The Lost History of the North: Thored, Oslac & Yorvik VIKINGS DANELAW ANGLO-SAXONS DOCUMENTARY

[Music] I am honored to announce that this video is sponsored by the great courses plus this incredible website which gives you access to hundreds upon hundreds of fascinating University lecture courses by the leading experts in the world is nothing less than the Netflix of scholars the Amazon Prime of academia and just like those websites you can access the great courses plus on your phone on your tablet and on your computer this is the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips people I have it and I absolutely love it it's got courses on ancient history medieval history Eastern Europe Rome the Vikings Native Americans and even science fiction it's all peer-reviewed so you know it's as accurate as humanly possible and best of all you get your trial period completely free by following the link below this also helps me out and it ensures that I can keep bringing you more and better content in the future honestly I've been spoiled for choice with so many incredible courses available but so far I've been working my way through the high middle ages with Professor Philip day leader in preparation for a new series of videos and of course who could resist the Vikings with professor Kenneth Hall please visit the great courses plus comm forward slash history time or click on the link below to get your free trial now now without further ado I give you the lost history of the north the sixteen year reign of King Edgar the peacemaker between 959 and 975 is often said to have been as his name suggests a relatively peaceful period in England sandwiched as it was between two brutal epochs the Viking invasion and dynastic turmoil for the most part that is a relatively accurate assessment the West Saxon political elite busying themselves during those years in personally administrating the recently acquired areas of the five boroughs and the Danelaw the King meanwhile is said to have patrolled his waters at the head of a battle ready fleet of Anglo Danish long ships many of them manned by the descendants of the very same warriors who had overwhelmed Britain a century earlier at the time of the great even Army [Music] upon their annexation by Wessex in the nine tens and nine 20s these Anglo Danish Thames and warrior Lords found themselves integrated into a newly forged political system that of the ascendant anglo-saxon state with its power base very much centered in the southwest of heartlands of Wessex [Music] [Music] in the north however the situation was different though there now mostly Danish rules territories of East Anglia and the five boroughs had been annexed by the West Saxon warrior elite some fifty years earlier the old kingdom of Northumbria traditionally encompassing the majority of the lands between the river Humber in the south to the coast of Lothian in the far north had only fully been incorporated into England a handful of years before edgar trained by his uncle air dread in 954 prior to this time it being comprised of two independent realms the southernmost of these territories centered around the metropolis of your Vic by far the largest settlement in the north of Britain at this time was an Anglo Scandinavian realm ruled over by an amalgamation of the old Daver and political elite and an influx of incoming Scandinavians who had conquered the kingdom in the 9th century [Music] Eric Bloodaxe the last independent king of Northumbria himself probably a son of the Norwegian King Harald fairhair had only been ousted in 954 just five years before Edgar's accession to the English throne in the wake of blood axes death however still remained an elite class of Anglo Scandinavian magnates and power brokers who dominated affairs in the north in recent years seeing their numbers bolstered by an influx of north scales from the kingdom of Dublin which for a time advised for power with Wessex in a struggle to become the dominant force in Britain as such by the time of Edgar's reign southern Northumbria was still heavily scandinavian in culture with its ruling elite predominantly speaking old norse as their first tongue though having for the most part at least nominally adopted Christianity [Music] the other previously independent state situated just further to the north and now enjoying a slight revival in fortunes was the last vestige of the Anglian kingdom of Benicia cut off from the rest of the anglo-saxon world for close to a century after the invasion of the great even army in the 8th 60s from their unassailable seat of power at Bamburgh on the windswept eastern coastline these northern rulers probable descendants of a line of kings dating back for centuries to the mysterious epoch following the Roman withdrawal for Britain had long played off not only Danish aggression from the south but also in Rhodes from Scotland and Strathclyde to the north powerful dynasties having arisen in each over the previous decades Bamburgh finally submitted to King Athelstan of the anglo-saxons in the 920's and became a part of the newly forged nation of England though in the nine 40s and nine 50s as the dragon boats of the hui Amer sailed across the sea from Dublin Venetia just like your Vic probably ceded away from England for a time only definitively coming back under the sway of Wessex in 1954 upon the death of Eric Bloodaxe [Music] finally there was the wild and rugged western coast Cumbria today still a largely spacely populated land of imposing valleys and steep cliffs Alex during the 10th century it was inhabited by an amalgamation of Restonic speaking Hill people and incoming Scandinavian settlers from the Irish Sea Cumbria was one of the very last vestiges of the Hennig let the old North Romano brittonic kingdoms that had inhabited the entirety of the north before the coming of the angles in the 6th century in recent years since the subjugation of the old anglo-saxon kingdom of Northumbria these Britons had finally had their revenge on the angles of Benicia by reasserting their own independence though increasingly of late they seemed to have come under the sway of the last centralised Kingdom of the old North Strathclyde itself a successor state to the ancient realm of old Clute now a major power player in politics in short the north of the 950 s of 960s was a brutal unforgiving place a melting pot of angle Dane and Britain it was Edgar's job to play off these vying powers against one another in order to further his own fairly shaky claims to Northumbria in order to do so he needed allies loyal Lords who would rule in his name in his far north early province which was many weeks travel away from his usual haunts at the best of times over hundreds of miles of rugged unforgiving terrain [Music] during this uncertain era the angles of Benicia were obvious allies sharing a similar if not identical culture to the Saxons of the South the other allies perhaps surprisingly were the Anglo Scandinavian inhabitants of your Vic fast becoming one of the epicenters of trade in northern Europe with coins and goods flooding in from as far afield as northern Africa Central Asia and the Middle East these power brokers most of whom seem to have been primarily traders rather than Viking raiders likely saw in Wessex the potential a law of stability wealth and a future in the first few years after Eric Bloodaxe is death it is difficult to ascertain just who exactly was ruling your Vic for the West Saxons potentially the Lord of Benicia oz wolf may have taken the job though soon enough it probably became clear to Wessex that leaving the entirety of the far-flung North and the hands of a single dynasty was too much of a risk to take instead Northumbria would be split up into two once more as it had been for much of its history upon Oswald's death in the mid-1960s the man who Edgar chose for the job of administering your Vic was a Scandinavian named oz lark he is generally referred to as the first alderman of York and it's dependent territories being attested at the court of King Edgar on numerous occasions usually as a witness to charters thus indicating his prominent position at the West Saxon Court it is generally thought that Oz lack took over the position of Alderman in North in 966 holding the position until his eventual downfall close to a decade later in 975 [Music] yet despite the newfound understanding with the South Scandinavians of your Vic for the most part seeming to have settled down to a peaceful life the North wasn't bereft of the threat of viking attack from the sea and the west saxon political elite knew it [Music] Edgar's uncle King irid himself a grandson of Alfred the Great it left a vast sum of money in his will upon his death at 9:55 in order to protect his kingdom from impending viking attacks should they occur perhaps knowing some first-hand information about political events in Scandinavia but we lack today [Music] for the time being the rise of a powerful centralized monarchy in Denmark had led to a number of unification Wars in the mid 10th century it may have curtailed outward Viking incursions in the short term though of course the most astute in Britain knew that it was only a matter of time before the Scandinavians sorted out their own internal squabbles ventured to foreign shores once more [Music] Denmark wasn't the only breeding ground for Vikings not by any stretch of the imagination in the 1960s just across the sea in Norway it was that very same lengthy dynastic conflict with Denmark that had led to a number of sea Rovers leaving their original homelands to seek out territories abroad one of those men was Thor gills Scarth II Thor gills was old school almost certainly still a pagan and a ferocious warlord to boot at his side stood a battle-hardened retinue of warriors eager to carve out new lands and opportunities for themselves the soft territories of their cousins over in Northumbria would do nicely in around 966 he and his men arrived off the northumbrian coastline aboard a sizeable fleet of ships they ravaged their way along the shore taking slaves and plunder back to their long boats and seizing a number of settlements at the same time Thor Gil's brother Cormac flying roughly translated as the arrow said to have landed his own band of marauders a little to the south along the Northumbria coastline there at Flamborough Head which still roughly translates as flying stronghold today he seized a clifftop settlement and made it his base of operations Cormac was apparently so troublesome for the local Anglo Danish population that the ancient prehistoric earth were which cuts off the neck of the Flamborough Peninsula from the rest of the mainland today acquired the name Danes dying by which it is still known today [Music] [Music] due to the fragmentary and often missing sources of this time period it isn't exactly clear what happened next but after a while these two marauding bands may have come to some kind of an agreement with our slack and the power elite in your Vic before long in Thor Gil's case beaching their ships settling down to a new life in England perhaps in return for military service founding the town of scarab org along the coast scarf these fortress known today as Scarborough even closer to home nor scales had long operated as pirate kings in the Irish Sea from their bases of power on the Scottish Isles the Isle of Man and Ireland these descendants of Vikings tended to spend their time raiding and plundering any settlements brave enough to keep their homes close to the shore and whilst by the 960s most of these pirate Lords had been deterred from Northumbria by the newfound English supremacy rogue bands could always still pop up to destroy a remote town enslave its population and be gone before anyone could do anything about it one search attack came in 966 when a rogue fleet appeared off the wild coasts of Westmoreland in Cumbria the first time that this name appears in historical record whilst they were there the newcomers devastated the shore ravaging the local population and likely taking slaves and plunder back to some unknown location although perhaps indistinguishable at first glance from the two brothers scar the--and cor mark the leader of this attack had in fact lived in Britain for his entire life his name was Thor ed and he just so happens to hail from a distinguished family of your vaq nobility probably being a son of gun on a wealthy lord of your vaq hailing from one of the other powerful families of the north alongside our slack the fact that this rebellious son of a northern magnate is recorded that haven't attacked what was then likely northumbrian territory has led a number of historians such as Richard Fletcher to suggest a feud between ours lacks family and gun arms Fletcher suggests that the attack on Westmoreland Authority may have actually been carried out out of anger at either he or his father being snubbed for the Elder memory of your Vic in favor of ours lacks clan though Thurid was punished in the short-term by the king for his piratical activities of which we know little more than scrap of information losing various lands and properties as a result in time he would rise to political importance again eventually very probably becoming the most important lord of the north though may fragments remain of Thor Ed's rise to power by 975 the winds of change had begun to blow through the north Edgar died that year and in the wake of his death the fragile political unity that the house of Wessex had just about kept in check teetered on the verge of oblivion [Music] having essentially seized the throne in a power grab at 9:24 after the death of his estranged father Edward not fully solidifying his rule until 9:25 King Athelstan though usually remembered as one of the greatest kings in English history never married nor is he recorded as having had any children instead he passed power over to his half-brother Edmund upon his death thus avoiding any potential succession crisis like those that had plagued the Carolingian Franks across the channel upon Edwin's death in 946 the throne in turn passed to his younger brother Irit another scion of Wessex who had been raised at Athol stands Court and the king who carried on the legacy of his older brother but finally and definitively annexing the north upon ear drudes death in 955 however Athelstan is careful strategy for avoiding potential civil war became a thing of the past as factionalism again began to rear its ugly head in England as two half-brothers and two political camps began to vie with each other for power country being effectively split into two for a number of years with further conflict likely only being avoided by eard Whigs death upon Edgar's death in 975 political uncertainty again began to spill into the nation as two sons from different wives began to vie for power during this uncertain time of which we know best scraps of tantalizing information oz lack seems to have made a mistake likely backing the wrong political figure he paid for it with his position being driven out of power and replaced by the ever-present Thorat who had been eagerly waiting in the wings not only did Thor EDD rise to prominence in the following years becoming the alderman of your Vic but for a time in the 1980s he would exercise so much power that the new king of England Ethelred married a daughter of the northern magnate English Kings didn't marry for love and Ethelred still had enemies for both within and without this was an act of appeasement to keep the north on sides and it was one that would make thorat a grandfather of kings illustrious figures such as Athelstan ætheling and Edmund Ironside [Music] so who was Thorat unfortunately due to the sheer lack of written sources it remains exceptionally difficult to get to the real figure even in the South of England at this time the historical record is spares let alone in the North weather sheer lack of surviving evidence has led in a number of scholars to refer to the events of this time as the lost history of the north events were certainly playing out power struggles and games of Thrones that will remain forever unknown unless some as-yet long-lost Chronicle is discovered of which some at least most have been written yet lost to oblivion over the ages [Music] yet even so by using what we do know from the tiny fragments that were made we can arrive at a somewhat basic yet no less fascinating picture of door adds life [Music] there are two possible origin stories for Thor at Alderman of Northumbria the first one usually not favoured by historians these days is that he was the son of our slack that first anglish Scandinavian magnate to rule over your Vic in the aftermath of Oswald from Vinicius death in the mid-1960s according to the 13th century monk John of Wallingford King Edgar made this decision during a council at York in order to prevent the whole area becoming the inheritance of one family the house of bamberg although they of course retained control of their ancestral lands in Venetian to the north from where they fought occasional border skirmishes with the Scots over control of Lothian surely this same strategy of divide and rule would have been applied to your Vic in order to prevent the rise of a single hereditary family who might make themselves kings there once more though ah slack apparently did have a son named Thor at it remains unlikely that the son of an exiled patriarch of a northern family would be put in power by the king in the wake of his being pushed out of the kingdom it seems much more likely that a new man would have been put in charge to coincide with the regime change who better than the son of another powerful northern lord previously out in the cold this leads us to the second possible candidate the Thor Ed's identity Thor ed son of Gunnar the figure recorded as having ravaged Westmoreland in 966 [Music] Thorin's father gone are just like ah slack is recorded as having witnessed numerous charters for King Edgar during the 1960s which suggests both were probably influential leaders in your Vic at the time and friendly to the West Saxons [Music] this was an age of intense political rivalries for the various magnates of Northumbria be they angles from Benicia Anglo Scandinavians from your Vic or North's leftovers from the time of the OEO man all sought to further their own goals by pledging allegiance to the English decades-long blood feuds raged during this time between the leading families of northern power brokers often lasting for generation after generation searches with the brutal conflict between the house of Bamburgh and that of the Anglo Scandinavian magnate Berber and the hold which saw a lengthy series of brutal murders on both sides by successive new generations until well after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 upon Edgar's death in 975 however everything changed not just in the north but throughout Britain the ever precarious anglo-saxon unity forged from expansion descended into factionalism is Edgar's two sons Edward and ethelred's each born from a different mother and a different political camp attempted to outdo each other for the crown one of the first victims of the it's human political carnage seems to have been ours like no reason is given in the sources for his sudden fall from grace but the sea version of the anglo-saxon chronicle laments his sorry situation the valiant arse left was driven from the country over the tossing waves began its bath the tumult of the waters the homeland of the whale a gray-haired man wise and skilled in speech he was bereft of his laughs [Music] though almost no other details remain of what happened oz lack certainly was overthrown and cast out of the kingdom never to be heard of again in his place for the next four years very little can be said about the situation in the north in the interim events in the south heated up almost to the point of civil war culminating in the brutal murder of King Edward the martyr in 1978 with his half-brother and successor Ethelred along with his formidable mother Alf breath according to some sources implicated in the killing by 979 though it remains difficult to establish what he had been doing during the intervening years Thorat wants more bursts onto the political scene arising as an ally in the north to the new political regime in Wessex with the boy King Ethelred as its figurehead for more than a decade to come Thor ed would remain the most important Lord in your Vic based on his being a witness to royal charters Thor Ed's governorship as alderman cannot be securely dated before 1979 they were fain sharing his Anglo Scandinavian name does first appear on West Saxon political record long before during the reign of Edgar because of a lack of corroborating information it of course remains impossible to establish precisely whether this was the same Thor at though it does seem possible Britain's late 10th century was an age of dynastic conflicts of family squabbles and deadly blood feuds the wild north remained a diverse and brutal melting pot of Norse Dane Britain and Saxon unlike East Anglia and the five boroughs where West Saxon families such as that of Athelstan half King were now fairly well integrated into the establishment making governorship relatively simple in the north at the best of times the West Saxons were little more than equals to the leading north and magnates and in 978 the King had been brutally murdered those allegedly responsible now holding the reins of power [Music] in the wild and remote lands of they're removed from the south by weeks of travel through treacherous hills and impassable rivers ethelred's new regime simply couldn't afford to dictate terms if they wanted to stay in charge far from it in the north the strongest ruled and the Kings in the South had to work with them whether they liked it or not by the late 1970s thorat either seems to have been the most powerful magnate of his day a position he seems to have claimed by the sword or he was at least the most powerful who was willing to work with the south and a search in time he became an integral ally to the West Saxon Kings [Music] if it was indeed the same Thorat that the West Saxon political records speak off during the reign of Edgar then his earliest possible appearance comes in 964 two years before the attack on Westmoreland when he bore witness to a grant of land by the king to some peter's abbey in flanders a further charter issued by edgar in 966 which granted land in Oxfordshire to a woman named elf Gifu as an illegible alderman witness signature which may be Thorat irregardless of the turmoil in the south by the late 1970's and early 1980s there are hints of a political crisis in the north it remained entirely possible that thorat had not actually been a royal appointment in the first place instead simply having claimed power due to his influence and military prowess for capitalizing on the new political turmoil between the two rival Wessex camps to legitimize themselves [Music] even according to the 12th century monk I'll read of river forcing Ethelred to marry his daughter elf Gifu thus making Thor at father-in-law to one of the richest monarchs in Western Europe at a grandfather to Kings however it began though very little evidence remains of it Thor Ed's relationship with the English monarchy under Ethelred seems to have been a positive one the Kings marriage to a North and woman likely easing his transition to the position of their new overlord [Music] Thor ad seems to have remained in royal favor throughout the 1980s attesting charters in 979 six in 983 one in 984 three in 985 one in 988 for the last time in 989 yet as usually happens in history especially during the height of the Viking Age all good things must come to a head [Music] though Viking raids have picked up again throughout the 1980s ravaging far-flung lands and sacking towns secure from raids since the time of alfred in 991 a fresh Viking fleet arrived from Scandinavia to plunge the fragile political balance of the north into turmoil for the next 30 years the first of many scandinavian princes had arrived in Britain Olaf Tryggvason like Eric Bloodaxe before him Olaf was a descendant of the Norwegian King Harald fairhair and thus heir to the throne of Norway [Music] he ravaged his way across southern England for some weeks before meeting a large English force but molder in Essex decimating an English force they're led by Alderman birth north of Essex permanently damaging the prestige of the West Saxon elites in the process from then on until England was finally conquered outright by the Danish kings feigned Forkbeard just over two decades later the fragile integration of Englishman and Dane would suffer deep river drifts throughout the nation as England very nearly tore itself apart at the seams in 992 Ethelred planned a large-scale naval operation against his Viking enemies perhaps seeking to relive the glory days of his father when Anglo Danish fleets had dominated the shores of Britain forcing any potential Vikings away from English shores old Thorat apparently still expertly navigating politics between the North and the South was appointed one of the leaders of the expedition alongside the other foremost Lords of the North the anglo-saxon chronicle laments what happens next [Music] the king and all his councillors decreed that all the ships that were of any use should be assembled at London and the king then entrusted the expedition to the leadership of Alderman elfric Eldoret bishop alf stan and bishop s quick and they were to try if they could to entrap the danish army anywhere at sea then elderman elfric sent someone to warn the enemy and then in the night before the day on which they were to have joined battle he absconded by night from the army to his own disgrace and then the enemy escapes except that the crew of one ship was slain and then the Danish army encountered the ships from East Anglia and from London and they made a great slaughter there and captured the ship all armed and equipped on which the elderman was [Music] the expedition was a complete failure apparently owing to treachery not from Thurid but from the English Lord elfric of Hampshire who ranks alongside ethelred's chief enforcer edge Rick's tree owner as one of the great villains of the age in the following year Northumbria was attacked these Vikings apparently didn't discriminate between Anglo Scandinavians and Englishmen the lands of both on the shores of the Humber being laid to waste and Bamburgh of all places put to the torch [Music] [Applause] [Music] on land an English army was sent to apprehend the Vikings yet before making contact with the enemy it apparently dispersed one chronicler alleging that the English army failed because his three leaders were Danes on their father's side whether the accusation is true or not it certainly sheds light not only on the underlying tensions between north and south between English and Dane but also on southern apprehensions about the loyalty of the Anglo Scandinavian aristocracy in the north these were tensions that would eventually culminate in the suit Bryce's de massacre in 1002 when King Ethelred allegedly attempted to have all of the Danes living under his rule killed on Mars this of course was impossible to carry out in most areas but it did certainly lead to the deaths of large numbers of incoming mercenaries along with some of the older residents of Britain [Applause] in the aftermath of the disastrous series of campaigns against the Viking invaders in the early 1990s Thurid just like his predecessor as lack was removed from his office but this time to be replaced by a non northumbrian elf helm a prominent mercy and Lord this was the first time in your Vic's history that a southerner had directly administered the north though his last historical appearance came in the anglo-saxon Chronicle in 992 the date of Thor Ed's death remains uncertain historians tending to suggest that he was either killed fighting the new wave of incoming Scandinavians or else he survived but soon afterwards became disgraced either by defeat treachery or by the newfound distrust and hatred of Scandinavians in England in the years that followed the debacles of the early 1990s a situation all throughout England progressively went from bad to worse not only danes but nor smooth and nor scales from the irish sea closed in to take advantage of english weakness after olaf trig Watson's victories opened up the floodgates but also increasingly powerful Scottish Kings from the north and Restonic rulers of Strathclyde began to push southwards to encroach on lands held by Englishmen for centuries England's darkest age was about to begin yet even so he was during that Dark Age brutal battles and chaos as marauding Scandinavian princes and warlords laid waste to the country almost as well that at least one of Thor Ed's descendants a Thane named Athelstan his son remained true to the legacy of his father by fighting not for the Scandinavian newcomers but alongside his english countrymen against the new wave of Viking invaders ultimately giving his life for the families adopted country at the Battle of ringman in 1010 dying in a terrible last stand against a professional force of veteran John's Vikings under the ruthless Danish warlord thorkil the tall upon the final Danish conquest of England in 1016 Knut the son of the now deceased king of both Denmark and Norway Spain Forkbeard became the new king of England a base from which he would then use to reclaim his father's holdings in Denmark and Norway assuring in an entirely new era of Anglo Scandinavian culture on a much wider scale than ever before and the formation of a North Sea Empire [Music] after ethelred's new man the high Reeve of Bamburgh loot rid the bold was killed in 1016 Knut gave the north to Erick hakonsen the Norwegian yarl of late and a veteran ally of his father who support had been invaluable in securing the crown of England similarly East Anglia went to another Viking warlord who just a handful of years earlier has spent his time and ravaging the country thorkil at all within just a few decades this new wave of Scandinavian invasion culminating for the first time in history in an outright usurpation of the English crown was for the most part absorbed into England once again the Vikings were going native as far as the Anglo Scandinavian powerbrokers of your Vic were concerned it was business as usual thank you for taking the time to watch this documentary there are hundreds more on the way I'm just one guy with a mundane minimum wage day job and a quest to bring history alive if you want to help me to keep making content buy books for research and turn this passion into a career then head on over to www.petland.com forward slash history time you can to join the community you'll gain a chance to keep voting on upcoming videos and you'll know that you've helped a struggling writer to pursue his dream there's a podcast on the way so many more videos articles books and stories to tell join me in my quest to get everybody interested in history until next time I'm Pete Kelley you've been watching history time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: History Time

Views: 424,052

Keywords: iMovie, vikings, danelaw, viking, lost history of the north, oslac, thored, ethelred, athelstan, anglo-saxons, anglo saxons, saxons, angles, northumbria, northern england, great courses plus, great courses, king edgar

Id: ecbszsgrnL8

Length: 45min 25sec (2725 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/tmstms]

It's not "lost history" if you're here in Yorkshire. Plenty of pro-Viking (and also anti-Norman) feeling still around here.