History

Here you will (eventually) find a brief guide to what happened during our period, designed as an introduction for freshers and so on. Feel free to contribute articles on the topics suggested, or any other subject that you find interesting. This page lists suggested topics for new articles.

General History

• Britannia's Original Sources & Texts (offsite)
• The Rus: The Rus Khaganate, Rurik and Kievan Rus
• Is it necessary to assume an apartheid-like social structure in Early Anglo-Saxon England? (offsite). See also this reply (offiste).
• 1986-Present
  • The History of the Wychwood Warriors: That's the society I joined
  • Events: Events we've done over the past couple of years
  • Hauksby Saga: The (Fictional) Tale of a Viking settlement near Yorvik
    • Olaf Sigurdsson's Saga Olaf and his wife Wynflaed lived in Hauksby (offsite)

Society & Culture

People

• Names
  • An Etymology of Britain A map showing the literal meaning of place names from Spiegel Online (offsite)
• The Role of Women
  • The Spindle Half: Women in Anglo-Saxon England
  • Women in Norse societies
    • Lothene: Women as Warriors (offsite) is a summary of available evidence for Saxon or Viking warrior women.
• The Class System
• The Legal System
• Religious beliefs
  • Benedictine Men & Women of Courage: Roots and History A really interesting book (pdf) on the Dark Age and Mediaeval Church and the Benedictine order. By Sister Ann Kessler, O.S.B.
  • St Hild of Whitby: an episode of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.
• Warriors Who were they? Why were they fighting? What was their larger role in society?
• Aelfric's Colloquy on the Occupations (pdf of a translation by Ann E Watkins) gives some interesting insights into what people did in their everyday lives in the late Anglo-Saxon period.

Language & Literature

For those who are interested, there is a lot of information available on Old English (OE) and Old Norse (ON). These two mutually-comprehensible Germanic languages were spoken during our period, and we're lucky enough to have a surprsingly large corpus of contemporary written material surviving. Our pages provide an overview of online and written sources to get you going.

• Old English AKA Anglo-Saxon or Englisc
• Old Norse
• The Runic alphabet
• Anglo-Saxon texts
  • Faeder ure The Lord's Prayer in Old English - handy if you want to portray a clergyman, monk or nun.
  • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (offsite)
  • The Lindisfarne Gospels Interactive and amazingly high-quality scans, from the British Library (offsite)
  • Britannia's Original Sources & Texts (offsite)
  • Beowulf resources provides online versions of the Beowulf poem both in the original Old English and in Modern English. A bibliography of studies and some more resources can also be found here. More Beowulf can be found here, here and here. (All offsite)
  • Bodleian Library MS Junius 11 Facsimile. "The Cædmon Manuscript": parts of Genesis, Exodus and Daniel in Old English verse, illustrated with Anglo-Saxon drawings, c. A.D. 1000. (offsite)
  • Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. Q. e. 20 Facsimile. Life of St. Basil, first half of the 11th century: one blackened fragment retrieved from the fire of the Cotton Library in 1731 (offsite)
  • Corpus Christi College MS 197 Facsimile. Contains the Rule of St Benedict in Latin and Old English (offsite)
  • Corpus Christi College MS 279B Facsimile. Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in the Old English translation, early 11th century (offsite)
  • St John's College MS 154 Facsimile. Ælfric's Grammar, in Latin and Old English, early 11th century (offsite)
• Scandinavian texts
  • Erik the Red's Saga (offsite)
  • Laxdaela Saga (offsite)
  • The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) (offsite)
  • Fritiof's Saga (offsite)
  • Grettir the Strong (offsite)

The Arts

• Music

For more articles on Anglo-Saxon language and culture, visit the website of Ða Engliscan Gesiþas.

Museums

Here are a couple of links to museums that exhibit some original Anglo-Saxon or Viking items. Most of these do not focus primarily on the Early Medieval period, but they are still well worth a visit:

• Ashmolean Museum (offsite) in Oxford not only features the famous Alfred Jewel and the Abingdon Sword, but in the upper gallery there is a very extensive section about Anglo-Saxons which includes lots of coins, buckets and some enormous shield bosses. Also, we helped them do a Saxon Sagas family day in Feb 2007.
• The British Museum (offsite) in London offers a large variety of collections including Sutton Hoo. Prepare to spend some time in there. Their website also has information on upcoming events and exhibitions. See also their online tour of Anglo-Saxon artefacts. (offsite)
• Gamla Uppsala Museum. (offsite) This is an excellent museum, housing tonnes of objects excavated from the burial mounds at Old Uppsala. They often have living history displays during the summer months.
• The Swedish Museum of National Antiquities (Historiska Museet) (offsite) in Stockholm has a fantastic Viking collection, lots of beautiful Dark Age gold in the Gold Room and even a cast of the Piraeus Lion. They often have interactive living history displays.
• Reading Museum (offsite) displays a reconstruction of the Bayeux Tapestry (offsite) which beautifully depicts the story of the Norman Conquest
• The Royal Armouries (offsite) in Leeds offers a wonderful combination of collections, exhibitions and educational entertainment. Watch out for the medieval sword fighing.
• The Yorkshire Museum & Gardens in York have the Coppergate Helm and the Gilling sword - two absolute must-see items.

Reconstructed Settlements

• Foteviken Museum & Viking Reserve (offsite) Near Malmö, Sweden.
• Jorvic Viking Centre (offsite) in York is more of a time travel experience than a museum. They have reconstructed the Viking City of Jorvic for you to see, hear and smell! Best seen in combination with the Jorvik Viking Festival.
• West Stow Anglo-Saxon Settlement (offsite) is not really a museum but a reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon village found here. The site is actually about the Friends of West Stowe, but it contains all the relevant information on the settlement.
• Murton Park (offsite) has a reconstructed Danelaw village, where we spent Easter 2007.

Miscellaneous History Links

• Archaeological Resource Guide for Europe
• The Archaeology Data Service has a searchable online library of archaeological articles
• British History Online A digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the mediaeval and modern history of the British Isles
• BUBL LINK Catalogue of Internet Resources: Ancient history and archaeology of the British Isles
• Drakt.org's photos of and links to info on Viking museum pieces
• Fortified England is a website with info about all fortified historical sites in England. Hence the name. It's very good! Has lots of information on hillforts and so on. (Currently being re-built - if you can't see much info at the moment, do check back as it will appear).
• Viking Age Travels A multimedia presentation from the Swedish national heritage board. Aimed at kids but still pretty cool!
• Viking Archaeology Blog Searchable blog of news reports featuring Viking period archaeology
• Viking heritage tourism: Authenticity and Commodification Research article: Annals of Tourism Research (2001) vol. 28 pp565-580 (subscription required to view full text)
• Viking Society for Northern Research: Web Publications The Society is making virtually all its publications from 1895 to the present freely available on this website. Essays on a vast range of topics, plus translations of sagas.
• York Archaeological Trust includes lots of photos and a list of their publications. If you want detailed information about Yorvik and Coppergate finds, this is place to look.

Webrings

• British History
• European History
• Medieval & Renaissance
• Middle Ages & Renaissance
• Medieval Studies
• Ring of Vikings