Pillaging Vikings didn’t wipe out all of England’s Anglo-Saxon monks after all

Pillaging Vikings did not wipe out England’s Anglo-Saxon monks after all as archaeologists found that the Kent monastery survived repeated attacks from Norse invaders for nearly a century. 

Lyminge was on the ‘frontline’ of long-running Viking hostility which ended in the victories of Saxon King Alfred the Great.

Researchers say that new evidence suggests the monasteries had ‘more resilience’ than previously believed and were not simply ‘sitting ducks’ as previously portrayed.

Historical sources indicate that a ‘double’ monastery – a mixed community of monks and nuns placed under the rule of a royal abbess – was founded at Lyminge during the 7th Century.

Archaeologists say it endured several attacks, but resisted collapse for almost a century through effective defensive strategies put in place by ecclesiastical and secular rulers of Kent. 

The new evidence arose from a detailed examination of archaeological and historical artefacts by Dr Gabor Thomas. 

The Associate professor for the University of Reading, said: ‘The image of ruthless Viking raiders slaughtering helpless monks and nuns is based on written records, but a re-examination of the evidence show the monasteries had more resilience than we might expect.’

Despite being in an area of Kent which bore the full brunt of Viking raids in the later 8th and early 9th Centuries, Dr Thomas says evidence suggests that the monastic community at Lyminge not only survived the attacks but recovered more completely than historians previously thought,

During archaeological excavations between 2007 and 2015 and 2019, archaeologists uncovered the main elements of the monastery, including the stone chapel at its heart surrounded by a wide swathe of wooden buildings and other structures where the monastic brethren and their dependents lived out their daily lives.

Radiocarbon dating of butchered animal bones discarded as rubbish indicates that the occupation persisted for nearly two centuries following the monastery’s establishment in the second half of the 7th Century.

Historical records held at nearby Canterbury Cathedral show that after a raid in 804 AD, Lyminge’s monastic community was granted asylum within the relative safety of the walled refuge of Canterbury, a former Roman town and the administrative and ecclesiastical capital of Anglo-Saxon Kent.

But evidence from Dr Thomas’s dig shows the monks not only returned to re-establish their settlement at Lyminge, but continued living and building for several decades over the course of the 9th Century.

Dateable artefacts such as silver coins discovered at the site provided Dr Thomas with an insight into the re-establishment of the monastic community.

He said: ‘This research paints a more complex picture of the experience of monasteries during these troubled times.

‘They were more resilient than the ‘sitting duck’ image portrayed in popular accounts of Viking raiding based on recorded historical events such as the iconic Viking raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 AD.

‘However, the resilience of the monastery was subsequently stretched beyond breaking point.

‘By the end of the 9th Century, at a time when Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great was engaged in a widescale conflict with invading Viking armies, the site of the monastery appears to have been completely abandoned.

‘This was most likely due to sustained long-term pressure from Viking armies who are known to have been active in south-eastern Kent in the 880s and 890s.’

Dr Thomas, added: ‘Settled life was only eventually restored in Lyminge during the 10th Century, but under the authority of the Archbishops of Canterbury who had acquired the lands formerly belonging to the monastery.’