The Vikings never really went away

For many people, the mental picture of a Viking is of a blond giant in a horned helmet leaping out of a sharp-prowed longboat to pillage and slaughter the terrified inhabitants of the nearest village or monastery. The horned helmet is a myth, but the Vikings were, in general, red-haired or blond and taller than the Anglo-Saxons (Scandinavians are still, on average, an inch or so taller than Britons) and for almost 100 years raiding the English coast was what they did.

Thanks to their unrivalled expertise in boat-building, they were unmatched as pirates – looting, taking prisoners for slavery or ransom or exacting tribute for not so doing. They applied the same technique to land piracy. France was a popular target. The Northmen would sail up the Seine, plundering on both banks and capturing traders who were fleeing not quite fast enough before them. In 857 a great ransom was paid to them to stop them burning some of the churches in Paris (as ‘heathens’, the Vikings considered neither monasteries nor churches sacred). The Frankish kings had to deploy large forces on river banks to deter them, or rebuild the bridges they had destroyed. In Britain, raids were largely coastal or from island bases in estuaries, with Ireland the greatest sufferer. Sometimes the battles were so successful that the Northmen remained in our islands for the winter, ready for the next onslaught.

The scholars Dawn M. Hadley and Julian D. Richards trace the history of these raids through coins and artefacts – the Vikings were great traders as well as raiders. Then, in the 860s, something changed. Over-wintering in Britain had become more frequent; now, the marauders wanted something more than loot: the land itself. In other words, colonisation was occurring. In 865, records the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,‘a great heathen army’ came into England and took up winter quarters in East Anglia.