29: 7. Defining the End: 1066, Harold Hardrada, and the Battle of Largs Eleanor Barraclough Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age The ending of the Viking Age is explored through political shifts. The year 1066 AD is conventionally used as t
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 October 2025
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Summary
Eleanor Barraclough
Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
The ending of the Viking Age is explored through political shifts. The year 1066 AD is conventionally used as the endpoint, marking the death of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Hardrada, a larger-than-life figure who had served the Byzantine emperor, based his English claim on Cnut's North Sea Empire. William of Normandy, who triumphed shortly thereafter, was of culturally assimilated Norse descent—Norman means Northmen. However, 1066 is Anglocentric. A later marker is the 1263 Battle of Largs, where conflict between King Hákon of Norway and King Alexander III of Scotland over the Western Isles ended with Hákon's death. This effectively ended Norway's political control in the region, although Norse culture persisted.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchelor, continuing my conversation with Professor Eleanor Baraklov, who is an historian, a BBC broadcaster, as well as working at the Baas Spy University. |
| 0:12.0 | The book is Embers of the Hands. It talks about the Viking Age, roughly 750 AD to 1100 AD, but both sides, there's no certainty here, |
| 0:24.0 | because the magic of the Viking Age collides with the magic of the Christian conversion process. |
| 0:31.6 | We're now going to the geography, and the geography includes a big battle |
| 0:38.4 | a big battle |
| 0:39.6 | and a and a graveyard |
| 0:42.2 | that is a way of talking about the endings we begin with the big battle in ten sixty six |
| 0:48.8 | harold |
| 0:50.1 | of england |
| 0:51.4 | harold of norway and william |
| 0:54.0 | of normandy. |
| 0:55.0 | We need to establish Eleanor that Normandy is as Norse as anything in England, correct? |
| 1:01.0 | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 1:03.0 | Rallo was the founder of Normandy. |
| 1:06.0 | So we're talking about the Vikings at war with the Vikings, the traditions of all. |
| 1:11.6 | Yes, pretty much. Yeah, so Norman literally means Northmen. |
| 1:15.6 | What's interesting is it's a bit like when we were talking about further east. |
| 1:19.6 | What often happens when the North settled in an area is that they assimilate culturally really quickly. |
| 1:25.6 | And so by the time of William the Conqueror, as he, |
| 1:29.1 | you know, is shortly to become in our narrative, they are not, they're not Norse in that way. |
| 1:36.0 | They don't speak the language. But having said that, if you look at the Bayo Tapestry and how |
| 1:40.9 | the Normans are depicted there, their hairstyles are the hairstyles that we |
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