The segment explores different endpoints of the Viking Age. 1066 AD is often cited, but this is Anglocentric. That year saw Harald Hardrada, King of Norway (whose claim descended from Cnut's North Sea Empire), killed by Harold Godwinson at the Battle of S

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

The segment explores different endpoints of the Viking Age. 1066 AD is often cited, but this is Anglocentric. That year saw Harald Hardrada, King of Norway (whose claim descended from Cnut's North Sea Empire), killed by Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Normans (Northmen) like William were culturally assimilated Vikings, meaning Vikings were effectively fighting Vikings. A later ending point is the 1263 AD Battle of Largs, a series of skirmishes between King Hákon of Norway and King Alexander III of Scotland over control of the Norse-inflected Western Isles. Hákon's subsequent death in Orkney led to Norwayrelinquishing the Isles to Scotland.
1893

Transcript

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0:00.0	Building a coffee business?
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0:23.0	Professor Eleanor Baraklov, who is an historian, a BBC broadcaster, as well as working at the
0:30.0	Basby University. The book is Embers of the Hands. It talks about the Viking Age, roughly 750 AD to 1100 AD, but both sides.
0:40.3	There's no certainty here because the magic of the Viking Age collides with the magic of the
0:49.3	Christian conversion process. We're now going to the geography, and the geography includes a big battle,
0:57.9	a big battle, and a graveyard. That is a way of talking about the endings. We begin with the
1:06.1	big battle in 1066. Harold of England, Harold of Norway, and William of Normandy.
1:16.0	We need to establish, Eleanor, that Normandy is as Norse as anything in England, correct?
1:21.8	Yeah, absolutely.
1:23.2	Rala was the founder of Normandy.
1:25.8	So we're talking about the Vikings at war with the Vikings,
1:31.4	the traditions of all. Yes, pretty much. Yeah, so Norman literally means Northmen. What's interesting
1:37.0	is it's a bit like when we were talking about further east. What often happens when the North
1:42.1	settle in an area is that they assimilate culturally really quickly.
1:46.0	And so by the time of William the Conqueror, as he is shortly to become in our narrative, they are not, they're not Norse in that way.
1:56.0	They don't speak the language. But having said that, if you look at the Bayo tapestry and how the Normans are depicted there,
2:02.6	their hairstyles are the hairstyles that we associate with the Scandinavian settlers.
2:07.6	So it's sort of like short at the back, long and shaggy at the front.
2:11.6	If you look at the Bayo tapestry, that's exactly what you see there for the Normans.
2:14.6	1066 is a convenient place to say this is when the Viking Age ends and we transform
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