Editing Southwark (section)

=== Saxons and Vikings ===
{{Annotated image|image=LondonBeforeHouses.jpg|image-width=1000|image-left=-325|image-top=-325|width =320|height=215|float=left|caption=Southwark, [[City of London|the City]], [[Westminster]] and neighbouring areas, before urbanisation. Canute's Trench, around the edge of Southwark, is shown.}}

====King Alfred the Great====
Southwark appears to recover only during the time of King [[Alfred the Great|Alfred]] and his successors. Sometime about 886, the ''burh'' of Southwark was created and the Roman city area reoccupied.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-03-01 |title=The re-establishment of London by Alfred the Great {{!}} The History of London |url=https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-re-establishment-of-london-by-alfred-the-great/ |website=The History of London |language=en-GB |quote=One of the few events to be contemporarily recorded about London during the entire period between the Romans and early Middle Ages is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written during Alfred's reign, for the year 886. "King Alfred occupied London [although in reality he had probably already done so for several years] and all the English people ['all angelcyn'] that were not under the subjection of the Danes submitted to him. And he then entrusted the borough to the control of Ealdorman Aethelred".}}</ref> It was probably fortified to defend the bridge and hence the reemerging [[City of London]] to the north.

====St Olaf====
This defensive role is highlighted by the role of the bridge in the 1014-1016 war between King [[Ethelred the Unready]] and his ally [[Olaf II of Norway|Olaf II Haraldsson]] (later King of Norway, and afterwards known as ''St Olaf'', or ''St Olave'') on one side, and [[Sweyn Forkbeard]] and his son [[Cnut the Great|Cnut]] (later King Cnut), on the other.

London submitted to Swein in 1014, but on Swein's death, Ethelred returned, with Olaf in support. Swein had fortified London and the bridge, but according to [[Snorri Sturluson|Snorri Sturleson's]] saga, Edgar and Olaf tied ropes from the bridge's supporting posts and pulled it into the river, together with the Danish army, allowing Ethelred to recapture London.<ref>Inwood, Stephen, ''A History of London'', Macmillan, 1998. {{ISBN|0-7867-0613-9}}, p. 45.</ref> This may be the origin of the nursery rhyme "[[London Bridge Is Falling Down]]".<ref>Hagland, Jan Ragnar, and Bruce Watson, [https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-457-1/dissemination/pdf/vol10/vol10_12/10_12_328_333.pdf "Fact or folklore: the Viking attack on London Bridge"], ''London Archaeologist'', Spring 2005.</ref>

There was a church, [[St Olave's Church, Southwark|St Olave's Church]], dedicated to St Olaf before the Norman Conquest and this survived until the 1920's. [[St Olaf House]] (part of [[London Bridge Hospital]]), named after the church and its saint, stands on the spot. [[Tooley Street]], being a corruption of ''St Olave's Street'', also takes its name from the former church.<ref>Weinreb and Hibbert, ''The London Encyclopaedia'', 1983.</ref>

====King Canute====
Cnut returned in 1016, but capturing the city was a great challenge. To cut London off from upstream riverborne supplies, Cnut dug a trench around Southwark, so that he could sail or drag his ships around Southwark and get upstream in a way that allowed his boats to avoid the heavily defended London Bridge.<ref name="Brayley1829">{{cite book|first=Edward Wedlake |last=Brayley|title=Londiniana: Or, Reminiscences of the British Metropolis: Including Characteristic Sketches, Antiquarian, Topographical, Descriptive, and Literary|url=https://archive.org/details/londiniana02unkngoog|year=1829|publisher=Hurst, Chance, and Company|pages=[https://archive.org/details/londiniana02unkngoog/page/n84 52]–54}}</ref> In so doing he hoped to cut London off from river borne resupply from upstream. The Dane's efforts to recapture London were in vain, until he defeated Ethelred at the [[Battle of Assandun]] in Essex later that year, and became King of England. It is thought that the section of the Kent Road, at Lock Bridge, was ''Canute's Trench''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Besant |first1=Walter |authorlink=Walter Besant |url=https://archive.org/details/londonsouthoftha00besa |title=London South Of The Thames |location=London |publisher=Adam & Charles Black |year=1912 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/londonsouthoftha00besa/page/67 67]-68 |access-date=2014-08-11 }}</ref> In May, 1016,<ref name="Dickens1861">{{cite book|first=Charles |last=Dickens|title=All the Year Round|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Am8HAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA470|year=1861|publisher=Charles Dickens|page=470}}</ref> In 1173, a channel following a similar course was used to drain the Thames to allowing building work on London Bridge.<ref name="Hughson1808">{{cite book|first=David |last=Hughson|title=London; Being an Accurate History and Description of the British Metropolis and Its Neighbourhood: To Thirty Miles Extent, from an Actual Perambulation|url=https://archive.org/details/londonbeinganac02hughgoog|year=1808|publisher=W. Stratford|page=[https://archive.org/details/londonbeinganac02hughgoog/page/n60 60]}}</ref>

[[File:St Olave on the exterior of St Olaf's House.jpg|thumb| [[St Olaf House]], Southwark. [[Olaf II of Norway|Olaf, (or Olave)]], helped the English retake London Bridge, and with it London, from his fellow Norsemen.]]