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The Viking Age: A Time of Raids and Conquests
An overview of the Viking Age, roughly 790s to 1066: Scandinavian homelands, raids, trade, settlement abroad, and how historians frame the period.
Empires and Wars
The Vikings
Norse raiders, traders and settlers and their impact on Europe and England.
Norse Gods and Pre-Christian Belief
What the Norse believed before Christianity, and how little of it comes from sources written by believers: Eddas, skaldic verse, runestones and archaeology.
The Viking Age: A Time of Raid and Conquest
How Viking longships worked: clinker-built hulls, sail and oar, shallow draft and river reach, and how the ships shaped the speed and tactics of Norse raids.
The Viking Age: A Time of Raiding and Exploration
Norse voyages west to Iceland, Greenland and North America and east along Russian rivers: the settlement, trade and exploration side of the Viking Age.
The Viking Invasion of England in the 9th Century
A narrative of the Great Heathen Army in England: landing in East Anglia, the fall of Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia, and the survival of Wessex.
The Viking Invasion of England: A Story of Conquest and Resistance
How Alfred of Wessex resisted Danish armies, how a treaty split England with the Danelaw, and how later Danish kings ruled the whole country.
The Viking Invasions: A Threat to Medieval Europe
How Scandinavian raids turned into lasting settlement in Normandy, Ireland and the Danelaw, and how those settlements reshaped politics across Europe.
The Viking Raids on Medieval Europe
How a typical Viking raid worked: surprise landings, why monasteries and trading towns were targeted, what was plundered, and the fate of captives.
The Viking Raids: A Threat to Medieval Europe
How kings, towns and ordinary communities answered Viking raids with tribute, fortified towns, bridges, fleets and local defense, and what worked.
Viking Burial Customs and Ship Graves
What cremations, mounds and ship burials such as Oseberg and Gokstad reveal about Viking beliefs, status and daily life, and how cautious we must be.
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