The Mythbusting Sword from the Bedale Hoard

By Dr Sue Brunning Written sources from Viking period Britain create the impression that gold-hilted swords were typical weapons for high status warriors. Alfred the Great (871–99) described royal retainers wielding them; his father Æthelwulf (839–58) gifted one to the Holy See in Rome; and his grandson Eadred (946–59) bequeathed another. In the poem about …

Viking Age stone sculpture in the East Midlands

By Paul Everson How do you make new discoveries of archaeological material dating from the Anglo-Scandinavian era in the East Midlands: the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries? And how do you contribute to scholarly and popular understanding of the Viking Age in England? For myself and my friend and long-term academic collaborator, David Stocker, the …

Repton in the Viking Age

One of the aims of our project is to find out more about what happened in the East Midlands in the Viking Age. A key site near to our Nottingham base is Repton, in Derbyshire. This was an important centre of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and the burial site of several of its kings. It was …