Viking England

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The Vikings in Britain

The Vikings and Their Mother Countries

The Vikings came from the Scandinavian countries. In Scandinavia there were not yet any uniform states; Sweden, Denmark and Norway didn't exist. All the Nordic people spoke the same language and the differences between the people were not as great as they are today. All Vikings shared the same polytheistic believes in which the proud and brave warrior had a central place. Cowards went to Hel's kingdom of the dead, and the ones who died a brave death in combat were brought to Paradise (Valhall) by the Valkyrs where they could drink mead, fight and hunt women all day long.

Ranks in society: Kings, noblemen (Jarle), free men, freed men, slaves (thralls)

Later the Vikings settled on Island, Great Britain, which they called Bretland, Ireland, France and Russia. The Vikings that left Norway and Denmark moved to the south towards the British Isles and Ireland whereas the Swedish Vikings mainly travelled east into Russia and down Volga to the Black Sea and Constantinople.

Possible Explanations for the Travels of the Vikings

Some historians try to explain the travels of the Vikings as a result of some sort of overpopulation. French and British literature states that the Nordic people practised polygamy which caused a huge birth rate thus overpopulating the areas in which they lived.

Every free man, according to them, had as many wives as he could possibly afford. This view is met with scepticism by Scandinavian historians. Nothing whatsoever gives any evidence that there would have been any overpopulation in the villages.

It is more likely that the laws regarding the inheritance of the farms had something to do with it. In Scandinavia the custom was that eldest son in the family inherited the farm. This meant that there were a lot of people which had to choose between being workers on their brother’s farm or going abroad in search of fame and fortune. The rumours about how easy it was to get rich on such expeditions spread like wild fire over the Scandinavian Peninsula.

Invading Britain

The Danes tried to invade Bretland (the British Isles) and in the end of the 9th century they succeeded to settle down in Northumberland and in East Anglia north east of London.

Vikings from Norway and Denmark colonized the Shetlands and Orkneys, the Isle of Man and conquered three of Englands four kingdoms.

The Scottish islands in the north were invaded by Vikings and used as base for further raids in Ireland and the rest of Great Britain. The culture of the native Picts and the Vikings blended together during 300 years.

In Ireland the Vikings plundered energetically but they also traded with the locals and settled down to do some farming. They used the large rivers of Ireland to reach the inner country. The Vikings founded most of the important cities of today (like Dublin, founded by a Norwegian named Turgeis in 840, Wexford, Waterford Cork and Limerick). They turned these towns into real trading and harbour centres. Even the first church in Dublin was built by a Viking, called Sigtrygg Silkesskägg in 1038.

The Vikings blended in rather fast with the Celtic natives and their customs and language soon got mixed with the locals as they took up their religion and got married to local girls. They didn't conquer the Celtic land but instead the Celts and the Vikings had a relationship that allowed the two cultures to mix and cooperate.

The Vikings partly came in big fleets which killed and took everything they wanted from the natives and partly in small disorganized numbers which just was to get some food or slaves.

Wales was nearly not bothered by Viking raids because of geographical aspects. There were also no attempts of the Vikings to settle down in Wales.

The Danelaw and King Alfred

King Alfred: - first king of England succeeded 871 to the throne

- was said to have been a great warrior and social reformer

- refused to pay tribute to the Danes in 878

- defeated the Danes in the battle of Edington

à Danes made peace and Guthrum, their king was baptized with Alfred as his sponsor

- by 886 Alfred had freed London from the Danish occupation

à a treaty was made with Guthrum and the East Anglians

à England was divided: east was Danish territory (the Danelaw)

In 865, the Great Army turned on England. York (Dan. Jorvik) was captured in 866; the Kingdoms of East Anglia (869), southern Northumbria, and eastern Mercia were conquered and settled by the (mostly Danish) Vikings.

As the area came under Danish law, it was called Danelaw (Dan.: Danelag). Within the Danish area, Christianity disappeared, as the Danes were pagans.
Our information about the Danelaw is rather limited. The Danes were politically not united; York (with southern Northumbria) was a distinct kingdom.

Once the Viking conquest ran out of steam, England was divided in half, by a line running from London to Chester, the north east being Danish, the south west made up by the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia (resp. what was left of it).

Under King Alfred the Great, Wessex fortified its border and succeeded in gradually pushing back the frontier. In several campaigns 917-919 the Danelaw was conquered.

But the Englishmen slowly organized themselves and built a row of stronghold in the south of England. In the 11th century the Danes triumphed over the Englishmen and their country was finally conquered by the Danish king Knut the great. The English king Edmund Ironside recognized Knut as the new king in his own country.

The kingdom of York

The Great Heathen Army of the Vikings (mainly from Denmark), under Prince Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Wide-Embrace of Sjaelland and Uppsala, captured Eoforwic (York) during a surprise attack on 1st November AD 866, just a year after arriving in Britain. The last Anglian Kings of Northumbria, the rival (though temporarily united) Ælle II and Osbeorht, were defeated at the Battle of York the following year.

The Vikings quickly transformed Jorvik, as they called the city, into the capital of their Kingdom of York, which occupied an area roughly equal to the three Ridings of Yorkshire (England's largest county), though it later spread into Lancashire and Westmorland. They installed puppet Anglian monarchs to rule the area while York was used as the main base for the Viking armies which continued to sweep across Saxon England.

This system of government continued in York for some twenty years. Halfdan Wide-Embrace took the York throne in AD 876. He was followed by a variety of relatives. By AD 883, Christianity returned to the ruling classes in York, with the acceptance of King Guthfrith I Hardicnutson. Viking style Christian memorials are in evidence throughout the city and, by AD 905, the Danish Kings were flaunting their alliance with the Church through religious mottoes on their upgraded coinage. In AD 956, a Viking even became Archbishop. There were short interregnums as governments rose and fell in these troubled times or when the Saxon Kings of Wessex managed to gain control of the city and the kingdom, but the Viking monarchs survived in York for almost a hundred years.

Jorvik was viewed uneasily by the southern English, who were always watchful for a fresh rise of Scandinavian power in the north. As late at 1066 the Battle of Fulford was fought there as Harald Hardraada of Norway made a bid for the throne of England. It is likely that Harald Hardraada saw Jorvik and the old Kingdom of York as a good base for attacks on the rest of England and probably hoped that he would get support from the Anglo-Scandinavian population in the region. If so, he was mistaken and, though successful at the Battle of Fulford, his army was shortly afterwards defeated at nearby Stamford Bridge by Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of the English.

Under the eye of its new masters, York grew into a substantial city: a commercial centre and a busy port. Using the old Roman fortress of Eboracum as part of Jorvik's defences, the Vikings constructed new streets lined by regular building plots for timber houses between AD 900 and 935. There was a new bridge over the River Ouse and up to twenty churches for a population estimated at up to 10,000 in the 10th century. Jorvik's many industries are evidenced through excavated artefacts showing that the inhabitants were working in metal, wood, bone, antler, amber, jet, textiles and glass. Goods included everyday items and small mass-produced luxuries like cheap jewellery. It was a rich trading centre of international importance, with contacts across the British Isles, North-West Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The growing power of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex in the south eventually overcame the Kingdom of York and it was re-absorbed into the rest of England after the last King, the outlandishly named Erik Bloodaxe, was defeated by king Eadred of Wessex and killed in AD 954.

A Typical Viking Settlement

The Vikings were not townspeople by preference, but towns always grow up where merchants gather to do business. Hedeby a town which was formerly in southern Denmark (now in Germany) is here taken as an example. It was founded before 800 and covered an area of up to 59 acres (24 hectares). All that can be seen today is the defensive rampart built in the 10th century, but archaeologists have uncovered part of the town, giving a good idea of what it looked like. Besides being a centre of trade between eastern and western Europe, it also contained workshops, which may have made goods to be traded for food with nearby villages. Even a settlement as large as Hedeby was not a true town as we know it. There were no public buildings or schools, but there was a kind of town council.

(A) DEFENSE
Towns were protected on the landward side by wooden fences and earthen ramparts.

(B) HOMESTEADS
A Viking town was really more like a village. Each house, together with its outbuildings, was sited on a separately fenced plot, on which livestock and vegetables were raised.

(C) IN HARBOR
When ships were not in use, their sails were lowered and the oars stacked in Y-shaped supports on board.

(D) WATERWAYS
Towns were usually built near the sea or on a river with access to the sea. Boats provided the easiest form of transport.

Relicts of Viking England

- Town names, for example with the suffixes -by or -thorpe (eg. Grimsby or Cleethorpes)

- Runic inscriptions on stones (rune stones and picture stones)

- Excavations of towns, burial ships, and goods of everyday use

- Scandinavian loanwords in the English language

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Text with gaps

Historical overview (fill in the gaps)

In the 800's England was divided into four parts:
                                               M_____
                                               N______
                                               W_______
                                               E___ _______

All but Wessex controlled by , fell to the Vikings (_______).

In ___ the Norwegian _______ founded Dublin

By 851 the Vikings began to make permanent settlements
866 Ivar __ ________ took York (Dan.: ______) with his Great Heathen Army while the Northumbrians were weakened by civil war
876 The Vikings under Ivar settled in Southern Northumbria (modern Yorkshire). With the settlement of Northumbria by the Danes a confused time in the North developed. The Dublin Norse (Vikings) tried to control the Danish in Yorkshire. There were many Norse kings in ____ the last of whom was ____ Bloodaxe
867 The Anglo-Saxon Northumbrians attacked the Danish army in the spring at York both inside and outside the Roman defences. Both Northumbrian leaders were killed and Northumbria ceased to exist as a political power.

By the 800's _______ under Alfred was ascendant; he later unified England in the 900's under one crown.
In 878 all of England was overrun by Vikings. The later Viking villages took the less productive areas, the English were already established in villages, hybrid named villages combined Danish and English land, which the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" called "sharing out the lands"
One major problem for the English was a lack of a clear line of succession. Eadig of Wessex was the first to rule all of England, succeeded by his brother. His son Edward the Martyr followed succeeded by Edward's brother Ethelred ("The Unready")
In 883 ____________ returned to the ruling classes in York

886 Alfred freed London from the Danish occupation

954 With the death of E____ __________ comes an end to the Scandinavian attempt to settle an independent kingdom between Dublin and _____. Wessex takes Northumberland along with East Anglia and ______.

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Sources

Biblography

1. Sawyer, Peter (ed.). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Oxford: OUP, 1997.

2. Logan, F. Donald. Die Wikinger in der Geschichte. Ditzingen: Reclam 1987.

3. Colingwood, W.G. Scandinavian Britain a Facsimile Reprint of W.G. Colingwood’s Account of the Viking Age. Felinfach: Llalanerch Publishers, 1993.

4. Graham- Campbell, James; Batey, Colleen E . Vikings in Scotland, and Archaeological Survey. Edinburgh: EUP, 1998.

5. Sehen, Staunen, Wissen, die Wikinger. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1994.

Internetlinks:

6. http://www.salvonet.com/yorkweb/history/, 1997

7. http://www.luth.se/luth/present/sweden/history/viking_age/Viking_age2.html

, 1998

8. http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/britain/vikstatdanelaw.html

, 2002

7. http://members.tripod.com/~midgley/thedanes.html

, 2000

9. http://viking.no/e/england/york/jorvik_who_ruled_it_and_when.html

, 2000