Hereward Rising! Festival

Historical background

2nd June 1070, England is under the Norman rule of William 'the Conqueror'. The local Fenland rebel Hereward and his Band of Men allied with a large force of the elite Danish 'Viking' Housecarls and ransacked Peterborough Abbey stealing gold, silver and valuables and despoiling the 'Golden Borough', one of the wealthiest monastery in all England, before making their way back to th island stronghold at Ely.

The entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1070 makes it quite clear who the culprit was...

'The monks of Peterborough heard it say
that their own men meant to plunder the monastery
that was Hereward and his gang'

Writing some seventy years later the chronicler Hugh Candidus describes events when the new Norman abbot arrived: 'That same day came Abbot Turold to the monastery together with one hundred and sixty Normans well armed, and could not find them because they had already gone on their ships; but he found all things both within and without utterly burned, save only the church. So that city which was called the Golden Borough became the poorest of cities.'

Peterborough had been ruined by Hereward and still today his story at the cathedral is one of notoriety tinged with fondness rather than fame

Hereward Rising! is a WakeHereward Project Production All Rights Resrerved 2022

Hereward Rising! Festival

Historical background

'The monks of Peterborough heard it say that their own men meant to plunder the monastery that was Hereward and his gang'

'The monks of Peterborough heard it say
that their own men meant to plunder the monastery
that was Hereward and his gang'