The True Story of the First Viking Attack on England 

After the attack on Lindisfarne, Alcuin of York advised the English to stop getting trendy haircuts as a way to appease God, and prevent future Viking raids. Is this the worst piece of advice in history? 🤔

If you visit Lindisfarne, keep in mind that it is a real village on the island and it's not like Port Merrion. My folks lived there and the amount of tourists who would just wander into people's gardens and back yards was staggering. It was always a relief for them when the tide would come in and all the visiting tour coaches and cars would leave. (edit: typo)

I bet a pound to a penny that monks wrote those predictions long after the event.

Re: the advice on avoiding future Viking attacks....perhaps "cut your hair" was a useless idea, but "stop hoarding so much wealth" was a GREAT plan. The Vikings wanted "stuff", and knew that the churchmen were greedy accumulators of other people's stuff. If they'd actually espoused in truth, the monasteries would have been safe(r).

Season 1 of that show was amazing. It kind of went off the rails, but I liked the concept of telling the whole Viking age through the lives of a few characters.

There were raids all the time, also internal raids in Scandinavia - Frisians raided the Danish West Coast, The Venti raided Aarhus in Denmark way before Viking times - vice versa. Basically, for people who lived along a coastline and could sail in ancient times, raiding was always an option. The real story of Lindisfarne is why people - even at the time - made such a fuss about it. It speaks to a clash between a solidifying Christian, medieval culture, where slavery was slowly being abolished and the Church had established a safe position, and the Scandinavian raiders, who just hadn't gotten the memo yet on the new rules. Oh, and the 'Vikings' episode is great drama, but also reinforced the old false trope that people from these cultures didn't know each other. The Scandinavians who traded and travelled would have seen plenty of monks. And they knew where Lindisfarne were, how to get there and what to expect - why the hell else risk going over the North Atlantic? They might easily have visited before as traders and staked out the place. Or gotten word from relatives who has settled (peacefully, largely) on the British mainland nearby. The idea that these people were like aliens from space to each other is just ridiculous.

Another brilliant video from History Hit. Thankyou.

Often there are several meanings in the writings of this time and others. The previous centuries in this area have documented interactions of these same itinerant 'Norsemen' traveling from the Nordic countries and Baltic area in the summers on trading expeditions that were very regular and seasonal. These mercantile trips show the Vikings were armed, but primarily for defense of themselves and their trading stocks on board their vessels. Traders also knew the local peninsulas and islands near the shore that were isolated enough to fortify temporarily as they beached their vessels and set up camp. Trading was done in a indirect way (due to language differences and mutual distrust) The Viking traders would set out lots of trade goods they'd brought, 'piles' of a set value, then retreat off shore to observe the locals. Then the locals would walk around the trade goods and appraise their value to them. If a purchase/trade was desired, the locals would set their own 'pile' of trade goods, often leather, pottery, woven goods, furniture or metal goods -- next to the pile of Viking goods, as an 'offer' to trade, this for that. Then the locals retreated to observe the Vikings who returned to assess the offered 'swaps', taking the goods offered, if the value was sufficient, and leaving their goods in return. This sort of trading was commonplace in both Scotland, and along both coasts of Great Britain, especially in the Irish sea between Ireland and England. Trading ships sailed out of the Nordic lands in the summer, down between England and Ireland (to avoid stormy waters and to trade with two areas simultaneously). The Norsemen would sail down to Northern Spain and the Southern coast of France, known for its wine and other finished goods. Then, as summer waned, these Norsemen would sail back home, again trading along the way with the people of England and Ireland (as well as offering a sort of 'bus service', documented in a book I read from 500 AD, a note from a monk who recorded taking the 'returning ship' from Spain back to England). So the Vikings were well known and traders, not often raiders as they became in time for a variety of reasons. As for the incident the contemporary writer said incited the Vikings to attack and loot Lindisfarne, it more logically came from discontent or outright aggression during the regular trading trips each summer. Trust had built up and perhaps the local people chose a single Viking ship with a small crew to loot and maim or murder. Just as the exposed Lindisfarne monastery, located, by choice, on an isolated promontory, was 'easy pickin's' for the Vikings, so too would have a Norse trading vessel have been easy to attack and overcome by an organized mass of locals. A proud people and outstanding sailors and raiders, a cry for revenge (and loot) would have raced through the Viking lands, turning their normal summer trade fleets into a large, angry fleet (at first), which their devastating attack on Lindisfarne demonstrated. Something triggered this major change that became the norm, ending the peaceful trading of centuries, by the Norsemen and the people of Scotland, England and Ireland (and further out). It is a story yet to be researched properly and told.

Excellent video 👍 ! Thanks for sharing this ! First time hearing about cutting your hair as a defense against the Vikings ! If only it was that easy !

Great history! Thanks.

Those Vikings that attacked Lindisfarne were without shields. That's how certain they were of meeting no resistance.

Great vid. Make more.

Well presented

Very good work

Awesome story, loved It

lovely video i have been filming there :) people love that place

Aaahhhh.... The good ol' days

This interests me. I read about the raid on Lindisfarne decades ago in a fantasy novel.

Ragnar and vikings make me feel so lazy , just laying on the couch under blankets in January

The courage it took to kill a bunch of defenseless monks and priests. So brave of them.

The earliest raid was actually on Portland in Dorset around 790 in the reign of Beortrhic of Wessex.

The Anglo Saxon chronicle for 793 AD was written in Alfred the greats time. It wasn’t contemporary at all.

Love seeing Bamburgh in the back

That must have been a day of complete horror.So many defencless men slaughtered Not good days.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿👎

I think 'Run for Home' was their best song :)

Someone had indeed deserved that: the church and its habit of amassing gold and precious stones attracted the vikings

Early start

Alcuin of York is not entirely wrong. Ostentatious showing of great wealth without security generally leads to trouble.

Yay! Vikings! ❤️❤️‍🔥❤️❤️‍🔥❤️❤️‍🔥❤️❤️‍🔥❤️

Somehow when listening to the story, I came to think of the part in Startrek Enterprise where the Andorians raid the Vulcan monastry.

You don’t just sail across a vast sea on a whim. The raiders must have had prior knowledge of the treasures within. It makes me wonder if they had not visited the site before, perhaps as peaceful traders and may have been invited inside at one point either to meet Christ or to deliver their wares.

I can imagine the panic…. Of the people

I am born & bred in Northumberland! So pretty sure, I’ll have Viking blood in me! Even today you can see the impact of those times in our local words. Child= bairn, home= hyem!

Was up there last year its nice

Been there, a magical place in northern england

0:16 Viking indeed...

It seems the Christian people of Britain at that time had lived in relative peace with little strife from serious invaders, and so were holy unprepared. I would be interested to hear what the kings of Britain said after hearing of this and whether they simply doubled down on the religious sentiment.

The priory he was walking around in the video wasn't there in 793, that building was built in the twelfth century.

My Grandfather was born there at the Snook. (Maybe someone would figure out who I am from that...) Anyway it is about 15 years since I was there but I did grow up hearing all of the stories and legends. Still always interesting to see another take on it. Although I think it always makes more sense in the context of why it was so important in not just English or British history but as a pivotal point and place in Western History. Along with Iona and Jarrow (World's oldest Bible, Bede etc.). That little corner of Northumberland is where the light of learning flickered when the western world went dark.

How did they ever think they could live in peace on a coast

Wow! Those Chainsaws they are holding looked huge

I have never understood why middle-ages churches had so much treasure: gold, silver and jewel studded items?

how do they know

Godt gået, vikinger.

The first known account of a Viking raid in Anglo-Saxon England comes from 789, when three ships from Hordaland (in modern Norway) landed in the Isle of Portland on the southern coast of Wessex.

Did the Vikings really sail all the way from Scandinavia to Lindisfarne ? or did they sail down the east coast from their bases in Orkney ?

There has been some new findings that prove the raiding or going " Viking" was already going on. It just seems there is not so much scholarship on them.

I saw a doggie, so now this is my favourite history hit videos.

I can confirm that whenever I cut my hair, I suffer a Viking attack right after that.

Mankind is still prone to blaming the victim for their misfortune than blaming the perpetrator. We will never learn.

Did it hurt?..but now we have many good thoughts on ya!!

Pfft! I’ve cut my hair many times and it hasn’t protected me against Viking attacks at all.

some of the video (when matt lewis is on screen) is very stuttery. noticed it on some other videos on history hit too

This event is so damn central to the history of the Vikings. You pretty much CAN'T do a documentary on them and NOT mention Lindisfarne.

Poor monks 😢

Ive always kept my hair tidy and have never been attacked by any vikings so... Just an observation from an academic.

Great video however "England" was referred to a number of times. What is now England was a number of different kingdoms in 793. A unified "England" came later under Ælfred The Great.

I've read somewhere that St Cuthbert's Folk were "marrying monks and nuns", not celibates, such as the orders established by Pope Gregory. The image of them as something like Franciscans of a later time might be a bit inaccurate. The story I heard ends with them wandering for years with the remains of St Cuthbert, and finally coming to rest at Huby, in Yorkshire, if I remember correctly. You might find that the imputation of sin to them was due to a clash between Southern (with Roman origins) Christians, and Northern ones - with roots going back to the hermitages in the Irish Sea, and Iona, in Scotland. I think Lindisfarne was within the Northern tradition, rather than the Southern one. (Again, this is digging around inside the place I send facts to be forgotten, for information I came across many years ago.) As I had it, the monks and nuns of Iona's churches were only celibate by personal choice, if they were so, and would often marry, and have children, too. Celibacy was quite a new fangled thing in the early 800's.

It still is Northumbria

Shock and oar.

Why are you walking around in the ruins from the monastery from around 1100, pointing and talking about the viking attack? The monastery at the time was a Long house.

Why did we not attack the danes later

God: *sees dope haircut* God: Send the Vikings!

Basically it was an olden day smash and grab!

"They seemed nice".🤔

Odin, Thor, and Freyr tried to warn the monks they didn't listen 🤣

👍

Do we have the vikings point of view of this event?

First recorded raid was chesil beach on Portland in Dorset a few years before. They killed the local royal official.

The Angles were Suebi and most likely Arians. Two Roman emperors, Constantius II and Valens, became Arians or Semi-Arians, as did prominent Gothic, Vandal, and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Catholics were squatters and got shown the door.

Spent many pleasant day trips to 'Holy Island,' over the years. It's really nice to catch it on a day, when not rammed with touristi. Certainly check those tides and times thereof. The more I hear and read about this attack on St Cuthbert's Priory, the more it smells like and 'inside job.' All those works of art, gold & silver just ready to be plundered, guarded over by a few pious & effete monks? What happens to 'God helps them, who help themselves?' Those Vikings were just on a speculative raid, as they passed by? Although in the modern context, based on the way certain folk have behaved during recent shortages of toilet paper & pasta ect, not hard to imagine, how this raid kicked off. "Oooh look Olaf, those monks have just unpacked a few pallets of Prime Energy drink." Are you ready? 🙂👍

I don't understand why they did not attack Scotland where it is easier to reach. Possibly they were too scared.

The Anglo-Saxons were raiding Britain in Longships during the 4thC while it was still under Roman rule. They were being Vikings before it was fashionable.

Maye the monks should not have been sitting on all of that gold.

Yeah when is Norway going to pay to get that Priory rebuilt.

They managed a brief occupancy in tiny areas of North Wales, but were sent packing, so not really that much Viking history in the land of the native indigenous Briton's. When the Norman conquest swept away the Saxon's in a blink of an eye, it took another 250 years, and the most extensive and expensive castle building programs ever seen in Western Europe... And all this to subdue a tiny nation of sheep shaggin hill tribes. This perspective of indigenous native history is strangely ignored, given the Welsh have been in a perpetual state of foreign aggressive oppression since Roman times.

I think more research needs to be done on the build up to Lindisfarne. Charlemagne was trying to Christianise Saxony and had destroyed sacred artifacts and most importantly used Anglo-Saxon missionaries as translators. I dare say Lindisfarne was a response to this and the desecration of the monastry was revenge. I think it's possible that the Viking wars were a religious/cultural war more akin to the antagonisms between Christendom and the Muslim world...

"00 years too early for England.

Not far from my house

not true, I was there

like the slaughtery of Verdun by the francs 10 years earlier

Vast army. Probably 40 men.

"Out of all this treasure, you saved a book"

People in the past we're really stupid

This can hardly be regarded as a valid telling of history. As the man says "What do we really know about that day?"I it should also be said that by his own admission Mat Lewis is not by any stretch a trained historian. Simply reading the account as presented by the Anglo Saxon Chronicle gives as much an objective view as would Jimmy Saville talking about his charity work. There is repeated reference to "pagans" and "heathens" as opposed to the "saintly" monks. This is illogical judgement on the basis of emotive words. The main source of monks was sons of families that had no inheritance to pass on once the eldest son had been seen to. Chastity did not become a qualification for the job of being a monk for another few hundred years so many would have had female (or male) companions. The Vikings may have come to pinch the bling off the altar but where did the monks get it from in the first place? Much of the wealth of the church came from local kings and chiefs trying to buy their way into heaven after having thought about the bad stuff (like rape and pillage) that they had done. A genuine attempt at a "true" story would give the story from the Viking side as well. Do we know where the raiding party actually came from? There must have been communication before hand for the Vikings to know where to find the stuff. Did they have inside information? Actually stealing the stuff is pointless unless they have a market. Do we know where the treasures finished up afterwards? I think it highly unlikely that the story is as simple and one dimensional as the presenter makes out.

One of the best days in history.

Lindisfarne was not the first viking raid in England

I have no wish to appear as an apologist for the nasty Vikings, but we all know how unpopular they made themselves amongst the fraternity of the particular monotheistic institution they ransacked, but it is entirely possible that the people of The Huldra Plain (legendary poets and musicians who the Norsemen may have seen as 'Children of Braggi', musical brother of the naughty Loki) may have been cheering from the rafters as the nice monks who were obviously SO nice to them were carried away.. Bear historical witness to the integration of The Norse into the indigenous population.. Nice film, some cracking footage of Lindisfarne here. 🌟👍

Writing after the event, a churchman blamed the monks on Lindesfarne for not being holy enough, therefore being at fault for the attack. Like so often today, even in those days the victims were being blamed for the crimes they suffered. Nothing changes, does it ?

So you aren't going to treat the A.Saxon Chronicle skeptically and in context, but actually read it as if the omens of doom weren't added in hindsight. This bodes poorly.

I've seen a couple things that depict female Viking warriors, forcing monks to um... be unchaste with them. That's complete fiction, right? I only ask because it's becoming such a common trope. I did hear someone saying there are graves of Viking women found with weapons and armor, although there's still a lot of debate as to whether they are actually female warriors, or just got buried with their husband's stuff. I didn't find that person's argument in favor of them being warriors all that strong, but I couldn't completely dismiss it either. So, were there female Viking warriors and did they rape some of the monks, or is it just Hollywood catering to the modern audience's wanting equality of the sexes?

Perhaps we should demand reparations from Norway.

A wrong picture of it. Yes, they could be brutal. but not as close to the ones they told you about. They were masters of trade. They are buiding ships, not to mention the all of the counting of trading. many people dont get this

It's actually hard to be sympathetic when the Catholic Church is separated from some of it's gold and silver.

records don't mention vikings or Norsemen-they say pagans came from the North which could be the direction they approached Lindisfarne. Charlemagne was campaigning against the Saxons and Frisians and destroying their temples. Lindisfarne was a sacred site to the Christian missionaries who had destroyed the sacred sites in Frisia and of the Saxons and therefore a target, it could have been payback.

I can't lie these videos really don't need all the slow motion shots of you walking on the beach... That's not what we're here for😂😒

People looking for Fungible Tokens?

I've been waiting for this video a genuine historical account of one of if not the most infamous viking raids in our country's rich yet brutal and bloody history no wonder we brits have an appetite for war and conquest just look at the people's we learnt from the Romans first taught us how to build and united the great tribes of the south. The Anglo-Saxon then taught us how to kneel under a single faith But the vikings they taught us one simple lesson if you can't trade with a people then you conquer them and take what you want anyway

This wasn’t the first attack, but listed as the second or third (can’t quite remember). Oops this was detailed! Lindisfarne had good press in this attack, over imagined the sacking and result. It was good press in the long-term and the Vikings would have had no feeling about a Christian site, why would they? Remember, who was telling the story and probably why. Slavery was common throughout the world, as it has been at all times including today.

I had nothig to do with it.