By Michelle StylesThe capital city of Northumbria Eforwic (York) was first captured on 1 November 866 when the city was busy celebrating All Saints Day. There was hardly any bloodshed because supposedly everyone was at church except for the Vikings. It was the Vikings who renamed the city Jorvik. Vik means a bay in Old Norse. The Romans called it Eboracum and the Anglo Saxons changed it to Eforwic.
The Vikings reputedly attacked Northumbria as
revenge for the death of Ragnar the Hairy Breeched whom the Northumbrian king
Aella put to death by imprisoning him in a snake pit. His three sons – Ivar the
Boneless, Ubbi and Halfdan of the Wide Embrace invaded England to revenge him.
the actual historical context is that there was thought to be a civil war
raging in Northumbria between Osbert and Aella and the Vikings took advantage
of it. It is thought that consolidation pressures in Scandinavia drove warriors
out of their homelands.
On 21 March 867, the Northumbrians tried to
retake the city but the Northumbrian army was soundly defeated. Both Osbert and
Aella were killed. Aella is supposed to have been ‘Blood-eagled’ -- hacking his
ribs from his spine and pulling his lungs out. The only time this sort of death
is mentioned in the Viking sagas. There is no historical evidence that it
actually happened. The Vikings were known to turn the defeated on their
stomachs to allow the eagles to feast on their backs. The Anglo-Saxon church
made Aella into an instant saint.
In 872 Northumbria rebelled again. The rebellion
was put down in 874. In 876 Halfdan, after wintering on the Tyne in 875, shared
out Northumbria’s lands and his warriors settled. Prior to this, the
Vikings just demanded Danegeld and used the country as their own private
larder. The northern part of Northumbria (basically the county of
Northumberland) became a client kingdom of Northumbria –Bernecia. The Yorkshire division into Ridings dates from
the Viking era.
Halfdan died in 878 and Northumbria plunged into
a period of civil war. A recently discovered a hoard of coins from the period
shows several Viking kings’ names which have been lost to history.
