CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN ( 2 )

YORK

Richard Hall

A

series of documentary references, written in the mid-ninth to mid-eleventh
centuries, indicates that York was the most important and enduring focus of
Scandinavian interests in England in the early medieval period. Documents and archae-
ology combine to indicate that, outside London, York was then the largest city in
England, with an area of some 100 hectares and an estimated population of 10 – 15 , 000.
Its Viking Age prominence reflects its geographical significance and earlier history.
York is 330 km north of London; although 60 km from the nearest coast, it is an
inland port that could be reached from the North Sea by a journey of 120 km up the
Humber Estuary and the River Ouse. Urban settlement at York was initiated by
the Romans, who built a fortress (Eboracum) in ad 71 on the land between the Rivers
Ouse and Foss; later there was a walled civilian town (colonia) on the opposite bank of
the Ouse. After the Roman army evacuated Britain c. 410 there was a period of historical
and archaeological obscurity in the fifth and sixth centuries, when it seems the fortress
and colonia were largely abandoned. York again became regionally prominent in the early
seventh century as Eoforwic, the religious epicentre of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of
Northumbria. It had royal associations, a bishop ( 627 ) and then an archbishop ( 735 ), a
famous school and international trading connections. The cathedral stood near the
centre of the former fortress, and mercantile and manufacturing activities took place
along the banks of the River Ouse. Yet the population of Eoforwic may have numbered
only 1 , 000 – 2 , 000 and, apart from the Roman defensive walls, much of the Roman
townscape – buildings and streets – had already disappeared.
In 866 Eoforwic was captured by the Viking ‘great heathen army’; it has been
suggested that this force was commanded by members of a dynasty that, since 851 , had
ruled in Dublin. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that in 876 this army ‘shared out
the land of the Northumbrians and began to plough and to support themselves’. For
much of the next century the modern county of Yorkshire, and areas beyond, were ruled
by Viking kings of York who were members of the same Hiberno-Viking family; under
Old Norse linguistic influence the city’s name was transformed to Jorvik (ON Jórvík).
Archbishops of York recognised a co-dependency with the Viking kings in their shared
ambitions to maintain authority and independence, and this political détente was
mirrored in the fusion of the Viking invaders and Northumbrian Anglo-Saxons into a