I have posted previously about the discoveries made during recent archaeological investigations in and around Repton in Derbyshire. These relate in particular to the wintering there of the Viking Great Army in 873, at what had been one of the principal centres of Mercian royal authority.
The BBC News website has a summary of recent discoveries and interpretations from two different archaeological investigations of the area round the church at Repton and of other local sites identified as where the Vikings had established camp.
Not only does the archaeological evidence add considerably to our knowledge of the composition of this formidable Viking army but it also helps to place it both physically and culturally in the English realms it had invaded.
This is important as by destroying or fragmenting all but one of the English kingdoms the Great Army had, without intending it, prepared the way for the gradual unification of England under King Alfred, his son and grandson, and for the inclusion within it of a significant Danish cultural inheritance that helped to create the medieval English Kingdom, and to leave an enduring legacy.
The BBC article can be seen at Digs suggest leafy Repton once saw Viking horrors
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