Viking raid on Lindisfarne opens the Viking Age
- Date
- 8 June 793 CE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Northumbria (England)
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
On 8 June 793 Scandinavian raiders attacked the wealthy monastery of Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumbria that was a preeminent centre of Christianity in early medieval England.
The raiders plundered the church, slaughtered or drove off the monks, and seized treasure and captives for the slave trade. Recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and lamented in a famous letter by the scholar Alcuin, the assault shocked Christian Europe by violating a site long regarded as inviolable and sacred. Though Scandinavians had traded and raided earlier, the sack of Lindisfarne is conventionally taken as the symbolic beginning of the Viking Age, a roughly three-century period of Norse raiding, conquest, settlement and long-distance exploration that reshaped the British Isles, Francia, Ireland, the North Atlantic and Eastern Europe. It inaugurated decades of escalating attacks on coastal and riverine monasteries and towns, prompting new defensive measures and profoundly affecting the politics of England and the wider Frankish world.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Empires active in 8 June 793 CE
- Tang Dynasty618 CE – 907 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Uyghur Khaganate744 CE – 840 CE
- Khazar Khaganate650 CE – 969 CE
Related military & conflict events
- The An Lushan Rebellion devastates Tang China755–763 CE
- Battle of Bach Dang ends Chinese rule over VietnamDecember 938 CE
- Battle of the Yarmuk ends Byzantine rule in SyriaAugust 636 CE
- Battle of Talas halts Tang expansion and seeds papermaking in the Islamic worldJuly 751 CE
- Fatimid Conquest of Egypt and Founding of Cairo969 CE
- Battle of Tours halts Umayyad expansion into FranciaOctober 732 CE
Further reading
The wider story
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
Vivid, thematic popular history by a top Byzantinist.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.