Jórvík
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jórvík was the Viking name for the English city of York and the kingdom centred there.
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[edit] History
York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. It was first captured in November 866 by a large army of Danish Vikings, called the "Great Heathen Army" by Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, which had landed in East Anglia and made their way north, aided by a supply of horses with which King Edmund of East Anglia bought them off and by civil in-fighting between royal candidates in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Declaring a truce, the rivals for the throne of Northumbria joined forces but failed to retake the city in March 867, and with their deaths the kingdom Deira came under Danish control, and the Northumbrian royal court fled north to refuge in Bernicia. A Viking attempt against Mercia the same season failed and in 869 their efforts against Wessex were fruitless in the face of opposition from Kings Ethelred and Alfred the Great.
Jórvík became the capital of a flourishing small kingdom when the Danish warlord, Guthrum, headed for East Anglia, while Prince Halfdan Wide-Embrace of Sjaelland and Uppsala took the York throne in AD 876. Both were in the Danelaw, as were their English subjects. While the Danish army was busy in the British Isles, the Swedish army was occupied with defence of the Danish and Swedish homelands where Halfdan's brothers were in control.
Jorvik was founded by the paternally Halfdan Ragnarsson as a Danish institution but was passed onto the Norwegians, who fought for it. Native Danish rulers who eventually made Jelling in Jutland the site of Gorm the Old's kingdom, were in the East Anglian Kingdom. The Five Boroughs/Jarldoms were based upon the Kingdom of Lindsey and were a sort of frontier between each kingdom. King Canute the Great would later "reinstall" a Norwegian dynasty of jarls in Northumbria(Eric of Hlathir), with a Danish dynasty of jarls in East Anglia (Thorkel). Northern England would continue to be a source of intrigue for the Norwegians until Harald III of Norway's death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
The area of the palace built by the Viking rulers was known as the Konungsgårthr and is today known as King's Square, which nucleates the Ainsty. New streets, lined by regular building fronts for timber houses were added to an enlarging city between AD 900 and 935, dates arrived at by tree-ring chronology carried out on remaining posts preserved in anaerobic clay subsoil. The Viking kingdom was absorbed into England in 954, without cramping its economic success: by ca 1000, the urban boom brought Viking Jórvík to a population total second only to that of London within the British Isles. William the Conqueror brought the independence of Jórvík to an end and established garrisoned castles in the city.
[edit] Kings of Jórvík
- Halfdan I 875-883
- Guthfrith I 883-894 with:
- Sigfrith 883- ?
- Cnut early 10th cent.
- Ethelwald early 10th cent.
- Halfdan II 902-910 with:
- Ragnald I 912/9-921
- Sihtric the Blind 921-927
- Guthfrith II 927
- Eric Bloodaxe 948-949
- Olav II (re-restored) 949-952
- Eric Bloodaxe (restored) 952-954
[edit] Archaeological findings
From 1976 to 1981, the York Archaeological Trust conducted a five-year excavation in and around the street of Coppergate, which uncovered well-preserved remains of Jórvík's timber buildings, workshops, fences, animal pens, privies, pits and wells together with artefacts of the time, preserved in anoxic wet clay. The state of preservation of thousands of everyday objects is breath-taking: A shoemaker's wooden last, and even a minter's die for striking coinage were recovered. The lack of oxygen in the dense mud meant that decay bacteria were unable to break down embedded materials. Up to 9m of stratified deposits were encountered. Wood, leather, textiles, and plant and animal remains, which do not always survive for long periods underground, were recovered in large quantities, supplementing the more durable pottery, metalwork and bones.
In the 10th century, Jórvík's trading connections reached to the Byzantine Empire and beyond: a cap made of silk survives, and coins from Samarkand were familiar enough and respected enough for a counterfeit to have passed in trade. Both these items were famously recovered a millennium later as well as a large human coprolite known as the Lloyds Bank turd. Amber from the Baltic is often expected at a Viking site and at Jórvík an impractical and presumably symbolic axehead of amber was found. A cowrie shell indicates contact with the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf. Christian and pagan objects have survived side-by-side, usually taken as a sign that Christians were not in positions of authority.
The York Archaeological Trust took the decision to recreate the excavated part of Jórvík on the site, peopled with figures and sounds as well as pigsties, fish market and latrines to bring it fully to life using innovative interpretative methods. The Jórvík Viking Centre opened in April 1984 and proved to be a major visitor attraction. In 2001, the centre was refurbished and enlarged.
