The Coming of the Norse

The Norse burned Dumbarton after a four month  siege in 870 [42]. After this, the centre of power of the Cumbrians moved to Govan and from the mid 8th Century, we see the flourishing of the Govan sculpture school, with strong Norse influence, that can still be seen today in Govan Church [31]. Govan became the ecclesiastical centre of the Cumbrian kingdom. On the other bank of the Clyde, an important royal centre developed at Paisley [31]

In 872, Arthgal ap Dynfwal was killed at the instigation of the king of the Scots [42]

The Norse took York in 876. They had sacked Carlisle in 875, but Bailey feels it was a short lived affair and that it was around a quarter century before they began to settle in Cumberland and Westmorland [43].  Bailey also notes a flight of English nobles to the east from Cumberland, fleeing from ?Norse "pirates". Bailey sketches the different routes of the Norse settlers - those who had spent time among the Gaels in Ireland and Man, those Danes who had come up the Eden Valley from Yorkshire and some who had come directly from Norway. There is some evidence that Westmorland had a Norse lord by 974.

Fellows-Jensen notes that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that the Danes anchored in the Tyne raided agaisnt the Picts and against the Strathclyde Britons. She suggests they must have come across Cumberland and Dumfriesshire, but says there is no historical evidence of them settling at that time [44]. She also says, looking at the modern county of Cumbria that Scandinavian place-names are particularly dense in the valleys of the Kent and Eden and along the coastal plain.

The Norse were expelled from Dublin by the Irish in 902 [45] . They were led by Ragnall and for the next twelve years campaigned over Northumbria, Strathclyde and Scotland [45] At some point they began to settle on the west coast of Britain. The Welsh annals note Norsemen arriving in Anglesey, being driven out by the Welsh then settling around Chester. At this period we have two brief notes of Englishmen fleeing from pirates from the west coast over to the eastern part of Northumbria. These pirates were Norsemen who had been Gaelicised while in Ireland, or had Gaels with them, as shown in place and personal names from that period. Whithorn was abandoned as an episcopal see between 894 and 910 according to Woolf [8], possibly related to this influx of Norse-Gaels. Woolf wonders whether the Isle of Man acted as a centre for the Norse-Irish settlement and activity on the coasts of Lancashire, Cumberland, Dumfries and Galloway. He also notes that prior to this, Man had been British and possibly at that time ruled from Gwynedd.

Woolf says that the previously Northumbrian land west of the Pennines was in the hands of the Norse from the early 914. Ragnall, the Norse ruler, conquered the eastern part of Northumbria and York. In 920 a treaty was signed between Edward, King of England, Ragnall, the Norse ruler of Northumbria, the King of the Scots and the King of the Strathclyde Welsh.

By 927, however, the English had reconquered Northumbria and they met at Eamont Bridge (the boundary between Cumberland and Westmorland and known as Pund Eamont - the river name is English but the "Pund" seems to be the Cumbric pont "bridge". Here were Hywel king of the Welsh,  Owain king of the Cumbrians as well as Constanin, king of the Scots.  Another report says that Owain was from Gwent, but Owain ap Dynfwal was king of the Cumbrians between in the 930s  Woolf says it is possible that Owain of Gwent and Owain of the Cumbrians were both present and later scribes thought it was a duplication and erased one [8].  

Higham suggests that the Britons of Strathclyde (or Cumbria) turned from a position of war with the Norse, to one of alliance.  Athelstan campaigned against the Scots in 934 and in 937 there was the famous battle of Brunanburh with the Norse, Britons and Scots on one side and the Northumbrian English on the other [45] . The English were victorious.  The English campaigns against Cumbria in 945 and then again in 1000, arose, argues Higham and others, because of the policy of the Cumbrians to ally themselves with the Norse.  By the time the Normans take Carlisle in 1092, there is no Norse kingdom or power and there is no real trace of one in the 10th Century. However, Scandinavian place-names outnumber all others in Westmorland and most of Cumberland and are plentiful in eastern Dumfriesshire. The nomenclature of the Lake District is overwhelmingly Norse, though there are traces of British names and Cumbric terms such as mell (Welsh moel), latter (Welsh llethr), pen  (Welsh pen) being taken into the Scandinavianised English dialect. This settlement seems to have happened over a period of 100 to 120 years only. Higham argues that the dates of the primary settlements of the Norse are between 900-950 [45]

It has been argued that Eamont Bridge for the meeting place of the kings in 927    was chosen because it was the southern boundary of the Cumbrian kings. In local folklore, the of the meeting was at Dacre Castle (apparently there is a room still haunted by the kings there). Dacre had been a Northumbrian monastery (though its name is Brittonic). Dacre is around five miles west of Eamont Bridge.

The Norse colonisation of Cumbria south of the Solway seems to have been intense, in view of the place name evidence it left, but brief - from around 902 to 945 [46].