Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Remembering The Vikings: Select Histories From ‘Forgotten Vikings’, A New Study Of The Viking Age

Alex Harvey

Forgotten Vikings presents a new approach to the Viking Age that blends historical theory, archaeological fact, and mythological musings together, highlighting some unexplored and obscured histories of such a popular topic. Shedding their raiding, trading, invading, and crusading skins, this lecture aims to highlight a few choice elements about the Vikings that have evaded inclusion in popular history books. Including but not limited to; the ‘Viking’ legacy of the Roman Empire, the discovery of Madeira and the Azores, and a saga that may or may not describe Mexico, Forgotten Vikings will be introduced and briefly explored in this short talk, followed by a Q&A.

Published by Amberley Books on 15th September – copies will be available for purchase.

7pm in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre in the Yorkshire Museum

Member’s report

In a lecture as swift moving and wide ranging as a Viking longship in full sail Alex Harvey invited the membership to reconsider the long-established understanding of the Vikings in the light of recent scholarship, as set out in his new book, Forgotten Vikings. He did this by considering four aspects of Viking life: raiding, voyages, their stories and sagas, and identity.

On raiding he pointed out that while the Vikings were undoubtedly raiders, for us Lindisfarne is the obvious example, they were not the only raiding peoples in Europe at the time. Seaborne and from the North they were complemented in the south-east of Europe by the Magyars who moved along the riverways into Central Europe at this time. So raiding was not unique to the Vikings, nor were all Vikings raiders, as the trelleborgs of Scandinavia, defensive settlements against pirates, attest. In the conquered parts of Britain these burghs, as they were called, were also lived in by those of Scandinavian descent who had settled and intermarried with locals, as we in York know well from Coppergate. So the story is more nuanced.

On the voyages we no longer need to rely on the sagas, though these are a rich enough source in themselves, but science has revealed Viking presence in hitherto unknown destinations, with DNA from mice bones revealing Viking presence in the Azores and Madeira, probably from ships touching base there, maybe lost or damaged and needing repair, and thereby unlikely topics of a heroic narrative.

These narratives or sagas take the Vikings over the Northern hemisphere, from Greenland to the Black Sea, but they also take us into mythological places and the company of their gods, revealing a complex and sophisticated, if sometimes terrifying, spiritual and imaginative world. Some of these gods, like Odin and Loki, eventually began to co-exist with Christian symbolism on crosses in northern England, not least here in York on Sigurd’s grave cover, raising questions of acculturation and identity. This was most dramatically illustrated by a cloak clasp in the Museum of Scotland, with classic Celtic decorative features on the face, but with a runic inscription on the reverse which was, of course, visible only to the wearer. Did this reflect a dual identity, or was it a deliberate deception?

Our speaker left us to ponder the fate of two English kings, St Edmund who died fighting the Vikings in 869 and was subsequently canonised, and Cnut, born in Denmark, who at his death in 1035, having reigned as king for 20 years, was also king of Denmark and Norway.

There was much to think about in this speculative and challenging talk which, like all good lectures, raised as many questions as it answered. The members rose to the challenge in a lively discussion which ranged across linguistics, place-names, and literary criticism, as well as the more conventional archaeological terrain of finds and artefacts.

Bill Sheils