A Viking Market Kingdom in Ireland and Britain
Viking-Age trade, network theory, silver economies, kingdom formation, and the Scandinavian raiding and settlement of Ireland and Britain are all popular subjects. However, few have looked for possible connections between these phenomena, something this book suggests were closely related. By allying Blomkvist’s network-kingdoms with Sindbæk’s nodal market-networks, it is argued that the political and economic character of Viking-Age Britain and Ireland – my ‘Insular Scandinavia’ – is best understood if Dublin and Jórvík are seen as being established as nodes of a market-based network-kingdom. Based on a dataset relating to the then developing bullion economies of the central and eastern Scandinavian worlds and southern Scandinavia in particular, it is argued that war-band leaders from, or familiar with, ‘Danish’ markets like Hedeby and Kaupang transposed to Insular Scandinavia the concept of polities based on establishment of markets and the protection of routeways between them. Using this book, readers can think of interlinked Dublin and Great Army elites creating an Insular version of a Danish-style nodal market kingdom based on commerce and silver currencies. A Viking Market Kingdom in Ireland and Britain will help specialist researchers and students of Viking archaeology make connections between southern Scandinavia and the market economy of the Uí Ímair (‘descendants of Ívarr’) operating out of the twin nodes of Dublin and Jórvík via the initial establishment of Hiberno-Scandinavian longphuirt and the related winter-camps of the Viking Great Army.
The Northern Conquest
"This book reveals another very different side of Viking society. It claims that the Viking legacy was not simply one of 'rape and pillage', but included law and order, agriculture and trade, as well as language and heroic literature. It also provides evidence that the influence of Scandinavians in the British Isles continued well after 1066"--Jacket.
Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland
Vikings plagued the coasts of Ireland and Britain in the 790s AD. Over time, their raids became more intense and by the mid 9th century, Vikings had established a number of settlements in Ireland and Britain and had become heavily involved with local politics. A particularly successful Viking leader named à varr campaigned on both sides of the Irish Sea in the 860s. His descendants dominated the major seaports of Ireland and challenged the power of kings in Britain during the late 9th and 10th centuries. In 1014, the battle of Clontarf marked a famous stage in the decline of Viking power in Ireland while the conquest of England in 1013 by the Danish king Sveinn Forkbeard marked a watershed in the history of Vikings in Britain. The descendants of à varr continued to play a significant role in the history of Dublin and the Hebrides until the 12th century, but they did not threaten to overwhelm the major kingships of Britain or Ireland in this later period as they had done before. This book provides a political analysis of the deeds of à varr's family, from their first appearance in Insular records down to the year 1014. Such an account is necessary in light of the flurry of new work that has been done in other areas of Viking Studies. Recent theoretical approaches to the subject have raised many interesting questions regarding identity, material culture, and structures of authority. Archaeological finds and excavations have also offered potentially radical insights into Viking settlement and society. In line with these developments, Clare Downham provides a reconsideration of events based on contemporary written accounts.
The Vikings in Britain and Ireland
For nearly 300 years, from the end of the 8th century AD until approximately 1100, the Vikings set out from Scandinavia across the northern world a dramatic time that would change Europe forever. This book explores the Viking conquest and settlement across Britain and Ireland, covering the core period of Viking activity from the first Viking raids to the raids of Magnus Barelegs, King of Norway.
Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns
Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns discusses the emergence of towns, urban lifestyles, and urban identities in Ireland. This coincides with the arrival of the Vikings and the appearance of the post-and-wattle Type 1 house. These houses reflect this crucial transition to urban living with its attendant changes for individuals, households, and society. Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns uses household archaeology as a lens to explore the materiality, variability, and day-to-day experiences of living in these houses. It moves from the intimate scale of individual households to the larger scale of Ireland’s earliest urban communities. For the first time, this book considers how these houses were more than just buildings: they were homes, important places where people lived, worked, and died. These new towns were busy places with a multitude of people, ideas, and things. This book uses the mass of archaeological data to undertake comparative analyses of houses and properties, artefact distribution patterns, and access analysis studies to interrogate some 500 Viking-Age urban houses. This analysis is structured in three parts: an investigation of the houses, the households, and the town. Exploring Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns discusses how these new urban households managed their homes to create a sense of place and belonging in these new environments and allow themselves to develop a new, urban identity. This book is suited to advanced students and specialists of the Viking Age in Ireland, but archaeologists and historians of the early medieval and Viking worlds will find much of interest here. It will also appeal to readers with interests in the archaeology of house and home, households, identities, and urban studies.
