Yorkshire Philosophical Society

A lecture by Dr Matthew Townend, University of York

Jointly organised by The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York & the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in the year of the 950th anniversary of the battles of Stamford Bridge and Fulford.

950 years ago, in 1066, the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada launched an attack on England in an attempt to gain the country’s disputed throne. Victorious at the Battle of Fulford on 20th September, and so capturing York, Harald was then defeated five days later, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, by the English king Harold Godwineson (who was himself, of course, to be defeated at the Battle of Hastings three weeks later). The best contemporary accounts of these battles are supplied (from the English side) by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and (from the Scandinavian side) by Old Norse praise-poetry. This lecture will commemorate these two local battles through a close examination of these sources, and will in particular introduce and explore the unfamiliar genre of Old Norse court poetry – a form of literature that enables us to get closer than any other to the cultural world of Viking Age kings and their followers.

Dr Matthew Townend is Reader in English and Related Literature at the University of York.  He  is the author of several books including ‘Viking Age Yorkshire’ (Blackthorn Press, 2014)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and skaldic verse, the praise poetry of the Scandinavian courts, contain near-contemporary (i.e. within ten years of 1066) accounts of the battles of Fulford and Stamford Bridge. None is specific about topography or details of the battles – – there is no mention of Fulford by name, or of the bridge at Stamford, for instance – – but each contains incidentally interesting information: the name Yorkshire (Eoforwicscire) first appears at this time in the Chronicle; Scandinavian personal names were very common in northern England; and, as now, they regarded their Anglo-Saxon fellow-countrymen as soft southerners

Viking skaldic verse is primarily heroic rather than descriptive. Originally an oral tradition, it employed remarkable rhythms, and in particular kennings (conventional metaphors) to convey qualities of heroic leadership and the heat of battle: for example, “blizzards of steel”, “rainshower of wounds”. The battle stanzas also contain generic storytelling images which suggest that, though contemporary, they provide and are the source of community memory and myth rather than facts. They emerged from the court of (Saint) Olaf, brother of Harald Hardrada, who died at Stamford Bridge, and interestingly also convey a veiled criticism of the failed Viking campaign.

Carole Smith