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Viking Age | In Britain: background | Short history | King Alfred | Later raids & rulers | Key concepts

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The Viking Age

The Vikings' homeland was Scandinavia: modern Norway, Sweden and Denmark. From here they travelled corking distances, mainly by sea and river – equally far as North America to the west, Russia to the eastward, Lapland to the due north and the Mediterranean World (Constantinople) and Republic of iraq (Baghdad) to the south.

We know about them through archæology, poetry, sagas and proverbs, treaties, and the writings of people in Europe and Asia whom they encountered. They left very little written evidence themselves. Besides as warriors, they were skilled craftsmen and boat-builders, adventurous explorers and wide-ranging traders. See Viking trade and Viking travel.

What nosotros phone call the Viking Historic period, and their relationship with England, lasted from approximately 800 to 1150 AD – though Scandinavian adventurers, merchants and mercenaries were of course active before and after this menstruum. Their expansion during the Viking Age took the form of warfare, exploration, settlement and trade.

During this period, effectually 200,000 people left Scandinavia to settle in other lands, mainly Newfoundland (Canada), Greenland, Republic of iceland, Ireland, England, Scotland, the islands around United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, France (where they became the Normans), Russia and Sicily. They traded extensively with the Muslim earth and fought as mercenaries for the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople (Istanbul). However, past the end of the 11th century the great days of Viking expansion were over.

Vikings in Great britain: background and legacy

Historians disagree nigh the origin of the word Viking. In Quondam Norse the give-and-take means a pirate raid, from either vikja (to move swiftly) or vik (an inlet). This captures the essence of the Vikings, fast-moving sailors who used the water as their highway to take them across the northern Atlantic, around the coasts of Europe and up its rivers to trade, raid or settle. In their verse they call the sea 'the whale road'.

Anglo-Saxon writers chosen them Danes, Norsemen, Northmen, the Swell Army, sea rovers, sea wolves, or the infidel.

From around 860AD onwards, Vikings stayed, settled and prospered in Britain, becoming office of the mix of people who today make upwardly the British nation. Our names for days of the week come mainly from Norse gods –Tuesday from Tiw or Týr, Wednesday from Woden (Odin), Th from Thor and then on. Many of their other words have as well become part of English, for case egg, steak, police force, die, breadstuff, downward, fog, muck, lump and scrawny.

To see questions children take asked almost the Vikings, encounter our Viking starter lesson.

A short history of the Vikings in Britain

In 793 came the first recorded Viking raid, where 'on the Ides of June the harrying of the heathen destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne, bringing ruin and slaughter' (The Anglo-Saxon Relate).

These ruthless pirates connected to make regular raids effectually the coasts of England, looting treasure and other goods, and capturing people every bit slaves. Monasteries were often targeted, for their precious silver or gold chalices, plates, bowls and crucifixes.

Gradually, the Viking raiders began to stay, first in winter camps, then settling in land they had seized, mainly in the east and north of England. Come across The Vikings settle down.

Outside Anglo-Saxon England, to the north of Britain, the Vikings took over and settled Republic of iceland, the Faroes and Orkney, becoming farmers and fishermen, and sometimes going on summer trading or raiding voyages. Orkney became powerful, and from there the Earls of Orkney ruled about of Scotland. To this twenty-four hour period, especially on the n-eastward declension, many Scots still bear Viking names.

To the west of Britain, the Mann became a Viking kingdom. The isle still has its Tynwald, or ting-vollr (assembly field), a reminder of Viking rule. In Ireland, the Vikings raided around the coasts and up the rivers. They founded the cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick as Viking strongholds.

Meanwhile, back in England, the Vikings took over Northumbria, East Anglia and parts of Mercia. In 866 they captured modernistic York (Viking proper name: Jorvik) and fabricated it their capital. They continued to press south and west. The kings of Mercia and Wessex resisted as best they could, but with niggling success until the time of Alfred of Wessex, the simply king of England to be called 'the Groovy'.

King Alfred and the Danes

King Alfred ruled from 871-899 and after many trials and tribulations (including the famous story of the called-for of the cakes!) he defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878. After the battle the Viking leader Guthrum converted to Christianity. In 886 Alfred took London from the Vikings and fortified it. The same year he signed a treaty with Guthrum. The treaty partitioned England between Vikings and English. The Viking territory became known every bit the Danelaw. It comprised the north-west, the north-eastward and e of England. Here, people would be subject area to Danish laws. Alfred became king of the rest.

Alfred's grandson, Athelstan, became the commencement true King of England. He led an English language victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Brunaburh in 937, and his kingdom for the get-go time included the Danelaw. In 954, Eirik Bloodaxe, the last Viking king of York, was killed and his kingdom was taken over past English language earls. Meet Egils Saga.

Later Viking raids and rulers

However, the Viking raiding did not stop – different Viking bands fabricated regular raiding voyages effectually the coasts of Britain for over 300 years afterwards 793. In 991, during the reign ofÆthelred 'the Unready' ('ill-brash'), Olaf Tryggvason's Viking raiding party defeated the Anglo-Saxon defenders (recorded in the verse form The Boxing of Maldon), withÆthelred responding by paying 'Danegeld' in an endeavour to buy off the Vikings.

So the Vikings were not permanently defeated – England was to have 4 Viking kings between 1013 and 1042. The greatest of these was Male monarch Cnut, who was king of Denmark as well as of England. A Christian, he did not force the English language to obey Danish constabulary; instead he recognised Anglo-Saxon law and community. He worked to create a north Atlantic empire that united Scandinavia and Britain. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 39, and his sons had short, troubled reigns.

The final Viking invasion of England came in 1066, when Harald Hardrada sailed up the River Humber and marched to Stamford Bridge with his men. His boxing banner was called Land-waster. The English king, Harold Godwinson, marched northward with his army and defeated Hardrada in a long and encarmine boxing. The English language had repelled the last invasion from Scandinavia.

All the same, immediately after the boxing, King Harold heard that William of Normandy had landed in Kent with all the same some other invading regular army. With no time to rest, Harold's ground forces marched swiftly dorsum southward to encounter this new threat. The wearied English regular army fought the Normans at the Boxing of Hastings on 14th Oct, 1066. At the end of a long day'due south fighting the Normans had won, King Harold was dead, and William was the new male monarch of England.

The irony is that William was of Viking descent: his groovy-great-great-grandfather Rollo was a Viking who in 911 had invaded Normandy in northern France. His people had become French over time, but in one sense this concluding successful invasion of England was another Viking one.

Vikings: key concepts

• Viking
• Raiding
• Invasion
• Settlement
• Danelaw

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Source: https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3867/the-vikings-in-britain-a-brief-history

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