The Battle of Maldon: Together With The Homecoming of BeorhtnothIn 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo Saxon defence force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325 line fragment, but its value to today is