| Osberht | |
|---|---|
 A styca of Osberht | |
| King of Northumbria | |
| Reign | c. 849 – c. 862 AD |
| Predecessor | Æthelred II |
| Successor | Ælla |
| Died | 21 March 867 |
| House | Northumbria |
Osberht (died 21 March 867) was king of Northumbria in the middle of the 9th century. Sources on Northumbrian history in this period are limited. Osberht's descent is not known and the dating of his reign is problematic.
Osberht became king after Æthelred son of Eanred was murdered. The date of Æthelred's death is not certain, but is generally placed in 848. [1] However, Symeon of Durham writes that "Ethelred the son of Eanred reigned nine years. When he was slain Osbryht held the kingdom for thirteen years" and states that 854 was "the fifth year of the rule of Osbert, the successor of Ethelred, who had been put to death". [2]
Little is known of Osberht's reign. Symeon states that "Osbert had dared with sacrilegious hand to wrest from that church Wercewurde and Tillemuthe". [3] The Historia de Sancto Cuthberto dates the seizure of these lands to the year before Osberht's death. [4] Osberht was replaced as king by Ælla. While Ælla is described in most sources as a tyrant, and not a rightful king, one source states that he was Osberht's brother. [5]
The Great Heathen Army marched on Northumbria in the late summer of 866, seizing York on 21 November 866. [6] Symeon of Durham, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Asser, and Æthelweard all recount substantially the same version of events in varying detail. Symeon's Historia Regum Anglorum gives this account of the battle on 21 March 867 where Osberht and Ælla met their deaths at the hands of the Vikings: [7]
In those days, the nation of the Northumbrians had violently expelled from the kingdom the rightful king of their nation, Osbryht by name, and had placed at the head of the kingdom a certain tyrant, named Alla. When the pagans came upon the kingdom, the dissension was allayed by divine counsel and the aid of the nobles. King Osbryht and Alla, having united their forces and formed an army, came to the city of York; on their approach the multitude of the shipmen immediately took flight. The Christians, perceiving their flight and terror, found that they themselves were the stronger party. They fought upon each side with much ferocity, and both kings fell. The rest who escaped made peace with the Danes. [8]
King Osberht may have been buried in Thornhill, Yorkshire. A rare cluster of high status Anglian gravestones from that era, one bearing his name, were discovered in Victorian times in the graveyard of the ancient church of St Michael and All Angels, where they are on public display.
After this, the Vikings appointed one Ecgberht to rule Northumbria. [9]
Ragnarssona þáttr (The Tale of Ragnar's sons) adds a great deal of colour to accounts of the Viking conquest of York. This associates the semi-legendary king of Sweden Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons, Hvitserk, Björn Ironside, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Ivar the Boneless, and Ubbe. According to the stories, Ragnar was killed by Ælla, and the army which seized York in 866 was led by Ragnar's sons who avenged his death by subjecting Ælla to the blood eagle. [10]
Earlier English sources record that Ælla and Osberht died in battle, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle stating that "both the kings were slain on the spot". [11] The main figure in the revenge tales is Ivar, who is sometimes associated with the Viking leader Ímar, brother of Amlaíb Conung, found in the Irish annals. Dorothy Whitelock notes that "it is by no means certain that he should be identified with the son of Ragnar, for the name is not uncommon". [12] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not name the leaders in Northumbria, but it does state that "Hingwar and Hubba" slew King Edmund of East Anglia (Saint Edmund) some years later. [13] Hubba is named as a leader of the army in Northumbria by Abbo of Fleury, and by the Historia Historia de Sancto Cuthberto. Symeon of Durham lists the leaders of the Viking army as "Halfdene, Inguar, Hubba, Beicsecg, Guthrun, Oscytell, Amund, Sidroc and another duke of the same name, Osbern, Frana, and Harold." [14]
Norman historian Geoffrey Gaimar and Geoffrey of Wells both associate an Englishman named "Bern" or "Buern" with bringing the Danes to England, in Gaimar's case to Northumbria, in Geoffrey of Wells' mid-twelfth-century hagiography of Saint Edmund, to East Anglia. Gaimar's account has "Buern" seeking revenge for Osberht's rape of his wife. [15]
Hector Boece relates that two Northumbrian princes, Osbrecht and Ella, took the castle at Stirling. [16]
Year 867 (DCCCLXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Northumbria was an early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and south-east Scotland.
The Danelaw was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian law. The term is first recorded in the early 11th century as Dena lage. The areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England, long occupied by Danes and other Norsemen.
Penda was a 7th-century king of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
Scandinavian York or Viking York is a term used by historians for what is now Yorkshire during the period of Scandinavian domination from late 9th century until it was annexed and integrated into England after the Norman Conquest; in particular, it is used to refer to York, the city controlled by these kings and earls. The Kingdom of Jórvíc was closely associated with the much longer-lived Kingdom of Dublin throughout this period.
Ivar the Boneless, also known as Ivar Ragnarsson, was a Viking leader who invaded England and Ireland. According to the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, he was the son of Aslaug and her husband Ragnar Loðbrok, and was the brother of Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba. However, this is not sure to be historically accurate. Ivar is probably the same person as Ímar, a Viking king of Dublin between 870 and 873. He might have been born in Uppsala, Sweden in about 787.
Halfdan Ragnarsson was a Viking leader and a commander of the Great Heathen Army which invaded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, starting in 865.
Ælla was King of Northumbria, a kingdom in medieval England, during the middle of the 9th century. Sources on Northumbrian history in this period are limited, and so Ælla's ancestry is not known, and the dating of the beginning of his reign is questionable.
Eadberht was king of Northumbria from 737 or 738 to 758. He was the brother of Ecgbert, Archbishop of York. His reign is seen as a return to the imperial ambitions of seventh-century Northumbria and may represent a period of economic prosperity. He faced internal opposition from rival dynasties and at least two actual or potential rivals were killed during his reign. In 758 he abdicated in favour of his son Oswulf and became a monk at York.
This timeline summarises significant events in the history of Northumbria and Northumberland.
Eadwulf or Eadulf was ruler of Bamburgh in the early tenth century. A genealogy in the twelfth-century text De Northumbria post Britannos recording the ancestry of Waltheof Earl of Northampton, makes Eadwulf the son of Æthelthryth daughter of Ælla, King of Northumbria, but no source names Eadwulf's own father.
The Great Heathen Army, also known as the Viking Great Army, was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded England in AD 865. Since the late 8th century, the Vikings had been engaging in raids on centres of wealth, such as monasteries. The Great Heathen Army was much larger and aimed to conquer and occupy the four kingdoms of East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex.
Ubba was a 9th-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Heathen Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860s. The Great Army appears to have been a coalition of warbands drawn from Scandinavia, Ireland, the Irish Sea region and Continental Europe. There is reason to suspect that a proportion of the Viking forces specifically originated in Frisia, where some Viking commanders are known to have held fiefdoms on behalf of the Franks. Some sources describe Ubba as dux of the Frisians, which could be evidence that he also associated with a Frisian benefice.
Eardwulf was king of Northumbria from 796 to 806, when he was deposed and went into exile. He may have had a second reign from 808 until perhaps 811 or 830. Northumbria in the last years of the eighth century was the scene of dynastic strife between several noble families: in 790, king Æthelred I attempted to have Eardwulf assassinated. Eardwulf's survival may have been viewed as a sign of divine favour. A group of nobles conspired to assassinate Æthelred in April 796 and he was succeeded by Osbald: Osbald's reign lasted only twenty-seven days before he was deposed and Eardwulf became king on 14 May 796.
Rædwulf was king of Northumbria for a short time. His ancestry is not known, but it is possible that he was a kinsman of Osberht and Ælla.
Ecgberht was king of Northumbria in the middle of the 9th century. This period of Northumbrian history is poorly recorded, and very little is known of Ecgberht.
Ecgberht was a king in Northumbria in the late Ninth Century. Very little is known of his reign.
Northman was a late 10th-century English earl, with a territorial base in Northumbria north of the River Tees. A figure with this name appears in two different strands of source material. These are, namely, a textual tradition from Durham witnessed by Historia de Sancto Cuthberto and by the Durham Liber Vitae; and the other an appearance in a witness list of a charter of King Æthelred II dated to 994. The latter is Northman's only appearance south of the Humber, and occurred the year after Northumbria was attacked by Vikings.
The Battle of York was fought between the Vikings of the Great Heathen Army and the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria on 21 March 867 in the city of York.