1002 Ethnic cleansing: The St Brice's Day Massacre, England

On the Feast Day of St Brice (successor to St Martin of Tours), the Anglo-Saxon people rose up and massacred all the Danish people living in England (mostly merchants and mercenaries), under whose Danelaw the Anglo-Saxon people were required to live.

It is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 1002 that on St Brice’s Day the Danish community in Oxford, fearing for their lives, took refuge in St Frideswide's, the minster church of the female saint who founded Oxford (Cardinal Wolsey later transformed her monastery into Christ Church College, and King Henry VIII made her church into Oxford Cathedral). The townspeople burnt down the church building with considerable loss of life. Among those said to have been murdered were Gunnhild (Gunhilda), sister of King Sweyn I (Forkbeard) of Denmark and thus daughter-in-law of famed King Canute ...

Categories: history, english-history, british-history, genocide, ethnic-cleansing, england, denmark, viking