Viking Age England

In 1016 the young Danish prince who was to become Cnut the Great, King of England, Denmark, and Norway, laid siege to the city of London as part of a program of conquest that would see him crowned as King of England by 1017. This millennial year is an appropriate time to reflect on the consequences of London's defiance as a city that was rapidly evolving into the economic capital of a united English polity. As the siege did not end in Danish victory, the resistance of the independent minded Londoners had implications upon how Cnut would conduct juridical, financial and religious policy in relation to the city. Cnut could not allow the city to exert such oppositional autonomy unchecked. Yet the Danish king had ambitions of establishing an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire and London was a strategically important city in that vision, valued for both its continental connections and its wealth. Cnut could not afford to stunt London's economic life through punitive repression. The Danish king's early years were then characterised by a series of carefully balanced retributive policies that were designed to remove London's agency for rebellion, while not crippling it as an established economic and commercial centre.

This text discusses current policies on Collection-Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record in England and Wales, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme that has been set up to deal with the results. It is argued that as a means of mitigation, this body is failing to keep pace with the damage. In the light of repeated claims made by British heritage professionals about the alleged 'benefits' accruing from partnership with 'responsible metal detectorists' (artefact hunters and collectors), the text breifly examines the degree to which the Scheme and its 'database' of recorded collectables can be used as archaeological data and as a research tool, taking the evidence for the Viking period as a case study.

In this essay, I examine the similarities between the Lake District in England and Iceland. Both places have tales of a Norse past and settlement, but these settlements were much more closely linked than has previously been discussed. Using place-name studies, I was able to compare almost identical names in both Iceland and the Lake District. I used some of the essential work of Gillian Fellows-Jensen, as well as newer scholarship by Ryan Mark Foster and Martina Domines Veliki to establish historical and onomastic links. Both locations share a distant Norse background with Ireland, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man. Though the Lake District has very little documentary evidence, especially in comparison with Iceland, using place-names, contemporary sources and Landnámabók, I was able to connect activity in Irish Sea to the settlement period of Iceland.
What first alerted me to these similarties was W.G. Collingwood’s nineteenth century work, A Pilgrimage to the Saga-steads of Iceland. Hailing from the Lake District, Collingwood visited Iceland to venture through the Icelandic landscape and to witness firsthand the farms and features the sagas described. In his account, he often compares parts of the Icelandic countryside to landscape features back in the Lake District. Literary tourism was originally born in the Lake District as people followed in the footsteps of Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth. This literary tourism that Collingwood brought to Iceland, however, was revolutionary in transforming how people interacted with the sagas and with the Icelandic landscape. This study aims at answering some questions as to why some Norse place-names went out of use in Iceland and how two very different places were eventually defined by their later literary output.

A Viking Age Anglo Scandinavian drinking horn finial.
From status symbol to symbol for vanity and luxury - showing the temptation of Christ.

This article I like to take you on a trip alongside one of the distinct Viking Age attributes of noble descent, the drinking horn.

In the forthcoming blogs I like you to take me along with a journey to Cumbria, England wich I just visited. Several interesting Viking Age stone sculpture artefacts can be seen there. The attractiviness is, they can be seen 'on the spot' (or very nearby, sheltered in the churches !) where they have always been. Almost no need to go to musea here - it is still there, in the wild..

This book tells the history of Cambridge from the earliest Roman and Anglo Saxon inhabitants through to the notorious Cambridge Spies, who actively spied for the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Told in an accessible manner, and illustrated throughout, the contents are:
1. Etheldreda: Born a Princess, Died a Saint
2. Vanquished by the Vikings: the sacking of Cambridge
3. Fire, Death and Murder at the Fairs: Stourbridge and Midsummer Fairs
4. Jousting Tournaments: history of jousts at Cambridge
5. The Black Death: death in Cambridge
6. Peasants' Revolt: attacks on Cambridge colleges during the revolt
7. Bloody Mary's Revenge on Cambridge
8. Burnt at the Stake: John Hullier, the Protestant Martyr
9. Bear-Baiting: cruel sport in Cambridge
10. Witches and Witchcraft: women killed for being witches
11. Bull-Baiting: more cruel Cambridge sports
12. The English Civil War: the fortification of Cambridge
13. Oliver Cromwell's Missing Head
14. Pressed for an Answer: Peine Forte et Dure
15. One in the Eye for Sir Isaac Newton
16. Highway Robbery: highway men in Cambridge
17. Branding: punishment for crimes
18. Bloody Burwell Fire: the death of 70 innocent people
19. Dick Turpin: his time hiding in Cambridge
20. Cockfighting: history of cockfighting at Cambridge
21. The Resurrection of Tristram Shandy - death of Laurence Stearne: grave robbers steal his body for dissection in the university
22. Cambridge Gallows: the tragedy of those hung at Cambridge
23. The Tragical Death of the Revd Samuel Reeve
24. The Chimneysweep Burglars: thefts from colleges
25. Elizabeth Woodcock and the Curse of the Three Tuns Inn
26. General Tom Thumb Causes a Riot
27. Sister Act: The Cambridge Arsenic Poisoners
28. The Three Tuns Inn: Den of Thieves
29. Burned Alive
30. Bloody Students: The Battle of Town and Gown
31. Fatal Bumps: death on the river Cam
32. Suffragette's Protest
33. The Great War: the role the university played in WWI
34. The Judases Who Betrayed from Within: the story of the Cambridge spies: Blunt, Burgess, Philby, MacLean, and others
35. The Enigma of the Second World War: the role Cambridge played in cracking the German enigma codes at Bletchley Park

Also attached are reviews of the book in the Cambridge News by Emma Higginbotham and a piece about Oliver Cromwell's Head, taken from the book.

This remarkable tiny-34mm x 10mm strap end from the Viking Age, found in England (Norfolk area) is a one-off. Decorated in the Urnes style with interlacing snake design, it can be addressed to the 11th century, the early 12th century the latest. The strap end seems to have attached on a small strap, considering its size. What kind of strap, or where the strap was part of, is unknown. This artefact is once again witness to the fact to what great extent craftsman would go adorning all details of every day use objects like straps. The image depicted is that of a zoomorphic animal head (could be the head of a snake, could be another animal like a dog or wolf) holding a captured snake in its jaws. The pierced holes on the end of the strap end were for attachment on the leather. The interwoven design of the curling snake is of great quality and is made by a very skilled craftsman within this tiny frame. The brown vaguely 'reddish' bronze is typical by artefacts from the Viking Age, made (and found) in England. Shown to Barry Ager, former curator in the British Museum, he reacted: 'It does appear to be a strap-end in the form of some kind of canine, wether a dog or wolf, as you suggest, catching a snake in its jaws. Could it be Fenrir, up to his tricks, maybe? Viking examples of the type are usually decrated in the Urnes style, but this more is more naturalistic, so is presumably late in the series, later 11th centuries and stylisticaly in the Viking/Norman range'. James Graham-Campbell adresses the design of the strap end as Anglo-Scandinavian. Shown to Kevin Leahy, Archaeological Finds Specialist and National Adviser at the Portable Antiques Scheme he responded that he would look for any parallels. Meanwhile, although the precise find spot won't be given by the metal detectorist who found it, I have mailed the Find Liason Officers of the Norfolk area, and await their response. If new insights pop up, I will add them on this article.

A recent resurgence of interest in Old Norse linguistic borrowings in Old English has greatly expanded our knowledge of the contact situation between these two speech communities in the early medieval period and beyond. However, there are a significant number of words that have been considered borrowings in the “other” direction, i. e. from Old English to Old Norse, which have not attracted the same amount of attention in current scholarship. Much of this material requires reassessment and this paper provides a case study of two parallel compound formations in both languages – OE bærsynnig [mann]/ON bersynðugr [maðr] (‘one who is openly sinful; publican’), and OE healsbōc/ON hálsbók (‘phylactery, amulet’, lit. ‘neck-book’) – that have traditionally been considered loan translations from Old English to Old Norse with little evidence other than their formation from cognate elements. In the absence of clear-cut linguistic criteria for identifying loan translations between these two closely related languages, this paper draws on a range of literary evidence to argue for a strong likelihood of a relationship between the two compounds. Both words offer important evidence for biblical translation practices, and contribute to our knowledge about the Christianisation of Norse speaking peoples and Anglo-Norse language contact in Viking Age England.