13v) forty six besides the fact that, in instances of difficulty, equivalent to these confronted by way of Alfred and Æthelred, this type of coverage used to be most likely a luxurious that the king may possibly ailing manage to pay for. Athelney in Somerset and Chippenham in Wiltshire have been fortified locations that supplied a shelter for King Alfred within the ninth century. Æthelred used the more and more very important city of London as his base in the course of the interval of the invasion of the military of Swein Forkbeard. we must always now not disregard the truth that in instances of peace, too, cities supplied necessary valuable websites for the collection of assemblies. FOR014layouts(corr). qxd:FOR014layouts(corr). qxd 3/3/09 12:17 web page forty seven Campaigns in Wessex and fortifications Sieges in Early Medieval Wessex No finished description survives of the behavior of a siege in AngloSaxon England. certainly, when it comes to written assets little or no survives that pertains to sieges in any nice element, beside the occasional case of a military sitting outdoors a fortification. by means of comparability with the continental eu event, the place the Vikings’ notorious siege of Paris in 885⁄6 made a king of the Frankish defender count number Odo, the coed of Anglo-Saxon England can be forgiven for assuming that siege battle used to be unusual ahead of 1066. There are circumstances of armies sitting outdoor fortifications, yet those don't appear to have lasted lengthy. The West Saxon army’s wait outdoors the Viking shelter at Chippenham (Wilts. ) into which Guthrum’s military had retreated after the defeat at Edington can have been impressive for its lengthy length, particularly as, in line with Asser, King Alfred had seized all of the males, farm animals and horses he had came upon outdoor the fortification. notwithstanding, there's little checklist of the atrocities meted out opposed to the defeated military after they had eventually capitulated because it used to be too vital for Alfred to make sure that he can make a long-lasting peace along with his Viking enemy; in influence, to baptise him and create him as a Christian king in his personal photo. whereas the Vikings can have been determined, the ‘rules’ of siege conflict would possibly not have built to the level which they have been to enhance in later centuries within which as soon as the 1st stone have been thrown there will be no ‘honourable give up’ yet easily the slaughter of the besieged or (more most probably) the hunger, infestation and retreat of the besiegers. through comparability, Alfred’s peace with the defeated Vikings was once definitely an honourable one. it's the reign and actions of Alfred’s son King Edward the Elder opposed to the Viking and Mercian burhs of the Danelaw that confirmed that the Anglo-Saxons may perhaps even have particularly refined notions of siege struggle, as Edward and his sister, Æthelflaed (the recognized ‘Lady of the Mercians’) have been usually able to construct fortifications a brief distance – for instance, around the river – from an current burh which will out live the enemy whom they have been besieging (these have been the origins of the so-called ‘double burhs’, one instance of which could were at Bedford). Such concepts evaluate good with the construction of siege castles in later centuries and will have constructed via Edward the Elder’s use of Badbury earrings as a base in his siege of his cousin at Wimborne Minster (Dorset) in 899 or 900.