The Viking raid on Lindisfarne is remembered as one of the first major Viking attacks on Britain and Ireland. The raid, which took place in 793AD, struck at an isolated, yet highly significant, monastery. An assault on a holy site was unthinkable to Christians. The attack provoked outrage and fear. Lindisfarne was the first of many such raids on coastal sites. As the Vikings grew in confidence and learnt more about the coastline of the British Isles, the raids began to move inland, using navigable rivers to take them silently miles inland.
Viking Raid on Lindisfarne
“In this year came dreadful forewarnings over the land of Northumbria, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of lightning and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons were seen flying through the sky. A great famine soon followed these signs and not long after in the same year, on the sixth day before the ides of January, the harrowing inroads of heathen men destroyed the church of God in Lindisfarne by robbery and slaughter.”
Source: The Anglo Saxon Chronicle
Notes for Primary Teachers
- Lindisfarne is sometimes referred to as being the first place to be attacked by the Vikings in England. This is not true. Records show that there were raids around Kent several years earlier. Lindisfarne is one of the first and one of the most significant in terms of its psychological impact.
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was begun in Wessex in the late 800s so the source of information for their account of the Lindisfarne raids is not entirely clear. It is most likely based on recounted stories so is, in fact, a Secondary Source, though as close to contemporary as you will find for this event.
- The source makes the religious aspect of the raid quite clear. Not only in terms of Lindisfarne being a monastery but through its linking famines to the raid, a sign from God, and its use of terms such as heathen men.
Resources
Video on the Viking Raid of Lindisfarne
BBC HistoryExtra: Article on the Viking Raid on Lindisfarne, useful for building subject knowledge on the raid. The article can be found here.
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