The Anglo-Saxons were terrified of Vikings. But were they really so different?
They might have fought as enemies in the 9th century, but the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons shared common languages and deep cultural roots
Viking aggression against Anglo-Saxon England escalated dramatically in the 9th century, with the arrival of the Great Heathen Army. The Norse invaders were portrayed in contemporary chronicles as terrifying outsiders; they were fierce raiders who were violent, alien and, ultimately, incomprehensible.
But were the differences between the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons really so stark?
Beneath the violence between these two peoples were many similarities, found in a rich layer of shared history.
Shared origins across the North Sea
One reason for these similarities is simple: the Anglo-Saxons themselves had once come from the same broad region as the Vikings.
Following the collapse of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, groups from what is now Denmark, northern Germany and the Low Countries migrated across the North Sea and settled in England.
These groups – including Angles, Saxons and Jutes – filled the post-Roman vacuum and established the foundations of what would become Anglo-Saxon England, bringing with them languages, customs and social structures rooted in Europe’s northern lands.
“From the Anglo-Saxon perspective, they are very aware of their origins in what is now Denmark and the northern coastline of continental Europe,” explains historian Eleanor Barraclough, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast about this 9th century wave of Viking invasion. “So those connections are still there.”
Genealogies of Anglo-Saxon kings often traced their ancestry back to continental or even mythological Germanic figures, reinforcing this sense of shared heritage.
Could they understand each other?
Perhaps the clearest sign of this shared heritage was found in language.
Old English (spoken by the Anglo-Saxons) and Old Norse (spoken by many Vikings) were both part of the Germanic language family.
“You just have to look at the languages,” Barraclough explains. “Although they are distinct Germanic languages, they’re still very much both Germanic languages.”
This meant communication, while not seamless, was certainly possible: “It would be a case of communicating with some grunts, some hand gestures, and some pointing,” she says, “but basically you would be able to understand each other to a certain degree.”
Many everyday words would have sounded similar, making partial understanding possible even without formal translation. These were related languages with an overlapping vocabulary and structure.
A shared cultural world
Language was only one part of a broader cultural connection. An example of that shared culture is the famous Old English poem Beowulf.
Beowulf is a cornerstone of Anglo-Saxon literature, written in Old English and preserved in an English manuscript. But its setting hints at non-English origins.
“The first lines are: “Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,” Barraclough explains. “It’s Old English, [but] it’s talking about a Danish context.”
The poem is set in Scandinavia – among the ‘Spear-Danes’ (the 'Gardena') and in regions corresponding to modern Denmark and Sweden. This suggests that Anglo-Saxon audiences were deeply familiar with, and interested in, stories rooted in the Scandinavian world.
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Referring to the oral tradition that the Beowulf poem might have been based on, Barraclough says “it certainly seems to be pre–the Great Heathen Army arriving,” indicating that these cultural links existed before the Viking invasions.
The content of the poem itself also reflects a shared culture, with similar values around kingship, loyalty, warfare and honour that were recognised across northern Europe. And archaeology reinforces this picture.
The famous helmet from the Sutton Hoo burial – often associated with the Anglo-Saxon king Raedwald – has echoes of Viking culture.
“That helmet has its nearest parallels in Sweden and in Scandinavia more generally,” Barraclough says.
Such objects point to a shared material culture spanning the North Sea.
Religion: different, but related
Religion offers another window into both similarity and difference. By the time of the Viking invasions, Anglo-Saxon England was largely Christian. Churches, monasteries and religious institutions – often the targets for Viking attacks – were central to political and cultural life.
Many Vikings, by contrast, were still practising forms of pre-Christian religion.
Even here, though, there were shared roots. “We have relatively little that we can piece together about pre-Christian religion in Anglo-Saxon culture,” Barraclough says. But, she says, surviving evidence suggests “similarities in the types of gods: Woden and Odin, for example.”
Woden, the Anglo-Saxon pagan deity, and Odin, the Norse god, likely stem from a shared Proto-Germanic religious tradition, adapted and developed in different regions over time.
What made them different?
Despite these shared foundations, important differences between the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings remained.
Religion was one of the most significant. For the now-Christian Anglo-Saxons, Viking paganism was threatening and alien, particularly when associated with violent raids on monasteries and churches.
Political organisation also differed. Anglo-Saxon England was divided into kingdoms with established structures of governance, law and landholding. Viking forces, especially in the early phases of the Great Heathen Army, instead operated as mobile coalitions of warbands, with more flexible and decentralised leadership. These contrasting systems meant that Anglo-Saxon rulers were defending fixed territories, while Viking groups could move rapidly, regroup and adapt their strategies.
So how similar were the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons?
They were distinct peoples, with different political systems and, by the 9th century, different dominant religions.
But they were also deeply connected. They spoke related languages, shared cultural traditions, traded across the same seas and traced their origins to overlapping regions of northern Europe.
Eleanor Barraclough was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra