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"Vikings didn't wear horned helmets," plus 7 more Viking myths busted
Bearded, violent beyond reason and singularly successful at suppressing everyone around them. This, says Janina Ramirez, is the popular – yet questionable – image of Vikings. But how violent were they really, and did they actually wear horned helmets? You may be surprised to learn that many beliefs about the Vikings have little grounding in historical fact...
What were the Vikings really like? Popular TV and film portrayals of Vikings would have us believe that they are fierce, battle-hardened people who wore horned helmets and ruthlessly conquered any land they came across. Discover the truth behind eight common myths about the Vikings, as historian Janina Ramirez separates fact from fiction... Myth 1: Vikings wore horned helmets Let’s get this out of the way straight off. There is no evidence that the Vikings wore horned helmets, and nothing like this has ever been discovered in any archaeological dig. They certainly wore helmets but they would have been simple skullcaps, designed to protect the head from impact. Having a pair of horns on your head in battle would not have been helpful if warriors were striking at you with clubs, swords or axes. Ivar the Boneless, Ragnvald of Ed and 6 more Vikings you should know about The helmet plaques from Sutton Hoo and Vendel suggest that god-like warriors donned helmets with protruding ‘horns’ (although these are actually hook-beaked birds), but the Viking raiders and traders did not. The modern idea of Vikings in horned helmets originated in the 19th century, but it was Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle [a cycle of four operas by the German composer based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas] that seared it into the modern imagination. Costume designer Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905) created horned helmets in the 1870s for the Viking characters, and so the myth was born. Numerous cartoonists, filmmakers and artists have continued this fantasy right up to the present day. Listen | Acclaimed screenwriter and producer Michael Hirst talks about his work on Vikings and the secrets of making great history drama Myth 2: They were a defined group – ‘the Vikings’ The term ‘Viking’ comes from Old Icelandic ‘Viking-r, a creek-dweller’. The Viken was the primary mercantile region of Norway, so it is possible that this apparently homogenous group of people got their name from the extensive trading they undertook out of their busy ports. The word ‘Viking’ later becomes synonymous with ‘naval raids/naval expeditions’ and begins to function more as a verb. Individuals or groups would go ‘a-Viking’, which would mean they would leave their native lands during the warmer summer months, travelling in longboats to regions where they could trade and raid. Contemporary writers don’t use the term ‘Viking’ to speak of a group of people. Instead they referred to Norse Men, people from the North, or simply pagans (remember, those recording events were usually Christian scribes). What’s more misleading still is that ‘Viking’ has been used to denote the entire Scandinavian region, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Each of these regions was governed by different leaders and they would have seen themselves as distinct from one another. These were also very varied landscapes. The more northern regions, particularly the mountainous areas of Norway, were difficult to farm because of hostile weather, while southern parts, in the plains of Denmark, were more fertile. There were occasions when Scandinavian rulers combined their forces for greater military might, but the term ‘Viking’ is like describing all ‘Northern Europeans’ as the same. Leif Erikson’s voyage to Vinland Myth 3: Vikings were extremely violent The Vikings earned a place in history due to their protracted raids on often vulnerable monastic sites. Populated by literate scribes, these were the worst places to attack if you wanted a good record in Christian historical documents. Alcuin of York wrote to Bishop Higbald, declaring: “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.” How England rode the Viking storm There is certainly evidence of the violent means Vikings used to suppress people, particularly in Britain. Many skeletons have been found with the instruments of their death still wedged in their bones. A skeleton in the North Hertfordshire Museum has a Viking spear head stuck in its neck. However, while some Vikings clearly deserved their reputation as ‘wolves of war’, others lived peaceful existences – farming, trading and integrating across the four continents that they settled. What’s more, these were violent times, and the Vikings’ aggression was matched or exceeded by other groups during this period. One of the most famous names of the early medieval period, Emperor Charlemagne, carried out a form of genocide on people in Saxony. In the ‘Massacre of Verden’ in AD 782 his army murdered more than 4,500 Saxons who had been given to him by an ally. This was violence at its most stark. And yet, because Charlemagne had a Christian biographer writing a favorable account of his life, was killing pagans and was seen as ‘father of the church’, his place in history was secure. The truth about Viking berserkers Myth 4: Vikings took what they wanted and sailed away Finds from Scandinavia do indicate that many Vikings pillaged the places they reached, bringing back coins from across the known world to be buried in hoards back in their homelands. However, many chose to remain in the lands they encountered, establishing lasting and important settlements. One of the earliest and most extensive Viking settlements was Dublin, established by AD 841. Dublin grew into an industrially strong city with a thriving port and a mint where the first Irish coins were made. It wasn’t just Dublin that changed and developed under the Vikings. In York, the Anglo-Saxon city was relocated further towards the mouth of the river and settled by Vikings as a new and vibrant town – Jorvik. Iceland owes its settlement almost entirely to Vikings, under Ingólfr Arnanson in AD 874. Normandy is another example of how Viking settlement could grow from violence into peaceful settlement. The Normans got their name from being ‘north-men’, yet they were given land in the north of France by king Charles III (aka Charles the Simple, 879–929) in an attempt to keep further Viking attacks at bay. Charles even gave his daughter to the Norwegian chieftain Rollo [who gained Normandy from Charles the Simple] in marriage, and the Viking settlers soon embraced French language and culture to develop into a new breed of conquerors. The truth about Viking berserkers Myth 5: Vikings were godless pagans They say history is written by the victors, but in the case of the Vikings, history is written by Christians. This meant that while few accounts of Viking religion survive, there are many documents written by Christian scribes that describe them as pagan and godless. This is not supported by the information we can glean from archaeology and later Scandinavian texts. Viking religion was structured, hierarchical and based on a number of established narratives. It was not a religion of the book, and the mythology was transmitted orally. The Vikings didn’t practise their religion in temples but rather, like the ancient Celts, held places like groves and rivers sacred. It seems that priests were involved in religious ceremonies, and these were drawn from the heads of families. Priestly office was one of the honours bestowed on kings. The priest would perform sacrifices, either of objects, animals or people. Viking cosmology differentiated between life on Earth – Midgard – and other spiritual realms. The Norse gods were thought to inhabit Asgard, while the sacred tree Ysgadrill stretched its roots to the lands of the gods, giants and the dead. There were at least six realms, with a special place reserved for warriors – Valhalla. Listen | Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom Myth 6: Vikings were ignorant and illiterate barbarians The Vikings were not the ignorant and illiterate barbarians that Christian writers of the time believed them to be. While they didn’t write long texts like the Sagas until later in the Viking Age, they had developed a complex script – runes – that was loaded with symbolism. Each letter in the runic alphabet was also connected with a word; the ‘f’ rune was called ‘feoh’, which meant ‘wealth’ or ‘cattle’ – this makes sense within a barter society, as cattle hides were a way of measuring wealth. Runes could carry spiritual meaning too, and texts record how certain runes were connected with specific gods or goddesses. Rune stones included lengthy dedications and personal names. Smaller inscriptions survive on personal items like combs and weapons. Far from illiterate barbarians, the Vikings were some of the greatest naval engineers and travellers the world had seen. Prehistoric carvings and stone ships testify to the importance of boats within prehistoric Scandinavian society and religion. By the ninth century they had developed advanced ships that could traverse the hostile Northern Atlantic Ocean. They travelled further than any single race before the modern age, and took huge risks whenever they set out on a voyage. Myth 7: Vikings treated their women badly Viking society was mainly governed by ‘jarls’, the most important of whom could become kings. It was a largely military society, in which strength at arms was prized, yet wise and learned men and women could also wield power. Women played an important role in Viking society. They were guardians of the keys to both property and wealth, particularly when their menfolk were abroad. There is evidence that some were trained to be military leaders too, with shield-maidens described throughout the mythology. Women were held in high esteem, with two buried within the famous Oseberg ship. One of the most venerated characters in the Germanic pantheon was Freyja, goddess of sex, beauty, gold and death. She rides a chariot pulled by two cats and is accompanied by the boar Hildisvini. Women did seem to have spiritual roles within Viking society, with wands discovered in many female graves. Furthermore, they had significantly better legal rights than their Christian counterparts and could divorce their husbands if they were violent or disrespectful towards them. Viking ‘warrior women’: Judith Jesch, expert in Viking studies, examines the latest evidence Myth 8: Vikings were beardy and unkempt Far from unkempt barbarians, Viking men and women were quite vain. Many finds like tweezers, combs and razors have been discovered, and it seems they went to great pains over their appearance. They didn’t live in dark, dirty huts, but often in large and luxurious halls, like the magnificent ‘Heorot’ recorded in the epic poem Beowulf, which was the setting for lavish feasts, gifts of gold and display of skills at arms. The Vikings also had a good diet, which included a lot of fish – unsurprising given that most settlements were near to the coast. Evidence of Viking latrines shows they feasted on elk, bear, puffin, salmon and trout. Dr Janina Ramirez is a British art and cultural historian and television presenter. She presented a BBC documentary on Icelandic literature, The Viking Sagas, and is author of The Private Lives of the Saints: Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England. To find out more, visit www.janinaramirez.co.uk This article was first published on HistoryExtra in August 2015
Ivar the Boneless, Ragnvald of Ed and 6 more Vikings you should know about
From famed warriors to ruthless female settlers, Gareth Williams from the British Museum rounds up eight top Vikings...
Ivar the Boneless Ivar (or Ivarr) spans the gap between history and legend. He was a famous warrior and one of the leaders of the ‘Great Heathen Army’ that landed in East Anglia in 865, and that went on to conquer the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia. Ivarr also went on to lead a raid on Dumbarton on the Clyde, and in Ireland. Later saga tradition makes Ivarr one of the sons of Ragnar Hairy-breeches (or Lothbrok). According to this account, Ivarr and his brothers invaded Northumbria to take a bloody revenge on its king, Ælle, for the killing of their father. Although the Great Army continued to campaign in England, Ivarr is not mentioned in English sources after 870 and probably spent the remainder of his career around the Irish Sea. His death is recorded in Irish annals in 873. He was remembered as the founding father of the royal dynasty of the Viking kingdom of Dublin, and his descendants at various points also ruled in other parts of Ireland, Northumbria and the Isle of Man. Vikings Season 6 is streaming now on Amazon Prime: catch up on what’s happened so far, plus 8 historical questions from the finale answered The reason for Ivarr’s curious nickname is unknown. One suggestion is simply that he was particularly flexible, giving the illusion of bonelessness, while others have preferred to see it as a metaphor for impotence. Another interpretation is that Ivarr suffered from ‘brittle bone disease’, which seems less plausible given his reputation as a warrior. However, the nickname beinlausi could also be translated as ‘legless’, which might indicate lameness, the loss of a leg in battle, or simple drunkenness. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/G15N5M-fbd0020.jpg" width="1573" height="2400" alt="Illuminated manuscript from the ‘Life of Edmund’, unknown artist, c1130, depicting AD 865 when Ivarr Ragnarsson (nicknamed ‘the Boneless’) with his brothers invaded Northumbria. (Photo Researchers/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Illuminated manuscript from the ‘Life of Edmund’, unknown artist, c1130, depicting AD 865 when Ivarr Ragnarsson (nicknamed ‘the Boneless’) with his brothers invaded Northumbria. (Photo Researchers/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Aud the Deep-minded Aud the Deep-Minded (alternatively known as the Deep-Wealthy) was the daughter of Ketil Flatnose, a Norwegian chieftain. For much of her life Aud is best known in the traditional female roles of wife and mother. She married Olaf the White, king of Dublin in the mid-ninth century, and following his death moved to Scotland with her son, Thorstein the Red. Thorstein became a great warrior and established himself as king of a large part of northern and western Scotland, before being killed in battle. A brief history of the Vikings It was at this point, late in life, that Aud decided to uproot herself and make a new life in Iceland, taking her grandchildren with her. She saw little chance of maintaining or recovering her importance in Scotland, but the settlement of Iceland in the 870s offered new opportunities. Aud had a ship built and sailed first to Orkney, where she married off one of her granddaughters, and then on to Iceland, where she laid claim to a large area in the west. Aud was accompanied by friends and family, as well as Scottish and Irish slaves. She gave this last group their freedom, granting each man a small piece of land within her larger claim, thereby encouraging loyalty from their descendants to hers. Aud was remembered as one of the great founding settlers of Iceland. Her large number of grandchildren meant that many of the greatest families in medieval Iceland looked back to her as an ancestor. Although her wealth may partly have been acquired through her father, husband and son, Aud’s success in Iceland is a reminder of how powerful a strong woman could be in Viking society. Listen | Johanna Katrin Fridriksdottir explores what everyday life was like for women in Norse society, the opportunities available to them and the challenges they faced Eirik Bloodaxe Eirik Bloodaxe has an archetypal Viking nickname and was renowned as a fierce warrior. From his early teens onwards he was involved in raiding around the British Isles and in the Baltic, and at different points in his career he was king in both western Norway and in Northumbria, where he still has a legacy in York’s Viking-based tourist industry. Despite all this, Eirik is a less impressive figure than first appearances suggest. Despite his success in battle, his nickname came from his involvement in the killing of several of his brothers. Eirik and his wife, Gunnhild (according to different accounts either a Danish princess or a witch from northern Norway), were between them responsible for the deaths of five brothers. Their growing unpopularity in Norway meant that when another brother, Håkon the Good, challenged Eirik for the kingship of Norway he was unable to muster support and fled without a fight. Although Eirik was strong and brave and willing to give even his enemies a fair hearing if left to his own devices, he was said to have been completely under the thumb of his dominating wife and “too easily persuaded”. He comes across more like the cartoon character Hagar the Horrible than as a real Viking hero. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/20Image20of20Eric20Bloodaxe20projected20on20to20Cliffords20Tower20and20viking20re-enactors20at20the20Jorvik20Viking20festival20York202006-8fcece7.jpg" width="800" height="530" alt="Image of Eirik Bloodaxe (aka Eric Bloodaxe) projected on to Clifford’s Tower at the Jorvik Viking Festival York 2006. In front of the tower stands a group Viking re-enactors. (Tony Wright/earthscapes/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Image of Eirik Bloodaxe (aka Eric Bloodaxe) projected on to Clifford’s Tower at the Jorvik Viking Festival York 2006. In front of the tower stands a group Viking re-enactors. (Tony Wright/earthscapes/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Einar Buttered-Bread Einar Buttered-Bread was the grandson of Thorfinn Skullsplitter, the earl of Orkney, and Groa, a granddaughter of Aud the Deep-Minded. According to the Orkneyinga saga, Einar became caught up in a web of treachery and rivalry over the Orkney earldom, in which Ragnhild, daughter of Eirik Bloodaxe, played a central part. Ragnhild was married first to Thorfinn’s son and heir Arnfinn but had him killed at Murkle in Caithness and married his brother Havard Harvest-Happy, who became earl in his place. Ragnhild then conspired with Einar Buttered-Bread – he was to kill his uncle Havard, her husband, and replace him. Einar Buttered-Bread killed Havard in a battle near Stenness on mainland Orkney. But that was not the end of the story. Einar Buttered-Bread was then killed by another cousin, Einar Hard-mouth, apparently also at Ragnhild’s instigation. Einar Hard-mouth was then killed by Ljot (another brother of Arnfinn and Havard), who then married Ragnhild and became earl. Nothing more is known of Einar Buttered-Bread and he earns his place on this list primarily for his intriguing nickname. Whereas it is easy to imagine how his grandfather Thorfinn Skullsplitter gained his name, we don’t know why Einar was called Buttered-Bread, and we probably never will. Ragnvald of Ed Ragnvald is known only from a rune-stone that he commissioned in memory of his mother at Ed near Stockholm, probably in the early 11th century. The runic inscription reads simply “Ragnvald had the runes cut in memory of Fastvi, his mother, Onäm’s daughter. She died in Ed. God help her soul. Ragnvald let the runes be cut, who was in Greek-land, and leader of the host”. Despite being such a short inscription, this provides a variety of information about Ragnvald. Despite being a successful warrior he was a respectful son who went to the trouble of having a stone carved in memory of his mother. Like many Vikings in the 11th century, the invocation to God suggests that Ragnvald (if not necessarily his mother) was Christian. Ragnvald may have become Christian as a result of his experiences in ‘Greek-land’. This refers not just to Greece but to the whole of the Byzantine Empire, which had its capital at modern Istanbul, known to the Vikings as Miklagard (‘the great city’). Ragnvald travelled all the way to Turkey, a reminder that the Vikings travelled east as well as west, and from his description probably served as an officer in the Varangian Guard. This was a unit in the Byzantine army, often used as the palace guard, and composed primarily of Viking warriors. The existence of such a unit shows the reputation of Viking warriors as far away as the eastern Mediterranean. Bjarni Herjolfsson Bjarni Herjolfsson was the captain of the first ship of Europeans known to have discovered North America. Credit is more often given – especially in America – to Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky. Leif was the son of Eirik the Red, who led the settlement of Greenland and himself led an attempt in around AD 1000 to settle in ‘Vinland’, somewhere on the east coast of Canada. However, according to the Saga of the Greenlanders Eirik travelled in the ship formerly owned by Bjarni, and made use of Bjarni’s description of the lands that he had already seen. Who discovered America? It wasn't Christopher Columbus... Bjarni had discovered America by mistake in 986. An Icelandic trader, he had been in Norway when his father decided to join Eirik the Red’s settlement of Greenland. Attempting to join his father he was blown off course in a storm and passed Greenland to the south, discovering Vinland (vine land), Markland (forest land) and Helluland (a land of flat stones). These are normally identified as Newfoundland, Labrador and Baffin Island. Some scholars prefer to place Vinland further south and west, although a Viking settlement was discovered on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Bjarni had only come to America in error and, realising his mistake, we are told that he decided not to land, but instead navigated his way up the coast and back to Greenland – a much greater achievement than his accidental discovery, especially since he hadn’t been there before. However inadvertent his discovery was, such achievements deserve better recognition. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/MGN20169941-29d95ee.jpg" width="600" height="900" alt="The beginning of ‘The Saga of the Greenlanders’, from 'Flateyjarbok' ('The Book of Flatey’). Icelandic School, (14th century). (Arni Magnusson Institute, Reykjavik, Iceland/Bridgeman Images)" title="The beginning of ‘The Saga of the Greenlanders’, from 'Flateyjarbok' ('The Book of Flatey’). Icelandic School, (14th century). (Arni Magnusson Institute, Reykjavik, Iceland/Bridgeman Images)" /> Freydis Eiriksdottir Freydis was the sister of Leif Erikson and daughter of Eirik the Red, the first settler of Greenland. Her brother Leif attempted the first-known European settlement in North America, and a settlement of Viking-type longhouses at l’Anse aux Meadows at the northern tip of Newfoundland may well be the houses that Leif built. Leif himself chose not to stay in ‘Vinland’, but offered the use of his houses to various members of his extended family, although he insisted that the houses remained his property. Freydis was involved in two attempts to settle Vinland, and in the process proved herself as tough and ruthless as any Viking warrior. On one trip her party established contact with the native people and initially traded peacefully. However, when the party was subsequently attacked by some of the natives, the men were inclined to flee. Freydis, however, although heavily pregnant, picked up a sword and beat it against her bare breast, as the result of which the attackers fled in fright. On the other expedition Freydis travelled in partnership with a group led by two Icelandic brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi. Having first smuggled a larger number of men on board her ship than agreed, she incited her husband to kill Helgi and Finnbogi and all their men. When they refused to kill the women Freydis did it herself, forbidding on pain of death everyone in her group to reveal this on their return to Greenland. Cnut the Great Cnut is the ultimate Viking success story. He was the younger son of Svein Forkbeard, king of the Danes, who conquered England in 1013 but died almost immediately. Cnut’s brother Harald inherited the Danish kingdom, so Cnut was left, probably still in his teens, to try to restore his father’s authority in England, which had reverted to the Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred II. By 1016 Cnut had conquered England in his own right, cementing his position by marriage to Ethelred’s widow. Cnut’s success in England came through victory in battle, but within a couple of years he had also become king of Denmark, apparently peacefully. Your guide to King Cnut: the fierce Danish warrior who ruled England For the first time, the whole of Denmark and England were under the rule of one king, and in 1028 Cnut also conquered Norway, establishing the largest North Sea empire seen before or since, although it fragmented again following his death in 1035. Cnut also took the opportunity to borrow ideas from his English kingdom to apply in Denmark. While Cnut took – and held – England through good old-fashioned Viking warfare, Denmark now benefited from regular trade and from an influx of ideas as well as material wealth. Everything you need to know about the Anglo-Saxons 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons The dark side of the Anglo-Saxons 10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history Viking apocalypse: the invasion that spelled doom for the Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons’ last stand The English exiles who fled from William the Conqueror Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: 10 things we learned Under Cnut towns became more important both as economic and administrative centres, coinage was developed on a large scale, and the influence of the Christian Church became firmly established. Cnut even went on a peaceful pilgrimage to Rome to meet the Pope. In some ways Cnut can be better understood as an Anglo-Saxon king than a Viking. However, his great success illustrates one of the strengths of the Vikings generally, which was their ability to adapt to a variety of cultures and circumstances across the Viking world. So, the very fact that many of Cnut’s achievements seem rather un-Viking makes him in some ways the quintessential Viking. Gareth Williams is a historian specialising in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking period and a curator at the British Museum, a role he has held since 1996, with responsibility for British and European coinage. This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2016
From the raid on Lindisfarne to Harald Hardrada's defeat: 8 Viking dates you need to know
The Viking era is thought to have lasted from the ninth century to 1066, when the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada was defeated at the battle of Stamford Bridge. But what are some other key moments in the history of the Vikings? From the infamous Lindisfarne raid in 793 to the year the Vikings arrived in North America, we bring you eight dates from Viking history you need to know…
The raid on Lindisfarne On 8 June 793, the terrified inhabitants of the small Northumbrian island of Lindisfarne found themselves under attack. Norse longboats landed on the holy island with the intention of plundering its monastery's riches. Treasures were stolen, religious relics destroyed and monks murdered, in a brutal and shocking start to the Viking age and centuries of Viking activity in Britain. Anglo-Saxon monasteries made rich pickings for Viking raiders. The British Isles’ religious communities could offer little resistance to the plundering of their treasures. Furthermore, as pagans, the Viking attackers had no religious qualms about desecrating sacred sites. Global Vikings: how the impact of the raiders and traders went far beyond Britain Lindisfarne was not the first time Scandinavians had visited on the British Isles. While they had largely come to trade peacefully, there had been sporadic violence. In 789 three ships of Norsemen had landed on the coast of the kingdom of Wessex and murdered one of the king’s officials. Yet the merciless raid on Lindisfarne’s monastery was different – it was an unprecedented brutal strike right at the heart of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. The shocking event spread fear and panic across Christian Europe. The scholar Alcuin argued that God, as vengeance on the immoral people of the kingdom of Northumbria, had sent the raiders. The attack was not easily forgotten. In the ninth century, Lindisfarne’s Anglo-Saxon residents memorialised the violence by carving the scenes of bloodshed onto a stone grave marker. The stone, now kept in Lindisfarne’s museum, is known as the ‘Viking Domesday Stone’. Just as Christian communities had feared, Lindisfarne heralded the beginning of further death and destruction, as Viking raids on Britain escalated over the following years. 865 – The Great Heathen Army lands in England The formation of the Great Heathen Army in 865 marked a turning point in the Vikings’ relationship with Britain. Up until this point, Scandinavian expeditions to the British Isles had consisted of smaller raiding parties on ‘smash-and-grab’ missions. Their intention was to plunder the islands’ riches before returning to their homelands with the loot. The Great Heathen Army was different however – it was a calculated invasion force. The army was a coalition consisting of soldiers from Norway and Denmark, and possibly also Sweden. According to legend, various bands of Norsemen came together under the leadership of the three sons of legendary Viking warlord Ragnar Lothrok – Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless and Ubba. The number of troops in the army is unclear – estimates range from less than 1,000 men to several thousands. The Great Heathen Army landed on the coast of East Anglia in the autumn of 865, picking up horses before going on to capture Northumbria and York. For several years, frequent fighting plagued the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as rulers proved unable to subdue the spread of the Viking invaders. By 874, Wessex was the only Anglo-Saxon kingdom not under effective Viking control. The truth about Viking berserkers 8 Viking myths busted 866 – York is conquered by Viking forces As a thriving Anglo-Saxon metropolis and prosperous economic hub, York was a clear target for the Vikings. Led by Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan, Scandinavian forces attacked the town on All Saints’ Day. Launching the assault on a holy day proved an effective tactical move – most of York’s leaders were in the cathedral, leaving the town vulnerable to attack and unprepared for battle. After it was conquered, the city was renamed from the Saxon Eoforwic to Jorvik. It became the capital of Viking territory in Britain, and at its peak boasted more than 10,000 inhabitants. This was a population second only to London within Great Britain. Jorvik proved an important economic and trade centre for the Vikings. Norse coinage was created at the Jorvik mint, while archaeologists have found evidence of a variety of craft workshops around the town’s central Coppergate area. These demonstrate that textile production, metalwork, carving, glasswork and jewellery-making were all practised in Jorvik. Materials from as far afield as the Arabian gulf have also been discovered, suggesting that the town was part of an international trading network. According to Dr Soren Sindbaek, urban living in the tightly packed streets of Jorvik was unusual for Viking settlers, whose traditional lifestyle was agricultural. Sindbaek argues that for a Viking, “the commonest path is to farm the land… If you end up in towns, something’s almost always gone wrong.” Jorvik's last Viking king was Eric Bloodaxe. Depicted in Norse sagas as a bloody tyrant, Bloodaxe was expelled from York in 954, after which the town returned to Anglo-Saxon rule. 886 – The Danelaw is formally agreed By the 870s, the Great Heathen Army had conquered huge swathes of north-east England. However, Viking forces had failed to conquer Wessex, under the rule of Alfred the Great. After two unsuccessful invasion attempts, in 878 the army launched a third attack on Alfred’s kingdom. At the ensuing battle of Edington, they met with a crushing defeat at the hands of the Anglo-Saxons and Viking leader Guthrum met with Alfred to negotiate terms. A peace treaty was established. Guthrum agreed to baptism and assumed the Anglo-Saxon name Aethelstan. In return, Alfred formally recognised the Viking leader as king of East Anglia. As part of this peace treaty, a political boundary was drawn up, dividing Aethelstan’s Norse territory in the north-east and Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon lands in the south-west. The Viking region, known as the Danelaw, was to be dominated by Norse customs and law-codes, different to those of the surrounding Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The lost battles of Viking Britain 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons The first article of the treaty formally drawn up between Alfred and Guthrum has been taken to mark out the boundaries of the Danelaw. It reads – “First concerning our boundaries: up on the Thames, and then up on the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then straight to Bedford, then up on the Ouse to Watling Street.” The treaty also laid down laws to establish peaceful co-existence between the two kingdoms. Its fifth article banned attacks by raiding bands, set down rules for the exchange of hostages and slaves and made allowances for safe trading between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. Listen | Acclaimed screenwriter and producer Michael Hirst talks about his work on Vikings and the secrets of making great history drama Although the Danelaw was never extensively settled by Vikings and had dissolved by c954, the impact of Norse rule on England’s north-east was significant and long lasting. Echoes of the Danelaw could be traced forward in the social customs and law codes (such as severe fines for breach of the peace) of the region for many centuries. Norse influence can still be seen in the area’s place names, especially in the central Viking hub of Yorkshire. Here, you can still find many town names ending in ‘thorpe’, the Norse term for an outlying farmstead, and ‘by’, which meant a farmstead or village. 10th century – The Second Viking Age In the mid-tenth century Denmark began to emerge as a major power, heralding in what is known as the Second Viking Age. As the Danish kingdom became increasingly powerful, Viking raiders began to target the British Isles with a renewed ferocity. In 991 Danish king Swein Forkbeard landed in Kent with more than 90 longboats, before exacting a cruel victory over Anglo-Saxon forces at the battle of Maldon. Over the following two decades, Swein led several more destructive campaigns in England. What did the Anglo-Saxons ever do for us? Æthelflæd: The woman who crushed the Vikings While Norse raids had been targeting the Britain Isles since the eighth century, it was unprecedented for these raids to be led by the king himself. Raids were on a larger scale than ever before, and Swein’s Danish forces proved unstoppable as they ravaged England’s major towns and extorted money from their leaders. By 1012, the Anglo-Saxons’ situation had reached breaking point. Payments to the Danes, known as Danegeld, had proved crippling. Anglo-Saxon leaders were forced to raise 22,000kg of silver, largely levied through tax. The same year, Viking raiders led by Thorkell the Tall (it is debated whether Thorkell was an agent of Swein or not) plundered Canterbury and held the archbishop Aelfheah hostage for seven months. When he refused to let anyone pay his ransom they pelted him to death with bones and struck him over the head with an axe. c1000 – The Vikings reach North America The British Isles were not the only destination of seafaring Norse traders, raiders and adventurers. Paris, Iceland, Italy and even the Iberian peninsula and Morocco were also visited by the Vikings. Remarkable archaeological discoveries have revealed that Norse longboats even travelled huge distances to North America, making the Vikings the first Europeans to land on the continent. In 1960, evidence of Norse settlement was uncovered at L’Anse aux Meadows, a site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland, off the east coast of Canada. Who discovered America? It wasn't Christopher Columbus... Investigation into the site began after archaeologists found a small cloak pin that appeared to be of Scandinavian origin. Further archaeological work revealed timber-framed buildings identical to ones in Viking settlements discovered in Greenland and Iceland. After extensive work on the sites, experts have suggested that there were in fact Norse settlers in Newfoundland, but they stayed close to the coast and abandoned the site just a few years after it was founded. ‘Vikings’ creator Michael Hirst on the real history behind the hit drama According to Norse sagas, the first Viking explorer to reach North America was Leif Erikson, a fearless seafaring adventurer who discovered ‘Vinland’. The description of ‘Vinland’ in the sagas has been seen by some to match the site in Newfoundland. In 2015, a potential new site of Viking settlement was found at Point Rosee, on Newfoundland’s south-west coast. Identified using infrared satellite images and aerial photographs, the site contains promising evidence of iron-smelting, and turf walls which match Norse construction styles. Further investigation into the site is planned for later this year. 1013 – Swein Forkbeard becomes the first Viking king of England By 1013, after years of raiding England, Danish king Swein Forkbeard set his sights on conquering the country entirely. Although Swein had been campaigning in Britain from 991 onwards, fighting had been piecemeal. His troops were repeatedly forced back to Scandinavia – in 999 by an attempted coup in his homeland and in 1005 by famine in Britain. However, after decades of patchy campaigning, in 1013 Swein’s attempts to conquer the entirety of Anglo-Saxon England finally came to fruition. Viking women: raiders, traders and settlers How England rode the Viking storm By 1013, Oxford, Bath, Winchester and many other major towns had capitulated to Swein’s forces. After fierce resistance, London also finally submitted, its residents afraid of what the Viking forces might inflict on them. Following these victories, the Anglo-Saxon king Aethelred the Unready was forced into exile in Normandy and Swein was finally accepted as king of England. However, after battling for so long to add England to his great Scandinavian empire, Swein’s reign was short-lived. Only five weeks after he was pronounced king of England, Forkbeard died on 3 February 1014. It took two more years of intensive fighting before the country was returned to Viking rule, under Swein’s son Cnut. King Cnut reigned over England for 19 years, finally bringing a period of relative peace and stability to the kingdom and uniting his Anglo-Saxon and Danish subjects. Listen | Thomas Williams explores the key events and legacies of the Viking era 1066 – The end of the Viking age The death of Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor (of the House of Wessex) in 1066 led to a power-struggle for the English crown. The Viking contender for the throne was Harald Hardrada, king of Norway. Descended from the line of the kings of Norway ousted by Cnut a generation earlier, Hardrada claimed a right to the throne based on an agreement between his father and Hardicanute, Cnut's son and successor. In an effort to reclaim England for the Scandinavians, in 1066 Hardrada sailed to England with 300 ships stuffed full of 11,000 warriors. His intention was to seize the throne from the vulnerable Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson, who was also expecting a Norman invasion from the south. After sailing up the river Ouse and seizing York, Hardrada’s forces were taken by surprise by the Anglo-Saxon troops at Stamford Bridge. Harold Godwinson’s men had travelled north with remarkable speed, meaning that the Scandinavian forces were unprepared to take them on. Not expecting Harold Godwinson to leave the south under the threat of Norman invasion, Hardrada had left both men and armour behind with his anchored fleet at Riccall. The Viking army was smashed and Hardrada killed by an arrow through the neck. It was reported that of the 300 longboats that landed in England, only 24 returned to their homeland carrying the survivors. Despite proving a failure, the Viking invasion of 1066 nonetheless had a significant impact on British history. Taking on the Vikings at Stamford Bridge had weakened Harold Godwinson’s forces, making the path easier for the successful invasion of William of Normandy. William defeated Godwinson at the battle of Hastings just three weeks later, going on to launch a conquest more successful and long lasting than any Viking invasion. Hardrada’s crushing defeat at Stamford Bridge is generally seen as the end of Viking influence in Britain. Centuries of raiding, extortion, trading and bloodshed had finally come to a close. This article was first published on HistoryExtra in May 2016
Acclaimed screenwriter and producer Michael Hirst talks about his work on Vikings and the secrets of making great history drama
We speak to the acclaimed screenwriter and producer Michael Hirst about his work on the smash hit series Vikings and the secrets of creating blockbuster history dramas.
‘Vikings’ creator Michael Hirst on the real history behind the hit drama
As the latest series of hit drama Vikings continues on History UK – accompanied by new documentary The Real Vikings which investigates the real history which inspired the show – we talked to Vikings' creator and producer, Michael Hirst…
Given the popularity of the history drama Vikings – now filming its sixth season – it might seem strange that when screenwriter and producer Michael Hirst first came to the topic, he was cautioned by some that he couldn’t possibly write a successful show about the Scandinavian warriors. “They were the ‘other’,” he explains, “because they were the people who came and broke into your house at night and raped and pillaged.” “Many years ago,” Hirst continues, “I was writing a film script about Alfred the Great, who fought against the Vikings. I was fascinated to discover that a lot of what I thought I knew about the Vikings was wrong. I knew nothing about their attitude towards women, which was much more progressive than most other societies.” Hirst found Viking society surprisingly democratic, “and their engineering and boat-building skills were phenomenal,” he says. “We were all brought up on clichés about the Vikings that they are brutal, mindless savages. They were certainly brutal when they needed to be, but they weren’t savages.” Vikings Season 6 arrives on Amazon Prime on 30 December: catch up on what’s happened so far Inspired by the sagas It’s important to Hirst, who’s also behind the Oscar-winning film Elizabeth (1998) and historical television drama The Tudors (–2010), that the show’s characters and stories are grounded in real history. One of the initial sources for Hirst and his historical advisor, Justin Pollard, were the Norse sagas, a collection of tales largely written in the 13th century, telling the histories and semi-mythical voyages of Viking heroes from around 930 to 1030. When Hirst came across the figure of Ragnar Lothbrok in the historical record, he knew that he’d found his protagonist. According to Norse legend, poetry and sagas, Ragnar Lothbrok was a fearsome raider and warrior who was famously recorded as the leader of the Viking Siege of Paris in 845 (an event which the show explores in season three). “There’s still some controversy about whether Ragnar was real or not,” Hirst says, though Lothbrok is also said to have fathered many famous Viking figures including Ubbe, Bjorn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless. Two of these figures – Ubbe and Ivar – were part of the coalition Norse Army that invaded the British Isles in 865. While the extent to which Ragnar was a historic figure or legendary character remains unclear, Hirst explains that, on balance, he concluded that Ragnar did exist. “His name does occur in several accounts, which would have been written by Christian monks in France and Ireland and England. His name crops up, often in different places at the same time, so there is substantial evidence.” “In any case, even if he didn’t exist it was necessary that he did for the story, for my saga that I was going to tell.” Fact vs fiction Though there are some elements included in the show which could be considered to give the drama a fantastical tone – such as Viking gods appearing to characters in premonitions and hallucinations – Hirst is clear on the boundaries of fantasy within his show. “I allowed myself the opportunity of showing the god Odin briefly on the battlefield in the very first episode of the show, because I knew that’s what the Vikings believed. After a battle, they believed that Odin would walk around the battlefield choosing people to go to Valhalla [the place in Norse mythology where warriors travel after their death]. To me, that wasn’t fantasy because that’s what they believed. “Also, Vikings believed that their gods were capable of shape-shifting, so they could appear in the shape of a raven, or an owl, or a wolf. The Vikings thought of their landscape as a living organism, filled with god-like presences. I thought it was legitimate to occasionally show ghosts or spirits, or things do with the Vikings’ spiritual world, which I find fascinating. But I would never have a dragon in a show of mine.” The Vikings and women Since the earliest seasons of the show, Hirst says, he has experienced some criticism regarding the character of Lagertha, a shield maiden and Ragnar Lothbrok’s first wife (played by Katheryn Winnick). Some have found fault with the idea that women would have been warriors or fighters during the Viking age. Yet in September 2017 it was widely reported that the archaeological find known as the ‘Birka warrior’ could be a woman. Found in a 10th-century chamber in Birka, Sweden, in the 1880s, the remains have been long presumed to be those of a male due to its burial with weapons and other status symbols, which suggested the grave of a professional warrior. However, a team of researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University reappraised the find in 2016 and found, through genomic testing, that the bones lacked a Y chromosome. While some historians, including Judith Jesch, an expert in Vikings and Norse history, have pointed out the gaps in the theory – Jesch writes in a blog that “the emotional lure of the woman warrior, especially in the Viking Age, is too strong for reasoned argument” – the new research challenged the assumptions that were made when the remains were first unearthed in the 19th century, and rejuvenated interest in gender roles in the Viking period. “Having fought for the idea of a female warrior,” says Hirst, “I suppose I felt very vindicated. I don’t look at social media on the whole, but people draw my attention to it occasionally and there were still people posting things such as ‘you’re still wrong, women aren’t strong enough to fight’. The misogyny that still exists is incredible.” The full interview with Michael Hirst features on the History Extra podcast, in which he discusses Vikings, The Real Vikings and also his next project The Caesars with Martin Scorsese. Documentary The Real Vikings aired on History UK in 2018, in which experts revealed the archaeology and history that inspired the show.
Viking women: raiders, traders and settlers
The popular perception of Vikings is that of aggressive, pillaging, bloodthirsty male warriors. But, as historian Judith Jesch explains, the Viking Age was not just a masculine affair...
In the long history of Scandinavia, the period that saw the greatest transformation was the Viking Age (AD 750–1100). This great movement of peoples from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, heading both east and west, and the social, religious, political and cultural changes that resulted from it, affected the lives and roles of women as well as the male warriors and traders whom we more usually associate with ‘Viking’ activities. Scandinavian society was hierarchical, with slaves at the bottom, a large class of the free in the middle, and a top level of wealthy local and regional leaders, some of whom eventually sowed the seeds of the medieval Scandinavian monarchies. The slaves and the free lived a predominantly rural and agricultural life, while the upper levels of the hierarchy derived their wealth from the control and export of natural resources. The desire to increase such wealth was a major motivating factor of the Viking Age expansion. One way to acquire wealth was to raid the richer countries to the south and west. The Scandinavians burst on the scene in the eighth century as feared warriors attacking parts of the British Isles and the European continent. Such raiding parties were mainly composed of men, but there is contemporary evidence from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that some warbands were accompanied by women and, inevitably, children, particularly if they had been away from Scandinavia for some time. The sources do not reveal whether these women had come from Scandinavia with the men or joined them along the way, but both are likely. Despite popular misconceptions, however, there is no convincing evidence that Viking women participated directly in fighting and raiding – indeed, the Chronicle describes women and children being put in a place of safety. The Viking mind, a product of a militarised culture, could certainly imagine women warriors, as evidenced by their art and mythology, but this was not an option for real women. Settlement In parts of Britain and Ireland and on the north-western coasts of the European continent, these raids were succeeded by settlement, as recorded in contemporary documents and shown by language, place-names and archaeology. An interesting question is whether these warriors-turned-settlers established families with Scandinavian wives or whether they integrated more quickly by taking local partners. There is strong evidence in many parts of Britain for whole communities speaking Scandinavian as the everyday language of the home, implying the presence of Scandinavian-speaking women. Metal-detectorist finds show that Scandinavian-style jewellery was imported into England in considerable numbers on the clothing of the female settlers themselves. In the north and west of Scotland, Scandinavian speech and culture persisted well into the Middle Ages, and genetic evidence suggests that Scandinavian families and communities emigrated to places such as Orkney and Shetland en masse. Not all of these settlers stayed in the British Isles, however. From both the Norwegian homeland and the British Isles, ambitious emigrants relocated to the previously uninhabited Faroe Islands and Iceland and, somewhat later, to Greenland and even North America. The Icelandic Book of Settlements, written in the 13th century, catalogues more than 400 Viking-Age settlers of Iceland. Thirteen of these were women, remembered as leading their households to a new life in a new land. One of them was Aud (also known as Unn), the deep-minded who, having lost her father, husband and son in the British Isles, took it on herself to have a ship built and move the rest of her household to Iceland, where the Book of the Icelanders lists her as one of the four most prominent Norwegian founders of Iceland. As a widow, Aud had complete control of the resources of her household and was wealthy enough to give both land and freedom to her slaves once they arrived in Iceland. Slavery Other women were, however, taken to Iceland as slaves. Studies of the genetic make-up of the modern Icelandic population have been taken to suggest that up to two-thirds of its female founding population had their origins in the British Isles, while only one third came from Norway (the situation is, however, the reverse for the male founding population). The Norwegian women were the wives of leading Norwegian chieftains who established large estates in Iceland, while the British women may have been taken there as slaves to work on these estates. But the situation was complex and it is likely that some of the British women were wives legally married to Scandinavian men who had spent a generation or two in Scotland or Ireland before moving on to Iceland. The written sources also show that some of the British slaves taken to Iceland were male, as in the case of Aud, discussed above. These pioneer women, both chieftains’ wives and slaves, endured the hardships of travel across the North Atlantic in an open boat along with their children and all their worldly goods, including their cows, sheep, horses and other animals. Women of all classes were essential to the setting up of new households in unknown and uninhabited territories, not only in Iceland but also in Greenland, where the Norse settlement lasted for around 500 years. Both the Icelandic sagas and archaeology show that women participated in the voyages from Greenland to some parts of North America (known to them as Vinland). An Icelandic woman named Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir is particularly remembered for having been to Vinland (where she gave birth to a son), but also for having in later life gone on pilgrimage to Rome and become a nun. A page from the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' in Anglo-Saxon or Old English, telling of King Aethelred I of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred the Great, and their battles with the Viking invaders at Reading and Ashdown in AD 871 (c1950). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Mistress of the house These new settlements in the west were, like those of the homelands, rural and agricultural, and the roles of women were the traditional ones of running the household. Although free women did not by convention participate in public life, it is clear that the mistress of the household had absolute authority in the most important matters of daily life within its four walls, and also in many aspects of farm work. Runic inscriptions show that women were highly valued for this. On a commemorative stone from Hassmyra, in Sweden, the deceased Odindisa is praised in runic verse by her husband for her role as mistress of that farm. The rune stones of the Isle of Man include a particularly high proportion commemorating women. Those women who remained in Scandinavia also felt the effects of the Viking Age. The evidence of burials shows that women, at least those of the wealthier classes, were valued and respected. Much precious metalwork from the British Isles found its way into the graves of Norwegian women, usually presumed to be gifts from men who went west, but some were surely acquired abroad by the women themselves. At the top level of society, women’s graves were as rich as those of men – the grave goods of a wealthy woman buried with her servant at Oseberg in Norway included a large and beautiful ship, several horses and many other valuable objects. Such a woman clearly had power and influence to be remembered in this way. With the establishment of the monarchies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden towards the end of the Viking Age, it is clear that queens could have significant influence, such as Astrid, the widow of St Olaf, who ensured the succession of her stepson Magnus to the Norwegian throne in the year 1035. Urbanisation and Christianity Another of the major changes affecting Viking Age Scandinavia was that of urbanisation. While trade had long been an important aspect of Scandinavian wealth creation, the development of emporia – town-like centres – such as Hedeby in Denmark, Kaupang in Norway, Birka in Sweden, or trading centres at York and Dublin, provided a new way of life for many. The town-like centres plugged into wide-ranging international networks stretching both east and west. Towns brought many new opportunities for women as well as men in both craft and trade. The fairly standard layouts of the buildings in these towns show that the wealth-creating activities practised there were family affairs, involving the whole household, just as farming was in rural areas. In Russia, finds of scales and balances in Scandinavian female graves indicate that women took part in trading activities there. Along with urbanisation, another major change was the adoption of Christianity. The rune stones of Scandinavia date largely from the period of Christianisation and show that women adopted the new religion with enthusiasm. As family memorials, the inscriptions are still dominated by men, but with Christianity, more and more of them were dedicated to women. Those associated with women were also more likely to be overtly Christian, such as a stone in memory of a certain Ingirun who went from central Sweden on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Viking Age, then, was not just a masculine affair. Women played a full part in the voyages of raiding, trading and settlement, and the new settlements in the North Atlantic would not have survived very long had it not been for their contribution. This mobile and expansive age provided women with new opportunities, and sagas, rune stones and archaeology show that many of them were honoured and remembered accordingly. Judith Jesch is professor of Viking studies at the University of Nottingham. Her publications include The Viking Diaspora (Routledge, 2015). You can follow her on Twitter @JudithJesch. Discover more learning from week three of the HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course Video: Daily life, with Professor Ryan Lavelle – watching time 19 mins What was life like for Viking women? – reading time 7 mins Inside the Viking mind – reading time 10 mins Viking gods, goddesses & tricksters: 12 figures from Norse mythology – reading time 8 mins Podcast: What Norse poetry reveals about the Viking Age – listening time 48 mins How England rode the Viking storm – reading time 12 mins Viking ‘warrior women’ – reading time 3 mins
Edmund Ironside: Anglo-Saxon warrior king
One thousand years after he became king, Sarah Foot recounts the life of King Edmund II, a bold leader who took the fight to the Vikings in one of the most blood-soaked periods in English history...
Few Anglo-Saxon leaders who went to war with the Vikings in the early years of the 11th century emerged with their reputations enhanced. King Edmund II, who ruled the English for seven tempestuous months in 1016, was one of those who did. Such was Edmund’s reputed martial prowess that chroniclers were still celebrating his exploits more than a century after his death. Writing in the 12th century, the Anglo-Norman poet Geoffrey Gaimar described Edmund as “bold as a leopard”. Another 12th-century chronicler lauded Edmund’s leadership skills. And so impressed were Edmund’s immediate successors by his valour on the battlefield that they gave him the epithet by which he has been best remembered ever since – ‘Ironside’. Yet, when Edmund was born in the late 10th century he was an unlikely candidate to earn himself an enduring reputation as a mighty warrior-king. In fact, he was an unlikely candidate to become a king at all. That’s because Edmund was born the third son of English king Æthelred (‘the Unready’) and his first wife, Ælfgifu. And so, while his two older siblings were being groomed for power, Edmund was free to lead what it seems was a rather colourful life – one that saw him clash with his father on a number of occasions. We’re told that King Æthelred intervened to prevent Edmund from appropriating an estate from the church at Sherborne in Dorset, even going as far as making the prince pay £20 for the privilege of having the use of the land for his lifetime. Worse still, when Edmund married the widow of one of his friends, he did so “against the king’s will”, as a near-contemporary chronicler put it. Threat to security These family disagreements were played out against a backdrop of the most violent and protracted warfare seen in early medieval England, as Danish armies, led first by King Swein and then his son Cnut, sought to conquer the realm. Not since the days of Alfred the Great had England’s peace and security been so threatened. But unlike Alfred, King Æthelred was woefully unable to mount an effective resistance to the Viking attacks. In fact, the English were so comprehensively out-fought and outmaneuvered by the Danes that, in 1013, they bowed to the seemingly inevitable and submitted to Swein as king. Æthelred was forced to take shelter with the family of his second wife, Emma of Normandy. We don’t know what part, if any, the young Edmund played in these military reversals. But we do know that his life was utterly transformed by the death of his eldest brother, Æthelstan in 1014. Æthelred’s second son, Ecgberht, was already dead (he witnessed no royal documents after 1005, presumably perishing in that year) and so, when Æthelstan succumbed to illness in June 1014, Edmund suddenly found himself the eldest of the king’s surviving sons. But that didn’t mean Edmund was universally accepted as Æthelred’s successor. The Life of Edward the Confessor (written 50 years later) claims that when Æthelred’s second wife, Emma, was pregnant with her first child, all Englishmen swore that if it were a boy, they would accept him as king. This had been a serious blow to Edmund and his eldest brother. Their response was to look to Northumbria and the five main Danish towns of the Midlands for support in securing the succession, allying themselves with two prominent thegns, Sigeferth and Morcar. Following Æthelstan’s death, Edmund was left to fight on alone – and soon found himself at loggerheads with his father’s chief adviser, Eadric Streona. When, in early 1015, Eadric had Sigeferth and Morcar “basely” killed – having enticed them into his chamber – Edmund defied his father and Eadric by marrying Sigeferth’s widow and acquiring all the former thegns’ estates in the Midlands. Now, with the people of the north submitting to him, Edmund had clearly set himself up as a rival to Æthelred’s regime. As Edmund and Æthelred continued to fall out, the Danish king Cnut invaded England with a large army. Eadric Streona led the forces of the ailing king while Edmund gathered his own army. The two English forces briefly came together but when Edmund realised that Eadric wanted to betray him, he withdrew. Eadric then decided to switch his allegiances. Taking 40 ships from the king’s fleet with him, he joined the Danish side. From then onwards, the Anglo-Saxon chronicler presented Edmund in a completely different light. Gone was the rebellious younger son unchecked by a weak father. Edmund suddenly became a military leader of great energy and effectiveness. He fought several engagements in 1016 – the first in the north Midlands, supported by Earl Uhtred of Northumbria – although without achieving victory. When Cnut occupied Yorkshire and had Uhtred executed, Edmund went south to London, where his father died on 23 April. He was soon forced to flee the city as the advancing Danes prepared to besiege it, but not before all the city’s inhabitants and such national counsellors as were present had chosen him as king. Gaimar reports that Edmund married the sister of a Welsh king (presumably his first wife had died) and that the Welsh fought with him. A German chronicler also included the Welsh among those fighting in England in 1016, and an Old Norse poem called Liðsmannaflokkr (‘Song of the Men of the Host’) mentioned Danish blows falling upon Welsh armour. Sensing victory During a series of clashes between English and Danes across southern England and the Midlands, Edmund appeared to seize the advantage. He drove his enemies into Kent and on into Essex, where he joined battle with Cnut at a hill called Ashingdon on 18 October. With Ealdorman Eadric once more changing sides and backing him again, Edmund may have sensed victory. But his luck was about to run out. Eadric’s men fled from the battlefield, all but condemning Edmund’s army to defeat. Gaimar reports that the Welsh dragged Edmund from the battlefield before he could be cut down. “All the nobility of England was there destroyed,” the Anglo-Saxon chronicler lamented. According to another Scandinavian poem, the Danes and English met in one further battle at ‘Danaskógar’ (perhaps the Forest of Dean), after which Edmund and Cnut made peace at Alney in Gloucestershire. They divided the country in two, with Cnut taking control of Mercia and the north (and receiving a significant monetary payment for his army) and Edmund ruling the land south of the Thames, the historic kingdom of Wessex. This arrangement was to be short-lived for, by the end of November, Edmund was dead. Contemporary English sources shed little light on how he died – though, in the 1070s, the chronicler Adam of Bremen claimed that he had been poisoned. Gaimar’s version of events is the most extraordinary. He claimed that someone had fired an arrow up into Edmund while he was sat on the privy, piercing his body as far as his lungs. Edmund was buried beside his grandfather, King Edgar, at Glastonbury Abbey in what is now Somerset. Cnut, who became undisputed king of England, later visited and left gifts at his tomb. Edmund Ironside’s brief reign left few records, but his family’s role in British history persisted long beyond his death. Edmund’s stepmother, Emma, married Cnut and may have influenced his decision to exile Edmund’s sons to Hungary, where the younger one died. Edward, the eldest son, was however invited back by the English in 1057 in the hope that he might succeed the childless Edward the Confessor. Edward the Exile died that same year, before having met the king, but his own son Edgar retained some political significance. As the only candidate for the throne in 1066 directly descended from an English king, Edgar participated in various rebellions against William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion, including the northern uprising of 1069–70. Although Edgar never gained power, his sister, Edmund’s granddaughter, Margaret, became queen of Scotland by marrying King Malcolm III. Defence of the realm Had Edmund lived, the course of English history might have been different. Refreshed and re-armed after the battle of Ashingdon, Edmund could have led an army successfully against the Danes in the north, driven Cnut back to his Scandinavian homeland and reunited England under West Saxon rule. His son and grandson could have followed him on the throne, displacing Edmund’s half-brother Edward from the succession and thus preventing the political crisis of 1066 that led to the Norman Conquest. But 1,000 years after his death, Edmund Ironside’s enduring legacy now rests only on the military prowess he demonstrated in his valiant defence of his realm. Sarah Foot is the regius professor of ecclesiastical history at Christ Church, University of Oxford. Her books include Æthelstan: The First King of England (Yale English Monarchs Series, Yale, 2011). This article was first published in the April 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine
A virtuous Viking: the medieval legend of Havelok the Dane
Many regions of England are fascinated by their Viking heritage, and that was as true in the medieval period as it is today. Here, Dr Eleanor Parker from the University of Oxford explores one particularly popular Viking legend…
Everyone knows the stereotypical image of a Viking: a daring, rapacious warrior who rejoices in fighting and killing, sailing the seas and pillaging monasteries with a certain ruthless glamour. Later medieval writers were familiar with this stereotype too, and many delighted in exaggerated, bloodthirsty tales of Vikings murdering nuns, impaling babies on spears, and carving eagles on the backs of their enemies. But that’s only one aspect of the legend of the Vikings, and some medieval texts tell very different stories about what the Vikings did in England. Medieval writers interested in England’s history – especially in the north and east of England – knew that Scandinavians had not just raided and plundered in the region, but also settled there. There are various legends exploring how and why this settlement came about, and the most famous involves Lincolnshire's very own Viking hero, Havelok the Dane. Stories about Havelok, a Danish prince who came to rule part or all of England, are first recorded in the 12th century, but may well be much older. The best-known version of the story is a Middle English romance, written probably at the end of the 13th century, known simply as Havelok. It’s a lively, fast-moving poem, frequently funny but with an underlying concern for important questions about what makes a good ruler and a just society. It's cheerfully violent but always scrupulously fair: kindness is rewarded, cruelty punished, and the rightful king restored to his proper place. The poem tells the twin stories of Havelok and his wife, the English princess Goldeboru. Set in a distant past, which is recognisably Anglo-Saxon England, the poem begins with the deaths of the fathers of Havelok and Goldeboru, kings of Denmark and England respectively. The young orphaned heirs are both deprived of their inheritance by wicked usurpers: the English villain has Goldeboru imprisoned, while the Danish villain murders Havelok’s little sisters and arranges for Havelok to be drowned by a man named Grim. Grim can’t bring himself to kill the child, so he smuggles Havelok out of Denmark and flees to England with his wife and family. Grim and his family, with the young royal exile, land on the coast of Lincolnshire, where Grim settles down to the life of a fisherman. He works hard and his business prospers, and the poem tells us that the place where they made their home came to be named after its founder: Grimsby. Havelok grows up to be incredibly tall and strong, but in other respects he is almost comically unlike the stereotype of a Viking: he is cheerful, patient, good-tempered, and gentle to women and children. When he reaches adulthood he decides he ought to earn his own living, and he sets off for Lincoln, where he finds a job as a kitchen-hand. Everyone is impressed by his great strength and his sheer niceness, and he comes to the attention of the treacherous regent of England, who decides to humiliate Goldeboru by forcing her to marry this unsophisticated kitchen boy. (He had promised the late king he would marry Goldeboru to ‘the highest man in England’, a condition the unusually tall Havelok technically fulfils.) Lincoln Castle. According to the chronicler Robert Mannyng, in the 14th century you could see the huge rock that Havelok, with his extraordinary strength, threw to win a stone-casting competition. (© Timbphotography | Dreamstime.com) Havelok is unwilling and Goldeboru is horrified, but they have no choice, so they marry and return to Grimsby. On their wedding night Goldeboru has an angelic vision that reveals to her that Havelok is actually a king's son, while Havelok dreams of his homeland: he imagines embracing Denmark in his arms, and bringing its people across the sea to England as a love-gift to his new wife. When they share their dreams with each other, Goldeboru urges Havelok to return to Denmark and win back his inheritance. He does so, then comes back to England to regain Goldeboru's kingdom too. The two of them rule England and Denmark together in a state of perfect peace and harmony for 60 years, and have 15 sons and daughters. Havelok is a kind of historical fantasy, but it’s firmly rooted in the English landscape and in plausible reality: Grimsby, for instance, probably was named for a Scandinavian settler, although perhaps not the saviour of an exiled Danish prince. The medieval poet knew that Danish settlement was part of the history of this region, and seems to have thought it something to be proud of. In this he was not alone. The foundation story was a lasting source of pride in Grimsby: the town's 13th-century seal depicts Grim brandishing a sword and shield, Havelok and Goldeboru on either side of him. Grimsby might not seem like a very glamorous location for a romance to take place – it's not exactly Camelot – but in the Havelok legend it has a founding father and an origin myth all of its own. Beyond Grimsby, too, the Havelok story seems to have been widely known in Lincolnshire: the chronicler Robert Mannyng tells us that in the 14th century you could go to Lincoln Castle and see the huge rock that Havelok, with his extraordinary strength, threw to win a stone-casting competition, as well as the chapel where Havelok and Goldeboru were married. The legend of Havelok offers a reimagining of English history that finds a balance between a proud regional identity and a sense of national unity. It’s a version of Anglo-Saxon history in which the Danes can be easily integrated into English society: the characters inhabit a North Sea world in which fishermen and merchants travel freely between England and Denmark, and Havelok and Grim’s children, Danish by birth, all marry into English families. It's as if the poet decided he was going to present an alternative version of the many stories of Viking violence; his Danish protagonists are industrious, honest and virtuous. At one point the English villain tries to paint Havelok as a rampaging Viking, claiming he is killing monks and burning churches, but in fact Havelok is notably pious and even founds a priory in Grimsby in memory of Grim. In this poem the Danish contribution to English history is presented in an entirely positive light – as something Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and England can and should be proud of. Dr Eleanor Parker is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Anglo-Norman England at the University of Oxford. She blogs about medieval England at www.aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk. You can follow her on Twitter @ClerkofOxford.
Anglo-Saxon saints and British slave-owners
Janina Ramirez introduces some remarkable medieval religious figures, while David Olusoga talks about his new BBC TV series on Britons’ connections to slavery
Oxford historian Janina Ramirez picks out some of the most remarkable saints from the early medieval period. Meanwhile, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga talks to us about his new BBC Two series Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. Plus, this episode includes an audio version of an article from our August 2015 magazine.
The Anglo-Saxon who (almost) united Britain
In AD 675, the Northumbrian ruler Ecgfrith was so powerful that he effectively made himself 'high-king' of Britain. Nick Higham introduces a true heavyweight of early English history
This article was first published in the September 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine On Saturday 20 May AD 685, St Cuthbert was with Iurmenburh, Northumbria’s queen, at Carlisle, when he had a vision of Iurmenburh’s husband, Ecgfrith, dying at the hands of the Picts. A few days later, “they heard that it was announced far and wide that a wretched and lamentable battle had taken place at the very day and hour it was revealed to him”. Ecgfrith was dead, and the flower of his army had fallen. For Northumbria, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that spanned much of what is now northern England and south-east Scotland, it was a fateful day. Bede, the English monk and author, later quoted from Virgil’s Aeneid: “The hope and valour of the realm of the English began ‘to ebb and flow away’.” The Picts recovered lands previously taken from them and the Scots and northern Britons threw off English overlordship. The Northumbrians’ dream of exercising power across all of Britain was finally extinguished. In the sixth and seventh centuries, Britain was a world of small kingships. Minor rulers found it necessary to look to more powerful kings for protection. The resulting regional kingships could be volatile and short-term but – thanks to a combination of dynastic alliances, Christian missions, raids and wars, sometimes pursued over considerable distances – a pattern of larger kingdoms slowly emerged, absorbing smaller neighbours. Occasionally, in the seventh century, the most successful rulers established a Britain-wide, ‘over-’ or ‘high-kingship’ – by which every local or regional king in the whole island recognised the superiority of just one man. It was this supreme power that Ecgfrith lost his life trying to attain in 685. Imperial rule Of course, the idea of an overall authority across Britain (attempted, if not realised) stems ultimately from the ancient Romans, whose emperors were later understood locally as high-kings ruling over British kings. This notion of a high-kingship was developed by Bede, who employed the word imperium in reference to both Roman and English supremacies. Bede listed seven kings who had imperium south of the Humber, the last three of which were Northumbrians – Edwin, Oswald and Oswiu – whose power was centred further north. These, Bede tells us, had greater power: Edwin achieved authority over Anglesey and Man; Oswald ruled “within the same bounds” in this list, but Bede later claimed for him authority over all peoples speaking English, Welsh, Scottish and Pictish. Finally, Oswiu additionally “overwhelmed and made tributary the greater part of the peoples of the Picts and Scots who inhabit the northern limits of Britain”. We can certainly see Oswiu as all-powerful in the years after 655, when he defeated the Mercians and took over much of the English Midlands and Fife in Scotland, becoming overlord of the northern kings beyond. Bede visualised a progression, therefore, from ‘over-kingship’ of the south to a Northumbrian ‘high-kingship’ of all Britain. The subordination of all the other peoples of Britain to the (Northumbrian) English was, in Bede’s view, God’s plan for the island. The one high-king who Bede omitted from this list was Ecgfrith, Oswiu’s son and heir, and a king who has not perhaps received as much attention as he deserves. He came to the throne of the Northumbrians, aged about 25, following his father’s death in 670. An almost immediate challenge came from his father’s erstwhile northern tributaries, for the Picts rose against him, seeking to throw off English overlordship and recapture the Pictish territory that Oswiu had taken under Northumbrian rule. Ecgfrith may have been new to the throne but he was more than equal to the Picts’ challenge. He marched north and won an overwhelming victory against them, reimposing tribute, confirming his hold on Fife and instigating regime change. At home, though, Ecgfrith was experiencing serious difficulties. At the root of his problems was a split in the Northumbrian church. On one side were the majority of the clergy, who had been trained within the Scottish tradition (centred on Lindisfarne, Melrose and Whitby), but had conformed to the Roman dating of Easter in 664. On the other side of the divide was Bishop Wilfrid, who had adopted the continental view that British and Scottish churches were heretical, and was now moving energetically against British priests within Northumbria, expelling them by force of arms. The religious life Such tensions within the church cannot have made life easy for Ecgfrith. Nor could the fact that his wife of 12 years, Æthelthryth, an East Anglian princess who was significantly older than the king, had consistently refused to consummate their marriage. Ecgfrith finally gave way and, around 672, allowed Æthelthryth to retire to the religious life. She went on to found a nunnery at Ely and took up its rule in 673. On the face of it, a loss of a wife was a major setback. Yet it appears that Ecgfrith was able to turn this to his advantage. For, with Æthelthryth in her Ely retreat, Ecgfrith was free to marry again – and his next match, with Iurmenburh (probably a member of the Kentish royal household) helped secure him a vital alliance with the people of Kent, and greatly extended his influence in the south. Yet where there are winners, there are inevitably losers. And in this case the losers were the Mercians, who saw their influence in the south wane as Ecgfrith’s grew and grew. Their response was to raise a great army against him in 674 – yet, once again, Ecgfrith emerged triumphant, defeating the Mercians in battle, and forcing them to cede Lindsey (broadly, Lincolnshire) and pay tribute. When the Mercian king, Wulfhere, died in 675, he was succeeded by his brother, Æthelred, who Ecgfrith had married off to his own sister – probably as part of the peace arrangements. Ecgfrith’s victory over the Mercians marks the high-water mark of his reign. In fact, in 675, it would be no exaggeration to describe him – like his father, Oswiu, at Christmas 655 – as the high-king of Britain. Had his brother-in-law on the Mercian throne played ball, then Ecgfrith’s position might have become embedded. Yet, unfortunately for Ecgfrith, the Mercians weren’t prepared to take the loss of Lindsey and the waning of their influence across the south lying down. In 676 they struck back, devastating Kent and effectively asserting their independence of Northumbrian overlordship. Just as significantly, they exposed Ecgfrith’s inability to protect his southern allies. Worse still, the situation in the north was also deteriorating. The evidence is poor and often ambiguous but an alliance hostile to the high-king’s interests seems to have developed between the northern Britons on the Clyde, his cousin King Bruide of the Picts and the Irish high-king, Finsnechta Fledach, king of Brega. Such formidable opposition forced Ecgfrith to take a more conciliatory stance towards Scottish Christianity. He could no longer afford Bishop Wilfrid’s hostility towards those who had been trained within that tradition, and so he expelled Wilfrid in 678, and resisted all subsequent papal pressures to reinstate him. Ecgfrith turned instead to the Northumbrian clergy who had initially been educated and advanced within the Scottish church but had accepted Oswiu’s Catholic reformation in 664. He also saw to it that candidates from this faction were appointed to new bishoprics. The last bishop whose appointment Ecgfrith engineered was St Cuthbert, who represented the final flowering of the tradition of preaching and asceticism established by the Scottish missionaries to Northumbria in the 630s. Yet such moves didn’t pacify Ecgfrith’s enemies in the south. In 679, Æthelred’s Mercians marched against the Northumbrian king and defeated him in a great battle on the Trent, killing his brother, Ælfwine. Peace was restored by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury – but not before Mercia had regained Lindsey. Ecgfrith’s high-kingship was rapidly slipping through his fingers. The risk of further attacks by Mercia probably kept Ecgfrith close to his southern borders over the next few campaigning seasons but he successfully despatched a force to ravage the Irish territory of his opponents in 684 – the only Anglo-Saxon king ever to send forces across the Irish Sea. Killed in battle In 685, political upheavals among the South Saxons and then the West Saxons reduced the risk of a Mercian attack, allowing Ecgfrith to go on the offensive again, this time launching a lightning strike against the Picts. Yet this was to be his last throw of the dice for, as we’ve seen, on 20 May he was killed and ambushed by the very Picts he was trying to bring low, far to the north in the Scottish Highlands. We know very little of the battle beyond the outcome, which was a Northumbrian disaster. In the crisis that followed, the Picts overwhelmed Fife, and even its Catholic bishop had to abandon his see. Aldfrith, an illegitimate, half-Irish brother of Ecgfrith, took the throne and continued Ecgfrith’s religious policies, but he was a middle-aged scholar and no warrior. Aldfrith never attempted dominance of Britain either north or south of Northumbria. Instead he settled for an alliance with the West Saxons to try and contain Mercia, and made the most of his close friendships with the Irish to retain a degree of influence among the Celtic courts of the north. Northumbria’s glory days were over, and with them any chance that a single king would attain universal superiority across Britain. Had Ecgfrith won his battle against the Picts, and then turned once more against the Mercians, might the pattern of history have been different? It is possible that Britain could have been welded into a single political unit under Northumbria’s kings across the late seventh and eighth centuries, but to do this they needed to secure permanent control of Mercia, so establishing a single realm from the Thames to the Firth of Forth and beyond. They enjoyed temporary successes, but the kings never achieved this long enough for their power to take root. Instead, Northumbria’s kings often found themselves engaged on two fronts, to the north and south, and unable to deal effectively with either. Despite this, Northumbria’s seventh-century kings were the only rulers to exercise even intermittent power universally across Britain before the 10th century, and their achievements should be recognised. Had they achieved lasting success, then the division that we see today between Scotland, England and Wales would probably be very different indeed. High, but how mighty? How close did Ecgfrith’s fellow Northumbrian high-kings come to uniting Britain? Æthelfrith (Ecgfrith’s paternal grandfather) should be viewed as the founder of Northumbria. He came to prominence as king of the Bernicians in northern Northumbria, c592, but expanded his rule dramatically by waging war against the neighbouring British kingdoms, and by imposing himself on Deira (basically Yorkshire). He also fought off an attack by the Scots of Dál Riata, then marched against the Welsh and won the battle of Chester around 615. Edwin (Ecgfrith’s maternal grandfather) was king of Northumbria, 616–33. He was initially placed on the throne by East Anglian backers but from c626 onwards he was the most powerful king in Britain. He defeated the West Saxons and the Welsh and took control of Anglesey and Man. Conversion to Roman Christianity provided him with an important source of soft power, and his marriage allied him with Kent. He died in battle fighting the Welsh and Mercians. Oswald (Ecgfrith’s paternal uncle) was king of Northumbria, c634/35–42. He was Æthelfrith’s son, obtaining power through victory over the Welsh king Cædwalla. A marriage alliance with Wessex stabilised his ‘over-kingship’ in the south, while disastrous defeat suffered by the Scots in Ireland probably allowed Oswald to extend his high-kingship across the north and take direct control of the Lothians. He was defeated and killed “treacherously” by the Mercians. Oswiu (Ecgfrith’s father) was king of Bernicia from 642 and of all Northumbria from 655–70. He used his patronage of Scottish Christianity to expand his influence into the south-east Midlands and Essex but had to retreat right up to the Firth of Forth in 655 in the face of a massive Mercian-led invasion. The invaders were defeated and mostly slain on the river Went near Doncaster in late autumn as they returned home, allowing Oswiu to emerge as high-king of Britain. Although his attempt to take over Mercia ultimately failed, Oswiu did expand Northumbria northwards into Fife and established his over-lordship across the north. Nick Higham is professor emeritus at the University of Manchester. He is co-author (with Martin Ryan) of The Anglo-Saxon World (Yale, 2013). Further reading Ecgfrith: High-king of Britain by Nick Higham (Sean Tyas, forthcoming 2015) Listen again To listen to a series of portraits of 30 ground-breaking Anglo-Saxon men and women, which appeared on Radio 3’s The Essay.