For two hundred years there had been no significant attacks from the sea, but in 793,
“On January 8th, the ravaging of Heathen Men destroyed God’s Church at Lindisfarne through brutal robbery and slaughter”.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles goes on to say:
“836, King Ecgbryht fought with twenty five ships’ companies at Carhampton, and there was great slaughter, the Danes held the battlefield”.

“In 870 The Force went over Mercia to East Anglia.  In that year, St. Edmund, the King, fought against them and the Danes took the Victory, killed the King and overcame all the land. They destroyed all the churches they came to; the same time they came to Peterborough, they burned and broke, killed the Abbott and monks, and all they found there”.

So died the King of East Anglia, Edmund, after whom St. Edmund’s Bury or Bury St. Edmunds is named.

Thus began over two hundred years of Viking attacks, and eventually, Danish Invasions, until half of England was overrun and known as “The Danelaw”.

Denmark, in those days, was much larger than it is today, and included parts of other Scandinavian countries.   King Alfred held them from conquering Wessex and King Eathelred paid them Danegeld to try to keep them quiet, but, in 1013, King Sven Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth, landed here and within a year had been accepted as Full King.

In 1016, King Sven’s son Cnut “received all the Kingdom of England”. Thus, King Canute was King of Denmark and England.

During these times, East Anglia, including of course Sharrington, was well within the Danelaw. During the Anglo Saxon Danish period, Sharrington is known to have been a settlement.

In 1066, King Edward the Confessor died and Harold Godwinson, of Danish descent, was proclaimed King. In that year, he fought and defeated a Norwegian invasion under King Harald Hardrada, in Yorkshire. But, while this was going on, another threat was brewing in the south.

1066

During the years of the Viking Raids and invasions, not only was England attacked but also the Continent of Europe and, in France, to such an extent that a large part of Western France was ceded to The Northmen, which became The Dukedom of Normandy.

In 1066, The Duke of Normandy was William and, by this time, he and his countrymen spoke French and lived in the French style. William claimed that Edward the Confessor had made him heir and that he was the rightful King of England. With a favourable wind he sailed with his army of Normans and French, landing on the south coast of England.

Meanwhile Harold, having defeated the Norwegians in the North, made his way South with what was left of his army. They met at Battle in Sussex, Harold was killed and his army was defeated. William, after fighting and slaughtering his way round England, was crowned King.

William then began replacing the Anglo-Saxon-Danish landowners and Senior Clergy with his own henchmen and followers, creating a new aristocracy, who spoke French. The Conquest and then English Revolt gave the Normans the chance to change society and by 1086 scarcely one percent of the Saxon Landowners, though innumerable Saxon tenants, remained. The free villages of East Anglia were subjected now to Norman Lords.

The Domesday Book

In 1086, fearing a Danish Invasion and requiring taxes to pay for defence, William sent out four circuits of leading Magnates with Latin speaking scribes to take stock of the country and value everything worth anything. By 1090, this information had been compiled into the Domesday Book.

This book gave a double picture, the country as it had been in King Edward’s day, before 1066, and as it was twenty years later. Thus, we have our first written account of Sharrington, given as Scarnetuna and Scartune.

By Peter Chapman 2000

References:

• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Translated and edited by Michael Swanton.
• General History.