S13E03

You didn't use my code word in your response, so I don't really know if you found the message I left in the last transcript or not. Please try and find it, D-man o((>ω< ))o

Welcome to Echoes of History, the place to explore the rich stories from the past that bring the world of Assassin's Creed to life. I'm Matt Lewis. In the previous two episodes, we've introduced ourselves to the High King of Ireland and to the original Halloween, Sowain. Assassin's Creed Valhalla gives us close encounters with both of those, but it also recreates whole countries for us to explore. We can build our own Viking town even, which begs the question, what were Viking settlements in Ireland and Britain like? The dawn light invades your slumber in the longboat. You groan as you stir and stretch. It's been a long night crossing the water. The bright sun does nothing to thaw the chill in your bones from the sea air. You shiver and think that such an uncomfortable journey had better be worth it. As you stoop to duck under the broad sail of the longboat and sink into the sea, as you stoop to duck under the broad sail of the longboat and step over the other sleeping travellers, you look out to the horizon. To your relief, land is in sight. More than that, you can see the silhouettes of buildings on the shore. You've arrived. The irregular wooden constructs of this new town make the coastline rather higgledy-piggledy. Even if you hadn't heard of this place, you could tell at a glance that it sprang up recently. You look down at the water as you approach the harbour. It's peculiarly dark, like a black pool. You turn your attention away from this curiosity and to the jetty ahead, as your pilot steers the longboats elegantly over the shallows and into port. The path is muddy as you trudge into town. In this damp climate, you doubt the ground is ever dry. As you pass through the gate in the wooden wall around the settlement, you feel that this isn't like the burrs and chesters of the Anglo-Saxons with their centuries of history and sturdy defences. And when you make your way through the busy streets of traders and craftsmen and warriors, darting between the simple huts with hastily thatched roofs, you feel the thrill of the new. This town has a rawness to it, a sense of hunger and ambition. This is your first time in this land, but surprisingly, it feels like home. All around you are the familiar sights of carved decorations, the familiar smells of traditional recipes and the familiar sounds of your mother tongue from a thousand mouths. Except for that merchant over there, the words he speaks are very different. And judging from his clothes and hairstyle, he's not from around here. The strange merchant concludes his business and walks past you. As he does, he looks you up and down with a mean glare and says a blunt word at you under his breath. Startled, you ask another merchant, one of your own, if he heard what the stranger said. The man replies, yes. The stranger had said an unkind word. Foreigner. With a blush, you realise your mistake. The stranger was no stranger at all. Of course, he is from around here. This town is so much like home you'd forgotten that it was planted here by travellers like you, the fresh sapling that yearns to grow deep roots. Walking the streets of a Viking age town is a treat in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. But what was it really like? What impact did the settlements of seafaring Vikings have on the people and politics of medieval Britain and Ireland? To help me find the answers to these questions, I'm joined by Fiona Edmonds, professor in regional history at Lancaster University and author of the prize-winning book, Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom, The Golden Age and The Viking Age. Welcome to Echoes of History, Fiona. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into some Viking stuff. Assassin's Creed Valhalla gives us the opportunity to experience kind of Britain and Ireland during the Viking Age. So just for a little bit of context, can you tell us when we are, when we think about the Viking Age, when in history are we? Yeah, so traditionally, if we're talking about Britain, it was thought that the start of the Viking Age was in 793, which was the year of a raid on Lindisfarne. Now, Lindisfarne was a very important monastery off the coast of what's now northeast England, so then in the Kingdom of Northumbria. And the news of this raid spread far and wide. It seems to have been very disruptive. Letters were written about it by a Northumbrian churchman called Alquinn. And so that raid is well attested. Now, when we look into the Irish Sea, Irish chroniclers are already talking about the same kind of activity from 794, 795, so they're very close in time. But it has been considered whether there could have been earlier raids of that type that less well recorded or less well known. Certainly, there appears to be an attack on Portland in Dorset in 789. So that's a bit earlier. That's in the English Channel. And it's been considered whether there could be earlier activity across the North Sea. Certainly, there are earlier contacts. And another location where there's been a lot of debate about this is the Northern Isles. So that's Alquinn in Shetland, and they're, of course, lying quite close to Scandinavia. But overall, what we're seeing recorded, at least in the text, is an upsurge in activity, particularly raiding in the 790s. And I guess the one on Lindisfarne is so often the pin in the map, because that is so shocking and news of it spreads so wide. But I guess we shouldn't be thinking that that's necessarily the first time that the Vikings has emerged. This is just when everyone starts to think of them as a really serious threat. Yes. And it's quite possible there would have been earlier contacts across the North Sea. Well, that's indeed very likely. There are trading routes. It's just that something does seem to change in what's being recorded in the 790s. And there's been a lot of debate about why that would be. So what the factors might be here, all sorts of suggestions. So one interesting factor may be that there's an influx of silver into Scandinavia from the eastern trading routes, and whether that has a sort of knock-on effect of making other groups go seeking wealth in Britain and Ireland. Certainly, some of the plundered goods are returning to Norway, certain parts of western Norway in particular. But the pattern is quite varied. So there's no unity to this activity at all. It all seems quite chaotic. And then there are other possibly longer-term factors that have been suggested. So changes in ship technology, climatic warming, which may be opening up new routes of exploration, new lands, and also the social dynamics, the political dynamics within Scandinavia, which has all sorts of little political entities at this time going through a process of competition. So there's maybe all sorts of reasons why the raiding is occurring. But from the point of view of the chroniclers in Britain and Ireland, the 790s seems to be quite a pivotal moment. And the people involved in this raiding will sort of acquire the name of Viking, which has been suggested to mean sort of like men who row, or raiders, or pirates, or something like that. Did the Irish call them the same thing? Was Viking kind of a universal term for these people? So that term is attested in Old Norse. So in this context, in this period, particularly if we look at Runic inscriptions, or a bit later on if we look at sagas, that term has a very specific meaning. So meaning raider, essentially, and it's not used in the way that it has come to be used in more modern times in a more generalized way for whole groups of people, or things to do with medieval Scandinavia. So rather than that, the Norse term has quite a specific usage. There is a term in Old English, which is similar, but again, it's used in very precise, specific ways, not even applied to all raiders from Scandinavia. Then if we look at Ireland, and now looking in the Irish language, there's a different set of terminology again. So one that we find quite frequently in these annals or chronicles that I've mentioned is gael, which means, well, originally actually, and this is interesting, it comes from Gaul. So that would be effectively France in the Roman era. And we may be looking there at contact with Gaulish merchants, but it has a more general meaning of foreigner, and it comes then to be repurposed for what we might think of as Viking raiders in the Viking age. So that's one of the terms you find frequently. The other one is gienti, which means something like heathen, and heathen is a term that we have in Old English in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as well. So that's a chronicle being written in England. Yeah, we have the great heathen army that arrives in England, don't we? So those are the kind of words that they're using for these arrivals, is something like heathen, something like raider, something like foreigner, more generically an island. Yeah, so the great heathen army is arriving in Eastern England in the 860s, and that is an interesting phenomenon, sort of grouping together of various forces. But even before that, you have a similar sort of terminology being used by Irish chronicles, but the languages are different. So you've got Irish terminology on the one hand, and Old English terminology on the other, but they seem to be describing the same phenomenon in fairly similar ways. And that's probably because those chronicles are being written by similar authors in the same kinds of institutions, so by and large, within the church. Although it has to be said that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is compiled initially for the court of King Alfred. So there's a particular reason for the coming into being of that chronicle in the form we see it now. And we know that the Anglo-Saxons view the Vikings as a very serious military threat. They will frequently buy them off, they will be battles fought with them and things like that. Do we have a sense of the Irish viewing them in the same way as a really hostile invasion force almost? Well, I don't think we should dispute the idea that these raids were perceived as violent for those on the receiving end, perceived as extremely disruptive. In the 790s into the early 9th century, a lot of the locations targeted were monasteries or hermitages lying on islands off the coast. And so from the point of view of people in those locations, certainly these raids were seen as frightening, really. And we have testimony to that, not just in the chronicles. There's quite a famous poem which is actually written into the side of a manuscript. And this is a monk in an Irish monastery, a scribe, who says, well, the weather is stormy tonight, and therefore I don't fear the coursing of the waves by the fierce warriors from Lochlan. And Lochlan is a term used sort of vaguely for the northern vaguely Scandinavian area. But it just gives the sense that, yes, if the weather were not stormy, this individual might well fear the coursing of the waves by those raiders. Of course, as time goes on, the nature of the activity does change. So by the time we're into the 830s, 840s, we're starting to see overwintering the establishment of encampments in the longer run permanent settlements. And once that's happened, there is more interaction between those groups and the surrounding inhabitants. So we're thinking military alliances, marriage alliances in the longer run, fosterage arrangements. And so inevitably the dynamic is going to shift in that period. Interesting. And when we think about those Scandinavian arrivals, initially raiders becoming settlers, what would have really differentiated them from the Gaelic-speaking population of Ireland at the time? Obviously, language would have been a big barrier. And when do we see those barriers begin to break down? Oh, that's such an interesting question. And language in this era is, well, it absolutely fascinates me because I think early medieval Ireland and Britain became quite multilingual in this period. And to think about how interactions were occurring is really interesting. So yes, initially there would have been a language barrier because Old Norse is a language of the Germanic family, whereas Irish is of the Celtic family. And so these languages really are quite different. And it would be fairly challenging to learn one language from the other or to make correspondences between them. Now, if we compare the situation in England, Old English is also a Germanic language. So those correspondences are a bit easier to make. But in the long run, this is not to say that people can't learn the other language. Indeed, they absolutely do. There's plenty of evidence for bilingualism. In some places, I think even trilingualism and even more than that. So fairly close to where I'm based in Northwest England, we've got evidence for four languages being spoken in a very restricted area. So that's Old Norse, Old English, some form of Gaelic or Gallic, Irish or Scottish Gallic, and also the Bretonnic language or Welsh. And so there it's a completely multilingual area. What we also see is borrowing between languages. So we've got terminology coming from Norse into Irish or Scottish Gallic and vice versa. So just one example of that is the word scare, which means an offshore rock. And that's quite common in Irish and Scottish Gallic, but it's borrowed from Norse. And that's interesting because it makes you think about people sailing around the coasts and naming these landmarks or sea marks in different languages in different ways, but some interchange between people speaking those different languages as well. And presumably, alongside the language barrier, there's kind of a religious barrier too, because a lot of Christian commentators at the time will view these pagan arrivals as some sort of punishment from God. And presumably the Irish have Christianity settled on the island of Ireland, and these pagans arrive. Does that cause an extra degree of tension in the relationship too? Well, certainly the chroniclers do notice the religious difference. I've already mentioned those terms, gienty in the Irish Chronicles, heathen in the English Chronicles, which do remark on that religious difference. So Ireland and the English kingdoms, Wales and Scotland had all been Christianised between, well, going way back into the early medieval Paris. So certainly going from the fifth, sixth, seventh centuries. So these are long Christianised areas, and certainly the early raiders would have been pagan. And we can see that in archaeology as well. So if we look at some interesting ship burials, so there's an example at Coloran Bay Collins, say, for example, which is just one, but also in the early 10th century on the Isle of Man, we have several of these. So these are ship burials very lavishly equipped, and they suggest a very significant difference in the burial practices from the inhabitants of those areas. But again, as time goes on, that dynamic will shift. So we start to see conversions of the leaders of the Great Army to Christianity. So Guthrum famously, after the Battle of Eddington in 878, after he surrenders, he's baptised. And of course, this is under the aegis of King Alfred. So that is an early example. But if we go on into the next century, we can see some political links leading to conversions of leaders who are active in Ireland as well. And then when we're in the late 10th century, if we look at a leader of Dublin at that time, Olaf Couron, he actually ends his life by going on pilgrimage to Iona. So Iona is this very important monastery off the coast of Western Scotland, founded by St. Columba. So Olaf Couron ends his life there. But that's very interesting because Iona was subject to Viking raids in the early 9th century. And indeed, one of those became quite famous in 825. So we can see a real change in the dynamic there. I always think the Vikings must have thought it was hilarious that all the Christians kept all their greatest riches in places with absolutely no military presence whatsoever. They must have thought it was Christmas. Not that pagans think of it as Christmas, but they must have thought all their birthdays had come at once when they turned up at a monastery and it's full of gold and silver and no soldiers. Well, it's interesting. I mean, undoubtedly, the portable metalwork, so the metalwork on the shrines was being targeted in those early raids. And some of that is found in Norway. So it certainly goes back to western Norway, parts of western Norway in particular. And also, yes, I mentioned that raid on Iona in 825. So there's a very emotive, even distressing account of a monk called Blathmak who decides to defend the shrine of St. Columba by hiding it. And for that he's killed. But again, this becomes quite famous. It circulates in a poem on the continent. So this act is obviously remembered very widely. But it leaves no doubt that Iona was the subject of raiding activity in the 825. It was violent. It was seen as quite shocking. By 981, Ulaaf Kuron, leader of Dublin, is going there on pilgrimage. It's a fascinating shift in the attitudes, I guess. When we think about our sources for this period too, you've mentioned that we have some annals and we have archaeological evidence. How reliable is some of that evidence? I'm guessing that a lot of the written evidence is going to be particularly from a British and Irish point of view because the Vikings weren't great on writing their travel logs at this point. But I suppose the archaeology to some extent balances that out because that's much less biased. Oh, interesting. I mean, if only we did have more travel logs. Although there is something of that type from a voyager in the north called Ochterra. And he goes to the court of King Alfred and consequently his travel log, if we want to call it that, is written down. But of course you're right that by and large we're in a society that is oral. And really that's true across northern Western Europe, wherever we want to talk about in this period. It's literacy is not prevalent. So of course the written text that we have are coming from a fairly limited social milieu. There is writing in the Runic alphabet in Scandinavia and that is brought into Britain and Ireland as well. So we have Runic inscriptions, very fine ones on crosses in the Isle of Man. We have some of that in northern England as well. We have Runic inscriptions on other media, sometimes quite informal in places like Dublin. So there was some writing, but certainly not as much as we might like. And then we also have texts mostly written in Latin, but to some extent also in Irish and Old English in monasteries. So coming from the background of church men writing down, so say a year on year account of what's happened. But that of course is quite different from a detailed travel log and if only we had more of those. Yeah, and I guess we need to be aware that lots of those sources, as you say, they're written by Christian monks in a monastery who are to some extent the primary target of the violence of the Vikings. So they have a very particular view of the threat that the Vikings pose, which I guess colours their accounts of the Vikings and their arrivals. Yeah, in the year of the raiding, certainly, I don't think we should diminish the idea that those raids were genuinely very disruptive and frightening. But conversely, we have to acknowledge the background and the purpose for which those kinds of texts are being kept. As I said, it does change as we go on in time. So once we get into the 10th century, we have, for example, some praise poetry in honour of Olaf Kuron, who I mentioned before, very powerful leader of Dublin, and also it should be said York, because at one time Dublin and York were ruled together as a sort of cross-sea kingdom, which is very interesting. So again, you know, the nature of the text has changed and we get a somewhat different insight into leaders like Olaf Kuron by the later 10th century. And just focusing on Dublin for a moment, there's an expansion to Assassin's Creed Valhalla that lets players travel over to Dublin and view it in the late ninth century. And players will experience it as pretty much just a Norse settlement, like a newly sprung up town. Is that likely to be the case? Did the Vikings sort of found Dublin? So we learn in the Irish Annals of the establishment of a long fort at Dublin in 841. A long fort literally means a ship encampment. So that gives you quite a nice insight into how that settlement begins. Duvlin, which means the black pool. So this is sort of centred around a lagoon. If you can imagine the ships being taken off the River Liffey into this lagoon, it's not there anymore. But that's what the name literally means. And so you get the sense of this maritime focused. What might indeed have been intended initially as a temporary encampment, but the analyst then tells us, well, it's still there the next year, which is remarkable. And of course it remains. And by the later ninth century, though, there would certainly have been buildings springing up. So we can imagine those as what's called post and wattle structures. And interestingly, it's been suggested that there's some similarity between those structures in Cowpang, which is a Norwegian urban settlement. So that's fascinating in this context. Then some of those will continue on into the 10th century, but the city is going to start expanding, become a real hub for trade, for production, all sorts of imports and exports. And by the 11th century, it's a really significant urban center, undoubtedly the preeminent urban center for the Irish Sea region. And is that kind of pattern for the establishment of what may originally have been kind of a base for raiding then becomes an overwintering site, which develops into a permanent town? Is that fairly typical of the way the Vikings operated in Britain? Well, it seems that there were a lot of those temporary encampments that were genuinely temporary, so they never turned into a permanent settlement, an important urban focus like Dublin would. But there are other towns of that type in Viking Age Ireland. So we can think about Waterford and Wexford, for example, both of which are Norse place names. And then if we look across the Irish Sea, we have the trading partners of Dublin, Chester initially by the 11th century Bristol. And then perhaps the best point of comparison would be York and as or Jorvik, but as mentioned earlier, those two cities are actually being run as one political entity at times in the early 10th century. So inevitably, there was going to be quite a lot of contact between them. But there is a significant difference with York. York had, of course, been an important Roman centre, so there were already stone walls there, quite what kind of a state they were in, not sure, but they were there, demarcating an urban settlement. York Minster is there in the Roman fort and that survives through the early medieval period. And there's also a pre-Viking trading site at Ephawitch, which is at the River Confluence. So York is a going concern when the Great Army takes control of it in 866-7, whereas Dublin seems to be being established without that kind of pre-existing urban focus. Although it should be said that there was a monastery there called Arthcleith, which means the Ford of the Wattle. So that name is also applied to Dublin. Who would be some of the kind of most notable leaders of Norse Britain? So in Ireland, in England, what are some names that people may or may not be aware of that we should know? Yeah, so if we look to the 850s, we can start to see leaders trying to take submissions from some of these, if we want to call them Viking groups, active in Ireland. And some of those individuals are also going to become important in Britain. So just to take one example, we have Olaf, called son of the king of Loughlin. So I mentioned Loughlin area earlier. It's a name that's applied to a sort of vaguely northern or Scandinavian location from an Irish perspective. So he appears to be taking submissions from various Viking groups in Ireland and also some of the Irish themselves are paying tribute to him. And then he has an associate called Ivar, and Ivar is likely to be a name that's well known. So Ivar and Olaf go on to have various expeditions together, becoming more and more ambitious. And just one example of that is in 870, when they sail over to Dunbarton. Dunbarton is north of the Clyde, so that's now in Scotland. And there was this important citadel there, and they besieged it for four months and they have with them at least 200 ships. So this is an extremely ambitious expedition, and it seems they do succeed in taking control of that citadel of Dunbarton and then they sail back to Dublin. So that shows you that the scope of their activity, although their focus is in Ireland, they're very interested in Britain as well. And then we can most likely associate that Ivar active in Dublin, in Ireland more generally, and in Dunbarton with an individual called Ingwa in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and he's linked with the Great Army. Now there has been quite a lot of debate about whether those are the same individual, but I'm persuaded that they are. And if so, what we can see is this quite extensive sweep of activity ranging from Ireland right over to eastern England. And I think those strategic routeways in central Scotland and also northern England are quite crucial to bringing together those two spheres of activity. Yeah, they're getting everywhere. Yeah, yeah, certainly. And indeed that was noted in the obituary of Ivar. He's called the King of the Gell, the Vikings of Horrors, in Britain and Ireland. So the Irish chronicler is well aware that he had these two spheres of activity either side of the Irish Sea. He also has a brother called Halfdam who seems to be active in both places as well, and he's particularly important in the activities of the Great Army in and around the Northumbrian Kingdom. And indeed we're told that he shares out the lands of the Northumbrians to his followers in the eight seventies. So he again is connected with this important dynasty. How much of a presence do we see for the Vikings in Scotland and the Northern Islands too? Because I think they quite famously are involved in the islands off the north of Scotland in particular. Oh, absolutely. So if we're thinking about the Northern Isles, so Shetland and Orkney, as mentioned earlier, these do lie close to Scandinavia would have been important. All the shipping routes leading from Scandinavia towards Britain and Ireland or travelling around Britain and Ireland. There's a very enduring Norse language presence and also political presence in Orkney and Shetland, which carries on indeed much later than in the rest of Scotland. So it's right through the medieval period. And consequently, we see, for example, the place names of that area are extremely heavily influenced by the Norse language and certainly the political links remain very strong. Now if we sort of sail southwards around the west coast of Scotland, we're now in the Hebrides. As mentioned, though, there were raids on monasteries such as Iona there, but it does seem that there's also Scandinavian settlement at a relatively early date. So we've got ship burials. And of course, there are Norse place names in those islands as well, although it can vary from north to south. So more Norse place names in the north, broadly speaking, than in the southern part of the Hebrides. And then we mustn't neglect the Isle of Man. So we're sailing away from Scotland now and into the heart of the Irish Sea region. And there we have the Isle of Man in the middle of everything. And there's undoubtedly a significant Scandinavian settlement there as well, but it's coexisting with the Gaelic language and with substantial bilingualism. And ultimately, that's going to become the focus of its own kingdom, the Kingdom of the Isles, which would go on to endure until the mid 13th century. And when we think about just returning to Ireland again, Vikings will set themselves up as kind of kings of Dublin. How do they then interact with the Gaelic rulers that were already in Ireland? Do we see lots of tension or are they forming alliances? Yeah, there is evidence of some alliances even as early as the 850s. But also, inevitably, there's some fractiousness as well. So one example of this is in 902, when two Irish kings team up to eject the Scandinavian leaders from Dublin, which they succeed in doing. There's an interesting question then as to where exactly those fleets and those leaders go. One possibility is that they're lurking on the eastern side of the Irish Sea, where we have the deposits of a lot of silver hoards in the first decade of the 10th century. And although the silver and the coins in those come from very widespread areas, there's a significant amount of metalwork from Dublin. So just to give an example of that, the Curdell Hoard, which is buried near Preston, is the largest Viking Age silver hoard in Western Europe. And that seems to have something to do with a group of Scandinavian leaders expelled from Dublin in 902. But they regain control of those settlements from 917 to 18. And then one of the members of this group called Rögenwalde or Rinal is actually successful in gaining control of York as well. So creating what we can call the York-Dublin Axis, although, as we've seen, there is an earlier background to that in the activities of the Great Army and Evar. In case you haven't heard, in the US, it's a presidential election year. We're going to hear a lot of, this is America. No, no, you're all wrong. This is America. But on American History Hit, we're leaving that to the rest of them. Join me, Don Wildman, twice a week, where we look to the past to understand the United States of today with the help of some amazing guests. Let us introduce you to the Founding Fathers, guide you through the West Wing of the White House and shelter you on the battlefields of years gone by to find out just how we got here. American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit. Hi, I'm Dan Jones, host of This is History. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be sharing my studio with some phenomenal historians, chatting about everything from the history of sex in the church to teenage life in the Middle Ages to the family rivalry that would change England. He had found himself bereft of the power that he felt should have been his. What he wanted was an army that could be used against his own subject, and that was what he built up by 1397. Just search This is History wherever you get your podcasts. Can the Vikings establish a settlement like Dublin, for example? Does that go on to develop its own kind of economy and its own little ecosystem, or does it integrate with the wider communities around it? Oh, it's essential that there's some connection to the wider rural hinterland, if you want to call it that. So if you imagine how you would supply a significant urban centre in this period, you would need a lot of food, a lot of raw materials from the surrounding area. And indeed, there's a name for that in Old Norse, which is Diflinarskiri, which means something like Dublin Shire. So there's quite an extensive rural area around Dublin, which is dependent on the city and indeed is under various tribute obligations to supply the city. So there has to be interaction of that type. But also in the city itself, you can see the influence of, say, Irish jewellery on some of the craft work that's being conducted in Dublin. So the materials may be coming in through the Viking Age trading routes, so lots of silver, for example, but the styles of the brooches are very reminiscent of the pre-Viking styles of Ireland. And then, of course, you get a lot of imported goods. So I mentioned the silver there, exports that may be leaving Dublin, there's certainly making of shoes going on there, clothes. Sadly, and it should be said also, slaves. And so that will also be true of other trading centres in the Viking Age as well. So yes, there is quite an increase in the scope of Dublin, particularly by the 11th century, as that trading activity grows. Yeah, yeah. And the slavery is kind of one of the big drivers for the Vikings coming west to some extent, isn't it? If you look at the whole Viking economic ecosystem, if you like, they're getting silver and things from the east. But what they're trading for that silver is quite often slaves that are wanted in the east and the British Isles become a good place for them to pick up people that they can transport then into the east to continue that kind of trade cycle. Yeah, it's one of the more chilling aspects of the Viking Age. This would be going on in other trading centres of the time as well. So thinking of places like Rouen in Normandy, for example, where the slaves are being traded through northern England as well. So it is an unfortunate aspect of the Viking Age, but one that does seem quite prevalent in the sources. And we can certainly see in the chronicles the capturing of individuals as being one of the aspects of the early raiding activity. But this goes on for many decades and centuries beyond that as well. So we've seen the Vikings arrive fairly widespread throughout the British Isles and to Ireland as well. They've sort of transformed from raiders to settlers, perhaps even colonisers. They've set themselves up as kings in kingdoms. How and when does that begin to decline? Ah, so there are all sorts of factors, but I would say the 10th century is when we can start to see the writing on the wall as it were, the changes in the political scene that are ultimately going to make some of these kingdoms untenable in the longer term. So one individual I would point to in this respect is King Athelstan. So Athelstan of the Wessex dynasty, grandson of King Alfred, unlike his grandfather, Athelstan has a really serious attempt to assert himself in what's now the north of England. And he's in control of York from 927 until his death, so that's around 12 years. And that's the first time a Wessex king has taken control of York. Now it isn't to last in the short term. There is a re-establishment of the York Dublin Axis after that, but from 954 York will be permanently under the control of Wessex. And that's a serious blow to an individual such as Olaf Khuron, who continues to have a very successful career in and around Dublin, but for whatever reason is not able to re-establish his control of York. I'm going to give a big shout out to Athelstan. I'm a big fan of Athelstan. Right, well certainly in this context he's been innovative really in managing to take control of that northern city. And really that sets the pattern for his descendants ruling the English kingdom. We also see the breakup of what had been Northumbria, so this large northern kingdom, and the King of Scots is implicated in that as well. So by the 11th century we're moving towards an Anglo-Scottish border fairly similar to what we know now. And of course once you have that there really is no room for a York Dublin Axis. So that's one factor. And then in Ireland itself we have the rise of these over kings who are achieving power on a scale not seen before. So they're managing to establish their overlord ship across very large areas. So one example of that might be the Eneale dynasty. So they're particularly active in the northern half of Ireland. Some member of that dynasty is Flandshina, a name that may be known to some. But another very important and later individual who must be mentioned is Brienne Borover or Brian Barrou. And he truly rules all of Ireland at one stage. So that is another important change. And of course therefore it's important that he should establish control of Dublin. Now there's a reprisal to that in the Battle of Clontoff in 1014 which Brian is killed. But in the longer term this is the pattern. So Irish over kings are going to be very interested in controlling Dublin. And the idea of a completely autonomous Dublin kingdom then becomes less and less viable. And then finally we should mention the Kingdom of the Isles. I noted it before so that's the kingdom established between the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. And this seems to have its own independent existence right up to the mid 13th century. But even the Kingdom of the Isles can't endure beyond that. Which in its day one might see as a sort of sea kingdom, a Viking kingdom if you like. But that now has ceased to exist by the mid 13th century too. So is it fair to say that across the British Isles the Viking kingships and settlements will begin to fall foul of this increasing expansion and consolidation of what will become England, of Ireland and of Scotland. And that they're sort of just pushed out. That they've never managed to establish themselves so firmly that they can resist that kind of expansion. Yeah I mean the way I think of this is almost the demise of the sea kingdom. If you want to use a technical term for that, a thalassocracy. So a kingdom that's dependent on its fleets and the establishment of lands across the sea. So I mentioned York and Dublin so you know that's established really horizontally across the Irish Sea and across the the Penine Hills as well. But the Kingdom of the Isles is another thalassocracy with a more like a north-south angle. So from the Irish Sea up towards the Isles. But those entities have to be held together by a lot of maritime activity. And it just seems that from the 10th, 11th, 12th century onwards the focus is more on the land-based territories. On territorial entities. And so the sea kingdom is not going to persist in the longer term. And as I say we see the the last gasp of it really in the mid 13th century with the Kingdom of the Isles. Yeah that's really fascinating. And I guess we ought to just acknowledge that the Vikings then don't kind of disappear from the British Isles. That they they remain communities remain that will have kind of Danish or Norwegian heritage and become integrated into the the communities of the British Isles. Oh you can see all sorts of examples of the legacy of the Viking Age and Norse speech for example. So I'm just going to give you one example which is quite close to where I'm based which is in the Lake District. So that's the mountainous area of North West England very scenic. So if you look around the place names there you can't really move for places called things like Thwaite, Beck, Fell. All of those Norse place name elements. So looking at the landscape you're viewing it almost through the eyes of the Viking Age. Because those place names are formed then and they tell us a lot about the Norse imprint on the landscape. Now as I said earlier Norse is not the only language spoken there and there are undoubtedly other surviving Northumbrian entities. Gaelic, Gallic speakers there too. But that that Norse heritage is really very striking if you go hiking in the Lake District mountains. If you want to go and get close to your Viking, your inner Viking then the Lake District is maybe the place to do it. Oh some some fantastic Viking Age sculpture as well. I should say that too. So if you're looking also for the physical legacy of the Viking Age and we stay in that area there is an absolutely extraordinary monument called the Gossforth Cross. So it is a cross it's in the churchyard but it's renowned because of its depictions of Norse mythology. Depicted in really significant detail. So that's from the sort of early to mid 10th century and again the legacy is is there to be seen really. In the remains of that cross but many others like it. That's going on my to see list. I haven't seen that so I'm going to add it to my list and go and see it. Obviously Assassin's Creed allows players to enter the animus and travel back in time. So I like to give my guests the opportunity to step into the animus and I wondered if there was a particular moment in Dublin's history that you could go and visit maybe particularly around the Viking Age. When would you like to be there and what might you like to see? Oh wow that is such an interesting question. I would actually like to attend the meeting on the River Emont in what's now northwest England. So Cumbria Lake District. We're sticking with the Lake District here okay. So I'm going to attend that meeting. It's a big royal meeting in 927 where Athelstan takes submissions from the kings of northern Britain and the Earl of Bambros. So the King of Scots is there, the King of Strathclyde is there, a Welsh king as well. It would seem. Now the question is what's the role of Dublin in this? And as far as we're aware from the written accounts the Dubliners were not there. This is probably because Athelstan has just taken control of York and so the interests of Dublin in York are obviously being pushed to one side. And it seems indeed that the leader in York is in exile, is Strathclyde at that time. However I think it's quite possible that there was a Dublin delegation there at the meeting on the River Emont. And so I'd just like to go and attend it. I mean I think it would be an absolutely fabulous occasion in many ways. But I would just like to investigate that particular point. Yeah yeah Athelstan is such a fascinating. I mean at one point he signs sort of proclamations and describes himself as the the emperor of the entire world of Britain or something like that. I mean this man has almost no limit to his ambition. It's a very ambitious programme you could say. And I do suspect that we are somewhat hampered in our understanding of it by the fact that so many of the sources are from Wessex. So if we have the Scottish kings perspective on this I think we'd probably see it in a different way. There's no doubt that there is a reprisal. So Athelstan invades Scotland in 934. There's then a big pushback at the Battle of Brünenburg in 937. And of course Olaf, Riele in Dublin, was present there. And no doubt that has something to do with the Dublin-York axis. So it's a period of great turmoil but also a period of great interest I think in the history of both early medieval Britain and Ireland. Yeah it really is. Well thank you so much for joining us for your time. It's been absolutely fascinating to explore this kind of North Sea presence of the Vikings and the the Sea Kingdoms as you put it that they established there. It's been brilliant. Thank you so much. Well thank you. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Thank you for joining me on my Viking voyage to medieval Ireland. Next week we'll hop over to the sunny Mediterranean and climb the rooftops of Florence during the Italian Renaissance. Don't forget to subscribe and follow Echoes of History wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're enjoying it you can leave us a review too. I'll see you next time among the Echoes of History.