St Brice's Day Commemoration at St John's College

On 13 November 1002, King Æthelred II of England ordered the massacre of Danes living in England, fearing that they meant to K*ll him and his advisers and take over the kingdom. In Oxford, Danes sought sanctuary in St Frideswide's Church, which was set upon and burnt down by their pursuers.

The remains of at least thirty-five men and boys likely killed during the massacre were discovered in central Oxford in 2008, when St John's College was preparing to build its Kendrew Quadrangle. Since then, the College has marked St Brice's Day with various public-facing talks and events that have reflected on the Oxford massacre and eleventh-century England and Europe.

We look forward to welcoming visitors for our St Brice's Day commemorations on Friday 13 November 2026, where leading researchers will share their insight into Oxford's Viking past and what we can learn today from this violent local history.

The full programme is available below. Refreshments and a sandwich lunch are also available. Please make sure to reserve a ticket for lunch if you would like to join us.

Info: A comparison between England’s Vikings and France’s Vikings and the different current attitudes to their legacy.

Lesley Abrams is Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Emeritus Professor of Early Medieval History, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in Cambridge.

Her research focuses on Scandinavians outside their homelands in the Viking Age, taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to investigation of how fighters, traders, and settlers across the Scandinavian diaspora interacted and integrated with host societies.

Info: An exploration of the turbulent reign of Æthelred II, revealing how Viking raids, Danish settlement and Anglo-Danish relations helped shape the history of England at the turn of the first millennium.
Professor David Griffiths is an archaeologist at Oxford University specialising in Viking Age history, Scandinavian settlement, and medieval archaeology. His research explores Danish and Norse influence across Britain, Ireland, and the North Atlantic, examining Viking migration, trade, cultural exchange, and settlement. Author of Vikings of the Irish Sea, he also investigates Viking landscapes in Orkney and Oxford, including Anglo-Danish relations and archaeological evidence of Viking communities.

Info: Where does Old Norse survive in the present day? This talk will look at place-names, legendary traces and the surprising legacy of Norse words in the English language.
Carolyne Larrington is an Emeritus Research Fellow at St John’s College and is the former Professor of Medieval European Literature at Oxford University. She specialises in Norse mythology, medieval literature, Arthurian legends, and folklore. She has translated The Poetic Edda and written many books including The Norse Myths. Her research explores ancient storytelling and its influence on modern culture, including Game of Thrones, fantasy literature, and popular media today.

Info: This talk will introduce the types of poetry that Scandinavians in England composed and would have known, including poetry about the experience of battle. It will situate this poetry alongside Old English poems that narrate encounters between the English and the Vikings.
Professor Gareth Lloyd Evans is Associate Professor of Old Norse at Oxford University and a Fellow of St John’s College. He specialises in Viking Age literature, Icelandic sagas, mythology, and medieval Scandinavian culture. His research explores gender, masculinity, identity, and emotion in Norse society. Author of Men and Masculinities in the Sagas of Icelanders, he currently investigates transgender and gender-fluid identities in the Viking world.

Info: Dr Mark Atherton teaches Medieval English literature and English language at Regent's Park College, Oxford, and at Mansfield College. He is author of a monograph The Making of England: A New History of the Anglo-Saxon World and more recently a study of an Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon: War and Peace in Tenth-Century England. For fans of the Teach Yourself series of textbooks he has written Complete Old English, which offers a contextual, jargon-free introduction to the language of the period.

Mark will explore how the events of St Brice's day and related events were reported in the Old English (i.e. Anglo-Saxon) documents. He will also perform 'The South Gate', a song inspired by the events of St Brice's Day and research on the literature and documents written during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready. In the style of a short ballad, it evokes the atmosphere of the period, the events of St Brice's Day and the attack on Oxford in the year 1009.

Info: Professor Lady Sue Black, President of St John’s, reflects on how the events of 1002 still resonate today and what we can learn from this remarkable episode in our shared history Drawing on her expertise in forensic anthropology, Professor Lady Sue Black explores how science can bring the past to life, revealing new insights into the people, events and communities of Viking Age England.

Event venue & nearby stays

St John's College, St Giles, Oxford, United Kingdom

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