So Apart from Place Names, Surnames, Hoards and English…
When the Vikings arrived at the back end of the eighth century, they were still ostensibly a pre-literate, pagan-worshipping Iron Age people. It’s true that for much of their stay they were berserk axemen you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night, but as well as language and proper nouns they left their mark in many other ways.
They heavily influenced the rule of law and democracy, setting up the Tynwald on the Isle of Man, the world’s oldest continuous parliamentary body. They took their place in our regal history. Indeed, England had four Viking kings including Cnut. Viking women enjoyed a substantial degree of equality in the familial hierarchy and they developed improvements to farming and fishing, even importing the famous Herdwick sheep breed.
But more important than any of that – the Vikings created England. Granted not directly, but without them it’s unlikely England as we know if would exist at all.
Before the Vikings came to Britain, the divided Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were locked in an internecine struggle for supremacy. The Vikings swept all that away, destroying all these kingdoms with the exception of Alfred’s Wessex. The slow, methodical campaign to reclaim all the lands lost to the Vikings played out over more than two centuries and the end result was a single, unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom - England.
And Remember… Vikings Never Leave Quietly
The last throw of the Viking dice was in September 1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, when King Harold Godwinson’s English army faced off against the Viking forces of King HaraldHardrada and, bizarrely, Godwinson’s own brother.
The Scandinavians were defeated in a vast and bloody battle and the few survivors were allowed to leave after pledging not to attack England again. Less than a month later King Harold himself was defeated by William the Conqueror, a Norman duke on the battlefield of Hastings. And who were the Normans? They were Northmen. Otherwise known as…Vikings.
So they actually won. Stick that in your rør and smoke it.
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