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Jórvík

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain)

   Jórvík was the Viking name for the English city of York and the kingdom
   centred there.

History

   York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and
   revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic. It was first
   captured in November 866 by a large army of Danish Vikings, called the
   " Great Heathen Army" by Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, which had landed in
   East Anglia and made their way north, aided by a supply of horses with
   which King Edmund of East Anglia bought them off and by civil
   in-fighting between royal candidates in the Anglian Kingdom of
   Northumbria. Declaring a truce, the rivals for the throne of
   Northumbria joined forces but failed to retake the city in March 867,
   and with their deaths the kingdom Deira came under Danish control, and
   the Northumbrian royal court fled north to refuge in Bernicia. A Viking
   attempt against Mercia the same season failed and in 869 their efforts
   against Wessex were fruitless in the face of opposition from Kings
   Ethelred and Alfred the Great.

   Jórvík became the capital of a flourishing small kingdom when the
   Danish warlord, Guthrum, headed for East Anglia, while Prince Halfdan
   Wide-Embrace of Sjaelland and Uppsala took the York throne in AD 876.
   Both were in the Danelaw, as were their English subjects. While the
   Danish army was busy in the British Isles, the Swedish army was
   occupied with defence of the Danish and Swedish homelands where
   Halfdan's brothers were in control.

   Jorvik was founded by the paternally Halfdan Ragnarsson as a Danish
   institution but was passed onto the Norwegians, who fought for it.
   Native Danish rulers who eventually made Jelling in Jutland the site of
   Gorm the Old's kingdom, were in the East Anglian Kingdom. The Five
   Boroughs/Jarldoms were based upon the Kingdom of Lindsey and were a
   sort of frontier between each kingdom. King Canute the Great would
   later "reinstall" a Norwegian dynasty of jarls in Northumbria( Eric of
   Hlathir), with a Danish dynasty of jarls in East Anglia ( Thorkel).
   Northern England would continue to be a source of intrigue for the
   Norwegians until Harald III of Norway's death at the Battle of Stamford
   Bridge.

   The area of the palace built by the Viking rulers was known as the
   Konungsgårthr and is today known as King's Square, which nucleates the
   Ainsty. New streets, lined by regular building fronts for timber houses
   were added to an enlarging city between AD 900 and 935, dates arrived
   at by tree-ring chronology carried out on remaining posts preserved in
   anaerobic clay subsoil. The Viking kingdom was absorbed into England in
   954, without cramping its economic success: by ca 1000, the urban boom
   brought Viking Jórvík to a population total second only to that of
   London within the British Isles. William the Conqueror brought the
   independence of Jórvík to an end and established garrisoned castles in
   the city.

Kings of Jórvík

     * Halfdan Ragnarsson 875-877
     * Guthfrith son of Hardicnut 883- 24 August 895
     * Sigfrith floruit 895
     * Cnut fl. 895
     * Æthelwald died December 902?
     * Ragnald son of Sygtrygg, King of Dublin 919-920
     * Sigtrygg Caech, King of Dublin 920-927
     * Olaf Cuaran, King of Dublin 927
     * Guthfrith son of Sygtrygg, King of Dublin 927, died 934
     * Athelstan, King of the English 927-939
     * Olaf III Guthfrithson, King of Dublin 939-941
     * Olaf Cuaran, King of Dublin 941-943
     * Ragnald son of Guthfrith, King of Dublin 943-944
     * Olaf Cuaran, King of Dublin 944
     * Edmund, King of the English 944-946
     * Eadred, King of the English 946-947
     * Eric Bloodaxe 947-948
     * Eadred, King of the English 948-950
     * Olaf Cuaran, King of Dublin 950-952
     * Eric Bloodaxe (restored) 952-954, killed 954

Archaeological findings

   From 1976 to 1981, the York Archaeological Trust conducted a five-year
   excavation in and around the street of Coppergate. This demonstrated
   that, in the 10th century, Jórvík's trading connections reached to the
   Byzantine Empire and beyond: a cap made of silk survives, and coins
   from Samarkand were familiar enough and respected enough for a
   counterfeit to have passed in trade. Both these items, as well as a
   large human coprolite known as the Lloyds Bank turd, were famously
   recovered in York a millennium later. Amber from the Baltic is often
   expected at a Viking site and at Jórvík an impractical and presumably
   symbolic axehead of amber was found. A cowrie shell indicates contact
   with the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf. Christian and pagan objects have
   survived side-by-side, usually taken as a sign that Christians were not
   in positions of authority.

   After the excavation, the York Archaeological Trust took the decision
   to recreate the excavated part of Jórvík on the Coppergate site, and
   this is now the JORVIK Viking Centre.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3rv%C3%ADk"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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