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They were called Norsemen or Danes, or the Vikings. The Vikings were brilliant sailors, they had the
fastest boats in Europe, that were moving powered by sail. They crossed the Atlantic, and founded a colony in
North America 500 years before Columbus. They had repeatedly raided the Eastern Coast of England, and by
the middle of the ninth century almost all English Kingdoms were defeated by the Danes. In 870 only Wessex
was left to resist the barbaric Danes. At that time the West Saxons got a new young King, his name was
Alfred, later he was called Alfred the Great. And no other king has earned this title. Alfred forced the Danes
to come to terms – to accept Christianity and live within the frontiers of the Danelaw – a large part of Eastern
England, while he was master of the South and West of England.
King Alfred was quick to learn from his enemies: he created an efficient army and built a fleet of warships
on a Danish pattern, which were known to have defeated Viking invaders at sea more than once. They were
forced to go South and settle in Northern France, where their settlement became known as Normandy, the
province of the Northmen. The England of King Alfred the Great received a new Code of laws which raised the
standards of English society. New churches were built, foreign scholars were brought, schools were founded,
King Alfred himself translated a number of books from Latin, including Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and
began the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, a year-by year history of England.