the encyclopedic entry of Jórvík

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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 between the leaders of its two sub-kingdoms; Bernicia and Deira. 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 Deira came under Danish control as the Kingdom of Jorvik, 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 a flourishing small kingdom when the Danish warlord, Guthrum, headed for East Anglia, while Prince Halfdan Wide-Embrace of Sjaelland seized power 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 defending the Danish and Swedish homelands where Halfdan's brothers were in control.

Jorvik was founded by the paternally Swedish 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 Burghs/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 in 1066 just prior to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest.

The area of the palace built by the Viking rulers in what is now York 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 the Viking city of 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.

Aftermath

Between 1070 and 1085 there were occasional attempts by the Danish Vikings to recapture their Kingdom of Jórvík, however these attempts did not materialise into the return of the kingdom.

After the Kingdom of Jórvík was merged with Northumbria (by now an Earldom of England under the House of Wessex) the title King of Jórvík became redundant, and was succeeded by the title Earl of York, created in 960. Although some of the early Earls of York were Nordic like the Jórvík Kings, they were succeeded by Normans after the Norman conquest, until the title was abolished by King Henry II. The title Duke of York, a title of nobility in British peerage, was created in 1341, but was merged with the Crown when the 4th Duke became King Edward IV. Subsequently, the title of Duke of York has usually been given to the second son of the King or Queen.

Kings of Jórvík

Archaeological findings

From 1976 to 1981, the York Archaeological Trust conducted a five-year excavation in and around the street of Coppergate in central York. This demonstrated that, 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, as well as a large human coprolite known as the Lloyds Bank coprolite, were famously recovered in York a millennium later. 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.

After the excavation, the York Archaeological Trust took the decision to recreate the excavated part of Jórvík on the Coppergate site, and this is now the Jorvik Viking Centre.