User talk:Andrew Lancaster/Anglo-Saxon drafting
Early Viking raids
edit- AS:
The wealth of the monasteries and the success of Anglo-Saxon society attracted the attention of people from mainland Europe, mostly Danes and Norwegians. Because of the plundering raids that followed, the raiders attracted the name Viking – from the Old Norse víkingr meaning an expedition – which soon became used for the raiding activity or piracy reported in western Europe.[1] In 793, Lindisfarne was raided and while this was not the first raid of its type it was the most prominent. In 794, Jarrow, the monastery where Bede wrote, was attacked; in 795 Iona in Scotland was attacked; and in 804 the nunnery at Lyminge in Kent was granted refuge inside the walls of Canterbury. Sometime around 800, a Reeve from Portland in Wessex was killed when he mistook some raiders for ordinary traders.
Viking raids continued until in 850, then the Chronicle says: "The heathen for the first time remained over the winter". The fleet does not appear to have stayed long in England, but it started a trend which others subsequently followed. In particular, the army which arrived in 865 remained over many winters, ....
- ^ Sawyer, Peter Hayes, ed. Illustrated history of the Vikings. Oxford University Press, 2001
- History
Between the 8th and 11th centuries, raiders and colonists from Scandinavia, mainly Danish and Norwegian, plundered western Europe, including the British Isles.[1] These raiders came to be known as the Vikings; the name is believed to derive from Scandinavia, where the Vikings originated.[2][3] The first raids in the British Isles were in the late 8th century, mainly on churches and monasteries (which were seen as centres of wealth).[2][4] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that the holy island of Lindisfarne was sacked in 793.[5] The raiding then virtually stopped for around 40 years; but in about 835, it started becoming more regular.[6]
In the 860s, instead of raids, the Danes mounted a full-scale invasion. In 865, an enlarged army arrived that the Anglo-Saxons described as the Great Heathen Army....
- ^ Sawyer, The Oxford illustrated history of Vikings, p. 1.
- ^ a b Sawyer, The Oxford illustrated history of Vikings, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Standard English words which have a Scandinavian Etymology. Viking: "Northern pirate. Literally means creek dweller."
- ^ Starkey,Monarchy, Chapter 6: Vikings
- ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 793.This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island (Lindisfarne), by rapine and slaughter.
- ^ Starkey, Monarchy, p. 51
- ^ Starkey, Monarchy p. 65
- A pretty flat contradiction here "The raiding then virtually stopped for around 40 years". AS is longer, but lacking refs for the detail. History is a bit weakly refed - David Starkey may hold some "Anglo-Saxon attitudes", but is no specialist on this period. Johnbod (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)