Chapter 9 - Viking Armies and their Historical Legacy across England’s North–South Divide, c.790–c.1100

Summary

This chapter looks at the written responses to the Viking Age in England. The initial response from Alcuin drew on the paradigm established by the 5th/6th-century British writer Gildas, who depicted the Anglo-Saxon invasions as punishment from God for the sinfulness of the Britons. It proceeds to contrast this with how the Viking Age was remembered in the north of England through an examination of the eleventh-century text Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, which (it is argued) shows how the Scandinavian past was integrated into northern English history as an essential, and very often positive, element. This is compared to the Skaldic poetry associated with the court of Cnut the Great, and it is suggested that the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto and other later English history-writing integrated elements of Scandinavian traditions (especially those associated with Cnut’s family) into their depictions of the English past.