CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

VIKING SETTLEMENT IN ENGLAND

Julian D. Richards

A

ccounts of Scandinavian activity in England have been dominated by debates
surrounding the scale of settlement (e.g. Sawyer 1971 ) and the extent of assimila-
tion of the colonists (e.g. Hadley 1997 ). Opinions concerning the scale of immigration
have ranged from the view that movement was confined to a small group of elite land-
takers to ideas of secondary mass migration in the wake of the raiding parties. Although
interdisciplinary collaboration might appear to offer great potential for resolving these
divergent perspectives, the problem has been that the different categories of evidence
do not describe a coherent story (Trafford 2000 ). Partial documentary sources (see
Dumville, ch. 26 , above) inevitably focus on raiding activity and wars, while the pro-
liferation of Scandinavian place names has been taken as evidence for large-scale rural
colonisation (see Fellows-Jensen, ch. 28 , below). Much has hung upon the level of
interaction and integration within the area, which became known as the Danelaw (see
Hadley, ch. 27. 1 , below). It has been difficult to observe Viking activity in material
evidence and, as part of a general post-war reaction to migration theory, archaeologists
have tended to subscribe to minimalist interpretations. In line with new approaches
to other periods the debate has now shifted onto questions of ethnicity and has focused
on the circumstances of the creation of a hybrid Anglo-Scandinavian cultural identity.
It is possible to identify some archaeological evidence corresponding with the
intensity of ninth-century raiding activity described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The
number of Anglo-Saxon coin hoards indicates a period of general insecurity, and there
are also Scandinavian hoards of coins and hack-silver. One buried near Croydon, c. 872 ,
may represent the plunder gained by an individual Viking warrior which was never
retrieved (Brooks and Graham-Campbell 1986 ). A massive silver hoard was hidden in a
lead chest at Cuerdale, on the banks of the River Ribble, c. 905 , shortly after the
expulsion of the Hiberno-Norse from Dublin. It comprised c. 7 , 500 coins, and c. 1 , 000
pieces of bullion silver, and was probably accumulated over several years as the cumula-
tive wealth of a large Viking force (Graham-Campbell 1992 b). Finds of weaponry and
horse fittings, particularly from rivers, have traditionally been seen as losses during
battle, but may also be offerings made after battle, in a revival of the long tradition
of Scandinavian water-borne offerings (Wilson 1965 ; Seaby and Woodfield 1980 ;
Graham-Campbell 1992 a).