River Kings: Epic Stories of the Viking Age

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To mark the US release of our very own Dr Cat Jarman’s incredible book River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads, sit back and relax as she takes us a whistle-stop tour of her captivating Sunday Times bestseller. From Sweden to Ukraine and from London to Constantinople, the Vikings certainly got about! But how much of a link was there between the western and eastern Viking worlds? By joining the dots of fascinating new archaeological evidence, pioneering research and reassessments of traditional sources, Dr Cat reveals that many of the stories we are traditionally told about the Viking Age might not quite be as true as they seem. Order Dr Cat's book today.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I've already welcomed Dan Snow's history hit. I'm in the untard at the moment. Not the easiest place in the Ultimate podcast.
0:06.0	So here is an episode of our sister podcast, Gone Medieval with Dr. Kat Jarman. Enjoy.
0:21.0	Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval by History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman.
0:26.0	Today I want you to go back to a point in time that I'm sure you're all very well familiar with.
0:32.0	That sunny day in June in the year 793. When a savage attack on a monastery in Lindisfar, marked the start of the Viking Age.
0:41.0	When a brutal strike where heathen raiders from Scandinavia heralded by terrifying
0:48.0	premonitions of blood red skies and fiery dragons flying above, left monks slaughtered and their sacred sains remains trampled under foot.
0:57.0	The threat was new, unexpected and the beginning of a whole new face of history.
1:06.0	Except that's not quite true.
1:10.0	That wasn't the start. Perhaps not even close.
1:14.0	But for a long time it's been a really convenient place to begin the story.
1:19.0	And that's not the only part of the traditional Viking narrative that we should reconsider.
1:25.0	In fact, recent discoveries and new knowledge about the interconnection between Viking expansion in the West, the Silk roads,
1:33.0	and the rise of the Islamic caliphate in the 8th century allow for a different view over the Viking Age than the story that's traditionally told.
1:41.0	Now there's no doubt that the attack on Lindisfar and one very much like it happened, but the significance it's been given is emblematic of a very Anglo-centric perspective.
1:54.0	And much of the new evidence shows that as those Scandinavians eyes started turning towards conquering the Anglo-Sized West,
2:02.0	those same eyes had perhaps already landed quite hungrily on the prospering and wealthy Islamic worlds in the East.
2:12.0	All of this is a topic of my book, River Kings, a new history of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk roads.
2:20.0	And in this episode I haven't got a guest, but instead I'm going to take you on something of a whistle-stop-tour through the book,
2:27.0	and some of those new things that we now know about the Vikings.
2:32.0	So, do we really have much new to say about the Viking Age?
2:38.0	I had to answer this question a few times when I was approaching publishers for this book, and I would argue that we really do.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.