HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-10-20T16:38:40.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The real Vikings: the early medieval world behind the hit drama
items: Vikings in Britain: how did raiders and marauders become lords and kings?
items: 10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history
items: The Holy Island of Lindisfarne
items: Your guide to the Viking raid of Lindisfarne in AD 793
items: The Lindisfarne Gospels

The real Vikings: the early medieval world behind the hit drama
type: item
date: 2020-12-21T11:45:13.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: Historical people
subject: Lindisfarne
subject: TV interest
subject: Viking life and culture
description: The exploits of Norse warrior Ragnar Lothbrok and his kin in hit TV drama Vikings has brought fresh interest to the myths and figures of the early medieval world. As the final series continues, Professor Howard Williams explores how the show’s sweeping ambition has tackled historical issues of the Viking era while creating an immersive world – one with more reality than you might think…
encoded: From 2013 to the second part of the sixth and final series, airing on Amazon Prime from 30 December, History Channel’s Vikings has brought a hit multi-season historical drama about the early Viking world to international audiences. Following the adventures of the legendary figure Ragnar Lothbrok (or Loðbrók) and his sons including Bjorn Ironside, Ubba and Ivar the Boneless, writer Michael Hirst portrays a 9th-century world of seaborne conflict, far-flung connections and family feuding on an unprecedented scale. Despite numerous films over the years, occasional documentaries and an ongoing rival drama series The Last Kingdom, nothing can compare in scale and duration to Vikings in bringing the early medieval world to global television viewers. Vikings offers up more than 65 hours, of exposure to a fictional 9th-century world of battles and intrigues. Simply put: never before has the Early Middle Ages been afforded so much screen time. Moreover, while The Last Kingdom mainly centres on the Vikings in Britain, the ambitious geographical and temporal sweep of Hirst’s narrative is remarkable. The show is able to explore many interleaving stories featuring different settlements and spaces, stories and characters in Scandinavia and beyond, encapsulating multiple generations of raiding and exploration in the Baltic, England, Frankia, Byzantine Sicily, Islamic Spain and North Africa, Russia and Iceland. In the show’s culmination, series six is even set to take one of the sons of Ragnar to Vinland – North America. Vikings Season 6: what’s happened so far? History vs entertainment, and the historical accuracy of Vikings Is this popular show a good or bad thing from an academic perspective? Is the show a litany of pseudo-histories, or does it serve as successful edutainment? I suggest it does both. As a specialist of the Early Middle Ages, including the archaeology of the Viking period in Britain and Scandinavia, I argue that we can celebrate the immersive, diverse and rapidly …

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Vikings in Britain: how did raiders and marauders become lords and kings?
type: item
date: 2020-04-21T08:20:12.000Z
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Vikings Course
subject: Lindisfarne
subject: TV interest
subject: Viking Britain
subject: Viking warfare
description: Early medieval historian Ryan Lavelle uncovers the story of Vikings in Britain, from the early forays of seafaring raiders landing at Lindisfarne in 793 to battling Alfred the Great and Danish warrior Cnut's triumph in claiming the English crown – and their abrupt ousting in the Norman Conquest of 1066
encoded: It was just over a millennium ago that a prince of Denmark was acclaimed as king of England. The victor of a long and bloody campaign, Cnut married the widow of his conquered predecessor and stepped up to the controls of one of the most powerful kingdoms in 11th-century Europe. Remembered as Knud den Store – ‘Cnut the Great’ – in Denmark and much of Scandinavia, but curiously not in England, the new Anglo-Danish King would wield power effectively for some two decades until his death in 1035. Cnut’s transformation from Viking sea lord to Christian king is a perfect example of the way in which the Vikings themselves had changed. The journey from seasonal raiders and pirates to highly respected rulers had taken a little over two centuries, but it was one of the most important developments in Western Europe. Not only had Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden come of age, but the English and Scottish kingdoms had emerged in the white heat of the Viking wars. 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about King Cnut A brief history of the Vikings When did the Vikings first come to England? In Britain and Ireland, the age of Norsemen had begun gradually. The first Viking activities were surprisingly small, but they were deadly and had an impact far beyond their size. Flotillas made their way across the North Sea to raid coastal and estuarine sites, particularly monasteries, chocked full of treasures as a result of an eighth-century economic boom. Those who embarked on the raids were the happy beneficiaries of developments in maritime technology, which allowed them to set out from Scandinavia confident of being able to return safely again. Though, like other ships of the age, they could be rowed, Viking ships enjoyed beautifully rigged square sails; they had strong keels and well-designed hulls. Why did the Vikings’ violent raids begin? The raid on Lindisfarne and seven more Viking dates you need to know It has even been argued that Vikings had developed their navigation skills wel…

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10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history
type: item
date: 2019-11-22T10:00:07.000Z
creator: Michael Wood
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Family and parenting
subject: Lindisfarne
subject: The Last Kingdom
description: What did the Anglo-Saxons ever do for us? Michael Wood outlined 10 ways in which these northern European migrants changed the course of British history
encoded: They welcomed Christianity at the edge of the world Anglo-Saxon settlers first started colonising parts of Britain in the fifth century AD and, over the following 500 years or so, would establish themselves as the foremost power in the British Isles. Yet it would be hundreds of miles to the south, in Rome, that arguably the most significant event in their history would occur. Here, in the late sixth century, the future pope, Gregory the Great, observed fair-haired Anglo-Saxon captives and called them “not Angles but angels”. He dreamed that he would bring Christianity to these pagans “at the farthest edge of the world”. Gregory’s dream became a reality. In AD 596, he sent his chaplain, Augustine, along with 40 companions, on a mission to the Angles’ homeland. The following year, the missionaries landed on the island of Thanet in Kent. This was a defining moment in British history – one that would eventually see the English people adopt Christianity. In Cambridge, there’s a sixth-century illuminated book, the Augustine Gospels, which – so tradition has it – the pilgrim brought with him. Its paintings of the Bible story are a glorious evocation of the Mediterranean roots of English Christianity. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons’ last stand They embraced the wisdom of the east Early in AD 669, two strangers arrived in England: Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek-speaking former Syrian refugee, and Hadrian, a Libyan. Both men were monks who had fled west after the Arab conquests of the 630s. Theodore had found a home in the Syrian community in Rome; Hadrian headed a small monastery near Naples. In 668, when the archbishopric in Canterbury fell vacant, Theodore was sent on a rescue mission to the failing English church. Taking Hadrian with him, Theodore set off bearing the wisdom of the Greek east: theology, poetry, grammar, biblical commentaries and a litany of saints – one of whom, the Syrian saint George, would later become patron s…

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The Holy Island of Lindisfarne
type: item
date: 2019-07-11T06:00:24.000Z
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: Lindisfarne
subject: The Last Kingdom
subject: Where history happened
description: Off the Northumberland coast rises a lonely islet which over the years has played host to religious renunciates, Viking raids and the birth of priceless artistic treasures. Julian Humphrys makes the pilgrimage
encoded: Getting on to Holy Island feels like an adventure. Unless you’re planning to arrive by boat, you can either walk or drive across a long causeway or tramp across the sands, following a line of wooden poles – a route taken by countless visitors and pilgrims over the centuries. Whichever you choose, check the tide tables to see when it’s safe to cross. Both routes are completely submerged at high tide, when the water rushes in at an alarming rate. Although the village can become quite crowded with visitors, the rest of the island still retains the sense of isolation that led St Aidan to establish a monastery here in AD 635 after being invited to Northumbria by King Oswald to convert his subjects to Christianity. His successor, St Cuthbert, served first as prior and later as bishop on Holy Island, but also spent years as a hermit on the nearby Farne Islands, dying there in AD 687. For most of the eighth century, the monastery thrived as a centre of culture, producing among other treasures the sumptuously illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels; a digitised version can be seen in the island’s heritage centre. But all this would change in AD 793, when the Vikings launched the first in a series of destructive raids on the monastery. By AD 875, the monks had had enough. They moved away, taking Cuthbert’s body with them, and eventually settled in Durham. Even so, the links with Lindisfarne were too strong to forget, and in 1120 monks from Durham Cathedral were sent to build a new priory on the island – complete with a shrine to St Cuthbert. Although that priory is now largely ruined, the Romanesque west entrance of its church is an impressive sight, while the survival of the ‘rainbow arch’, a single vault beneath the long-vanished tower, seems miraculous. Note the battlements and crossbow loops – a reminder that living so near to the Scottish border in the Middle Ages had its risks. The high ground overlooking the priory is known as the Heugh. Recent archaeological investigations ha…

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Your guide to the Viking raid of Lindisfarne in AD 793
type: item
date: 2019-06-01T11:00:39.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: Lindisfarne
description: An attack on a small religious community in Northumbria in AD 793 heralded the start of the Viking Age of conquest and expansion. Find out more with BBC History Revealed
encoded: On 8 June AD 793, the peaceful and remote monastic community of Lindisfarne Priory suffered a surprise Viking raid. It wasn’t to be a one-off, but proved just the beginning of a period of conquest and expansion by the Scandinavian warriors. Known as Holy Island, Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the coast of Northumberland. A monastery was founded here in AD 634 by Saint Aidan at the request of King Oswald of Northumbria. It became a renowned base for Christianity in the north of England and attracted monks from communities such as Iona. The beautiful illuminated manuscripts known as The Lindisfarne Gospels were created here, and the remains of St Cuthbert were buried within. Monasteries were often established on islands to keep them away from the political interference of the mainland and give the community a sense of isolation. This, though, made them incredibly vulnerable. As well as being undefended, the priory at Lindisfarne was full of valuable treasures used in religious ceremonies and so proved to be a fortunate choice for the raiders, showing them what wealth could be found across the sea. A brief history of the Vikings The Holy Island of Lindisfarne Global Vikings: how the impact of the raiders and traders went far beyond Britain The Vikings - who until now had not ventured far beyond their homes in Scandinavia – looted all the relics they could find and brutally murdered monks living on the island. It was such an unexpected attack that the inhabitants had no time to prepare a defence or call for aid from the mainland. The assault sent shock waves across the Christian world. Lindisfarne was described by Alcuin of York, a scholar at the court of Charlemagne, as the most ‘venerable’ site in all of Britain. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded: “Heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” Listen | Thomas Williams offers a fresh take on several centuries of Viking invasions and rule in Britain Alcuin wrote an …

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The Lindisfarne Gospels
type: item
date: 2013-07-09T10:00:12.000Z
subject: Early medieval
subject: Period
subject: Lindisfarne
description: The Lindisfarne Gospels, a magnificent book created by the community of St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne in the 8th century, is now on display at Durham University.
encoded: About the images The Lindisfarne Gospels, created by the community of St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne in the 8th century and regarded as one of the finest examples of medieval creativity and craftsmanship, is now on display at Durham University, giving visitors the chance to see examples of the magnificent figural painting and the intricate insular ornament for which the book is so renowned. To safeguard the book, each of its pages can be opened for no longer than three months, once every five years: the first opening will be two pages of beautiful and intricately designed canon tables; the second will feature the detailed decorated word panel at the beginning of one of the prefaces to the text and a page featuring one of the famous Evangelist portraits. The St Cuthbert Gospel, Europe’s oldest surviving bound book, and some of Britain’s most significant and precious Anglo-Saxons artefacts and medieval manuscripts, will on display alongside the Lindisfarne Gospels. Lindisfarne Gospels Durham is on show at Durham University's Palace Green Library until 30 September 2013. For more information, visit www.lindisfarnegospels.com

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