Viking activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Middle Ages, the 8th to the 11th centuries CE, when Scandinavians travelled to the British Isles to raid, conquer, settle and trade. They are generally referred to as Vikings,[1][2] but some scholars debate whether the term Viking[a] represented all Scandinavian settlers or just those who used violence.[4][b]
At the start of the early medieval period, Scandinavian kingdoms had developed trade links reaching as far as southern Europe and the Mediterranean, giving them access to foreign imports, such as silver, gold, bronze, and spices. These trade links also extended westwards into Ireland and Britain.[5][6]
In the last decade of the eighth century, Viking raiders sacked several Christian monasteries in northern Britain, and over the next three centuries they launched increasingly large scale invasions and settled in many areas, especially in eastern Britain and Ireland, the islands north and west of Scotland and the Isle of Man.
- ^ Keynes 1999. p. 460.
- ^ Richards 1991. p. 9.
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 12 January 2020.Archived 7 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998. p. 3.
- ^ Blair 2003. pp. 56–57.
- ^
Blair, Peter Hunter (2003). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon studies (revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0521537773. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
A variety of evidence, among which some of the objects from Sutton Hoo hold a prominent place, indicates that England lay well within the range of Scandinavia's foreign contacts before the Viking attacks began.
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