By Catrine Jarman, University of Bristol

The Repton charnel burial, (c) Martin Biddle

In 873 the Viking Great Army attacked the monastery in Repton, forcing the Mercian king to flee the country and installing a puppet king in his place. 1100 years later, excavations led by archaeologists Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle at St Wystan’s Church in Repton in the 1970s and 1980s uncovered a large defensive ditch, several distinctly Scandinavian graves, and a mound covering a partially ruined building. Inside this, one room was packed with the commingled remains of at least 264 people, around 20 percent of whom were women.

Among the bones were Viking weapons and artefacts, including an axe, several knives, and five silver pennies dating to the period 872-875 A.D. 80 percent of the remains were male, mostly aged 18 to 45, with several showing signs of violent injury. During the excavations, everything pointed to the burial’s association with the Viking Great Army, but confusingly, initial radiocarbon dates suggested otherwise. It seemed to contain a mix of bones of different ages, meaning that they could not all have been from the Viking Age. So who were the people buried in the charnel mound?

In my research, I have used bioarchaeological methods – forensic analysis of bones and teeth – to try to learn about their geographical origins and resolve the confusing radiocarbon dates. I can now show that the original dates were affected by something called Marine Reservoir Effects, where consumption of marine foods made their remains seem older than they really were. I have also been able to use strontium isotope analysis to find out about the geographical origins of this group. Recently, in light of newly discovered Viking camps such as that in Torksey, Lincolnshire, doubts have been cast on the nature and extent of the winter camp in Repton. Results of new excavations can now give us a better understanding of this and also, begin to tell us more about the Viking presence in Repton and the legacy that the Great Army left behind.

Catrine Jarman will give a public lecture about her work on the remains from Repton in the Arts Lecture Theatre A30, University of Nottingham, on 28th February 2018 from 1pm. Although the event is fully booked, you can watch the live stream on the Nottingham Lakeside Arts Facebook page, where you can also catch up with many of the previous lectures.

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By Dr Sue Brunning

Pommel from the Bedale Hoard © Yorkshire Museums

Written sources from Viking period Britain create the impression that gold-hilted swords were typical weapons for high status warriors. Alfred the Great (871–99) described royal retainers wielding them; his father Æthelwulf (839–58) gifted one to the Holy See in Rome; and his grandson Eadred (946–59) bequeathed another. In the poem about the Battle of Maldon (991) the golden sword of Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, becomes a fulcrum of the action – enticing the fancy of a Viking raider who then delivers Byrhtnoth’s doom. The Old English maxim that ‘gold belongs on a man’s sword’ seems to confirm that these weapons were (or at least should be) the norm.

Archaeology tells a different story. While gold sword fittings are familiar from 6th and 7th contexts, they are almost entirely absent afterwards. Even the few later hilts with gold ornaments are still largely silver. So, where are the golden weapons of literary fame? Are we to imagine them as ancient heirlooms plucked from the Staffordshire Hoard? Were they, in fact, merely gilded? Did they even exist at all?

In 2012, these questions were answered. The Bedale Hoard, found by metal detectorists in North Yorkshire, contained a surprising ingredient. Among the hacksilver and ingots that we have come to expect from a hoard of this period were pieces of a massive iron sword hilt encrusted with gold, along with four solid gold grip bands. The shape of the fittings and the style of their ornament date the weapon to the ninth century. Here at last was a real-life gold-hilted sword from Scandinavian England. But the hilt’s discovery, and its presence in a silver hoard, pose other questions about swords, hoards and concepts of ‘value’ during this turbulent time. My lecture explores the Bedale hilt’s intriguing messages.

Dr Brunning will give a public lecture entitled From Poetry to Reality: The Gold-Trimmed Sword in the Bedale hoard in the Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham, on 21st February 2018 from 1pm. Although the event is fully booked, you can watch the live stream on the Nottingham Lakeside Arts Facebook page, where you can also catch up with many of the previous lectures.

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By Paul Everson

Borre ‘ring-chain’ in All Saints Church in Bakewell, Derbyshire. Picture by Roderick Dale

How do you make new discoveries of archaeological material dating from the Anglo-Scandinavian era in the East Midlands: the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries? And how do you contribute to scholarly and popular understanding of the Viking Age in England?

For myself and my friend and long-term academic collaborator, David Stocker, the answer is: ‘you visit every church and known former church site in the region, and you look for fragments – large and small – of carved and decorated stonework dating from around the Norman conquest and the preceding centuries’. You look in corners, under pews, in alcoves … in stone-heaps within and outside the building. In particular, you look at door lintels and thresholds; at quoins and window shelves; and you scour the fabric of walls, where bits discovered during Victorian restorations might have been built in for their interest and safe keeping. Commonly such material is only a fragmentary part of the original monument. But it represents the former presence of the whole item: a cross, a grave-cover, a grave-marker. There is a real buzz in making a new discovery!

Systematic fieldwork of this sort is time-consuming: a long-term commitment, within the framework of other colleagues doing the same in other counties and regions around England, so that in time there will be a catalogue of all known items of this sort for the whole country. But in Lincolnshire we identified nearly 400 such items and in Nottinghamshire nearly 150: many were first-time discoveries. Some are distinctive and one-off, with decoration, figures and imagery whose meaning we can attempt to explain. Many we can recognise as variations of repetitive, standard products. With such numbers, we can look at the stone types and where they were quarried; and therefore trace patterns of manufacture and distribution. And use: do they, for example, in the contemporary society of mixed origins and beliefs represent the first-generation foundation of the churches and churchyards in our region that are so familiar to us?

Paul Everson will give a public lecture on Viking Age stone sculpture in the East Midlands in the Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham, on 7th February 2018 from 1pm. Although the event is fully booked, you can watch the live stream on the Nottingham Lakeside Arts Facebook page, where you can also catch up with many of the previous lectures.

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By Professor Lesley Abrams

How helpful are the terms ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’, or the concept of the ‘conversion to Christianity’, in explaining the political, religious, and cultural transformation experienced in Scandinavian England in the ninth and tenth centuries?

The Brailsford Cross, Brailsford, Derbyshire

The Viking armies who came to Britain were initially followers of potentially diverse forms of paganism, with polytheistic beliefs and practices which were sufficiently fluid to adjust to the condition of being far from home and in contact in a variety of ways with Christian societies. Over time, English kings used the religious ritual of baptism to subordinate the leading men of defeated Viking armies (and perhaps their families). Some flexibility may have been allowed in the Christian ceremonies in these special circumstances. The Northumbrian Church seems to have lent its support to legitimise Viking kings, helping them to strengthen their hold over both their Scandinavian and their English subjects. The East Midlands was not a kingdom, however, but a region of Mercia, and the bishops of Leicester and Lindsey did not survive the Scandinavian takeover of 877, when ‘the army went away into Mercia and shared out some if it’. The subsequent division into smaller units based on central places (‘boroughs’) provides an interestingly different context, where paganism could arguably have flourished longer. After a military presence was established in defended centres like Derby and Nottingham there was also – eventually – a substantial settlement of Norse-speakers in the countryside. We know that these Scandinavians integrated into local culture, but we can only speculate about how they became Christian. Around the middle of the tenth century, the ecclesiastical map of the area seems to have been redrawn, shifting the centre of episcopal power south to Dorchester-on-Thames. Arguably, the most visible impact the generations of new Scandinavian Christians made in the East Midlands was the production of stone sculpture which combined English technology and aspects of Scandinavian visual culture, signalling, perhaps, a perceived new identity for all the Christians of the region.

Professor Abrams will talk about the conversion and Christianisation of the Vikings in England on 21st January 2018 from 1pm in the Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts, University of Nottingham. This talk will not be livestreamed.

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By Dr Richard Dance

What do English words like egg, husband, law, leg, sky and window have in common?  And what about words used in the dialects of northern and eastern England, like lug (‘ear’), mun (‘shall, must’) and rammy (‘disgusting’)?  The answer is that all these probably came into early English from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings.  And in fact it’s here, in English vocabulary, that we see some of the most vivid and enduring evidence for the influence of the Vikings on British life and culture.

Bone comb case from Lincoln with runic inscription reading ‘Thorfast made a good comb’. © The Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

In my talk in Nottingham on 10 January — called ‘Vikings in your vocabulary’ — I’ll be exploring this linguistic legacy from medieval Scandinavia and how we know about it.  We will trace the journey of some everyday English words from the languages of the Viking Age to the present day, and consider the crucial role played by the East Midlands in that story.  The talk will introduce the languages of the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings, including how to pronounce some words and phrases, before we consider the ways in which elements from Old Norse moved across into early English, and the reasons why we can still identify them.  We will also ponder what the English language might have looked like if this hadn’t happened!  As well as words in modern standard English, and in regional dialects, we will look at the language of medieval literature — focusing in particular on the rich and colourful language of Middle English poetry from the North Midlands, whose remarkable vocabulary shows a great deal of possible Viking influence.

This talk is part of ‘The Gersum Project’, a three-year, AHRC-funded research project taking place in Cambridge and Cardiff — and named after a medieval English word for ‘treasure’ borrowed from Old Norse.  You can follow The Gersum Project on Twitter (@GersumProject).

If you could not get tickets for Dr Dance’s lecture, you can see the lecture live-streamed on the Lakeside Arts Facebook page from 1-2pm on Wednesday 10th January 2018.

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By Kayla Kemhadjian

The Danelaw Saga exhibition housed in the Weston Gallery at Nottingham Lakeside Arts may seem like a small addition to the Bringing Vikings Back to The East Midlands project. However, intricately weaved in a room which typically houses manuscripts is a wealth of information about how the Vikings shaped the East Midlands. While I did not grow up in the East Midlands, or in the UK for that matter, I found that the gallery deftly described the impact of the Vikings on the area with easy-to-read signs, as well as my personal favourite: various early maps of the area. This thoughtful inclusion allows one to pinpoint the exact spaces being talked about around the room, and given its cosy berth, it is not out of one’s way to go back and forth between the map and various artefacts.

The exhibit also includes information on the reimagining of the Viking era by increasingly modern artists and scholars. This addition was especially interesting to me as I study medievalisms (the modern appropriation of the medieval period) and an exhibit explicitly pointing to the impact of the Vikings on the modern age, not only through their actions and innovation, but also through the transmission of the very artefacts and stories we are studying, was a nice change. It allows the public, and me, to think of questions relating to their own interest in the period, where that stems from, and how what they expect to see in such an exhibition plays into the creation of it.

For instance, in one of the cases which pays special interest to such a reimagining, Professor Christine Fell the first female head of the School of English is given attention. Having read some of her scholarship as part of my studies, yet having known nothing about her, this addition gave me a sense of belonging that is typically reserved for classes or art. Moreover, the inclusion of and interest in women, both from the Viking Age and the modern, allows other women who are interested in the period like myself to see themselves studying it, or become otherwise involved. This narrative is not the typical Viking story of rape and pillaging in the name of being heathen, which the layman who has only learned of a ‘viking’ through modern media seems to think of when we say the term. However, I think those that are interested enough to enter the Weston Gallery will gain a greater understanding of the age and what it inspires. They certainly would have more of a rounded understanding of what it is I do when I tell them I am on the MA Viking and Anglo-Saxon studies course. Suffice to say, I would call Danelaw Saga a success.

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By Jessica Sims

When most people think of the Midlands, they think of a place neither here nor there – a grey area in Britain with no discernable features of its own. Academics interested in the study of the Viking Age have tended to look at areas further north such as York when thinking about Viking settlement, mostly because the surviving literature we have points to these areas as being key in the Scandinavian colonisation – but here at Nottingham, staff and students alike are keen to bring the Vikings back to the Midlands by re-asserting the significant impact they made here.

With a wide-ranging collection of artefacts from Lincoln, North Yorkshire and more, the Viking: Rediscover the Legend exhibit at the Djanogly Gallery, Lakeside, utilises various different spaces in order to display different forms of evidence for Viking settlement that has been discovered in the regions of Britain. The spaces are easy to navigate and each area relates to a certain aspect of what life was like during the Viking Age: from jewellery to combs, spear heads to sculpture, there is very little (if anything) that isn’t addressed in some capacity at the exhibit. The accompanying signs are clear, informative, and accessible to a wide audience, from students to the general public. It is in this sense that the exhibition should be regarded a huge success, and the entry numbers to the exhibition since its opening speak for themselves.

But one thing that does crop up in conversation is this: how can an exhibition aimed predominantly at a non-specialist audience benefit students on an MA in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies? The answer is simple, at least it is for me. Having been introduced to the Viking Age in my first year as an undergraduate here at the University, I remember all too well how daunting medieval history can be to someone relatively unfamiliar with it. The Vikings have been misconstrued in various different forms of media in popular culture, painted as aggressive, pillaging (and most importantly) male invaders, and it is hard to shake that idea when it’s all you’ve ever known. Abandoning that pre-existing concept of a period of history and re-evaluating it is difficult even as an MA student, but the exhibition challenges all of us to look at more than just warriors and mythology when considering the Viking Age. It challenges us to see the Vikings as home-makers, traders, gamers and fashionistas (visit yourself and you’ll be in awe of some of their jewellery!). As someone who works in heritage at the moment, and plans on doing so after graduation, I believe that challenging and questioning pre-conceptions about history is key to a successful exhibition. The locals as well as the students have received the exhibition with open arms and it is truly fantastic to see Nottingham reclaiming some historic identity and renewing an interest in a period of history most had already closed the chapter on. We students are grateful to bring Vikings back to the forefront of people’s minds, and thankfully, we can now do so in a capacity that isn’t The Avengers.

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By Ursula Ackrill

The Weston Galley’s Danelaw Saga tells a new and exciting story with Viking finds borrowed from museums as well as with manuscript and printed exhibits sourced from Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham. The exhibition complements the current University of Nottingham Museum’s exhibition Viking: Rediscover the Legend by focusing on the East Midlands’ Viking settlement and connecting this to the Victorian rediscovery of the Old Norse cultural landscape. Danelaw Saga begins with an invasion evidenced by ordinary day-to-day objects that the Northmen carried to the East Midlands in their luggage and by alien artefacts encountered here by them such as the Repton warrior stone. The Anglo-Saxon population of the East Midlands lived alongside the Viking hamlets and villages which sprang up all over the Danelaw, where Viking laws and government reigned across five boroughs (Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford). This is evident because Old Norse words entered the Old English language and are still in common use today. Moreover, Viking place-names from the days of the Danelaw still adorn the map of the East Midlands. Medieval manuscripts and an online database of place-names reveal the Viking origins of many localities.

Invasion and settlement were followed by assimilation over centuries to the point where people of Viking descent became indistinguishable from the other inhabitants. The culture of the Vikings, however, made a comeback comparable to a second invasion. Thanks to the print revolution, interest in Old Norse language and literature took hold of the imagination of Scandinavian peoples and spread into Britain and continental Europe. Old Icelandic texts translated into modern languages played an important role in conceptualising national identities in northern Europe in the 19th century. One early example of Viking reinstatement in mainstream culture is documented in an exchange of ideas between the great German poet Friedrich Schiller and his translator Joseph Charles Mellish of Blyth which took place in Weimar in c.1800. Schiller actually encouraged Mellish to write an opera about King Alfred the Great’s strategic retreat and subsequent victory over the Danish king Guthrum. Later on Victorian authors William and Mary Howitt claimed that the British Empire’s global success was in fact a late flowering of the Vikings’ legacy, Britain having made the most of the social and entrepreneurial liberties imported by her invaders from a thousand years ago. A scramble for Scandinavian heritage ensued, particularly between Britain and Germany, but the Old Norse patrimony proved flexible enough to sustain different collective identities and outlooks over time. In the 20th century the local author Hilda Lewis charmed the readers of her 1939 children’s novel The Ship that Flew by updating the Viking war-ship for the age of automotive travel. Her ship functions like a hovercraft with an in-built time travel kit but draws its magic at the same time from legend, being a model ship of a Viking vessel.
In Danelaw Saga the story of Viking influence from settlement through to reimagined heritage comes full circle. This exhibition performs the latest reimagining by placing the Viking cultural strand back on foundations unearthed by archaeology and authenticated by scientific research.

The printed materials in the exhibition are sourced mainly from the collection donated by the family of the Icelandic scholar and diplomat Eiríkur Benedikz to the University of Nottingham Eiríkur Benedikz Icelandic Collection, MS718/2/1

Friday 15 December 2017 – Sunday 8 April 2018

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By John Baker

A feature of the Viking diaspora was the establishment of Thing sites, places of regular popular gatherings, where disputes were settled and justice was done. The Old Norse word thing (usually written þing) meant ‘assembly’, and some Thing sites are famous as places of government—Thingvellir, location of the Icelandic Althing, Tinganes, historically the seat of Faroese government, and Tynwald, traditional parliament of the Isle of Man (pictured right, photo by Cassidy Croci).

Place-names, coupled with field-work, has revealed many more such sites across the regions settled by Scandinavian people during the Viking Age, including examples in the East Midlands, such as Thynghowe in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, which is an Old Norse compound þing-haugr ‘assembly mound’.

However, this tradition of public assembly was shared by the Anglo-Saxons. Among the range of vocabulary they used to describe these places of governance was Old English þing, the direct cognate of the Old Norse word, but other elements, such as mæðel ‘speech, assembly’ and (ge)mōt ‘meeting’ are more distinctively Old English. Anglo-Saxon sources give us a reasonable idea of the development of public assembly in England. By combining an analysis of place-names with careful field-work and archaeological assessment, we are able to identify these important sites and learn more about their function in the landscape and their role within local society.

John Baker teaching in the field – Photo by Cassidy Croci

To find out more about thing sites attend Dr John Baker’s lecture Assembling Vikings: Thinking through things in the East Midlands on 6 December 2017, 1:30-2:30pm at Lakeside Arts Centre room A30.

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By Cassidy Croci

Before the Great Heathen Army descended upon the East Midlands in the late ninth century, the area was known as Mercia, a kingdom controlled by the Anglo-Saxons. Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture is scattered across this landscape. On Monday 17^th July members of the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age set out to explore some of this stone sculpture.

The first stop was St Helen’s Church, Stapleford. In the churchyard sits the Stapleford Cross (800 to 850 AD). It is a looming cross shaft engraved with an image believed to be of the Archangel Michael. Michael with his halo and wings holds a spear and stands upon a slain serpent. The cross is said to be ‘by far the most important pre-Conquest monument in Notts’ (Pevsner 1951: 336).

Stapleford Cross. Picture by Cassidy Croci

Breedon Priory can be seen resting on a massive hill from miles away. It is no wonder that the place-name Breedon on the Hill is composed of the Celtic element breg ‘a hill’ combined with Old English dūn ‘a hill’ and the later affix ‘on the Hill’. That’s right the place-name means hill hill on the hill! Breedon Priory (founded originally as a monastery in the seventh century) is home to a large collection of Anglo-Saxon stone carvings and features some of the oldest surviving Anglo-Saxon pieces. Discover beasts, birds, vines, Celtic design, and religious figures plastered into the walls during one of the church’s restorations.

Next we visited All Saints Church, Bakewell. Anglo-Saxon stones are stacked upon each other in all areas of the church. One block is carved with the Borre ‘ring chain’. The Borre style is unequivocally Viking in origin and the ‘ring chain’ is ‘remarkably uniform wherever it is found’ (Wilson and Klindt-Jensen 1980: 88). Could this suggest that a Viking craftsman was amongst the Anglo-Saxons in the East Midlands? Another potential ‘Viking’ find is on an Anglo-Saxon Cross. It has been suggested that this carving is Odin on his horse Sleipnir with the mythological squirrel Ratatosk below. However, this horse only has four legs and Sleipnir had eight, which indicates that this interpretation may not be correct.

Viking Borre ‘ring-chain’ design. Picture by Roderick Dale

The last stop on our tour was St Mary’s Church in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. The church is known for the Wirksworth Stone, an Anglo-Saxon coffin lid, illustrating the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. There is also a stone affectionately called by the locals ‘T’owd man’ which is reputedly the oldest Anglo-Saxon depiction of a miner.

Stay tuned for more blog posts about CSVA excursions and Bringing Vikings Back to the East Midlands.

Sources

Wilson, D.M. and Klindt-Jensen, O. (1980). Viking Art. 2^nd edn. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Pevsner, N (1951).The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.  

Key to English Place-Names (KEPN) (2017). Key to English Place-Names [Online]. Available from: http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/ [Accessed 25 July 2017].

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