Some reflections on history - Scandinavian influence on the British Isles

Even though I am an historian by education, my knowledge of certain parts of history is admittedly a bit patchy. But I do make an effort to close those gaps from time to time, mainly because I think it is immensely interesting. One of those areas where my knowledge is a bit lacking is medieval history, which in Norway chronologically correlates roughly to the Viking period.

During that time, Scandinavians (i.e. the Norwegians and even more, the Danish) had a huge influence on the British Isles. From the sacking of the Lindisfarne monastery in 793 up until the Norman invasion in the 1060s, Scandinavian vikings ruled large parts of Britain and left their mark on culture, language and politics. And even with the Norman invasion, the Scandinavian link is clear - William the Conqueror was a direct descendant of Rollo (or Ganger Hrolf), the Scandinavian viking who founded the viking principality that would become Normandy. William the Conqueror was the direct ascendant of the present-day Royal family in Britain, which in turn makes them direct descendants of Scandinavian vikings. Intriguing.

Contrary to common belief, the vikings were not simply bloodthirsty hethen warriors. More importantly, they were traders, who established extensive trading networks in areas such as the British Isles, Russia, Belorussia, Normandy, etc. Evidence of the extent of viking trade can be seen from frequent findings of Arab silver, Byzantine silk, and Rhenish glass in viking graves. Maybe the view as vikings being such merciless murderers stems from the fact that much of the history about the viking raids were written not by the victors, but by the people being raided, from the monks of the Lindisfarne monastery and onward, or from people highly sympathetic to them. Every historian, including myself, have got an agenda with what they write.

I have brushed upon the linguistic influence the Scandinavians had in my post from April 14, titled "Linguistic whores". A more thorough account can be found on the websites of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) in Aachen, Germany. Interestingly, some of the linguistic influences where quite profound:

Not only lexical, but also grammatical changes were due to Norse language influence, for example changes in the pronominal system: The Present Day English forms they, their and them were borrowed from Old Norse. The Old English forms were hie, hiera and him. Other influences on the English grammatical system are assumed to be the Norse influence on the verb to be: The original form of the plural present indicative in Old English was sindon, and it is assumed that Norse influence changed it to are. The inflectional ending –s of verbs in the 3rd person singular present indicative is also assumed to go back to Norse influence.¹

Another interesting point is that some words that we think of as borrowed from English, actually are words we have "gotten back", after English first borrowed them from us, and then them having fallen out of use in Scandinavia. One such example is the English word "bag", which was first borrowed from the old Norse word "Baggr".

In Ireland, vikings founded among others the city of Dublin. Many great cities, most notably York and London, were main trading centers for Norsemen. York was described by an unknown writer in 1000 AD as "…..filled with the treasure of merchants, principally Danes."² Other evidence of viking influence can be seen in names of towns and cities. Endings like -by, -thorpe, -thwait, and -toft are all of Scandinavian origin.

The viking also intermarried happily with the local population. Considering the viking love for red hair, one might do some speculations about the Irish ginger hair and the vikings.. However, intermarrying was not only constricted to Ireland, but happened commonly wherever the vikings settled, with the consequences that must have had on culture, both ways.

The historical links between the British Isles and Scandinavia are strong. Now that I live in the UK I have a good incentive - if I ever needed one - to delve into that part of history, which is undoubtedly very interesting.