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precise relationship between Ynglingatal, Historia Norwegiae, the Book of the Icelanders, and Ynglinga Saga is unclear. YNGLINGATAL. Ninth-century poem composed by the Norwegian Thjodolf ( þ jódólfr) of Hvin for King Rögnvald the Highly-Honored (hei ð umhæri) of Vestfold in southeastern Norway. This poem was the main source for Snorri Sturluson’s Ynglinga Saga, in which it is pre- served. Some 27 ancestors of Rögnvald are listed in the poem, with descriptions of their deaths and burial places, linking the king with the legendary Yngling dynasty of Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. YNGVARR INN VÍD – FÖRLA. See INGVAR THE FAR-TRAVELED. YORK (ON Jórvík). The Old Norse name for this town appears to be a corruption of Anglo-Saxon Eoforwic, itself in turn a corruption of Latin Eboracum. Located on the River Ouse, York was the principal town of northern England and administrative capital of the kingdom of Northumbria in the Viking Age. The Romans had established a fort in York around 71 AD and by 314 the town was a bishop’s see. However, little is known about York in the post-Roman/early Anglian period from written sources, apart from its location within the king- dom of Deira, stretching from the Humber to the River Tees. During the seventh and eighth centuries, a little more is known thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, although these details are principally the names of kings and bishops. In 735, York was raised to the status of an archiepiscopal see. There is little archaeological evidence for settlement within the town walls during the early Anglo-Saxon period. The Great Army captured York in 866–867. Following this, the town was under Danish control but nothing is known about this rule until the Viking leader, Halfdan, apparently assumed direct control in 875, when his army settled in Northumbria, “plowing and provid- ing for themselves” according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The first definite Scandinavian king of York was Guthfrith, whose death on 24 August 895 was recorded by The Chronicle of Æthelweard, and who appears to have become king at some point between 880 and 885. Guthfrith was converted to Christianity c. 883. Coins from York provide the names of two kings who appear to have ruled York 298 • YNGLINGATAL shortly after Guthfrith: Cnut and Siefrid; and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Æthelwold, the nephew of King Alfred the Great, revolted against his cousin, Edward the Elder, after Alfred’s death and was accepted as king of Northumbria by the Danish army in 899. He was later also acknowledged as leader by the Vikings in Essex before being killed by Edward the Elder’s army. In the first half of the 10th century, there was a three-way strug- gle for control of the town between the English, the Dublin Norse, and the Anglo-Scandinavian population of Northumbria. In 909, Edward the Elder of England campaigned throughout Northum- bria, and the town submitted to his sister, Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, in 918. However, coins from York suggest that a Hiberno-Norse leader, Ragnald, may have ruled the town for a pe- riod around the year 914 or earlier. Shortly afterward York became the joint capital of a Norse kingdom centered on Dublin and York, following the recapture of the town by Ragnald in 919 (923 ac- cording to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). However, King Athelstan of England then captured York from the Norse in 927, driving out its king, Guthfrith, and it took Olaf Guthfrithsson of Dublin some 11 years to reassert Norse control over the town. Olaf seems to have enjoyed the support of Wulfstan (d. 955), the Archbishop of York, who accompanied him on his campaigns in the Five Bor- oughs in 940. However, just five years later, in 944, the English had recaptured the town once again, and two Scandinavian kings of York, Olaf Cúarán and Ragnald Guthfrithsson, were expelled on this occasion. The most famous Scandinavian king of York was Erik Blood-Ax, who defeated Irish and English rivals for the town in 948, once more with the support of Archbishop Wulfstan. Erik was deserted by the Northumbrians shortly afterward, and paid compensation to the English king, Eadred, for their disloyalty. However, Olaf Cúarán returned to York in 949 and ruled there un- til 952, when Erik Blood-Ax regained the town. He struggled to control York for a further two years, before being driven out of the town by the Northumbrians in 954. Egil’s Saga contains a de- scription of a meeting between Erik and his archenemy, Egill Skallagrimsson, in the town. The town’s fortunes appear to have been revived following the Scandinavian settlement of Northumbria. This Anglo-Scandinavian YORK • 299 settlement was concentrated in the area to the south of the Roman fort, and, by around 1000, the town probably had a population of around 10,000–15,000. Excavations at York Minster between 1967–1973 have revealed that the Viking-Age cathedral church was not located directly underneath the present Minster, but that it must have been nearby as a 10th- to 11th-century graveyard was found, along with decorated gravestones marking the burials. No remains of the hall of the Viking-Age kings of York have been found, but it is believed to have been located at King’s Square—a name first recorded in the 13th century as Kuningesgard (from ON Konungs- gar ð r)—by one of the main gateways into the Roman fortress. This site was not used by the later earls of Northumbria or the Norman rulers of York, and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Earl Si- ward (d. 1055) was buried in the church of St. Olaf (dedicated to the Scandinavian saint, Olaf Haraldsson) at Galmanho or Earlsburgh “the earls’ residence.” Coinage issued by the Viking-Age kings of York provides the names of some kings not found in other documen- tary records, particularly in the shadowy 9th and early 10th centuries. It also reveals that around the year 1000, about 75 percent of the moneyers names were of Scandinavian origin, and by 1066, this fig- ure had reached 100 percent. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the trading contacts of Viking York extended from Ireland to the Middle East, and that it was an important center of production. Many of the street names of York are derived from the various trading and craft activities that took place. Evidence of glassmaking, textile manufacture, metal- work, amber and jet working, as well as wood-, bone-, leather-, and antler working have been found in the extensive excavations under- taken in the town since 1972. These were concentrated in the Cop- pergate area of York and are presented in the famous Jorvik Museum. The excellent preservation conditions at 16–22 Coppergate allowed the recovery of wood, textiles, and other organic matter, and excavations revealed traces of 10th-century buildings built on regu- lar plots that are largely the same as present-day property boundaries in the area. After Erik Blood-Ax’s departure and subsequent murder on Stain- more, York was ruled in principle by Eadred, the king of England, and his successors. However, the earls of Northumbria in reality of- 300 • YORK ten exercised considerable independence. York did not fall to another Viking army until 1066, when Harald Hard-Ruler of Norway launched his invasion of England and defeated York’s forces in the Battle of Fulford in September 1066. His subsequent defeat and death in the Battle of Stamford Bridge, however, put an end to Scan- dinavian control of the town. After the Norman Conquest, there were further Scandinavian attempts to win the English throne, and York was targeted in the northern uprising of 1069 after the invasion of Svein Estrithsson of Denmark. However, despite further Danish ex- peditions in 1070 and 1075, York remained in the hands of the kings of England. YOUNGER EDDA. See PROSE EDDA. YOUNGER EDDA • 301 . was the principal town of northern England and administrative capital of the kingdom of Northumbria in the Viking Age. The Romans had established a fort in York around 71 AD and by 314 the town. controversial overview and pays more attention to the nature of Scandinavian society and to the archaeological evidence for the Vikings at home and abroad. The Viking World, edited by James Graham-Campbell, also. Viking-Age Scandinavia. Francis Tschan’s translation of Adam of Bremen’s History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen is perhaps one of the most use- ful of these primary sources, containing as it

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