Vikings in Wales

AS WALES FOUGHT to defend themselves against Anglo-Saxon incursions from the East, a threat existing since the fall of the Roman Empire, the Vikings raided their coasts from the West. Although the Vikings infiltrated Wales between the ninth and eleventh centuries, they were never as great of a threat to Welsh sovereignty as the Anglo-Saxons were. Furthermore, Nordic settlement in Wales was far less significant as it was in Ireland and Northumbria. Instead, the tale of the Vikings in Wales is truly about a struggle for ‘native’ consolidation amid foreign threats.

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A ROMAN-CELTIC AND GERMANIC CONFLICT:

WELSH IDENTITY goes back to the final days of the Roman Empire, when Magnus Maximus was proclaimed the Emperor by the British Legions in 383 CE. Although he was executed shortly thereafter, in 388 CE, he became a legendary figure in Welsh history, and was thenceforth regarded as “the father of Wales.” Later on, another legendary figure named Cunneda, who lived around 400 or 450 CE, expelled Irish settlers from the northwest of Wales and established the first Welsh dynasty with his sons. Around the same time, between 420 and 450 CE, there was a man named Vortigern, who was blamed by later authors for ‘inviting’ the Anglo-Saxons into Roman Britain (Wales). The Welsh were originally the inheritors of Roman Britain, but they were pushed into what is now the modern territory of Wales during the Anglo-Saxon invasions.¹

The map below shows the original territory of the Britons, who become the Welsh we have been discussing:

King Arthur, a tradition well-known to many, actually has his roots in Welsh legend, being a key figure in the fight against the Anglo-Saxons. In the year 516 CE, a man named Arthur defeated the Anglo-Saxons at an event known as the Battle of Badon. Here is the entry from the Annales Cambriae (The Annals of Wales, 447–954 CE):

“516: The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors.”²

With such legends, none could possibly deny the existence of a deep-rooted conflict between the Welsh and the Anglo-Saxons. This struggle continued even past the Viking Age, but their initial arrival was during a stage of Welsh conflict against King Offa of Mercia.³ At this time a border was finally established between the Welsh and the Anglo-Saxons, referred to as Offa’s Dyke. A map and a picture of this can be seen below:

Despite this border, the tension and conflict between the Welsh and the Anglo-Saxons persisted; the border remained, but overlordship was still a title to be fought for.

RHODRI MAWR (‘THE GREAT’), HIS DESCENDANTS, AND THE VIKING WAVES:

THE FIRST DEFINITE VIKING RAID in Wales was in 852 CE, during the reign of Rhodri Mawr (d. 878 CE). By 855 CE, Anglesey (a map of its location can be seen below), known in the more distant past as a druidic ‘stronghold’, had become a prime target for Viking raids. Initial Welsh resistance was led by Rhodri Mawr, who successfully killed Gormr, the leader of the New-Dubliners (Hiberno-Norse Vikings from Dublin). Despite this, Anglesey became a prime target for Viking raids and ambitious Viking warriors seeking to claim lordship over it. After being expelled from Dublin around 902/3 CE, the Viking leader Ingimund “attempted to establish a base on Anglesey.” He was later expelled, but not before one of Rhodri’s sons, Merfyn, was slain.⁴ Furthermore, in 877 CE, Rhodri himself was forced to seek refuge in Ireland, driven there by the Vikings.⁵

A Map of the Location of Anglesey:

At the same time, however, during the winter of 877–878 CE, King Alfred of Wessex enjoyed a decisive victory over the Viking ‘Great Army’.⁶ Rhodri, likely returning from his exile during this time, was killed by the Ceolwulf, king of the Mercians, in 878 CE.⁷ This period has already proved itself to be a very tumultuous time for Wales. Rhodri Mawr had consolidated political authority in Wales, but then faced opposition from both the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons, who were themselves fending off Viking incursions, such as that of the Great Army. The Vikings, however, played a side-role in all of this conflict, for the Anglo-Saxons were the true, long-term threat for Wales. After the death of Rhodri, most of the Welsh kingdoms were forced to accept the overlordship of Kind Alfred, who essentially became the ‘landlord’ over Wales. This is important because it demonstrates that the Vikings never truly threatened the sovereignty of Wales to the extent that the Anglo-Saxons did.

The next major ruler of Wales was Rhodri’s Grandson, Hywel ap Cadell. He was able to reunite Wales, although he still accepted Anglo-Saxon overlordship. Under his rule, Wales worked to cooperate with the Anglo-Saxons, which “contributed to a period of relative security and unity against the Viking threat.” Peace did not last for long, though, for the Viking wave reached another peak by the year 950 CE, throwing this delicate balance into turmoil, and including another raid on Anglesey. There is even a possibility that Vikings ruled over large portions of Gwynedd, an important seat of kingship in Wales, between the years 960 and 1025 CE. This claim is based on the increased role of Hiberno-Norse in Irish politics at the time, as well as the work Historia Gruffud vab Kenan, which suggests that Olaf Sigtryggsson “ruled Anglesey and mainland Gwynedd (as well as Dublin, a large part of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Galloway, and the Rhinns) in the early eleventh century.”⁸ Still, even if this were true, it would not have impacted all of Wales, which was still under the thumb of Anglo-Saxon overlordship.

Up until this point, the Vikings have had a largely negative role on Wales; their presence had given Wales additional troubles to deal with while resisting their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. During the reign of Gruffydd ap Llwelyn (d. 1063 CE), however, Wales was able to expand against their opposition, even if only for a brief moment. He was the first and only king to rule over all of Wales, for the others had only encouraged multi-kingdom cooperation. Gruffydd took advantage of the Viking activity taking place in England, which at this point had weakened the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms considerably. Gruffydd took territory from the Anglo-Saxons, reaching his influence and authority into the Anglo-Saxon side of Offa’s Dyke. This would likely not have been possible had the Vikings not been hard-pressing England. This victory was short-lived, though, for Gruffydd was killed by a Welshman in a possible bloodfeud, and following his reign the Normans came into the picture.

THE NATURE OF THE VIKING IMPACT ON WALES:

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE for Viking activity and settlement in Wales has been rather sparse, consisting primarily of the following: “Viking graves, occasional finds, some Scandinavian place names, coin hordes, and a handful of sculptured stones which display Scandinavian influences.”⁹ Of those burials there are four, and all of them are located close to the coast, suggesting that there was not a significant Viking presence inland. In the end, there was very little Nordic settlement taking place in Wales, for they never penetrated the nation as intensively as they had in Ireland and England. There are, however, Scandinavian place names in South Wales as well, but again limited to coastal regions.¹⁰ Most of the Vikings that came to Wales came from Ireland and, more specifically, Dublin. Although Anglesey became a temporary base for Norse operations in Wales, it never quite reached the same ‘status’ as the Hiberno-Norse Dublin.

Keeping this in mind, it is important to note that many of these ‘Vikings’ would have also been traveling for trading purposes, and not just for raiding purposes. Dublin was a key trading port, and so it would not be unlikely to have plenty of Norsemen in Wales on trading business. A fortified stronghold near the coast of Anglesey was discovered between 1994 and 2001, for example, that “was economically and socially integrated with regional and long-distance exchange networks which operated around the Irish Sea” during the first half of the tenth century. By the second half of that century, however, “regular raiding and tribute-taking…implies that the Scandinavians were the dominant political power in the region.”¹¹ Even so, this was only a small portion of Wales, and did not have any lasting affects on Wales as a whole.

The evidence available, although largely limited to scarce archaeological remnants and annalistic records, indicates that “there was little impact on the Welsh language and political structures.”The Vikings that came to Wales did not initiate the same urban development seen through Dublin in Ireland. The Welsh, although struggling against the Anglo-Saxons, “were effective in limiting Viking settlement to certain areas,” primarily to the coastal regions near Anglesey and the south.¹² It is perhaps the Welsh struggle against the Anglo-Saxons that enabled them to fend off the Vikings all the more effectively, for they were already accustomed to cooperating in the face of a foreign opposition.

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Footnotes

1. (The whole paragraph) Jennifer Dukes-Knight, “Wales” (lecture, Celtic History, University of South Florida, Fall 2015). ↩︎
2. Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University), The Annales Cambriae 447-954, from James Ingram trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London: Everyman Press, 1912). ↩︎
3. Ibid. “778: The devastation of the South Britons by Offa,” “784: The devastation of Britain by Offa in the summer,” “796: ‡Devastation by Rheinwg son of Offa‡ The first coming of the gentiles [Norsemen] among the southern Irish.” ↩︎
4. (For most of that paragraph) Mark Redknap, “The Vikings in Wales,” in The Viking World (Routledge Worlds), edited by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (New York: Routledge, 2011), 401-402. ↩︎
5. T.M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 (The History of Wales) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 478. ↩︎
6. Ibid., 488. More about the ‘Great Army’ the Vikings in England can be found in Lesson 23a, b, c, and d. For the ‘Great Army’ in France, see Lesson 22a. ↩︎
7. Ibid., 490. ↩︎
8. (The whole paragraph) Redknap, 402. ↩︎
9. Ibid., 405. ↩︎
10. John Haywood, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings(London: Penguin Books, 1995), 78. ↩︎
11. (For both quotes) Redknap, 406. ↩︎
12. Ibid., 408. ↩︎