London Before the ConquestLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
History
London Before the Conquest
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
London (England) -- History -- To 1500
We are told that Sweyn made warfare in the land of King Ethelred and drove
him out of the land; he put "_Thingamannalid_" in two places. The one in
"Lundunaborg" was ruled by Eilif Thorgilsson, who had sixty ships in the
"Temps," the other was north in Slesvik. The Thingamen made a law that no
one should stay away a whole night. They gathered at the Bura church every
night when a large bell was rung, but without weapons. He who had command
in the town [London] was Eadric Streona. Ulfkel Snilling ruled over the
northern part of England [East Anglia]. The power of the Thingamen was
great. There was a fair there [in London] twice in every twelvemonth, one
about midsummer, and the other about midwinter. The English thought it
would be the easiest to slay the Thingamen while Cnut was young (he was
ten winters old) and Sweyn dead. About Yule waggons went into the town to
the market, and they were all tented over by the treacherous advice of
Ulfkel Snilling and Ethelred's sons. Thord, a man of the Thingamannalid,
went out of the town to the house of his mistress, who asked him to stay,
because the death was planned of all the Thingamen by English men
concealed in the waggons, when the Danes should go unarmed to the church.
Thord went into the town and told it to Eilif. They heard the bell
ringing, and when they came to the churchyard there was a great crowd, who
attacked them. Eilif escaped with three ships and went to Denmark. Some
time after, Edmund was made king. After three winters Cnut, Thorkel, and
Eric went with eight hundred ships to England. Thorkel had thirty ships,
and slew Ulfkel Snilling, and married Ulfhild his wife, daughter of King
Ethelred. With Ulfkel was slain every man on sixty ships, and Cnut took
Lundunaborg.
The massacre of the Danes at the "Bura church" must be the same event as
is noticed by Stow in his account of St. Clement Danes, and also by
Matthew of Westminster under the year 1012. Stow seems to suggest that it
was in consequence of an attack on Chertsey Abbey. Messrs. Napier and
Stevenson, in a recent reference to this story in their _Crawford
Charters_, are "inclined to think that this account of the fate of the
Jomsborg Thingamenn is based on real events." They have found Eilif and
Thordr signing charters for Cnut. The fight with Ulfkel was at Ringmere,
near Thetford.
The fact of Cnut's drawing his ships above the bridge, as described in the
English Chronicles, when taken together with the above, would seem to
suggest as a possibility that the intention was to reach an English fleet
lying there. The Thingamannalid appears to have manned a fleet of
occupation; it seems to have been none other than the original of the
company of the Lithsmen of London mentioned in the English Chronicles, and
about which such various opinions have been held.[120]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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