Book 2, Chapter 4, 857 AD to 878 AD – Destruction of Croyland Abbey
All the monks being thus slain, and none of the treasures found, the Danes, with ploughshares and mattocks, broke open all the shrines of the saints, who reposed in marble altar tombs around the sepulchre of the holy father Guthlac, but not finding the hoped for treasures, they were extremely indignant, and after piling all the bodies of the saints in one heap, they set fire thereto and burned them, together with the church and all the buildings of the monastery.
On the fourth day, with innumerable herds of cattle and beasts of burden, they passed on in the direction of Medeshamsted, where, meeting with the first resistance at the monastery, and finding the gates barred, they attacked the walls on every side, when the brother of Earl Hulba being wounded with a stone, and his life despaired of, Hulba was inflamed with rage beyond measure, and with his own hand slew all he found wearing the monastic garb, and not a person in the whole monastery was saved. All the altars were undermined, all the monuments broken to pieces, a large library of books was burned, an immense number of charters torn to pieces, the relics of saints were trodden under foot, the walls utterly overthrown, and the church with all the buildings, burned to the ground, the flames continuing to burn incessantly for fifteen days.
Collecting their immense booty, the Danes moved on towards Huntingdon, and during the march the youthful monk Turgar contrived to escape back to Croyland, where he found his brethren engaged in the sad task of extinguishing the conflagration and recovering the charred and mutilated bodies of the slain for interment, though some of these were not found for upwards of six months. “
Chapter 4, Reign of Ethelbald
His Stepmother Judith and Her Descendants
Chapter 4, Destruction of Croyland Abbey
Numerous Battles between the Danes and the Saxons
Chapter 4, Alfred the Great
Chapter 4, Fresh Troubles with the Danes
Chapter 4, Treaty between him and Guthrun
Treaty between him and Guthrun
Temporary retirement of the king to Athelney
Categories: Book 2
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