Resurrecting the Vikings

Posted on 16 April 2018

Dr Matthew Townend helps to rebuild York's Viking past in a new series of 'Britain's Most Historic Towns'.

In this Channel 4 series, Professor Alice Roberts engages with experts, including the department's own Matt Townend, to explore Britain's history through the stories of individual towns and cities, revealing what life was really like at key moments in our turbulent past.

Matt is an expert in the language, literature and history of Viking Age England, Old Norse Poetry and Anglo-Saxon literary culture. He also works on the ways in which these periods were taken up and reinvented in the Victorian period.

Britain’s Most Historic Towns: York - Britain's Most Viking Town (Ep2/6) was broadcast on Saturday 14 April at 8.00pm. Watch this video, and read the University's press release to find out more.

The programme has already focussed on Chester’s Roman history, and over the course of six episodes will explore Anglo-Saxon Winchester, the Tudor period in Norwich, the Regency period in Cheltenham and Victorian Belfast.