Vikings Question! Ivar the Boneless and The Great Heathen Army of 866 AD.

by stevie_janowskii
  1. Why were the Danes (and to a much lesser degree, Frisians) of the Great Heathen army so successful against the Saxons when they invaded in 866 AD?
  2. Was there a real Aelle? What was the real reason for the Army invading England and later Ireland?
  3. Did the army have a clear command structure, was it Ivarr who was calling the shots? Or did Ubba, Halfdan and Ivar hold a similar rank?
  4. How prevalent was mounted combat, was it as rare as some historians claim? Why didn't the Danes fight more often on horseback?
  5. Why did the brothers install puppet kings in Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia exactly? They were beyond ruthless to the native Saxons, what did they intend on accomplishing by installing native Saxon Kings?
  6. Of the three, Who was the best warrior, who was the best diplomat/politician, and who was the best battlefield commander? Do the sources discuss this at all? Wasn't Ivarr an incredibly fearsome warrior?
  7. Just how many Frisians were present in the Army at that time?
  8. For how long did the brothers plan the invasion? Just how well organized was it? Did they campaign prior to their invasion, didn't Ubba fight in Frisia for some time?
  9. How true is it that Ivarr was actually 9 feet tall? Isn't his skeleton almost 9 feet long?
  10. Did Ivar have the nickname the boneless during his lifetime? And isn't the nickname 'the boneless' really supposed to be the 'detested' (ie someone completely mistranslated his nickname)?

Thanks, and lastly, if you have any books on the great heathen army they would be greatly appreciated.

Khnagar

He was known as Ívarr inn beinlausi in norse, which means Ivar the boneless, or Ivar the legless. According to Ragnar Lodbroks saga Ivar had a defect with a leg, so he had to be carried around on a shield instead of walking.

Tiako

I can give an answer to one of these:

Why were the Danes (and to a much lesser degree, Frisians) of the Great Heathen army so successful against the Saxons when they invaded in 866 AD?

Kenneth Harl and Gwyn Jones both see the Viking success as being primarily tactical. That is, rather than a really decisive advantage in terms of an "equal" fight, the Vikings were able to exploit weaknesses in the English organization and strengths in theirs to gain victories. The most obvious is simple mobility: they could use their boats to travel much faster than their opponents and strike unexpectedly deep into their opponent's territory and quickly melt away. But there may also have been a climatalogical factor: a famous example would be early in Alfred's career, when he was able to have some success against the Vikings, and then he retired to winter in Chippenham. The Vikings, perhaps in part because they came from a colder climate, were able to launch a decisive attack in the dead of winter, well outside normal campaigning season.

But another major advantage is that the Vikings could be considered in a way to be semi-professional warrior bands, while the English were still reliant on levies. While an English king would be forced to juggle the sort of issues involved in a "feudal" army (strict attention to seasonal concerns, need to regularly levy and disband, imperfect control over subordinates) the Vikings could just cut to the chase, so to speak.

Was there a real Aelle? What was the real reason for the Army invading England and later Ireland?

Aelle is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles as a king who fought the Vikings and died. The bit about snakes is up to your own discretion.

Flubb

  1. That rather depends on your definition of success. If you only want to look at 866, then it can be seen as successful - Northumbria (probably) fell quickly because it was in the midst of a civil war, and the Viking's tended to wander up and down the coast probing for weak spots. Yes, they took Northumbria, East Anglia and later, Mercia, but while they held against the Mercian and Wessex(ian?) armies at Nottingham, they withdrew back to York. Had they been more powerful, it might be expected that they'd push back. They lost against Alfred initially and lost Becsecg in the process, and although Alfred later sued for peace in Wessex (as did the Mercians earlier), the Vikings didn't have to accept that peace but they did - for what reasons might be speculated but it's difficult to know given the tiny amount of information available. They didn't control Northumbria enough because it revolted in 873 and they had to hurry back there after wintering in London in 871-2(ish). They appeared to be happy with just partitioning the country and creating dependencies on native princes (see 5), and as Wessex and Mercia were happy suing for peace, they appear to have left it at that. Quite why Northumbria, Mercia, and Anglia collapsed is difficult because (see 2) evidence for the last few years of the kingdoms is scant.

  2. Northumbrian sources past 808 suck and so it's difficult to not only determine what happened, but who was actually on the throne and when (compare the Northumbrian regnal tradition with the Flores Historiaum) but I haven't come across anyone saying Aella didn't exist.

  3. Puppet kings (perhaps akin to the 'overlords' of previous centuries) are useful and people are less likely to revolt against their own, even if they end up having to pay for it.

[deleted]

A point of pedantry, it's technically incorrect to refer to Northumbrian, Mercian or East Anglian kings as Saxon those were Anglian kingdoms. When referring to them as a whole, Anglo-Saxon or English is a more inclusive term, since Saxon as a general term favours the southern Kingdoms, which is a problem during this particular century when Northern sources become rather poor and a Southern narrative dominates.