Around 800 AD, Scandinavians from probably Western Norway began to settle the Hebrides of Scotland. For circa four centuries, power in the archipelago was held by a Norse speaking elite, from seaborne nobles during the Viking Age, which would become the Kingdom of the Isles, a vassal to the Kings of Norway, until power was seceded to the Scottish crown in 1266. This lecture, based off my Ph. D research, will attempt to answer the question: why the Hebrides? Why were the Hebrides first targeted for colonization during the Viking Age, and why did the Norwegian crown hold the islands until the disastrous result of Håkon IV’s campaign against the Kingdom of Scotland?
To answer this question, this lecture will take a primarily archaeological approach. It will argue that the Hebrides offered Norwegian colonizers the opportunity to set up society in a way that was structurally similar to Norway, without much pushback from the indigenous peoples. Furthermore, the location of the archipelago, a nodal between Orkney, Iceland, and Ireland would have allowed for local elites to extract taxes from seafarers. Finally, this lecture will discuss power and settlement structure and its relation to the great Scandinavian world.
Follow the lunch seminar here:
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Meeting URL: |
https://uib.zoom.us/j/65649272555?pwd=66J5A7VwMI6sjCk8RSXoznM4hUDNMz.1 |
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Meeting ID: |
656 4927 2555 |
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Password: |
xKPrMy2y |