Talk:St. Brice's Day massacre

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Contents

[edit] External link

The external link does not work anymore. --FinnBjo 19:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Estimates?

Geez, that's horrible. Is there any estimate of how many were murdered? Xiner 03:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[1] says "many hundreds". Not a terribly specific estimate, but it probably means more than 100 and less than 1000. —Angr 06:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
It's extremely implausible that literally no Danes in England survived the massacre. Even "most" would require England's estimated pre-massacre Danish population and a more accurate estimate of the number of victims. -- Gordon Ecker 02:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Half England (the Danelaw) was Danish-occupied - they couldn't possibly have killed all the Danes. Totnesmartin 10:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
So a massacre is horrible, but what about At the time, England suffered from repeated attacks by the Danes, and constant fear of invasion. England paid tribute to the Danes to prevent invasion.. Extortion, rape, pillage, murder, war, raiding and constant threat of conquest is acceptable then? Viewing single events out of context, both of the politics of the time and historical events surrounding it, is not a good idea. --86.144.20.95 17:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
The historical context doesn't make it any less horrible, but any article on a historical event needs background information. -- Gordon Ecker 01:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The link at the bottom is to a webpage I wrote 10 years ago. The massacre came about because after 10 years of raids from the sea the English King was persuaded that they were planning a takeover from within as well. He personally ordered the massacre for St Brices Day, and may hundreds were apparently killed. How actively teh decree was pursued in the area of Danelaw and Northumbria is questionable, but there were definately massacres in Oxford, Winchester and London. The Oxford dead included Denmark's King Swein's sister and her husband and son - the King's nephew. It was this act which so enraged Swein that he spent 10 years putting the English to the sword before Aethelraed finally fled to Normandy in 1013.
I'll try to expand the Wiki article from my sources at home Guthroth 12:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The massacre was of Danes living among the English. It may have been originally intended only against Danish mercernaries whom Ethelred believed were plotting against him, but got out of hand and the population decided to avenge itself against a people who had themselves committed so many atrocities. However the victims were entirely defenceless civilians and the real strength of the Danes was untouched in the Danelaw and their army in the Isle of Wight. Ethelred was a more effective warrior against the defenceless than in the fireld of battle and this atrocity did nothing to diminish the Danish threat, whilst at the same time antagonising them and ensuring the alienation of the Danelaw who, not surprisingly saw Sweyn and Knut as their protectors- unwisely as it turned out, since Knut abandoned them to Ethelred in 1014. Streona (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More info needed

This article could do with a better-explained context, and more detail. For instance, is there any archaeological evidence, or perhaps sources from Scandinavia? Totnesmartin 10:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about sources for this event on List of events named massacre

The St. Brice's Day massacre leads off the List of events named massacre... This list used to be entitled simply "List of massacres", but that title was constantly being challenged and resulted in rampant edit warring and a lot of AfD nominations, and so has been renamed. Along with the renaming has come revise inclusion criteria. This event's listing is a hold-over from that previous incarnation of the list.

Under the new title and revised inclusion criteria, it is required that multiple reliable sources be cited to demonstrate that the that the word "Massacre" is included as part of the name of the event. Unfortunately, the sources that were included when the St. Brice's Day massacre was originally posted to the old version of the list do not demonstrate this fact... some of them mearly discribe the event as being a massacre without using that word as a name. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the event deserves to be on the new list... but we need updated sources that fit our new criteria.

Having done a quick search on Google, it seems that the entry will be easy to update... but it would be nice to include the best sources that fit the new criteria. Since the editors of the list are not specialists in Anglo-Saxon history, I thought I would drop a quick note here ... where it is likely that someone who is a specialist in that field, someone who knows which sources are better than others, will see it and respond. Please pop over to our list and update the sources. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 17:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)