Event Type: Branch

Takes Place: 29th September 2026

Time: 5pm

Venue: Millthorpe School Hall, Nunthorpe Avenue, York, YO23 1WF,

Description: The raid on Lindisfarne in 793 is often treated as a beginning; the spark which ignites the ferocity of the Viking Age. Viewed from a broader and longer perspective, this 'surprising attack' can be seen as the culmination of a process by which violent enterprisers encouraged one another through hierarchies, ship-building techniques, and a lust for wealth, to raid coastal settlements to increase their status. This is the winding road to the dawn of the Viking Age, a road across the North Sea that starts, earnestly, in the Late Roman Period, and grows throughout the third to the eighth centuries. By approaching the Viking Age from before the beginning, the hope is that the era and its actors can be reassessed beyond being 'terrifying heathens from the north', but as active agents in economies and political relationships throughout the wider Early Medieval Period.

How to book: Email Ruth Lingard

Email: ruth.lingard@york.ac.uk

Organiser: Ruth Lingard

Lecturer: Alex Harvey, archaeology postgraduate, University of York, author of Forgotten Vikings: New Approaches To The Viking Age, and Little Kingdoms: An A-Z of Early Medieval Britain,

Region: North-East England

Branch: York & North Yorkshire