Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is Episode 185, Building

the House of Wessex.

This show is free and independent due to member support and as thanks for helping keep

the community going, I offer members only content including extra episodes and rough

transcripts.

If you're interested in supporting the show and helping us out, you can do so over at

the British History Podcast.com and thank you very much to Alex, Hannah and Malcolm

for contributing already.

When we left off last time, we were taking a look at a problem facing Europe that nobody

wanted to talk about.

And this wasn't a problem like the plague of people mistaking tithes for pants.

In that situation, the only solution is to ignore it until it retreats back to the

darkest recesses of fashion.

And the Viking raids worked differently.

Ignoring them only made them stronger.

And to make matters worse, the European nobility had been hiring bands of Vikingers as mercenaries

in their own personal squabbles.

Which brought Vikinger bands deeper into European territory and left the peasantry completely

defenseless against them.

It was a huge problem.

But not every noble house was sitting on their hands.

Or were they all pouring fuel on the fire.

...