A University of Winchester academic is the consultant for a new French docudrama series on the Vikings and their ‘Empire of the North Sea’.
Professor of Early Medieval History Ryan Lavelle also appears on screen in two episodes of the new six-part documentary series Vikings - The Making of a Dynasty directed by Agnès Buthion produced by Anglo-French company Pernel Media for Canal + in France.
Ryan, who was historical consultant on the hit TV Saxons v Vikings saga The Last Kingdom, was approached by Pernel in the summer of 2023 and filming took place last year.
The programme, which was made in French and English language versions, has already begun airing on French TV channel Canal+. The English version, is likely to be available on a UK platform soon.
While The Last Kingdom, based on Bernard Cornwell’s novels, dealt with King Alfred’s ninth-century struggles to keep the Viking invaders at bay and unite England, this new show deals with a later period.
By 958 the Vikings were not just satisfied with plunder and treasure. Instead, they wanted to conquer and rule kingdoms.
In less than a century, Harald Bluetooth*, Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut the Great managed to unite the fragmented pagan territories of Scandinavia to form the Empire of the North Sea which included England, Denmark and Norway.
Into this mix came Emma of Normandy, a noblewoman who married Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred the Unready and later became wife of Cnut.
Emma was mother to two kings of England by her marriages – one Viking (Harthcnut) and one Saxon (Edward the Confessor).
Ryan filming in Kent, where Canute's invasion fleet came ashore
Ryan explained: “This is a story about Scandinavia coming together and its links to the history of Britain and France. It shows the connectedness of peoples in the early Middle Ages, once thought of as the Dark Ages.
“The conquest of England by the Vikings changed the political makeup of the kingdom which prepared the ground for the Norman Conquest.”
Ryan appears in the last two episodes of the six-part series. In one scene he performs a piece to camera on a beach near Sandwich in Kent where Cnut's invasion fleet landed.
Winchester features in the episode dealing with Emma of Normandy who spent her final years in the city holding the desirable real estate of God Begot House, now the site of a pizza restaurant in the High Street! Although it dates to 1050, most of the building you can see today (pictured above) is sixteenth century.
*Yes, the Bluetooth wireless technology is named after the Norse king.
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