These terrible pirates despised Christianity. They scorned it as the
weak religion of a weak people. They hated the English monasteries
most of all and made them the especial objects of their attacks (SS43,
45, 46). Many of these institutions had accumulated wealth, and some
had gradually sunk into habits of laziness, luxury, and other evil
courses of life. The Danes, who were full of the vigorous virtues of
heathenism, liked nothing better than to scourge those effeminate
vices of the cloisters.
From the thorough way in which they robbed, burned, and murdered,
there can be no doubt that they enjoyed their work of destruction. In
their helplessness and terror, the panic-stricken monks added to their
usual prayers, this fervent petition: "From the fury of the Northmen,
good Lord deliver us!" The power raised up to answer that
supplication was Alfred the Great.