ABSTRACT
Alfred’s victory at Edington and the peace he made with Guthrum transferred the main operations of the viking raiders back once more to the Continent. What had been a nuisance to the rulers of Francia in the 870s became a major threat in the early 880s, as viking raiders streamed back to the Continent in search of easier prey. As viewed by the chronicler of the abbey of St-Vaast near Arras in the Pas-de-Calais, the devastation was little short of apocalyptic:
Never do the Northmen cease to take captive and to kill Christian people, to destroy churches and ramparts, to burn out houses in flames. Through all the open streets the dead are lying – priests, laymen, nobles, women, youth and little children. Everywhere tribulation and sorrow meet our eyes, seeing Christian folk brought to utter ruin and desolation. 1
Political chaos exacerbated the problem. The death of Charles the Bald in 877, quickly followed by the deaths of his son, Louis the Stammerer, in 879, and of his grandson, Louis III, and his nephew (and rival), Louis the Younger, in 882, made a volatile political landscape even more unstable. In his final entry in the Annals of St-Bertin, recorded under the year 882, an aged and bitter Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims criticized the lack of organized resistance offered by Frankish kings and counts against the Northmen. The archbishop watched helplessly as one fortress after another fell to the heathen invaders. When they burnt nearby Laon, Hincmar, cradling the church’s relics in his arms, fled the see he had served for thirty-seven years. Hincmar was certain that the vikings intended to bring the kingdom itself under their rule, but like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler, he was probably crediting the hydra-headed enemy with more unity and strategic foresight than the marauders actually possessed.