Blog Post
The Vikings in Lincoln
by Dr Erik Grigg, Learning Officer, The Collection, Lincoln The Viking Age display at The Collection, Lincoln, (c) Erik Grigg The Collection in Lincoln has a fascinating Viking display, some of which were found nearby as it is located in the heart of an important Viking trading settlement. Even the local street names indicate Scandinavian origin and demonstrate the enduring influence of the Scandinavian settlers on the area: on one side of the museum is Danesgate which means ‘Danish Street’ (gata being the Old Norse for street). The use of Old Norse gata persists in other street names around The Collection: Flaxengate, meaning the street where people were turning flax into linen to make clothes, lies immediately to the west, while Michaelgate and Hungate are only a short walk away. ‘Gate’ has become the local word for ‘street’ thanks to the Scandinavian settlers in the Viking Age. Thorfast the comb maker at The Collection, Lincoln. (c) Erik Grigg The Vikings first turned up in the area in the 870s and the Great Heathen Army made camp at nearby Torksey. The museum has a small case of finds from the recent excavations there including pieces of gold and silver hacked into convenient bits to use as treasure or currency. Viking Age artefacts on display at The Collection, Lincoln. (c) Erik Grigg After they established control, the Vikings soon settled down and turned the old Roman city of Lincoln into a vibrant trading borough. Coins and a coin die used to make them are on display in the museum as Lincoln was an important mint. The Vikings kept themselves clean and tidy and the museum has the reconstruction of a Viking comb-maker’s workshop. The finest piece on display is an eleventh or twelfth century Urnes mount, a sumptuous piece of Viking metalwork with the typical motif of intertwined dragons. Carved grave covers, a sword, axe heads and bone ice skates are also found in The Collection as well as a recently discovered rare gold Thor’s Hammer pendant. Dr Grigg has written more about the Viking Borough of Lincoln on the Visit Lincoln website.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
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
Read More
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.
Read More
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.
Read More
Viking Names
Grassthorpe
Grassthorpe in the Thurgarton Wapentake of Nottinghamshire is an Old Norse compound from gres ‘grass’ (which could also be Old English) and þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’.
Read More
Viking Names
Skendleby
Skendleby, in the South Riding of Lindsey of Lincolnshire, is a name of uncertain origin. The first element is obscure, but is perhaps scenehelde ‘beautiful slope’ from Old English scene ‘bright, beautiful’ and helde ‘slope’. The second element of the place-name is Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
Read More
Viking Names
Torworth
Torworth, in the Bassetlaw Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Þórðr and the Old English element worð ‘enclosure’.
Read More
Viking Objects
Silver Ingot (DENO-CE6103)
This silver ingot was made by melting down worked silver and casting it in an open mould. The Vikings arriving in England had a bullion economy in which they paid for goods with silver that was weighed to an amount agreed between the buyer and the seller. Hacksilver and silver ingots are the most common evidence for their bullion economy. It took some time for the Scandinavian settlers to adopt a monetary economy like that of the Anglo-Saxons, and both systems were used simultaneously for a while before they fully adopted the new system. The Vikings were familiar with monetary economies but they treated coins as just another form of silver before adoption of a monetary economy.