part of Mercia, but Alfred's birth in the county is evidence that, by the late 840s, control had passed to Wessex.[11] He was the youngest of six children. His eldest brother, Æthelstan, was old enough to be appointed sub-king of Kent in 839, almost 10 years before Alfred was born. He died in the early 850s. Alfred's next three brothers were successively kings of Wessex. Æthelbald (858–60) and Æthelberht (860–65) were also much older than Alfred, but Æthelred (865–71) was only a year or two older. Alfred's only known sister, Æthelswith, married Burgred, king of Mercia in 853. Most historians think that Osburh was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, but some suggest that the older ones were born to an unrecorded first wife. Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight. She was described by Alfred's biographer Asser as "a most religious woman, noble by temperament and noble by birth". She had died by 856 when Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of West Francia.[12] In 868, Alfred married Ealhswith, daughter of the Mercian nobleman Æthelred Mucel, ealdorman of the Gaini, and his wife Eadburh, who was of royal Mercian descent.[13][c] Their children were Æthelflæd, who married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians; Edward the Elder, Alfred's successor as king; Æthelgifu, abbess of Shaftesbury; Ælfthryth, who married Baldwin, count of Flanders; and Æthelweard.[15] Background Map of Britain in 886 Alfred's grandfather, Ecgberht, became king of Wessex in 802, and in the view of the historian Richard Abels, it must have seemed very unlikely to contemporaries that he would establish a lasting dynasty. For 200 years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdic, the founder of the West Saxon dynasty.[d] This made Ecgberht an ætheling – a prince eligible for the throne. But after Ecgberht's reign, descent from Cerdic was no longer sufficient to make a man an ætheling. When Ecgberht died in 839, he was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf; all subsequent West Saxon kings were descendants of Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, and were also sons of kings.[18] At the beginning of the ninth century, England was almost wholly under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. Mercia dominated southern England, but its supremacy came to an end in 825 when it was decisively defeated by Ecgberht at the Battle of Ellendun.[19] The two kingdoms became allies, which was important in the resistance to Viking attacks.[20] In 853, King Burgred of Mercia requested West Saxon help to suppress a Welsh rebellion, and Æthelwulf led a West Saxon contingent in a successful joint campaign. In the same year Burgred married Æthelwulf's daughter, Æthelswith.[21] In 825, Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf to invade the Mercian sub-kingdom of Kent, and its sub-king, Baldred, was driven out shortly afterwards. By 830, Essex, Surrey and Sussex had submitted to Ecgberht, and he had appointed Æthelwulf to rule the south-eastern territories as king of Kent.[22] The Vikings ravaged the Isle of Sheppey in 835, and the following year they defeated Ecgberht at Carhampton in Somerset,[23] but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom.[24] When Æthelwulf succeeded, he appointed his eldest son Æthelstan as sub-king of Kent.[25] Ecgberht and Æthelwulf may not have intended a permanent union between Wessex and Kent because they both appointed sons as sub-kings, and charters in Wessex were attested (witnessed) by West Saxon magnates, while Kentish charters were witnessed by the Kentish elite; both kings kept overall control, and the sub-kings were not allowed to issue their own coinage.[26] Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was defeated at Carhampton.[25] In 850, Æthelstan defeated a Danish fleet off Sandwich in the first recorded naval battle in English history.[27] In 851 Æthelwulf and his second son, Æthelbald, defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to this present day, and there took the victory".[28] Æthelwulf died in 858 and was succeeded by his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, as king of Wessex and by his next oldest son, Æthelberht, as king of Kent. Æthelbald only survived his father by two years, and Æthelberht then for the first time united Wessex and Kent into a single kingdom.[29] Childhood Alfred's father Æthelwulf of Wessex in the early 14th-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as a prize by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. He must have had it read to him because his mother died when he was about six and he did not learn to read until he was 12.[30] In 853, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king".[31] Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion.[15] It may be based upon the fact that Alfred later accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, around 854–855.[32] On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to form a compromise. Æthelbald retained the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf ruled in the east. After King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred.[33] The reigns of Alfred's brothers A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army which arrived in England from Denmark, Norway, and southern Sweden in 865 Alfred is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers Æthelbald and Æthelberht. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army of Danes landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms which constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865.[34] Alfred's public life began in 865 at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18-year-old Æthelred. During this period, Bishop Asser gave Alfred the unique title of secundarius, which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic tanist, a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. It was a well known tradition among other Germanic peoples – such as the Swedes and Franks to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related – to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander.[35] Viking invasion In 868, Alfred was recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in a failed attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.[36] The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with mixed results; the places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth.[37] The Saxons were defeated at the Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset).[35] Æthelred died shortly afterwards in April.[37] King at war Early struggles In April 871 King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.[38] While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[37] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them. Although the terms of the peace are not recorded, Bishop Asser wrote that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.[39] The Viking army withdrew from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably paid the Vikings silver to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[39] Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/872 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend and Waterloo Bridge. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England.[40] In 876, under their three leaders Guthrum, Oscetel and Anwend, the Danes slipped past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. He negotiated a peace that involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor. The Danes broke their word, and after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon.[41] Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878, the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe".[42] From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount a resistance campaign, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[37] 878 was the nadir of the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was resisting.[43] The cake legend A legend tells how when Alfred first fled to the Somerset Levels, he was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left cooking on the fire.[43][44] Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return. There is no contemporary evidence for the legend, but it is possible that there was an early oral tradition. The first known written account of the incident is from about 100 years after Alfred's death.[44] Counter-attack and victory King Alfred's Tower (1772) on the supposed site of Egbert's Stone, the mustering place before the Battle of Edington.[e] In the seventh week after Easter (4–10 May 878), around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea (that is, west of Southampton Water), and they rejoiced to see him".[42] Alfred's emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king's thegns, who were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to war. Alfred's actions also suggest a system of scouts and messengers.[46] Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire. He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later, the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[37] According to Asser, The unbinding of the chrisom[f] on the eighth day took place at a royal estate called Wedmore. — Keynes & Lapidge 1983, Ch. 56 At Wedmore, Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmore, but it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed.[48] Under the terms of the so-called Treaty of Wedmore, the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879 the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to Cirencester.[49] The formal Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as Quadripartitus, was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[50] That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms, the boundary between Alfred's and Guthrum's kingdoms was to run up the River Thames to the River Lea, follow the Lea to its source (near Luton), from there extend in a straight line to Bedford, and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street.[51] Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged Kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints—at least for the time being.[52] In 825, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had recorded that the people of Essex, Sussex, Kent and Surrey surrendered to Egbert, Alfred's grandfather. From then until the arrival of the Great Heathen Army, Essex had formed part of Wessex. After the foundation of Danelaw, it appears that some of Essex would have been ceded to the Danes, but how much is not clear.[53] 880s Further information: Londinium and Anglo-Saxon London With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum's people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[54] The Viking army, which had stayed at Fulham during the winter of 878–879, sailed for Ghent and was active on the continent from 879 to 892.[55][56] There were local raids on the coast of Wessex throughout the 880s. In 882, Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Two of the ships were destroyed, and the others surrendered. This was one of four sea battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three of which involved Alfred.[57] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades.[58] In 883, Pope Marinus exempted the Saxon quarter in Rome from taxation, probably in return for Alfred's promise to send alms annually to Rome, which may be the origin of the medieval tax called Peter's Pence. The pope sent gifts to Alfred, including what was reputed to be a piece of the True Cross.[59] After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace, the king was forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in Kent, an allied kingdom in South East England, during the year 885, which was possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester,[55] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.[60] Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, but Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[60] After travelling up the River Stour, the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number), and a battle ensued.[60] The Anglo-Saxon fleet emerged victorious, and as Henry of Huntingdon writes, "laden with spoils".[61] The victorious fleet was surprised when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.[62] King of the Anglo-Saxons A plaque in the City of London noting the restoration of the Roman walled city by Alfred A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again.[63] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. Soon afterwards, Alfred restyled himself as "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames.[64] This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[65] In 888, Æthelred, the archbishop of Canterbury, also died. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[66] Guthrum's death changed the political landscape for Alfred. The resulting power vacuum stirred other power-hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming to a close.[67] Viking attacks (890s) After another lull, in the autumn of 892 or 893, the Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in 330 ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body at Appledore, Kent, and the lesser under Hastein, at Milton, also in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them, indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in 893 or 894, took up a position from which he could observe both forces.[68] While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward and were defeated at the Battle of Farnham in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorney, on the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex, where they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and promise to leave Wessex.[69][68] They then went to Essex and after suffering another defeat at Benfleet, joined with Hastein's force at Shoebury.[69] Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded.[70] The force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wiltshire and Somerset and forced to head off to the north-west, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. (Some identify this with Buttington Tump at the mouth of the River Wye, others with Buttington near Welshpool.) An attempt to break through the English lines failed. Those who escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district.[70] Early in 894 or 895 lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of the year, the Danes drew their ships up the River Thames and the River Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles (32 km) north of London. A frontal attack on the Danish lines failed but later in the year, Alfred saw a means of obstructing the river to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The Danes realised that they were outmanoeuvred, struck off north-westwards and wintered at Cwatbridge near Bridgnorth. The next year, 896 (or 897), they gave up the struggle. Some retired to Northumbria, some to East Anglia. Those who had no connections in England returned to the continent.[70] Military reorganisation Alfred the Great silver offering penny, 871–899. Legend: AELFRED REX SAXONUM ('Alfred King of the Saxons'). The Germanic tribes who invaded Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries relied upon the unarmoured infantry supplied by their tribal levy, or fyrd, and it was upon this system that the military power of the several kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England depended.[71] The fyrd was a local militia in the Anglo-Saxon shire in which all freemen had to serve; those who refused military service were subject to fines or loss of their land.[72] According to the law code of King Ine of Wessex, issued in c. 694, If a nobleman who holds land neglects military service, he shall pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; a nobleman who holds no land shall pay 60 shillings; a commoner shall pay a fine of 30 shillings for neglecting military service — Attenborough 1922, pp. 52–53 Wessex's history of failures preceding Alfred's success in 878 emphasised to him that the traditional system of battle he had inherited played to the Danes' advantage. While the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes attacked settlements for plunder, they employed different tactics. In their raids the Anglo-Saxons traditionally preferred to attack head-on by assembling their forces in a shield wall, advancing against their target and overcoming the oncoming wall marshalled against them in defence.[73] The Danes preferred to choose easy targets, mapping cautious forays to avoid risking their plunder with high-stake attacks for more. Alfred determined their tactic was to launch small attacks from a secure base to which they could retreat should their raiders meet strong resistance.[73] The bases were prepared in advance, often by capturing an estate and augmenting its defences with ditches, ramparts and palisades. Once inside the fortification, Alfred realised, the Danes enjoyed the advantage, better situated to outlast their opponents or crush them with a counter-attack because the provisions and stamina of the besieging forces waned.[73] The means by which the Anglo-Saxons marshalled forces to defend against marauders also left them vulnerable to the Vikings. It was the responsibility of the shire fyrd to deal with local raids. The king could call up the national militia to defend the kingdom but in the case of the Viking raids, problems with communication and raising supplies meant that the national militia could not be mustered quickly enough. It was only after the raids had begun that a call went out to landowners to gather their men for battle. Large regions could be devastated before the fyrd could assemble and arrive. Although the landowners were obliged to the king to supply these men when called, during the attacks in 878 many of them abandoned their king and collaborated with Guthrum.[74][75] With these lessons in mind Alfred capitalised on the relatively peaceful years following his victory at Edington with an ambitious restructuring of Saxon defences. On a trip to Rome Alfred had stayed with Charles the Bald, and it is possible that he may have studied how the Carolingian kings had dealt with Viking raiders. Learning from their experiences he was able to establish a system of taxation and defence for Wessex. There had been a system of fortifications in pre-Viking Mercia that may have been an influence. When the Viking raids resumed in 892 Alfred was better prepared to confront them with a standing, mobile field army, a network of garrisons and a small fleet of ships navigating the rivers and estuaries.[76][77][78] Administration and taxation Tenants in Anglo-Saxon England had a threefold obligation based on their landholding: the so-called "common burdens" of military service, fortress work, and bridge repair. This threefold obligation has traditionally been called trinoda necessitas or trimoda necessitas.[79] The Old English name for the fine due for neglecting military service was fierdwite.[80] To maintain the burhs, and to reorganise the fyrd as a standing army, Alfred expanded the tax and conscription system based on the productivity of a tenant's landholding. The hide was the basic unit of the system on which the tenant's public obligations were assessed. A hide is thought to represent the amount of land required to support one family. The hide differed in size according to the value and resources of the land and the landowner would have to provide service based on how many hides he owned.[79][81] Burghal system See also: Burghal Hidage A map of burhs named in the Burghal Hidage The walled defence round a burh. The City Walls of Alfred's capital, Winchester. Saxon and medieval work on Roman foundations. The foundation of Alfred's new military defence system was a network of burhs, distributed at tactical points throughout the kingdom.[82] There were thirty-three burhs, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) apart, enabling the military to confront attacks anywhere in the kingdom within a day.[83][84] Alfred's burhs (of which 22 developed into boroughs) ranged from former Roman towns, such as Winchester, where the stone walls were repaired and ditches added, to massive earthen walls surrounded by wide ditches, probably reinforced with wooden revetments and palisades, such as at Burpham in West Sussex.[85][86][87][g] The size of the burhs ranged from tiny outposts such as Pilton in Devon, to large fortifications in established towns, the largest being at Winchester.[89] A document now known as the Burghal Hidage provides an insight into how the system worked. It lists the hidage for each of the fortified towns contained in the document. Wallingford had a hidage of 2,400, which meant that the landowners there were responsible for supplying and feeding 2,400 men, the number sufficient for maintaining 9,900 feet (1.88 miles; 3.0 kilometres) of wall.[90] A total of 27,071 soldiers were needed, approximately one in four of all the free men in Wessex.[91] Many of the burhs were twin towns that straddled a river and were connected by a fortified bridge, like those built by Charles the Bald a generation before.[77] The double-burh blocked passage on the river, forcing Viking ships to navigate under a garrisoned bridge lined with men armed with stones, spears or arrows. Other burhs were sited near fortified royal villas, allowing the king better control over his strongholds.[92] The burhs were connected by a road system maintained for army use (known as herepaths). The roads allowed an army quickly to be assembled, sometimes from more than one burh, to confront the Viking invader.[93] The road network posed significant obstacles to Viking invaders, especially those laden with booty. The system threatened Viking routes and communications making it far more dangerous for them. The Vikings lacked the equipment for a siege against a burh and a developed doctrine of siegecraft, having tailored their methods of fighting to rapid strikes and unimpeded retreats to well-defended fortifications. The only means left to them was to starve the burh into submission but this gave the king time to send his field army or garrisons from neighbouring burhs along the army roads. In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.[94] Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and stormed a half-built, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.[95] Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution. His contemporary biographer Asser wrote that many nobles balked at the demands placed upon them even though they were for "the common needs of the kingdom".[96][97] English navy Alfred also tried his hand at naval design. In 896 he ordered the construction of a small fleet, perhaps a dozen or so longships that, at 60 oars, were twice the size of Viking warships.[98] This was not, as the Victorians asserted, the birth of the English Navy. Wessex had possessed a royal fleet before this. Alfred's older brother sub-king Æthelstan of Kent and Ealdorman Ealhhere had defeated a Viking fleet in 851 capturing nine ships and Alfred had conducted naval actions in 882.[99] The year 897 marked an important development in the naval power of Wessex. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle related that Alfred's ships were larger, swifter, steadier and rode higher in the water than either Danish or Frisian ships. It is probable that, under the classical tutelage of Asser, Alfred used the design of Greek and Roman warships, with high sides, designed for fighting rather than for navigation.[100] Alfred had seapower in mind; if he could intercept raiding fleets before they landed, he could spare his kingdom from being ravaged. Alfred's ships may have been superior in conception, but in practice they proved to be too large to manoeuvre well in the close waters of estuaries and rivers, the only places in which a naval battle could be fought.[101] The warships of the time were not designed to be ship killers but rather troop carriers. It has been suggested that, like sea battles in late Viking age Scandinavia, these battles may have entailed a ship coming alongside an opposing vessel, lashing the two ships together and then boarding the craft. The result was a land battle involving hand-to-hand fighting on board the two lashed vessels.[102] In the one recorded naval engagement in 896, Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships at the mouth of an unidentified river in the south of England. The Danes had beached half their ships and gone inland.[103][98] Alfred's ships immediately moved to block their escape. The three Viking ships afloat attempted to break through the English lines. Only one made it; Alfred's ships intercepted the other two.[98] Lashing the Viking boats to their own, the English crew boarded and proceeded to kill the Vikings. One ship escaped because Alfred's heavy ships became grounded when the tide went out.[102] A land battle ensued between the crews. The Danes were heavily outnumbered, but as the tide rose, they returned to their boats which, with shallower drafts, were freed first. The English watched as the Vikings rowed past them but they suffered so many casualties (120 dead against 62 Frisians and English) that they had difficulty putting out to sea.[102] All were too damaged to row around Sussex, and two were driven against the Sussex coast (possibly at Selsey Bill).[98][102] The shipwrecked crew were brought before Alfred at Winchester and hanged.[98] Legal reform Main article: Doom book |
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