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Lindisfarne - An Age Borne in Fire - Extra History (Patreon)

Published:
2016-07-29 09:33:55
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

The omens were not enough: no one on Lindisfarne would ever have guessed they'd be the victims of the first Viking raid.

Enjoy this one-off episode about the start of the Viking Age!

Files

Previews only

Lindisfarne - An Age Borne in Fire - Extra History

Bishops. Manuscripts. Pilgrimage. Wealth. In 793 CE, the island monastery of Lindisfarne thrived in a state of harmony. Then, everything changed when the Viking raiders attacked. Once they discovered Europe's weakness, not even mighty kings like Charlemagne could stop them. They transformed their power at sea into an avenue for conquest and expansion: the Viking Age had begun. Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon --- (Episode details below) Grab your Extra Credits gear at the store! http://bit.ly/ExtraStore Subscribe for new episodes every Saturday! http://bit.ly/SubToEC Learn about the disastrous Macartney Embassy that tried and failed to improve British trade relations with China: http://bit.ly/28Ro4B1 Play games with us on Extra Play! http://bit.ly/WatchEXP Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): http://bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/ECFBPage Get our list of recommended games on Steam: http://bit.ly/ECCurator ____________ Troubling omens were recorded in Lindisfarne prior to the Viking invasion on June 8, 793 CE. It was the seat of the bishop for much of Northeastern Britain. Monks in the scriptorium produced some of the most celebrated illustrated manuscripts, and abroad they helped convert the pagans of Britain. Lindisfarne had been the final resting place of St. Cuthbert, so pilgrims often came and enriched the priory and the town. It never occurred to anyone that when strange ships appeared on the horizon, that they might be hostile. The men who disembarked were fierce, unknown, and merciless. They cut down monks in the churches and looted the church... then left. Bishop Higbald survived, and sent the news across Europe. From there, the frequency of raids only increased and raged across all of Europe. The burgeoning flame of Lindisfarne was almost snuffed out. It was the first time in history that the reach of Christianity shrank, rather than expanded. But what about the other side of the story? These "barbarians," who would become known as Vikings, were striking back at a culture that looked down on them, insulted their faith, and tried to swindle them at trade. They had realized how poorly defended these both the British Isles and mainland Europe were, and how rich they were in fertile land. They put their vast knowledge of shipcraft to work and turned trading routes into raiding routes, finding new lands for them to settle. The Viking Age had begun. ____________ ♪ Get the intro music here! http://bit.ly/1EQA5N7 *Music by Demetori: http://bit.ly/1AaJG4H ♪ Get the outro music here! http://bit.ly/23isQfx *Music by Sean and Dean Kiner: http://bit.ly/1WdBhnm

Comments

RMS Oceanic

What incredible timing, I was at Lindisfarne last week! It's a beautiful part of the world, and the Priory and accompanying museum was fascinating.

Aaron hutchinson

Interesting way to tell the tale. Through the one eye of disaster, and the other of triumph. Just goes to show that history has more than just the views we're taught in mandatory education.

Vika

Does anyone know the etymology of Lindisfarne?

RMS Oceanic
>>2226706

Lindisfarne is a rare example of history being written by the losers.

RMS Oceanic
>>2226779

There are a number of theories, depending on whether you believe its origin to be Celtic, Welsh or Anglo-Saxon

Andreas Monitzer

Meh, now I want to hear more about this part of history :/

Parker
>>2226706

Well it depends on the scope that your looking at. If we are looking just Lindisfarne then yes the Christian monks were the losers, but if we are looking at the Age of Vikings as a whole, Christianity is the winner as all of Scandinavia is converted, the Norse men never expanded their borders long term, and the raids stopped.

Anonymous

One of these days, you guys need to make a full series on the Viking Age.

Justin M.

I remember a quote from a documentary - "Lindisfarne was like a sign in every Viking village 'Uncle Olaf Wants You!'"

Stephen
>>2226706

It helps that the losers of the battle were literally scribes, and the winners were using poetic epics to pass their history down via an oral tradition (Poetry, because that's easier to remember, as I recall)

Jessica Cheeri

Well, Lindesfarne anyway. Still plenty more stories; Ælfred the Great vs the Great Heathen Army or Leif Erikson reaching what's now Canada can probably still go into the hat

Jim McGeehin

The neat thing about Viking longboats was that it was very easy to beach them. Their low draft meant they could sail up rivers, land the boat, portage it very easily, then sail back with their loot before the English fyrd could counterattack. As anyone who has ever played CK2 can testify, dealing with band of Viking raiders is tedious and almost impossible to contain.

Michael Jebbett

There were actually quite a few shield-maidens who took part in these raids too. Ironically, Vikings were a bit more open minded when it came to women, but not by too much.

Michael Jebbett

Oo oo! Are we gonna learn about Ragnar Lothbrook? Does History channel know that you might be spoiling their one good series?

Jessica Cheeri
>>2229281

It is good, I'd call it historical fiction though. A combination of the legends of Ragnar mixed with other accounts of Viking raids from around Europe

Jacob Ashton

Awesome. That is all i can say about this.

Paul Grodt

The Lindisfarne Gospels is IMHO one of the most beautiful documents ever created. I've spent many many hours pouring over scans of them. I hope sometime that new Google image scanning technique can be done on them so they can be seen at that crazy level of detail where you can even make out just as much detail as seeing the real thing with a magnifying glass.

ExtraCredits
>>2226706

If you want more versions of the tale, try side-by-siding the History Channel's "Vikings" series with "The Last Kingdom" series (BBC, but also on Netflix now). Only Vikings covers Lindisfarne directly, as they're doing some pretty big timeline-warping that lets them show the Viking Age as a whole, but those two shows are both coming at the Viking Age from (more or less) those two different perspectives. (I have to say more or less because the protagonist of The Last Kingdom has a pretty complicated relationship with the Vikings, but the series is certainly more rooted in England.)

ExtraCredits
>>2226779

I do not at all, so if you're willing RMS, I'd be curious to hear which one of those possible theories is your favorite. Even if it's your favorite because it's the most entertaining, not necessarily the one you consider most plausiable!

ExtraCredits
>>2226949

I wouldn't be surprised to see it turn up on a vote one day, whether you all put it there or we do (eventually).

Sean Sarff

I don't see what the problem is. Monks in history are notorious for defeating armies. Wait, is that only in Japan?

ExtraCredits
>>2227726

As a Minnesotan who grew up on Prairie Home Companion, the idea of an Uncle Olaf conjures up a much more benign figure than I think that's meant to do!

ExtraCredits
>>2227924

Yeah, this was just a little taste. Next week we begin a full series on the Brothers Gracchi!

ExtraCredits
>>2228717

Their grasp of shipbuilding techniques is really amazing. The fact that they could build such agile river-faring ships AND sturdy ocean-faring ships deserves the praise it gets.

ExtraCredits
>>2229278

Oh yeah! Nuts! I made a note to myself when I saw the script to request shield maidens, but I forgot to pass it along. :( If we ever come back to the Vikings, I'll make sure our Lagerthas get their screen time.

ExtraCredits
>>2229281

Yeah, it's definitely historical fiction. They play super fast and loose with the timeline (though James has an interesting theory that this is in its own way an homage to the epic tradition, where you so often hear about characters living for hundreds of years). Quite a lot of fun, though. As for Ragnar Lothbrok on Extra History, I'm not certain. He exists in a gray area where it's not quite certain if he was a real person or a legend, though he's definitely connected to real people in the tales. That'll be a decision for another time, though, as this episode was just a one off!

ExtraCredits
>>2231261

Oh wow. I just looked them up and couldn't agree more; those are truly impressive. The British Library just released their collection of images on Flickr and I would rather expect the Lindisfarne Gospels to be part of that collection, but so far my search there only yielded one page. (Google Images, of course, has many more pages.) They said they're working on making the collection more easily searchable, though, so maybe it just hasn't been properly labeled yet. In which case, I'm going to leave this link here in the hopes that in the future it'll be more useful - and also because it's still super neat that we have access to these archives online now: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary</a>

Ville Vuorela
>>2228717

We are still learning new things about those ships, like how the planking draws air underneath the hull to reduce friction. The replicas are amazing. Ramlösa Rus, a replica of a knarr, a viking trading ship, could easily reach speeds of 14 knots downwind.

Tempestfury

Definitely interested in learning the other side of the story honestly. Christianity looking down on the believes of others? Sadly, I can see that... it happened all the time in the ancient past. Same with Jews and Muslims, Romans and probably even Hundi I'm sure. What I'm more interested in, however, is how they claim the traders were trying to swindle them... and had been for generations to come. Also, Charlemagne, I’ve heard that name so many times, even in fiction. But I have never heard his story, and I would love Extra History to cover him.

RMS Oceanic
>>2226779

Starting with Lindis-, this depends on whether you believe it's the word "lindis" meaning "stream/pool" and referring to a nearby river, or if it's a reference to settlers from the Kingdom of Lindsey, the southernmost part of Northumbria. -farne has three possible origins: The word "Farran" meaning "land", possibly a settler named Faran, or the ability to see the nearby Farne islands from the town, and said islands were fern-like in nature. Of all those options, My gut says the likely option is "Land of Lindsey".

Christina Maria Jessen
>>2226706

Depends on what you mean expanding borders long term, Parker. Ignoring sparsely populated Iceland and Greenland, the Norse settlers founded and conquered a number of political entities that would remain. Normandy is the most famous example. The most important is the Kievan Rus, though it's pretty generally agreed that most of the actual population was local Slavs and steppe people, not vikings. Most royal families in Europe including the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha claim viking ancestry, for example, and English and Scottish culture have heavy linguistic and cultural elements from the Norse period. The countries founded by the Norse would also expand greatly during the Middle Ages. The crusades that brought Christianity to the southern coast of the Baltic were carried out by the kings of Denmark, same for Estonia and Latvia. Sweden would conquer and colonize Finland, ruling it for centuries until the Russians conquered it from them. The Norse are gone, a thousand years is a long time, but they didn't just vanish. In their core territories they would develop into the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelanders, Faroese and Shetlanders. Abroad they would mingle with local cultures, creating new ones drawing from both sources such as the English, the Scottish, the Russians, the Ukranians and the Belorussians. And in countries they didn't settle, they would still engage in exchange of goods and ideas that wasn't purely one-sided. They're much like the Goths or the Romans in this.

Christina Maria Jessen
>>2229278

A recent study checking the genetic material of warrior graves from the Danelaw showed that contrary to previous judgement that they were for men, judgement based on the fact that they were warrior graves, the gender balance was roughly equal. Of course, it's hard to tell from the presence of a sword just how active the person buried was in using it, but it probably means something more than social class since richly furnished graves without weapons exist as well.

Christina Maria Jessen

The vikings, both the actual raiders that the name refers to and Norse culture in general, would still engage in trade a lot. It's not like they just stopped selling and buying after this. If anything, trade increased after this. They also weren't really huge. Changing climates and growing populations meant that Scandinavians at the time were pretty poorly fed and notably small compared to those of wealthier land to the south. The viking age was a low point in the physical growth of Scandinavians. The huge Scandinavians we have today are more a product of the wealth of the welfare states than a historic feature of the region. Just like the idea that the Chinese are tiny is. 18th century and earlier European sources talk about how tall and powerfully built the Chinese were. Nutrition more than anything inherent governs size in humans.

Corristo

Who wrote down the history and the chronicles during that time? Well, obviously those who could read and write, which were monks. And we can be pretty certain that they would do their best to make the Vikings seem as savage as possible, while stylizing themselves as poor victims. Ironically, it was violent monks who often raided and pillaged the surrounding areas, like in Dublin. This is what we call "historical bias", like with the Greeks and the Persians. The Greeks got to tell their side of the story while the Persians didn't. Today we see the ancient Greeks as a beacon of civilization, while they were quite often incredibly corrupt, hellbent on war and conquest and hardly very tolerant and democratic. Of course they didn't see themselves like that at all, but were more than happy to paint the Persians in that light.

Valerie Hofer

Why do you do this to me. Once again a one-off episode now means I'll spend the rest of the day researching Vikings. Great episode. The throw in about the Viking side at the didn't seem as long or fact driven as the Christian side at the beginning, but very interesting.

Laura Galm

I thought vikings didn't really do sword and board. I thought they mainly relied on their shields to ram and crush and only use their swords for counter attacks rarely. Also I thought they didn't have the horns?

ExtraCredits
>>2232865

Were you at the Q&A where I talked about my research into early human history? I remember being taught in schools that agriculture was developed by successful societies and enabled them to grow their population, but I found out that anthropological evidence now suggests that agriculture was a desperation move and that hunter-gatherer societies in rich environments were actually much healthier and taller (like, as tall as modern humans). I'm now pretty endlessly fascinated by how much of an impact nutrition has (and how quickly you can see its effects), so thanks for this!

ExtraCredits
>>2233106

Wait, were there really violent monks raiding and pillaging the area? I thought Sean Sarff and I were joking with the Sengoku Jidai comparisons, but now I'm going to have to look into this!

ExtraCredits
>>2233347

We do this to you because we love you! There is nothing that makes us happier than tricking our audience into opening a Wikipedia page or grabbing a book from the library so they can learn more about something we tickled their interest in.

ExtraCredits
>>2233821

Check again - the only time they're depicted with horns is when the Christians are describing them as devils! The rest of the time they have proper (horn-free) helmets. I really loved that touch by Lil. As for sword and board, I believe you're correct, but at Lindisfarne they're not really engaging in a battle - they're engaging in a raid against a largely undefended populace. Military ranks tend to break down at that point, and swordpoint is usually the method of choice for "rapine and slaughter."

Antti Björklund
>>2233347

That is a very cunning plan... As cunning as fox who used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on, and is now working for the UN at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning! If you don't get the reference, shame on you! :P

Christina Maria Jessen
>>2232865

The Q&A timing is usually a bit awkward for me, I'm usually roleplaying at that time, so no. And, yeah, agriculture allows for more people, but until technology really advances it's a lot more work for nutritionally worse food than hunting and gathering. Of course, this isn't the case with the vikings, Scandinavians had been farmers for centuries if not millennia by that point, it was just a point where a combination of the climate, the technology at hand, deforestation and the size of the population crashed nutrition for a while. The effects of nutrition are really visible too. I studied in Shanghai for a semester and it was impossible to not see just walking down the street. The old people were tiny, bent and had arms, legs and necks like twigs. The middle aged ones tended to be short and kinda stocky. Young people, roughly speaking the millennials of the city, were tall and had as varied body types as you'd find anywhere else. You could literally see the changes in Chinese economy in the 20th century in the size of the people.

Siegfried Pinzer

the runes you guys used to show the different language, what Futhark (a runen "alphabet") did you use and does it mean anything? I got "U N L E A S W" and "W E L L !" (I used to the older Futhark). Also more extra history about pagans!

RMS Oceanic
>>2235617

I suspect the translation was meant to be "UNLEASH HELL!", but I don't know enough Runes to verify that.

Andrew Showers
>>2235617

there's lots of runic translations and while A LOT of runes are the same letters like H, O and S had different ways of being depicted. Some runic alphabets only have around 17 characters having letters like O/U, and C/G be the same character, while other runic alphabets have 34 characters adding new "letters" like 'TS' or 'PP'

ExtraCredits
>>2235617

I did not even realize this was in there, but yes, Lil slipped one past me again. Have I mentioned how great she is? It is intended to say Unleash Hell although she doesn't remember what alphabet she used.

ExtraCredits
>>2226779

I picture someone named Lindsey setting up her palace on that island, giving the stink eye to anyone who tries to bother her there.

Martin Ockovsky

Beautiful and amazing. 1:33 the body of the guy on the right looks like a penis

Mikael

Lovely little episode, please do more vikings :)

Avery
>>2233106

I searched but was unable to find a source for this "historical bias"... Maybe the actual source was the TV show Vikings, which was visibly anti-Christian.