the weight of evidence would have to be physical rather than literary), in Britain and
Ireland, at least, it has served as a useful historical tool. It was quite explicitly adopted
for Ireland by Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Ó Corráin 1994 ).
In relation to Ireland, a period of ‘forty years’ rest’ from severe depredations by
vikings (in the late ninth century and ending in 915 ) was commented on by an author
of the beginning of the twelfth century in Cocad Gaedel re Gallaib, ‘The War of the Irish
with the Foreigners’ (Todd 1867 : 26 – 9 , 232 – 3 [§ 26 ]; on the date of this text, see
Ní Mhaonaigh 1995 ). Whether this has any historical credibility has been debated in
the past generation. What is certainly the case is an almost total absence of chronicle-
record for vikings’ activities in Ireland from 902 (expulsion of the Scandinavian ruling
dynasty from Dublin) until 914 × 917 when Uí Ímair re-established themselves there
(Downham 2007 ). Ó Corráin has explicitly defined these latter years as marking the
beginning of Ireland’s Second Viking Age (Ó Corráin 1994 ). Certainly it can be argued
that the character of vikings’ activities in Ireland in the tenth century is in various ways
different from that of the ninth. And the archaeology of Ireland’s Scandinavian towns
has a markedly different character from the tenth century, not least in the levels of
fortification. These urban kingdoms came to be dominated by major Irish overkings
of the late tenth century and later, but they retained their distinctive character and
(especially in the case of Dublin) remained centres of viking activity until Angevin
conquest from 1171 / 2 subjected them to an altogether more vigorous domination (for
some of the complexities of 1166 – 75 , see Duffy 1999 ).
The English position was rather different and developed in part from that observed in
Wales. There too, the native chronicles show an apparent cessation of vikings’ predatory
activities – from the end of the 910 s (Dumville 2002 b: 14 – 15 ; 2005 : 34 – 5 ) to the
beginning of the 960 s. (Perhaps in the middle of that period the Isle of Man was settled
by bicultural vikings from the Hebrides; cf. Downham 2007 .) The new attacks were due
to vikings from Ireland (as before) and from the Hebrides: in the former case they were
no doubt aimed at weakening English imperium in Wales as a prelude to another attempt
on York, but the latter was never achieved. Resumption of vikings’ attacks on England,
as reported by chroniclers, began in 980 (Thorpe 1861 , vol. 1 : 234 – 5 ; Whitelock et al.
1961 : 80 ; Dumville 2007 a), in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of King
Edward I ‘the Martyr’ ( 975 – 9 ) and his replacement by King Æthelred ‘the Unready’
( 979 – 1013 , 1014 – 16 ) (Dumville 2007 b; Williams 2003 ). For the rest of the 980 s, the
source of such attacks in southern England (as also in Wales) seems to have lain in the
Irish Sea. There is reason to think that, as Sveinn tjúguskegg Haraldsson, king of
the Danes (and king of the English in 1013 / 14 ), came to be recorded as participating
from 994 in campaigns in England, he continued for some while to draw on support
from vikings based in Ireland (and perhaps the Hebrides) – where he himself may
previously have been active – in addition to forces recruited in Scandinavia itself
(Downham 2007 ). Sveinn’s conquest of England, achieved in 1013 , and the eventual
succession there of his son Knútr ( 1016 – 35 ) created an Anglo-Scandinavian empire
which lasted for a generation and inspired kings of Denmark and kings of Norway for
the next century and more to dream of recreating it (for a couple of these possible
manifestations see Bolton 2005 ; Dumville 2006 : 18 ). In that sense, England’s Viking
Age continued until the mid-twelfth century.
From the time of Sveinn’s campaigns in England ( 994 – 1014 ), it may be (and has
been) argued, national monarchs in Denmark and Norway were a danger to the polities
–– chapter 26: Vikings in Insular chronicling––