new, Anglo-Scandinavian, culture. Military force and diplomacy were employed to fend
off the expansionist ambitions of successive Anglo-Saxon kings of Wessex, who in the
early tenth century had taken over other formerly independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
previously conquered by Vikings. York’s Viking king was expelled by Alfred’s grandson,
King Athelstan, in 927 , but Irish-Viking rule was renewed on his death in 939. In the
940 s– 50 s Eric Bloodaxe, an exiled Norwegian prince, also contended for control of
York, an episode echoed in the Saga of Egill Skallagrimsson, but with his departure and
death in 954 York became irrevocably absorbed into England. Yet Anglo-Saxon kings
rarely ventured north to York; they appointed Anglo-Scandinavian churchmen and
aristocrats to positions of authority in York to oversee the territory on their behalf.
Untouched during the later tenth- and early eleventh-century invasions of Sven Fork-
beard and his son Cnut, York played a pivotal role in the events of 1066. The Norwegian
king Haraldr Harðráði won a battle at Fulford, just south of York, on 20 September
1066 ; the city submitted, but he was defeated and killed at the battle of Stamford
Bridge, nearby, on 25 September. Even after William the Conqueror took over the city
in 1068 York was a bastion of resistance to the Normans. Scandinavians attempted
invasions in 1069 , 1070 and 1075 , but thereafter the city’s political and social connec-
tion with Scandinavia faded, leaving as its only obvious legacy the majority of York’s
street names that incorporate elements derived from Old Norse such as -gate.
In 1972 York Archaeological Trust undertook the first archaeological excavations
aimed specifically at elucidating Viking Age York. This showed that in part of York
there is up to 9 m of archaeological strata, mostly dating to the Viking Age, and
comprising peat-like anoxic deposits in which organic remains, including timber
buildings and artefacts of leather, textile and wood, are well preserved. There is also a
wealth of biological data within these layers; studies of plant and beetle remains have
shown that York probably had slightly colder winters and slightly warmer summers
than today.
Excavation of 1 , 000 m^2 at 16 – 22 Coppergate, in 1976 – 81 (Figure 27. 2. 1 ), investi-
gated large parts of four long narrow tenement plots that had been laid out by c. 900 ;
post and wattle buildings erected near the street frontage of Coppergate had housed
specialist craftsmen. The remainder of each plot was used for ancillary purposes, with
rubbish and cesspits dug there. In the 970 s a new style of building was adopted,
incorporating a plank-lined cellar below a ground-level room. On some plots there
were two ranks of buildings at the frontage, an index that York was thriving. It was,
however, a smelly place, with cesspits, rubbish pits, animal waste, and both domestic
and industrial debris contributing to the malodour. In the damper parts of the city,
where decomposition was inhibited, the ground level rose at an average rate of 1 – 2 cm
per year in the tenth century.
City-wide, the evidence suggests that it was in the late ninth and tenth centuries that
new streets and property plots were laid out in and around what had previously been
a largely open, sparsely occupied townscape. Almost the only Roman street lines that
remained in use were parts of those linking the four main gateways of the fortress. The
sole Roman bridge across the River Ouse having disappeared, the crossing was re-
established downstream on a site beyond the corner of the fortress. This encouraged, or
perhaps necessitated, sweeping changes to the city’s overall plan. As the ground surface
was steadily heightened by the dumping of rubbish and the build-up of occupation
debris, two sides of the Roman fortress defences, those facing the Rivers Ouse and Foss,
–– Richard Hall––