August 10–11, 991 · Maldon, Essex, England Theater
August 10–11, 991
The Norse force besieged Maldon across a tidal causeway, and Ealdorman Byrhtnoth committed an act of legendary chivalry — or catastrophic tactical error — by allowing the Norse army to cross to his side rather than holding the narrow causeway where numbers meant nothing. The subsequent battle was a straight fight on open ground, which the Norse won after Byrhtnoth was killed. The Battle of Maldon survives in an Old English poem of the same name, one of the great texts of Anglo-Saxon literature, which celebrates the English warriors who died fighting to avenge their lord rather than flee. The line spoken by the veteran Byrhtwold — 'Will shall be sterner, heart the keener, spirit the greater, as our power lessens' — is among the most quoted in medieval English literature.
Commanders