Although Vikings raids may have begun as early as the year 750, historians like to mark the 793 attack on the holy island of Lindisfarne as the official start of the Viking age. Vikings: The Rise & Fall s1e1: The Road to Lindisfarne, National Geographic 2022
The word Viking is sometimes explained as being more of a profession than a nationality. They are the outward face of the local people who live in Scandinavia. ibid. Dr David Petts
Their world belonged to a pantheon of rugged gods and mythical beasts led by Odin and Thor. ibid.
These compact lightweight rowing vessels were a precarious way to travel with little room for cargo. ibid.
137,287. These small-scale sporadic raids grew frequent. With wealth and honour for the taking, the daring fighters wreaked untold havoc on their peace-loving targets before calmly disappearing over the horizon. The Vikings were slowly building a fearsome reputation. ibid.
Britain proved a fertile country, rolling hills and arable farmland, a stark contrast to bleak Scandinavia. The Vikings began to settle. They assembled large camps to survive the winter. ibid.
The end of the 8th century saw the Vikings tear through monasteries across the coasts of Britain and Ireland. But by the mid-9th century, the Vikings had gained a taste for land and political power. Vikings: The Rise and Fall s1e2: The Great Heathen Army
For a long long period York is a Viking trading place. ibid. expert
Nothing brought wealth faster than forcing their captives into the highly profitable slave-trade. ibid.
Towards the end of the 8th century many Vikings stormed west raiding Britain’s unguarded monasteries before seizing control of important cities in England, and settling into an uneasy political alliance within Anglo-Saxon society. But some Vikings chose to go east. Vikings: The Rise and Fall III: As Far East as Baghdad
The story of how modern Britain was created isn’t just about kings, queens and politicians. It’s about how we learnt to farm, to trade and to live together. It’s about how war, new gods and new learning shaped life on these islands. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: 6000 B.C. – 2000 B.C. Channel 4 2003
The First Age of Britain: it tells of a struggle between man and the environment. ibid.
The island of Britain exists because of global warming. ibid.
The people who lived here eight thousand years ago were hunter-gatherers. ibid.
Our best guess is that the population numbered a few hundred thousand. ibid.
Possibly the most revolutionary innovation was farming. ibid.
In the first Age of Britain its people had subjugated Nature; in the second, they would subjugate each other. ibid.
Around three and a half thousand years ago less than a quarter of a million people lived in Britain. That’s about the population of Leicester today. They were scattered across the landscape in small groups. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain 1500 B.C. – 43 A.D.
Now it seems more likely that a comet travelling near the Earth’s atmosphere in 1159 smothered the planet in a massive dust veil. ibid.
People had discovered a new metal much more readily available than bronze – iron. ibid.
British society had embraced the arms race. ibid.
Tribal warfare, human sacrifice, this was a savage land for sure. ibid.
Claudius wanted an emphatic and unforgettable way of impressing on his subjects – the people of southern Britain – just what kind of a ruler they were dealing with. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain 43 A.D.– 410 A.D.
The Romans were here and the third age of Britain had begun. ibid.
Cogidubnus was a puppet and the Romans pulled his strings. Togidubnus. ibid.
Leading the attack was a woman with waist-length hair and piercing eyes – Boedica. ibid.
Pre-Roman Britain was illiterate. ibid.
The Romans made it their business to change our way of life ... The epitome of Romanisation was the bathhouse. ibid.
Without the army and an organised government the cities decayed. ibid.
By the beginning of the 5th century A.D. the Roman Empire was showing its weakness, and it began to crumble territory by territory. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain 410 A.D. – 1066 A.D.
The fourth age of Britain – a time when England would become wealthy and independent. ibid.
It was only a matter of time before the Saxons were back on English soil ... The Anglo-Saxons were pagan. ibid.
By the end of the 6th century A.D. what we now call England had been transformed by a wave of Anglo-Saxon immigrants. ibid.
Christian missionaries were streaming into the country. ibid.
For better or worse the institution of marriage had arrived. ibid.
Young Bede – he was to become the best known author of his age. One of the forefathers of British writing. ibid.
The world described by Bede was about to come under attack. ibid.
It was the beginning of a prominent Viking presence in British life. But it wouldn’t all be rape and pillage. ibid.
A prime British target – the town of York. ibid.
William and a handful of barons then imposed one of the most brutal governments this country has ever seen. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain 1066 A.D.–1350 A.D.
A mania for building massive stone structures. ibid.
Feudalism was the key to Norman success. ibid.
Peasants in England were standing up for themselves. ibid.
The Black Death had arrived and within three years it would wipe out half of the population. ibid.
When the Plague arrived in Britain one chronicler described it as, ‘Death coming into our midst like a black smoke. A rootless phantom of no mercy.’ Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: The Sixth Age: 1350 A.D. – 1530 A.D.
The poll tax of 1380: everyone rich or poor over the age of fifteen had to pay twelve pence – a massive sum. ibid.
The freedom fighters soon paid for the revolt with their lives. ibid.
The legal profession was booming in medieval Britain. ibid.
The ravages of the black death had almost halved the male labour force. ibid.
Women flourish as apprentices to trade. ibid.
Most people lived and died farming the land. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: The Seventh Age: 1530 A.D. – 1700 A.D.
That rich, hugely powerful and profoundly medieval institution the Roman Catholic Church ... Catholic magic was giving way to Protestant pragmatism. ibid.
Success depended on becoming numerate. ibid.
In the year A.D. 43 soon after the death of Jesus Christ forty thousand Roman soldiers descended on Britain intent on conquest. Bettany Hughes, The Roman Invasion of Britain I: Onslaught, History 2009
The Romans ruled Britain for the best part of four hundred years. ibid.
Britain at that time wasn’t the unified country we know today. ibid.
The eight hundred or so ships that made up the invasion force ... They failed to spot any armed warriors at all ... The Romans formed a battle line and waited for the Britons to attack. ibid.
Claudius derived great kudos from the fact that he had conquered Britannia. ibid.
At least eleven tribes submitted to Roman rule without so much as raising a sword. ibid.
There was plenty of fighting spirit left in Britain. ibid.
Boedica: her uprising was cataclysmic in its scope; it claimed the lives of thousands of Roman settlers. ibid.
In the first century A.D. a massive Roman invasion force descended on British shores. The guerrilla war that followed dragged on for seventy years. Bettany Hughes, The Roman Invasion of Britain II: Revolt
They reckoned without a force of Nature: an extraordinary woman called Boedica. ibid.
The Iceni were Boedica’s clan. ibid.
In the land we call Scotland fierce tribesmen known to the Romans as Pics ... would frustrate every attempt that would be made to subdue them. ibid.
Seventy-three miles and twenty-feet high in places the Wall ... functioned as an instrument of social control. ibid.
Roman Britain wasn’t the idyllic era it’s sometimes cracked up to be. ibid.