The Northumbrians: North-East England and Its People: A New History

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This interest in knowledge and ingenuity is further illuminated in the twentieth century when a working-class intellectualism found expression in the pit villages and towns of Northumberland and Durham. Parts of Northumberland were divided into liberties and shires, which, like Durham, were often exempt from the writ of the King.

The Christian connection to this unification, of course, is speculation owing to the lack of Northumbrian records. was the first Anglo-Saxon leader to hold the thrones of both Deira and Bernicia, [49] and so he ruled over all the people north of the Humber. Jackson stands as a twenty-first-century heir to the ‘New Northumbrians’ of the nineteenth century, a loose movement who saw themselves as alternative, cultured and historic people distinct from the national norm.

At least four of the greatest Illuminated Manuscripts – The Book of Durrow, The Codex Amiatinus, The Lindisfarne Gospels, and The Westminster Abbey Bestiary – all come from Northumbria as did two of the greatest scholars of the medieval world. CE), the Viking king of Dublin and grandson of the infamous Viking chief Bardr mac Imair (or possibly one of his brothers). He survived one assassination attempt early in his rule, but fell victim to another assassin at the age of nineteen. At Yeavering, in Bernicia, excavations have uncovered evidence of a pagan shrine, animal sacrifice, and ritual burials.

During the ninth and tenth centuries, there was an increase in the number of parish churches, often including stone sculptures incorporating Scandinavian designs. These saints are usually associated with the monasteries on the island of Lindisfarne, Wearmouth-Jarrow, and the Abbey at Whitby, though they are also associated with many other religious sites in the region. There were three hundred years of Viking raids, battles and settlement until William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings in 1066. In the time of Bede, there were five languages in Britain: English, British, Irish, Pictish, and Latin.

Aethelfrith did, in fact, want Edwin killed but the prince was given sanctuary in the kingdoms of East Anglia, of the Welsh, and Mercia. The land extended from the Tees to the Tyne and anyone who fled there from either the north or the south would receive sanctuary for thirty-seven days, indicating that the Community of St. He and other Irish monks achieved this and subsequently the Northumbrians helped to reconvert much of the rest of England and also parts of the European continent. Ida was the first king of Bernicia; he may have initiated the conflict with Deira by expanding his kingdom toward the south. These dynasties had much in common: they were based in what’s now north-east England, in Northumberland and Yorkshire, respectively; they spoke Old English; and they claimed origins across the North Sea, with Germanic antecedents stretching back as far as the god Woden.

While he himself only ruled Northumbria directly for about a year in 876, he placed Ecgberht on the throne as a client-king, who ruled from 867 to 872.

Alcuin of York is still considered an intellectual giant of his day and would influence future generations of scholars as a teacher at the court of Charlemagne (King of the Franks 768-814 CE/Holy Roman Emperor 800-814 CE). After the Synod of Whitby, the role of the European continent gained importance in Northumbrian culture. This soon became part of the royal circuit – a network of halls dotted around the Northumbrian kingdom, each of which took turns to host kings and their entourages.