Talk:Treaty of Wedmore

Confusion with Alfred-Guthrum treaty
I may just being daft, but I can't find any reference to the Treaty of Wedmore as being something to do with setting up the bounds of the "Danelaw". The only reference to it in the sources I can find is at Asser's Life of Alfred, 56:

"When he had heard their embassy, the king (as is his wont) was moved to compassion and took as many chosen hostages from them as he wanted. When they were handed over, the Vikings swore in addition that they would leave his kingdom immediately, and Guthrum, their king, promised to accept Christianity and to receive baptism at King Alfred's hand; all of which he and his men fulfilled as they had promised. For three weeks later Guthrum, the king of the Vikings, with thirty of the best men from his army, came to King Alfred at a place called Aller, near Athelney. King Alfred raised him from the holy font of baptism, receiving him as his adoptive son; the unbinding of the chrisom on the eighth day took place at a royal estate called Wedmore. Guthrum remained with the king for twelve nights..."

Translation from Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great. That compilation contains, I believe, most of the source material for Alfred's reign, and I doubt Keynes and Lapidge would have left out something as important as the Treaty of Wedmore. My guess is that whoever wrote this article confused it with the Alfred - Guthrum treaty (c.886-890). I propose to revamp this article in line with this and create an article on the Alfred-Guthrum treaty if no one has any objections! Harthacanute 22:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Right, changes made! Comments appreciated. Harthacanute 14:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

New map available
The map image presently used in this article for 'Misunderstanding of "treaty"' is from a bit of a sloppy scan, and is fairly low resolution. I've just uploaded this image: it's a scan of a slightly older map, but it's pinpointed at the same date (878 AD), it gives essentially the same boundaries (but not quite), it's much more detailed, and it offers a much higher resolution. You might want to use it instead of the existing image, and no doubt you'd want to change the caption. Nortonius (talk) 10:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Almost a week's gone by, and there's been no comment, either for or against. So, bearing in mind primarily the low quality and usefulness of the existing image in the article, I'm now going to make the substitution myself. Nortonius (talk) 10:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have moved this map to the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum as that was about the actual carve up of England between, Alfred and Guthrum. The Treaty of Wedmore was more about the surrender terms for Guthrum. Whether these terms existed (other than Asser's record), were written down or  were only a verbal agreement is not known. Perhaps the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum was actually the formalisation of the agreement at Wedmore? This is all open to speculation. Wilfridselsey (talk) 16:31, 19 May 2020 (UTC)