Viking Thingwall

 

Viking Thingwall

AD 902-3 Vikings arrive and settle in Wirral

Around the year AD 902, a group of Vikings of primarily Norwegian descent came to settle in Wirral after being driven out of Ireland and then Anglesey. This initiated a mass migration of their fellow countrymen into the area and they soon established a community with its own leader, Ingimund, its own language – Old Norse (perhaps with an Irish accent), a trading port at Meols and, at the centre, a place of assembly or government – the Thing (or þing) at Thingwall (ON þingvǫllr, from Þing = assembly and vǫllr = field, “Assembly Field”). Things provided the method of government throughout Norway and the Scandinavian community. Wirral Thingwall is one of only two definite Thingwall place names in England.

 

Ingimund’s deal with Queen Aethelflaed

The arrival of Viking settlers into Wirral is recorded in Irish Chronicles, reinforced by Welsh and Anglo Saxon records (the refortification of Chester shortly after their arrival). They tell of how Ingimund gained permission to settle ‘in lands near Chester’, how their settlements were peaceful – presumably as part of the deal with Queen Aethelflaed – at least initially.

 

Other Thingwalls in Northern Europe

The settlements in Wirral spread to West Lancashire and there is another Thingwall near Knotty Ash. Other examples in the British Isles include Tynwald in the Isle of Man, Dingwall in NE Scotland, Tinwald in SW Scotland and Tingwall in the Shetlands. There are many others in Scandinavia and Iceland, including Tingvoll near Molde in Norway. The modern Norwegian Parliament in Oslo is the Storting, which literally means the “big Thing”. The Thing at Almannagja, Iceland, the þingvellir, was used from AD930 until 1271. Although the place of government in Iceland has moved from the original þingvellir, the government is still known as the Althing (ON Alþingi – the “All Thing”).

 

Cross Hill

Many thing sites have a thing brekka (Old Norse for a slope/hill) on which the speaker could stand in order to make himself/herself heard. It seems that the location near Thingwall which would appear to have best fitted this description is Cross Hill (ON – kross), across the Barnston Road from the reservoir. (Please note that the hill is private property, so must not be entered.)

Cross Hill, 2022

 

Steve Harding unleashing his inner Ingimund on Cross Hill, 16 September 2023

 

Meetings of the Thing

The Thing assembly would have met once or twice a year to discuss matters of policy and law and in times of crisis. It would also have been a time to meet old friends and Vikings from outside Wirral may very well have visited. It is common for assembly sites to be located close to communication routes, such as navigable water routes and clear land routes.

 

In the Viking Age, Things were the public assemblies of the free men of a country, province, or a hundred. They functioned as both parliaments and courts at different levels of society - local, regional, and supra-regional. Their purpose was to solve disputes and make political decisions, and Thing sites were also often the place for public religious rites. According to Norway's Law of the Gulathing, only free men of full age could participate in the assembly, although women were clearly present at some things despite being left out of the decision making bodies, such as the Icelandic Althing.

 

The purpose of a Thing was to assemble representative people from the community to decide on matters of administration, policy (including military) and law. Popular codes of law used by the Norse included the “Grey-Goose code” (Grágás), originating from the Trondheim area of Norway. It is possible that the Wirral Thing had a similar legal code to Grey-Goose, a code which was also used by Icelanders. Also important was the “Bjarkø law”, which was a special law governing commercial and mercantile affairs. International trade through Scandinavian Wirral’s port at Meols could also have been regulated by the Thing.

 

An Irish Chronicle, known as the Three Fragments, which recalls the Story of Ingimund ends by telling us how Ingimund called an emergency meeting of the leaders of all the Norsemen, Danes and their Irish followers and by AD907, they had started attacking Chester. This meeting was possibly at the Thing Assembly. According to the Chronicle Ingimund said the following (translation into English by I.L. Foster): “Let us beseech and implore them first, and if we do not get them willingly in this way let us contest them by force.”

 

In addition to regular and emergency meetings of the things, they were also held on special occasions such as the “Gangdagaþing”, a thing held in the precession days of the Ascension week, two weeks before Whitsuntide. Snorri in his Heimskringla records two such, one at Hamarsfjǫrður (1 June, AD 1139) and one at Unarheimr (now Onareim on the island of Tysnes, Sunnhordland).

 

Another form of a thing was a mót (a thing meeting in a town or township). One of these forms an element in the now lost place name in Storeton parish le Gremotehalland (last recorded 1330), which comes from Old Norse griða-mót meaning “place of a meeting under a truce” and possibly relates to difficulties between the Norse and surrounding communities.

In Yorkshire and former Danelaw areas of England, “wapentakes” - another name for the same institution—were used in public records. Several places ending in the -by ('village') place name suffix originally possessed their own laws, by laws, and jurisdiction subject to the wapentake in which they served, which often extended over a surrounding ground called a thorpe ("hamlet").

Thynghowe was an important Danelaw meeting place, or thing, located in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, which was lost to history until its rediscovery in 2005–06 by local history enthusiasts. The site lies amidst the old oaks of an area known as the Birklands in Sherwood Forest. Experts believe it may also yield clues as to the boundary of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. English Heritage has recently inspected the site and has confirmed it was known as "Thynghowe" in 1334 and 1609. It functioned as a place where people came to resolve disputes and settle issues. Thynghowe is an Old Norse name, although the site may be older than the Danelaw, perhaps even Bronze Age. The word "howe" is derived from the Old Norse word haugr meaning 'mound', which often indicates the presence of a prehistoric burial mound.

It is not known when the final meeting of the Thing Assembly took place, other than it would not have continued beyond 1066 when the Norman barons took control of the area. According to information in the Domesday Book, an individual with a Norse name, Vetrliðr (Winterleda – “Winter traveller”) had held Thingwall in 1066. Today the word “thing” lives on in the English term “hustings” (ON hús = house and thing =assembly; hústhing = household assembly held by a leader).

 

Viking place names in Wirral

Wirral has a wealth of Scandinavian place names – major and minor. It has amongst the highest density of place names in the country ending with by, a Viking term meaning a settlement or farmstead, but there are many others. Most Scandinavian place names are concentrated in the northern and western end of the peninsula and their distribution gives us an idea of the boundary of the Norse community. Ness (‘promontory’) and Neston probably marked its southern extremity of the initial Norse settlements and the neighbouring settlement of Raby is an old Norse name meaning ‘boundary settlement’. From Raby the boundary appears to have run north-eastwards along the River Dibbin and the ridge of high ground separating Bebington from Storeton (Old Norse ‘big farmstead’) up to Tranmere (‘crane or heron sandbank’). Some names no longer exist, such as Stromby near Thurstaston, Haby near Barnston.

Viking Wirral – map of major Wirral place names in their probable Old Norse form

 

 

Dingesmere – the wetland or waterway controlled or overlooked by the Thing

In 2004 the suggestion was made that the previously unidentified name Dingesmere in the famous Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Brunanburh (AD937) was actually “Things-mere”.  If the Battle took place on Wirral the suggestion was also made it extended from the Dee around to the former Norse seaport of Meols.

 

Legacy of the Vikings remains in the genes of old Wirral families

Although the last meeting of the Thing would have been a millennium ago, a recent genetic survey of Wirral and neighbouring West Lancashire has shown that a legacy of the people meeting there remains even today, with up to 50% of the DNA from old Wirral (and West Lancashire) families being of Norse origin. They have also left behind an array of archaeology, including the remains of Viking houses at Irby and Lingham/Moreton.

 

References and further reading

 

Harding, S., Ingimunds Saga: Viking Wirral, 3rd edn. University of Chester Press 2016

Sanmark, A., Viking Law and Order: Places and Rituals of Assembly in the Medieval North, Edinburgh University Press 2017

 

BBC Radio 4 Broadcast (20^th May 2009): Thingwall and its Viking Assembly:  https://tinyurl.com/27dfx9b4

Extra refs for the Anoraks: 1. the last leader of the Wirral Thing?: https://tinyurl.com/3spb4ymm
2. Suggestion made in 2004 for the meaning of Dingesmere in the Battle of Brunanburh AD937 poem: https://tinyurl.com/32b4fa7p and https://tinyurl.com/4max6s2f