Anglo-Saxons vs Vikings: The Battle That Gave Birth To England
5/21/202642 min
Dan explains the Battle of Brunanburh, an epic clash that decided the fate of the British Isles. On one side, the Anglo-Saxon forces of King Æthelstan, fighting for his vision for a unified England; on the other, a massive ‘anti-Wessex’ coalition of Vikings, Scots and Celts, determined to stop the English project from taking hold.
Today, we explore the high-stakes diplomacy that led to this point, hear how this savage battle played out, and dig into its consequences for the modern UK.
Written and produced by Dan Snow, and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Snow· Host0:00
Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to HistoryHit and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. It was a field of bodies. Among them, five kings lay dead. A glittering coalition from across the British and Irish Isles and beyond had brought kings and jarls and lords to this corner of England, and here they had died. The rest of the fallen, we're told, countless. Forty years later, the English were still calling it The Great Battle. It was England's great hardening, the testing ground, the moment when England could have been snuffed out. It was the Battle of Brunanburh. In this episode of Dan Snow's HistoryHit, I'm going to tell you that story. The story of not only how two armies clashed on that field eleven hundred years ago, but how they embodied two opposing visions for Britain and Ireland. On the one side, you've got the Scots, what we might call the Welsh. You've