Who commanded the English forces at the Battle of Maldon in 991?
Earl Byrhtnoth commanded the English forces near Maldon in Essex. He led a group of local farmers known as the Fyrd militia against the Viking invaders.
Earl Byrhtnoth commanded the English forces near Maldon in Essex. He led a group of local farmers known as the Fyrd militia against the Viking invaders.
Vikings stopped at Northey Island where low tide created a narrow land bridge to the shore. The channel measured about one hundred twenty yards wide in the tenth century compared to its current width.
A scribe active at the Monastery of Worcester wrote down the poem in West Saxon dialect late in the eleventh century. John Elphinstone or his assistant David Casley transcribed three hundred twenty-five lines of text in 1724.
The word ofermod appears in the poem to describe Byrhtnoth's state of mind during the final moments and literally means over-heart. J.R.R. Tolkien argued that the monastic author used this term to pinpoint a fatal sin of hubris.
The result was a payment of ten thousand Roman pounds of silver known as Danegeld. This sum weighed three thousand three hundred kilograms and equated to approximately one point eight million pounds at 2022 prices.