Horrible Histories: Vicious Vikings

Horrible Histories... I stumbled across this BBC television program several months ago and fell head over heals into it. The fun part is my kids-- all four of them-- love it just as much. It's my greatest disappointment to not have all my love of history rub off on at least one child so far, but this show has them watching history voluntarily. And it's the most ridiculous sort of history. For those of you who follow this blog, the unfortunate part, is that Horrible Histories is not on YouTube. In my notes on this course I'm teaching, I will specify which episode I've used and the times on the episode. It's up to you to find it on Amazon Prime or other outlets that have it. I will link to the youtube videos that I've added to this course to supplement the history. 

For the first class, now two weeks ago, we began with Vicious Vikings.

The Viking Age began with the raid at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, England.

This video is the 10 Minute History: The Viking Age. It covers Viking beginnings and their raids. Vikings raided the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland regularly over several hundred years.

• Horrible Histories, Season 1, Episode 13, minutes 19:25-23:30. The Viking Report, Stupid Deaths: Sigurd the Mighty, and Viking words in the English language.

• Horrible Histories, Season 1, Episode 9, minutes 11:47-13:55.
• London Bridge is Falling Down is a nursery rhyme about a Viking raid on London.

• Horrible Histories, Season 2, Episode 9, minutes 5:02-9:00. Viking Sports and Feuds.

• Horrible Histories, Season 2, Episode 8, minutes 0:35-3:52. Viking makeup and monastery raids.

Monasteries were easy pickings when it came to Viking raids. The Viking Raid on Lindisfarne began the Viking Age in 793 CE. The Lindisfarne Gospels survived the first and many other raids, and the manuscripts are considered the greatest Old English/Anglo-Saxon writings to survive. Here is a facsimile of the Lindisfarne Gospels. The ornate cover was lost during a raid but was replaced in 1852.

Also, like the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Kells, was also an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels. Written about 800 CE, the manuscripts survived a Viking raid at Kells Abbey in Ireland. The manuscript is now located in Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and has been house there since 1661.

• Horrible Histories, Season 1, Episode 11, minutes 14:22- 18:02. The oral tradition of the Vikings in rhymes.