Viking Names
Knipton
Knipton, in the Framland Hundred of Leicestershire, is a Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid from Old Norse gnípa ‘a steep rock or peak’ and Old English tun ‘an enclosure; a farmstead; a village; an estate’. The name is topographically appropriate as the village lies in a narrow valley with hills rising steeply on each side. Pagan Anglian burials here suggest an earlier Old English place-name that was replaced with Scandinavian settlement.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Shears
Shears were a common agricultural implement generally used to cut the wool off sheep but could also have been used as scissors in textile production. These are based on a number of originals uncovered during the excavations at Flixborough, Lincolnshire.
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Viking Designs
Drawing of a Viking Sword
This is a drawing of a Viking Age sword which was found in Grave 511 at Repton where the invading Viking Great Army had their winter camp in 873/4. When it was found, the sword had traces of a wooden scabbard attached to the rusted blade. Analysis showed that the scabbard was lined with fleece and covered in leather. The grip was wooden and covered in a woollen textile.
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Viking Objects
Spindle-Whorl (LEIC-8D89EA)
A small, plain, undecorated lead-alloy spindle-whorl. Fibres were spun into thread using a drop-spindle of which the whorls were made of bone, ceramic, lead or stone and acted as flywheels during spinning.
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Viking Names
Lowesby
Lowesby, in the East Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire, is a difficult name. The first element possibly comes from the Old Norse male byname Lauss/Lausi ‘loose-living’. Alternatively it has been suggested that the first element could be derived from the postulated Old Norse element lausa ‘a slope’ which is found in Scandinavian place-names in the forms -lösa/-löse; however, this element was no longer used for place-naming by the time of Scandinavian settlement in England. The second element is Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Belt
A vegetable-tanned leather belt with a decorated copper alloy belt buckle. The buckle has a ring and dot pattern and is based on one found in Grave 511 at Repton, Derbyshire.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Trefoil Mount
A reproduction of copper alloy and gilded Carolingian mount with niello inlay found in Leicestershire. The mount has holes drilled through it for affixing to a surface, possibly a book, or perhaps to repurpose it as a pendant. These would have most likely been brought over by Vikings who had raided or traded on the European continent.
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Viking Names
Langlif
In Scandinavia, the female name Langlíf is first recorded from the middle of the twelfth century. It is suggested that it occurs in scattered (and often late-recorded) place-names in England, in North Yorkshire and in Cumberland. Its occurrence in a minor name Leevingrey Furlong in Flintham, Bingham Wapentake, Nottinghamshire, has been disputed. The name also occurs in twelfth- and thirteenth-century documents from Norfolk. The name means ‘long life’ and may originally have been a by-name.
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Viking Talks
Holme from Home? East Midland Place-Names and the Story of Viking Settlement
What can place-names tell us about Vikings in the East Midlands? Dr Rebecca Gregory Wednesday 20 December 2017
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Viking Names
Beesby
Beesby, in the Bradley Haverstoe Wapentake of Lincolnshire, comes from a male personal name Besi and the Old Norse element by ‘a farmstead, a village’. The name Besi, which is recorded for Lincolnshire in Domesday Book, seems to be a Danelaw version of a Scandinavian name recorded in Old Danish as Bøsi. Today the name survives only in Beesby Farm and Beesby Hall, but remains of a deserted medieval village can be seen.
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Viking Names
Thoroton
Thoroton, in the Bingham Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Þurferð and the Old English element tun ‘farm, settlement’. It is thus a hybrid name, like others nearby, such as Aslockton and Colston Bassett. The Thoroton Society, Nottinghamshire’s principal historical and archaeological society, takes its name from Dr Robert Thoroton who, in 1677, published the first history of the county. He in turn (or rather one of his ancestors) presumably took his name from the village.