Battle of Edington - Consequences

Consequences

Three weeks after the battle, Guthrum was baptized at Aller with Alfred as sponsor. It is possible that the enforced conversion was an attempt by Alfred to lock Guthrum into a Christian code of ethics and would ensure the Danes compliance with any treaties agreed to. The converted Guthrum took the baptismal name of Athelstan.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia. Consequently, in 879, the Viking army left Chippenham and made their way to Cirencester and remained there for a year. The following year they went to East Anglia where they settled.

Also in 879, according to Asser, another Viking army sailed up the River Thames and wintered at Fulham. Over the next few years this particular Danish faction had several encounters with Alfred's forces. However Alfred managed to contain this threat by reforming his military and setting up a system of fortified cities, known as burghs or burhs.

In 885 Asser reports that the Viking army that had settled in East Anglia had broken in a most insolent manner the peace they had established with Alfred, although Guthrum is not mentioned. Guthrum reigned as king, in East Anglia, until his death in 890 and although this period was not always peaceful he was not considered a threat.

In 886, the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum defined the boundaries of their kingdoms, with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings. The Danes were contained within, what became known as, the Danelaw; Wessex, the last free Anglo-Saxon kingdom, was to remain free of Danish control. If Alfred had lost at Edington, it seems likely that Guthrum would have swept through the rest of Wessex, bringing it under his rule. The spiritual parenthood established by Alfred over Guthrum at Aller must inevitably have implied some level of cultural and political superiority, and Guthrum, as the spiritual son of Alfred, was in turn supposed by the Saxons to have acknowledged the future ongoing superiority of the king whose religion he had been forced to adopt. However, the Danes disputed this.

The defeat of Guthrum after the battle of Edington, and after many other failed attempts to take the country, was immensely demoralizing to the Danes, and Wessex was made safe from them for some years.