Merry Christmas 2014

Seasons Greetings! Here's to the end of 2014 and an even better 2015!

Hamwic, Anglo-Saxon predecessor of Southampton

Today, Southampton is a modern port city of a quarter of a million inhabitants. Before the mid 9th century however, Southampton did not exist. Originally, a Roman fort often called Clausentum lay on the east side of the Itchen. After the Roman period in England however, a separate settlement moved to the opposite bank of…

Wic wic is wich? The Anglo-Saxon trading settlement

The most prominent type of settlement associated with trading activities in the Anglo-saxon period was the Wic, an Anglo-Saxon loan word from the Latin Vicus meaning a dwelling, farm, hamlet, or subsidiary settlements. The Wics were communities very similar to those found in rural areas with the distinction of servicing trade and industry. Most communities…

Trade

As part of my plans of outlining aspects of early medieval life I was going to write a post on Trade. In The Northumbrian Saga, Leodgar and Aethelwin are both traders of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria and with the invasion of the Vikings comes a whole new orbit of trade and trade partners, including Thorstein. As usual…

Lindisfarne, Holy island of the north: Part 2

Welcome to Part two of the history of Lindisfarne. If you have missed the first part in which Lindisfarne was founded and became a religious, cultural and scholarly mecca, you can read the article here. Unfortunately for Lindisfarne, its rise to prominence also made it a target. The climax of the centre’s history came in…

Sisters doing it for themselves?

I recently saw an article pop up on my facebook page that immediately had me excited.Better Identification of Viking Corpses Reveals: Half of the Warriors Were Female.This was followed of course by a very aptly chosen picture of Lagertha from Vikings... which I have also used... shamelessly.But the more I read the article and all…

Blog Hop: Meet my main character

This week I am involved in another blog tour, this time looking at the main character of my novel. I was invited to join by Edoardo Albert, author of many fiction and non-fiction books including "Northumbria: The Lost Kingdom" which was co-written with Paul Gething, "Professor Tolkien of Oxford", "Call to Prayer: The Story of…

Bamburgh Castle, home to the kings and earls of Northumbria

Even though Bamburgh is only ever mentioned or hinted at in the background of The Northumbrian Saga, it is an important part of the storyline and integral to the history of Northumbria. It is the seat of power for the King of Northumbria, Aethelwin’s uncle, and later becomes the seat of resistance against the Vikings…

My writing process blog tour

Hi everyone. Well you are all very lucky to not only receive two blog posts in two days, but also two writing updates in a month... sort of. I have been tagged in the My writing process blog tour by author Matthew Harffy. The idea is not only to let readers know a few things…

Anglo-Saxon palace complexes

After the initial migration period of Angles and Saxons in the 5th and 6th centuries there was a shift from chieftainships and petty kingships with small territories to larger kingdoms (such as the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia which themselves joined to make the larger Kingdom of Northumbria). The larger the kingdom became the more…