Pod Insights Gone Medieval Viking Scotland: The Siege of Dumbarton About this episode What happens when Vikings stop raiding and start laying siege to a mighty rock fortress on the Clyde?
Matt Lewis is joined by Todd Ferguson to uncover the four-month Viking siege of Dumbarton in 870, exploring why this Brittonic stronghold mattered so much, how its fall reshaped Strathclyde, and how these events fed into the long, messy road towards a more unified Scotland
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Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producers are Rob Weinberg and Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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Transcript 10,424 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Matt Lewis? From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr Eleanor Yarnagger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
0:42 Speaker 01 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.O.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.O.gle/workspacewithGemini.
1:18 Matt Lewis? Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders, to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.
1:58 Matt Lewis? In the year 870, a siege took place on the west coast of what is now Scotland. Dunbarthen Rock on the River Clyde was the capital of the Bretonic Kingdom of Alte Clut. If you've never heard of Alte Clut, then this siege is probably the reason. It lasted just four months and saw the relocation of the capital and the renaming of the realm to the Kingdom of Strathclyde. There's something else that's unusual about this siege too. It was conducted by the kings of the smash and grab raid, the Vikings. Why did they adapt their tactics when they reached Dunbarthen? What made the rock such a prize?
2:39 Matt Lewis? How did these four months in 870 alter our perception of the Vikings and lay the foundations for a united kingdom of Scotland? To help me unravel these events and make sense of their impact, I'm delighted to be joined by Todd Ferguson, who specialises in Scottish history and has studied the Siege of Dunbarthen, so that he can tell us all about it.
3:03 Matt Lewis? A very warm welcome to Gone Medieval, Todd. It's great to have you with us.
3:06 Speaker 02 It's a pleasure to be here, Matt. Thanks very much for having me along.
3:08 Matt Lewis? I'm very much looking forward to digging into something that I don't know anything about. This was an event that I wasn't aware of, didn't know anything about, and sounds absolutely fascinating. So we're going to talk about the Siege of Dunbarthen in a second. I wondered if you could just help us, before we get started on all of that, to kind of orient us in time and space. So when we talk about the Siege of Dunbarthen, when are we talking about?
3:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. We're talking towards the end of the ninth century, so 870 to be specific. We're located on the western seaboard of Scotland, what would become known as modern day Scotland. So essentially, the Frith of Clyde, Dunbarthen sits on the Clyde estuary leading into the River Clyde, going up towards what is modern day Glasgow. And then further out, you've got all this kind of access into the wider Irish Sea and North Atlantic, which as we know, were super highways during the ninth century of activity for the Vikings.
4:01 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And we're obviously going to get into lots of detail about the siege, the build up to it, what happens and the aftermath of it. So without giving away too many spoilers, why is this a significant moment? Why is this something we should know about?
4:14 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, to be perfectly honest with you, Matt, as far as I'm concerned, it's a greatly misunderstood event in wider British and Irish history. The connections across what's going on right across the country and even further extended into what's happening in Europe as well at this period. You cannot get away from the events that happened at Dunbarth and without looking into some of this in more detail. You know, for an example, you've got your favourite topic, talking about the Great Heathen Army running about and rampaging around in England. It's all interlinked and this is why Dunbarth is so important. I'm also a local guy, so I sit firmly within the apogee of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. So it's very dear to my own heart and I think that your listeners will be really interested to hear more about it.
4:53 Matt Lewis? Yeah, fantastic. And I wonder if you could then help us kind of, let's set up our chess piece for what's happening here. We've got several players on the board, so very much not a chess species because there's not two sides. So I've already ruined my own analogy here. Who are the local peoples in the Kingdom of Strathclyde? What kind of group of people would we call them?
5:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, we're really looking at a group of people that have had a long established connection with this part of the world. Post-Roman period, you're looking at Bretonic people, they speak what would be considered modern Welsh, or sorry, Old Welsh in terms of the Cumbrik language. So they're very much one of these traditional old British kingdoms, right in the heart of the islands. You know, we have lots of references from the earlier period that actually reference the name around. What was known at the time is Alclut. So that comes from Clota, which they believe was a Bretonic goddess. She that is pure, they think that is the meaning behind the name. But we find this reference in Tacitus, who talks about the...
5:56 Speaker 02 The different divide between the Clyde and the fourth as well. And then even further on, we, you know, again, Bede talks about the fortress and the city of Alklut as well. So it must have been quite a significant power base. As I said, these are well established Bretonic kingdoms and probably, as I said, you're speaking in that close connection with, with the Welsh coming up that side of the country on the western coast.
6:21 Matt Lewis? Interesting. So are we, I'm just conscious, we've already given kind of two names here. We've got the Kingdom of Strathclyde and we've got Alklut. How do they relate to each other?
6:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, this is where it becomes quite interesting because, you know, without giving a spoiler away, the king that is in charge of Dumbarton Rock at the time of the siege, there are some historical arguments going around or debates going around in terms of whether he remains the last king of Alklut and potentially the first king of Strathclyde as well. Because Strathclyde doesn't appear in the sources, particularly around the Irish annals, where we get most of our information for this period. Strathclyde starts to appear after what happens in 870. So there's a distinctive shift in the name. As I said, during the period leading up to that post-Roman, it's, it's always referred to as Alklut and it's referred to as Alklut within the Irish annals as well.
7:11 Speaker 02 As I said, up until 870, when it goes through a significant change.
7:15 Matt Lewis? And I guess the other local peoples that people might be aware of are the Picts. Do they play any part in this story?
7:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. You can't get away without the Picts being around the neck of the woods. The other thing that's quite interesting as well is, and it might be quite interesting to talk about this, is that there's also the other kingdom of Delriata to the north, which ceases to be a going kingdom around about the same time that the Vikings start to appear in this part of the world. So the Pictish kingdoms are basically, there tends to be disputes and, and we've got sources in the Irish annals about ongoing conflict and battles and sieges between the Picts, the Delriatans and the Kingdom of Alklut as well. So they're all in the mix. You know, there are family connections as well. They are big, big power players in this part of the world and they're all interconnected. And I mean, even further afield, you know, the Kingdom of Northumbria plays a significant
8:06 Speaker 02 part as well because at different times, as you'll be aware, with kind of ancient boundaries of kingdoms, they're quite fluid. And changing all the time, depending on who's coming to the fore. So the Kingdom of Northumbria actually owns part of or is in control of part of what would become the much later and much bigger Kingdom of Strathclyde. So they're all big players. As I said, they're all pieces moving around the chessboard, as you said, trying to get one up. And the other thing is that they continue to make alliances with each other as well. So we see often in the sources around about the eighth century where the Picts and Northumbrians are allied against the Britons and vice versa, the Britons are then attacking into Dalriata as well.
8:48 Matt Lewis? And what is the religious situation in Alcuic at this moment as well? Are they Christian? Are they sort of Gaelic Christian rather than Roman Christian? Or is it still a pagan kingdom?
8:59 Speaker 02 No, they're definitely Christian by this period in time. There's actually quite an early source going back to about the sixth century where Patrick writes a letter to a king by the name of Caroticus, who they think is one of the kings of Alcuic. And he's, he's basically, Patrick's wrapping his knuckles because they've been on a campaign to enslave some Irish Christians. So he's not particularly happy about this. So he's trying to excommunicate them. So I guess at that stage, you understand that there is Christianity has come across from a lot of the kind of ecclesiastes that are coming into the Pictish kingdoms and the Bretonnese kingdoms, following the end of the Roman period. And, you know, they are definitely
9:39 Speaker 02 100% in, you know, embedded within Christianity. And certainly by the ninth century, they are a going Christian kingdom.
9:46 Matt Lewis? And the other people that we need to get somewhere on this board too are the Vikings. So what kind of Viking presence are we looking at in this region in the northwest of Scotland during this period?
9:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a really interesting dynamic of what's going on in this part of the world. There's been a long, long running historical debate, been going on for about 150 years about what is essentially known as the Kingdom of Lathlend-Lockland. Now, some of the arguments have been centered on this being a Norwegian kingdom. So the kings, the Viking kings coming from Norway. But there's a more recent kind of academic direction, which kind of places this within the Western Isles. Of Scotland, because what we see in around about eight, five, three is a very well-known person in the sources called Amlav, who has been linked at differing times with Olaf the
10:39 Speaker 02 White. That's probably a little bit spurious whether he is Olaf the White or not from the later saga traditions, but he's a very powerful Viking king. He comes into this part of the world and he's referred to as the son of the King of Loughlan. And this is kind of what's kickstarted all this debate, because there's lots of activity going on in Ireland. There's lots of activity going on in the Western Seaboard. As I said earlier, the kind of the changing dynamic in the Kingdom of Dalriata, which buffers on to this Western Isles and the Hebrides of Scotland, is, you know, something distinctly different is happening in that area. We start to see evidence in the sources as well, where when Amlav arrives in Ireland,
11:20 Speaker 02 he's not only exacting tribute from the Norse and the Vikings that were within Ireland, he's able to exact tribute from the Irish as well. So that's quite a significant development, where the Vikings are then taking tribute off of the local Irish population. And another kind of group of people that we see kind of pop up around this time is you end up with the, what's called the Galgoyles, which is the foreign Gaels. For a long, long time, people have associated this with being Norse Gaels, which is, you know, certainly possible. There is another argument that they are a throwback to an older kingdom from the Hebrides, and they're the ones that have been displaced, because what we see in the Irish sources, like the Annals of Ulster, is that these Galgoyles ally themselves with Irish kings,
12:03 Speaker 02 and they're fighting against this kind of influx of Vikings coming into the area. So we have Amlav, as I said, he comes in, he's got two brothers, one is Evar, and the other one is Osl. Apologies for my pronunciation, it's probably people, Irish scholars are probably scratching their head at that. But they come in here, and they're really this kind of triumvirate of Viking lords and elites that are rampaging across Ireland and exacting tribute and sacking monasteries, all the kind of things that we associate with the Vikings of this period. But there's also a sudden shift in terms of settlement, and, you know, this starts to play out across the emerging Kingdom of Dublin that we start to see over this period as well. So huge amount of activity going on, you know, early on.
12:48 Speaker 02 So while we see Amlav, Imar and Aosil start to campaign across Ireland, something distinctly different happens around about 866. And this is around about the time that Evar disappears from the Irish annals. And this is why it's quite exciting, because historians have started linking this to the potential that Evar is the same as Evar the Boneless that is joining up with the Great Heathen Army and campaigning across that part of the world. And I guess, coming back to my original point about how everything is interlinked across this period, Amlav and Aosil go on a campaign against Piceland in 866 at exactly the same time
13:29 Speaker 02 that Evar and the Great Heathen Army are bearing down on York. So there's a lot of synergy going on. There's some suggestions that this is a coordinated attempt to take full control, or just take advantage of the fact that the Kingdom of Northumbria are under increasing pressure. As I said, they had previously been allied with the Picts over long periods of time. And there might just be an opportunity for that engagement across the Piceland with the Vikings as well. And it comes back to, I guess, one of the original points around these family connections, because there is a school of thought that believes that Amlav was married to the sister of the King of the Picts. So this is the very,
14:11 Speaker 02 very famous Cennad MacAlpin, Kenneth MacAlpin. His son becomes Constantine, the first King of the Picts around this period as well. And there's family connections that link the sisters. Also, another sister is married to the son of the King of the Britons, Al Clut, and also another sister potentially married to one of the High Kings in Ireland. So you start to unpick this picture of the fact that it's, it's less random and more organised and certainly more coordinated than we may be believed previously.
14:43 Matt Lewis? And we're sitting right in the hotspot where Viking activity is changing from kind of hit and run raiding to much more of a, maybe not quite settlement yet, but a much more permanent presence. They're trying to make actual inroads into, into kingdoms and to gain control of those regions too, which is a bit of a shift in their activity on the British Isles.
15:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, 100%. You know, you can't get away from the fact that early on, the Vikings arrived, Lindisfarne, Iona, you know, very much smash and grab raids, small bands of people rampaging around the country and picking up as much portable wealth as they can. By this stage of the ninth century, it's very much more organised, it's strategic, there's lots of logistics involved, big populations of people moving around. I think, I can't remember the academic, a Scandinavian academic had basically worked out that the Gokstad ship, which is slightly later, 880 I believe, he looked at that and established that it could probably take 67 warriors and, or 67 people in the boat and 64 of them would have been warriors.
15:48 Speaker 02 And while not every ship of this period is going to be the size of the Gokstad ship and you're going to have all your supply ships and logistics ships as well. It certainly gives you a better idea that some of the, what used to be considered overinflated sizes of Viking armies are probably more realistic now. So you could be looking at anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people rampaging around the country, based on the number of ships. If we take on face value that, you know, 140 ships landed here or 200 ships landed there. So yeah, definitely far more organised, far more strategic, a lot more coordination going on. As I said, that you can't have these big movements without being, having a much more structured organisation to what's going on.
16:30 Speaker 02 And I guess that comes back to the original point that when Amlav first appears on the scene in the Irish annals, he's very much there to take control of the Vikings that are in operation in these areas. So probably collecting up these disparate groups and bringing them into, you know, the local fold. Yeah, we certainly don't think that Vikings were some kind of homogenous group early on, but they probably moved towards that as we, as we start to develop throughout this period. Another really interesting thing in terms of trying to establish some changes around what's happening. If you look at the sources in Ireland for attacks on monasteries and ecclesiastical
17:11 Speaker 02 centres, what you have is between 820 and 840, there's approximately 43 attacks on churches are recorded in the Irish annals. By the 850s to 900s, only seven attacks are recorded. So there's a real change in how they're operating. It probably indicates that they're more settled within their localities and quite frankly, you're not going to be attacking your own backyard. It wouldn't be very good policy to do that. And similar things, we see similar things in Iona as well. You know, the last raid, what would potentially be considered a Viking smash and grab raid was in 825. So really, really changing that dynamic. And I guess it comes back to answering, you know, some of these questions that, you
17:55 Speaker 02 know, if we want to consider that the Kingdom of Lathlend or Lochlan, however you want to pronounce it, is based in the Western Isles, then this would make far more sense that this is how people are operating. They're operating from a central power base and then branching out into all these, these other areas using, you know, the, these very well-established sea trading routes and, and routes of transportation.
18:17 Matt Lewis? Yeah. It feels like the only thing that must have been more terrifying than all the Viking raids that you've already been suffering during this period is the idea that the Vikings are now getting organised and going to get better at it. I mean, that can't be good news for anyone except the Vikings.
18:29 Speaker 02 No.
18:30 Matt Lewis? And I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the, the kind of source material that we have for what's going on in this region at this time. You've mentioned a couple of kind of Irish annals. How, how much detail are we able to get? What kind of documents? What kind of sources are we relying on when we, we look at things like the Siege of Dunbar?
18:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's, it's really difficult. I mean, I guess the, the first thing to point out is that we don't have any Bretonnese sources themselves. So we're very much relying on what other people are telling us about the Britons and the kingdom, which is probably why there's not a lot of information contained within it. So the Irish annals are our biggest source of information, particularly the annals of Ulster, some of the fragmentary annals as, as well. Then there are a couple of Welsh sources. The Annals Cambrai, they also talk about the sack of Dumbarton, but it's, we're limited to single lines. And then from a Pictish perspective, there is the, what used to be called the Old Scottish Chronicle, which is the Chronicles of the Kings of Alaba. That
19:25 Speaker 02 starts around about eight, four, five. And what we start to get is a bit more information of what's happening from that side as well, but very much heavily orientated around Pictish experience and the kings that are coming into that part of the world. So sadly, as I said, we really do rely on information about the Britons themselves. And this is why we see in the sources, we don't really get a lot about the social day to day experiences of being and living in the Bretonnian Kingdom. What we're getting is, oh, the King of the Britons went and attacked here. The King of the Britons went and sacked Dumbane in eight, four, nine. So it's quite sad on that front. But the sources that we do have contain lots of information about the Vikings of this period because they are operating in that
20:06 Speaker 02 sphere. So that's why we know a lot about their activities. There's a really nice source, actually, quite an early one from eight, six, three, where it tells us that the Amlab and a couple of his brothers are going and they're smashing into prehistoric tombs, looking for treasure and all sorts of things. So we often look at sources and think, oh, this is just, yeah, somebody's writing a couple of centuries later and compiling these sources together. But we do have some evidence, albeit much later archaeological evidence, that Vikings or Scandinavians were breaking into tombs. Because in Maze House, which is very famous prehistoric tomb up in Orkney, we have Viking runic graffiti inside. And some of the graffiti tells us that they were there specifically looking for treasure
20:51 Speaker 02 or a great treasure had been here before someone had removed it. So it's nice to get that tie in between the archaeology and the history. The evidence is not always strong from an archaeological point of view in Scotland, but it is getting much, much better. And there were a couple of early excavations around the 1970s. But the sources can tell us a lot of information about what's going on. Sadly, as I said, just not a lot about the Bretonnian experience, which sounds pretty horrific.
21:19 Matt Lewis? I probably won't tell the host of our sister podcast, The Ancients, the wonderful ancients that everyone should go and listen to, that there is a potential that they were damaging brochs here because he kind of loves a brock. And, you know, if every thought the Vikings in the medieval period were destroying brochs, he might never talk to me again. And how much do we know about who is the King of Alclut? I know you should have referred to this ruler several times as King of the Britons. Is that a title that they used? Did they call themselves Kings of the Britons as in a sense of the King of all the Bretonnian people?
21:48 Speaker 02 No, because at this stage, there's a couple of different variations within the Irish annals and you get King of the Britons usually is associated with the Welsh rulers, Diana Gwyneth perhaps. So what we see is, and again, this happens, there's not a lot of evidence to, or not a lot of evidence that backs up the King of the Britons of Strathclyde, as he is referred to, but that is only to record his death in 872, that we get this reference that he is referred to as the Kings of the Britons of Strathclyde. So they're almost like a disparate group of Britons, that there's a separate kingdom that is quite well understood. He is a guy by the name of Artgal at Dunwell and he basically, the name means, I think his name means as valorous as a bear. So it probably gives you a kind of an idea what
22:32 Speaker 02 kind of a character he is. And he comes from quite a long line of father to son regnal authority within the Bretonnian kingdom. We get a much earlier source, as I kind of alluded to earlier, in 849, when the Britons take the opportunity, the Britons of Strathclyde take the opportunity, or Alclut take the opportunity to go to Dunblane, which is a significant Pictish ecclesiastical site and they burn it. Now, some people suggest that it might have been Artgal's father that was undertaking this campaign, but there's every possibility that he was involved in it as well. And as I said, we know he has a son who is Rune, who as mentioned is married to a sister of Constantine, the King of
23:14 Speaker 02 the Picts. So there's not a lot of evidence about about his activities sadly. As I said, it's a bit like the Kingdom of Mericia where we don't have a lot of sources, we don't have any sources, sorry, for the Britons themselves, which is quite sad. So what we have is rather tenuous.
23:31 Matt Lewis? It's interesting though. And what kind of relationship do they have with the Picts at this point, at the moment when, you know, the siege of Dunbarth is happening? Because it sounds like they've been raiding there, but now they're marrying into the Pictish royal families. Are they kind of on terms at the moment?
23:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's one of these really difficult things. We don't know whether Rune is married to Constantine's sister prior to Dunbarth or following Dunbarth. What we do know about him is that much later, and I don't know if this may be jumping the gun a wee bit, But the Pictish king, when Constantine is killed in eight seven five, his brother takes the throne as the king of the Picts for a year, but then it is Rune's son Iochad who becomes the king of the Picts. So it's quite an interesting dynamic because we don't, as I said, we don't know when the marriage alliance happens. What we do know is that the sources tell us that there was this eight seventy siege of Dunbarthen, which runs for
24:26 Speaker 02 four months, which is quite a significant period of time. You know, the source is quite explicit on that four month period. But it doesn't seem that anyone is coming to help them out. So, you know, you can draw your own conclusions as to why that may be. You also have to keep in mind that the Pictish kingdom had been attacked by the Vikings that are involved in the attack on Dunbarthen only four years previously. So they might still have been reeling from that event themselves. I think when we start to look at the relationships between the kingdoms in this part of the world, it seems to be quite fractious. You know, as I said, sadly, we don't get the evidence of the potential good relationships that are happening in between all these big events. You know, that's the kind of the detraction of the sources to a degree.
25:13 Matt Lewis? Yeah, no one writes about the boring time when everyone got on and everyone was happy.
25:16 Speaker 02 Exactly.
25:17 Matt Lewis? Anyone to know when everyone's punching each other's lights out. And when the Vikings arrived, so when we get towards the siege of Dunbarthen, are they targeting Dunbarthen? Is this the first place they arrive? Or is this somewhere they arrive on a campaign through the area?
25:30 Speaker 02 No, we believe it's the first place that they're hitting. It seems to be very targeted. There is a kind of a loose link in the Chronicle of the Princes, which is another Welsh source for eight seventy. And it's not a source that I've found anywhere else. And they talk about an attack at a different area called Crionin. No, that could be in the Ash Tree in eight seven, eight seventy. But there is up near, you know, lots of people in Scotland are familiar with the Crinin Canal, which is the Gallic as Crionin. So there's every possibility that there was a kind of an earlier campaign up at Crinin, which is a well-known portage route for Vikings of later periods. So it's
26:14 Speaker 02 probably a wee bit loose to link it directly to the events. But what we do know is that the Vikings are starting to operate within this part of the world quite heavily strategically. And if you're raiding across a kingdom of Breton peoples into Pictland, it then becomes a challenge with them in your rear. This may be the reason that they want to get the sea routes, because where Dunbarthen is placed, it opens up the River Clyde, going up into central Scotland. And then to the north, you've got the River Leven, which takes you up into the huge expanse of Loch Lomond as well. And we know that the Kingdom of Strathclyde kind of extended up beyond to the top of Loch
26:55 Speaker 02 Lomond. It goes in quite that deep, because there's a lovely name stone called Clachnam Bretan, which is basically the Stone of the Britons. And it seems to be a boundary stone on the boundary of the previous Delriaten Kingdom, the Pictish Kingdom, and the Kingdom of the Britons of Alclut. So definitely think that it's a direct attack and a reason to move a power player in their backyard.
27:35 Speaker 01 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work, and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.
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29:01 Matt Lewis? And it sounds like it may be less to do with the fact that this is the capital of a kingdom and you might want to, you know, displace the king and rule it yourself, and more to do with the fact that this is a really well strategically placed location that the Vikings want to use. So I guess I'm trying to say maybe they're not trying to conquer Outklot as such. What they want is the, the strong strategic position that gives them control over the seas and the river at Don Barton.
29:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, 100%. And yeah, there's even the argument to be made. If we think that Rune is not with his father and is somehow allied with the Pictish kingdom and they're looking for a change of power dynamic in the local area, then it starts to possibly make more sense as well. You know, as the Vikings in terms of a logistical operation, you're only going to besiege somewhere for four months if there's a, a real opportunity to remove someone from the board. And I think, you know, sadly, again, we don't have any direct evidence that Art Gal is captured, but it would make sense that that's why they are hanging about in this part of the world to try and remove Art Gal from the, the power. There's also other arguments that he reappears as a kind of client king
30:11 Speaker 02 of the Vikings. And that's another argument that's kind of been put forward. So it's, it's a really interesting dynamic. As, as you say, that, you know, the, the long established trade routes for- Dumbarton and Alclouc go back quite significantly. There's really good evidence through Lesley and Elizabeth Alcock's excavations, archaeological excavations on the rock in the seventies, where they were finding Mediterranean pottery and glassware and Merovingian glassware as well. So it seems to be quite a high-profile trading site, and perhaps that was what was of interest to the Vikings. And then, again, we have to look at, you know, what are the Vikings doing at this
30:51 Speaker 02 period? Human collateral slavery is a big part of what their operations are all hinged on and their economy is hinged on the movement of people and trafficking people. Because there is much later, there's a later source in eight seven one that essentially says that after what happens at Dumbarton, they go back to Dublin with thousands of slaves, but Angles, Picts and Britons. So it seems to be a whole, all Britain encompassing raid.
31:20 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And do we get much from the Viking side of what's going on? I mean, is any of this included in the Viking sagas that will get written up?
31:27 Speaker 02 No, sadly not. This is the real kind of unusual feature about what's going on because it's a big event. As I said, four months, it's almost unprecedented in terms of siege warfare for Vikings. We have earlier siege activity at Paris in eight four five, which is very heavily linked to Ragnar Lothbrok and his activities through the saga material. And some of the arguments are that perhaps, you know, Yvonne the Boneless is considered a son of Ragnar, Amlav and all these other people that are involved in campaigns, Haftan, et cetera. So there's every possibility that if that is correct and the sons were with the father at the siege of Paris in eight four five, then they are learning new techniques and they are
32:10 Speaker 02 then applying them to Dumbarton. Certainly, I don't think I'll embarrass anyone by saying that you wouldn't consider Dumbarton and Paris as being anywhere near similar in today's mindset. But back in the eight seventies, they must have been significant enough that this was a strategy and a tactic that they wanted to use against these types of sites. The interesting thing is, as well, is also the later At Paris in the eight eighties as well, which go on for much longer. I think it's about a year. The siege in the eight eighties at Paris, but certainly from De Barton's point of view, it must have been significant enough to expend that amount of resource. You know, they've timed it to coincide with the summer campaigning.
32:51 Speaker 02 We can establish this by where it appears within the sources. It's it's quite probably about middle of the the year. So definitely taking full advantage of the height of summer to continue helps with provisioning, logistics, et cetera. What we don't know and what we don't have evidence of are any camps. We know that they camped around the rock from later sources and and kind of supposition from historians, but we don't have any evidence archaeologically of that, which is quite sad.
33:19 Matt Lewis? I mean, you you've sort of answered my next question, which was going to be about how unusual it is for the Vikings to invest the time and the resources required for a siege because we we associate them so closely with those smash and grab raids that we've talked about and with, you know, the great heathen army. Yes, in camping, but moving around still and attacking places. It feels really, really unusual for a siege. Is this kind of a fairly unique moment in the the Viking history of the British Isles?
33:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, I would say a hundred percent. You know, we don't see this happening anywhere else. You know, some people talk about the siege of York in eight six six, but it's it's not it's not a siege by any stretch of the imagination. This is four months of sustained pressure on a kingdom that essentially is as well brings an end to the kind of second generation of hillfort usage in the British Isles, because all of a sudden being up high is no longer a defensive feature. And that then starts to shift the kind of dynamics towards urbanized power centers similar to what we're seeing with the Vikings in Dublin. So they kind of change the way people start to think about their own settlements and kingdoms and power bases as well. So it's entirely unique as far as I can see
34:31 Speaker 02 within the context of the British Isles, which is why it's exceedingly sad that it's it's not as well known as it should be, because this is a massive change in the way that the Vikings are operating. As you said yourself, you know, just the the sheer logistics of trying to organize this, provision the men that are besieging Alclut. How many men were in situ? Were they coming and going at different periods? Were they campaigning far wider? The other thing that's quite unusual as well is that. Outclu, I probably should have explained this to begin with, it's a gigantic hunk of rock in the Clyde estuary and it stands at 243 feet, but it's a relatively small surface when you get to the top, to the occupation layer. They think about two hectares,
35:16 Speaker 02 so you're probably looking maybe two, maximum 300 people would be able to contain within it. So quite small from that prospect as well. And the other thing, I guess, that perhaps answers your question as well, is that they put all this effort into taking Dunbarthen Rock and then they didn't use it for anything. It essentially ceases to go out of existence as a going concern. The Kingdom of Strathclyde, as it's kind of re-established, moves further upriver to Partick and Govan. There's some excellent archaeological work being undertaken by Professor Straven Driscoll at the Govan Stones project up at Govan as well. And they're starting to uncover some really nice stuff and quite
35:57 Speaker 02 a long history, but the whole kind of kingdom just shifts dynamic further upriver. So it's a massive change in what's happening in this part of the world.
36:05 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I think that's really striking as well, that there's a sense here that the Vikings don't necessarily want Dunbarthen, but they don't want the people that are there to be in their way and to have control of Dunbarthen and control access to the sea and the river. They don't need to hold it, they just don't want other people there.
36:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, and this is, I guess it shows that the changing power dynamic in the local area as well, is the fact that the Britons don't, after 870, they don't go and reoccupy Dunbarthen. It's done and dusted. We don't hear about Outclu again in the record. It changes, the terminology changes in the sources to Strathclyde. And that's something that is hugely significant to see. What we do have, and there's some really nice, just to, I guess, further expand on this a little bit, we have some nice archaeology further up to the north of Dunbarthen, about 10 miles away from Dunbarthen Rock, which is a place called Midros on the banks of Loch Lomond. They have found 9th, 10th century Viking
37:05 Speaker 02 graves, some with grave goods, some without grave goods. They found Viking shield bosses, they found whetstones from Scandinavia, reusing previous prehistoric sites in terms of like Boydon. And a really nice thing, which is, you know, ties directly back to this event is the, as far as, you know, the excavators can tell, that we've got a silver coin of Athelred, the first of Wessex, that dates to 865871. So this is right in the middle of all this activity. So what we've got is burials just to the north of De Barton Rock with a Norse kind of context to them, which proves that, that, you know, there is settlement going on and probably quite a lot of integration,
37:48 Speaker 02 I would think at this period. We don't hear of any other attacks by the Vikings on, on the people of Strathclyde until much, much later, probably into the mid of the, middle of the 10th century.
37:59 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And I guess the Vikings are mainly concerned with controlling the coasts and the maritime routes and everything else like that. So there is maybe an idea that if you, if you move a bit further inland, you can sort of get out of their, their line of sight, get out of their area of focus.
38:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, a hundred percent. And, you know, what we see again is that there is this ongoing interaction between the big players. So Amlav, Evar, the other brother Ossos actually killed by Amlav quite early on, um, over a dispute about his wife, which is always quite interesting. But, you know, they become quite big players in this era. Sadly, what happens is that Amlav and Evar both die quite early after, or not long after the siege of De Barton in 870. They believe that Evar is 873. And when he dies, the sources call him that, you know, the king of all the foreigners in Ireland and Britain. So he's, you know, really established himself as over king of all the Vikings and the foreigners in this part of the world.
38:59 Speaker 02 Amlav is actually killed while exacting tribute from the Pictish kingdom. Uh, he's killed by Constantine. So that Carries on and then there's a little bit of revenge because Constantine's actually killed by Haftan, who seems to continue campaigning in this part of the world at the end of the Great Heathen Army raids in eight, seven, five, he kills Constantine. And we start to see this shifting dynamic as well within the the Pictish Kingdom as well at this period. So there's lots and lots going on. Yeah, as I said, it's it's one of these kind of unique moments where all the big players kind of get knocked out of position at exactly the same time. I think another period where that happened was the Anarchy, where Henry the Second came in and lots of the big players had been
39:40 Speaker 02 removed in eleven fifty three. So it made it much easier transition. But yeah, lots and lots of stuff going on. And as I said earlier on, the Kingdom of Strathclyde doesn't disappear. It just it almost reinvents itself further up the Clyde River. And we have lovely examples of, you know, cultural fusion through Hogback Stones and up at Govan and Partick as well. So it's it's wonderful to see that that's just the changing dynamic.
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41:47 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And just returning to the actual siege itself, we've mentioned it lasted for four months. I guess we're told that in some of the written sources, but what do we know about how the siege panned out? I mean, besieging places is so unusual for the Vikings. Do we get any sense of the tactics, the technologies that they're using? Or are we kind of left with the plain they would?
42:09 Speaker 02 No, we get some quite good sources because what we know from the sources is that essentially Dunbarthun runs out of fresh water. That's what brings about the downfall. They managed to hold out for so long, they appear to lose control of the well, which is in the kind of cleft between. It's a double-plugged volcanic rock at Dunbarthun. So there's two peaks. The well kind of sits in the cleft. And once they lose control of that, you know, it's all over by the shouting. And there is also in the sources, they talk about the Vikings perhaps getting access to the lower reaches of the citadel. So it's not your traditional siege. You know, people think medieval sieges with big siege engines. We do know from the
42:51 Speaker 02 sources, from the later Paris siege in the 80s, that they were employing siege machinery and building camps and defences. We don't have any evidence of that at all for what's going on in Dunbarthun. It seems to be encircled, they're up high. We'll eventually get them out once we get control of the wells. And that essentially is what happens. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, in 871, we get a reference that Amlav and Evra returned to Ireland, or returned to Dublin with 200 ships with thousands of captives as well. So it seems to be quite... Quick, once it all falls apart, if that makes sense. Yeah, four months, it's almost like a wait and see what happens.
43:34 Speaker 02 Again, it's quite sad because we don't know what's going on on the day to day basis of that, within that four month period. You know, I'm assuming it's probably quite boring. I don't think there would have been breakout attempts. I think the kings of, the king of Alclut and his people probably were quite comfortable to sit up there and think, well, we've got these guys sussed out. They can't kind of scale the rocks to get at us. So yeah, it's, once it kind of comes to an end.
43:58 Matt Lewis? They might have been quite confident they could hold out for a while. But then I suppose the Vikings are also there with control of the sea, able to resupply themselves. They can kind of stay there for as long as they like, or as long as the weather stays good. And it just, it just boils down to this well, you know, is what causes the end of it.
44:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, 100%. And yeah, this is what becomes quite interesting if we start looking at some of the discussions around where the kingdom of Lathlin, Lachlin is situated. Because if it's situated in the Western Isles, it's not that far from Dunbarthen to get in your ships and go back to, you know, the Western Isles, you know, even coming down to the Isle of Cumbria, Butte, Arran, you know, they're all fairly close. You would have to think that they were perhaps having control of them. And even if they weren't, they were able to dominate the people that were living on those islands. So yeah, it also bears thinking about that, you know, the power dynamics of the kingdom of Alclut, that they were confident enough that they could hang out or hold out for such a prolonged period, you know?
44:56 Speaker 02 They must have been confident in their own abilities and perhaps this had happened in the past. There were much earlier sources that reference attacks on Alclut back in the 700s. There is also, sorry, I should mention, there is evidence of burning on one of the palisades that Lesley Elcock and Elizabeth Elcock uncovered in the 1970s investigation. And within that burning rubble, what we, what they found was a Viking pommel that dates to the ninth century. So it does tie into events that were happening, that there was some form of, of burning event after the Alclut was taken, because the sources do talk about how it was destroyed and plundered as well. So a deliberate attempt, as you said, to knock it, knock it off the gaming board.
45:38 Matt Lewis? And do we see, I mean, I guess if we're saying there's maybe 200 or 300 people. In Dunbarthen, and we, we know that the Vikings returned to Ireland with thousands of enslaved people, then presumably they're using this as a springboard. This does become part of a larger campaign. It can't just be that they've attacked Dunbarthen, ruined that and gone because they're, they're going home with so many slaves. They must have captured them from around Scotland.
46:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, a hundred percent. You know, you have to look at this in the round and, and say, you know, was this going on while they were besieging Dunbarthen, that they were going out further afield and picking up as many people as they could. There's also an argument to suggest that because Evar has come back from the great heathen army, that he is bringing the Anglo slaves back with him in tow. But even the logistics of that, you know, if we take on face value that thousands of slaves have been taken, the logistics of looking after those people, transporting them, guarding them even, you know, there's lots of logistics where you have to take people out of the frontline operations to then look after the slaves that you're collecting along the way. I mean, as I said, it does mention about 200 ships are taken back to Dublin in eight seven
46:48 Speaker 02 one. But if we look at, if they arrive in summer, eight seventy, four months, you know, you're coming into October, they're probably overwintering somewhere and then returning to, I believe they returned to Dublin quite early in the sources in eight seven one, so probably January, February time.
47:02 Matt Lewis? And do we see, this is a time where, you know, in Anglo Saxon England, we're seeing the Danlaw kind of being carved out. We've got a Viking king in Dublin. We've got periodically, we've got a Viking king in York as well. Do we see the Vikings beginning to integrate themselves into the, the politics of the area that we now call Scotland, the, the kind of Bretonnican and Pictish kingdoms? Are they trying to rule there? Are they becoming integrated? You mentioned there's some evidence that they were, you know, living amongst the people there and becoming integrated sort of on the ground. But is there any sense in which the Vikings take a political role in Scotland?
47:39 Speaker 02 Not as far as I can see. I mean, they seem to be exacting tribute from different areas. And, you know, that certainly indicates that they are power players in the region. Perhaps these are client kings, you know, Constantine perhaps wasn't particularly happy about this as the king of the Pyxes are, you know, quite proud and independent kingdoms that are running in their own entity. But, you know, you certainly start to see some of the dynamics shifting. You know, as I said, if you start looking towards the... Fifty, sixty years after what happens at Dunbar, and you even see coalitions and confederations between, you know, one of your great favourites, Athelflaid, and she's making deals with the kings of the Picts and the kings of the Britons to stand against the Vikings. So it doesn't seem
48:24 Speaker 02 that they seem to get a really strong foothold in Scotland, for whatever reason, you know, perhaps that is the case, that they feel they've done enough to try and take control. There are these family relationships. We do see some kind of weird dynamics occurring much later in the king lists for the king of the Picts, for example. There is a king by the name of Amlav, once it becomes the the Kingdom of Alaba. So that name has continued on into the mid 10th century, but it seems to be fleeting. I think there's definitely connections. And, you know, one of the potential discussion points that you could have around this is if we come back to a very important date prior to 870 and 849, what you see is Kenneth McAlpin arrives on the scene as
49:09 Speaker 02 the king of Delriata moves in to become king of the Picts. It's around the same time that there's conflict going on in the Western Isles between the Vikings and the Norse that are established there. And then you've also got the Britons moving into Pictland as well. So there's a lot of stuff going on. And this kind of connection seems to be that it's a knocking out of kingdoms, you know, and Kenneth McAlpin is Gaelic as he's moving in, he's a Gaelic, he's cultural identity. So he starts to move that into Pictland. And what you see is the Pictish community starts to change and alter as well. And much, much later, I mean, all these kingdoms are kind of established. Eventually, this is what the catalyst is for moving towards a more
49:50 Speaker 02 unified Scotland, as we would understand it today. But it does seem to take some time. I mean, the Kingdom of Strathclyde kind of Continues in existence up to about the 12th century. So it's got a long range even following what happens at Dunbarthen. And that then becomes quite an interesting dynamic to think about, you know, who are the real power players in this part of the world? And as you said, perhaps the Uyghur dynasty in Ireland are quite content with what they've got through Northern Ireland and Dublin and into Northern England and Western Isles of Scotland. And that's quite content for them.
50:23 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I was going to ask whether we ought to consider, I mean, I think you've made a really brilliant pitch for why we should all know the siege of Dunbarthen better. There is clearly so much really fascinating stuff going on. But I was going to ask about whether we can see this as some kind of catalyst, a stepping stone, the starting gun being fired on moving towards a more unified Scotland. Does this existential threat from Vikings kind of force them to coalesce and get on a bit better? But it sounds like actually the picture is still quite fragmented for several centuries afterwards.
50:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely fragmented for quite a number of centuries following. What we probably should touch on as well is that in 872, the Irish annals tell us that Art Gal is put to death at the instigation of Constantine. So there we have the king of the Picts basically directing people to kill Art Gal, who's the king of the Britons. Now, one of these arguments could be that it's because he is a client king of the Vikings, Constantine doesn't want this. The other argument is that it could be that he wants to put Rune onto the throne and so that he's got that family connection through his sister to the kingdom of the Britons of Strathclyde as well. But it's quite an interesting choice of words because, as I said, you get this distinct picture that, you know, poor Art
51:41 Speaker 02 Gal has gone through this huge process where he's been defeated or lost Alclut as a power centre, you know, thousands and hundreds of his people have been taken into slavery and captivity. And then he comes back on the scene. We don't know whether it's in Ireland or in Scotland that he's killed sadly. You know, some of the arguments are that because it's mentioned. In the Irish annals, that it must be in Ireland, but that's not always the case because we do hear of other kings that are referred to as dying that we know specifically died in England or in Scotland, that don't give a location in the Irish annals either. So it's a little bit tenuous to decide, and this is why one of the arguments is, is Art Gal the last king of Alclut and the first king of Strathclyde as well?
52:25 Speaker 02 Because there seems to be this two-year period where he's still knocking about until he's killed by the king of the Picts. So I guess, coming back to the original point of fragmented kingdoms, yeah, definitely still happening. But once you start seeing that coalition between the Eighth Lady of Northumbria, which is extending up to, you know, as far up as Edinburgh at this period in time, you know, a lot of people don't understand that Edinburgh was considered outside of Scotland. Scotland is north of the Fourth. And then you've got this kingdom of Strathclyde, which actually starts to, as it develops, go right down to Lancaster as well. So it takes in Cumbria, Cumberland, and, you know, the island off the west coast of Scotland
53:06 Speaker 02 is kind of an etymological throwback to that as well because it's still Greater and Little Cumbry. So people speaking Cumbric in those areas. So, yeah, it still, still happens, but fundamentally a shift in direction for where people are going. Because what we see at this period is you start to see this almost amalgamation of interrelated kings from what becomes Picton and Strathclyde that then start intermarrying and merging, and that will eventually move towards a more unified kingdom. And, you know, even just looking on it as a political picture today, one, one of the sad things is it's not as well-known. We know the political picture in Scotland is quite fragmented itself at the moment.
53:46 Speaker 02 And, you know, some of the academia is maybe not being as focused on a kingdom of Britons as it potentially should be because it goes against a lot of the, the modern contemporary narratives about whether Scotland should be independent or not. So hopefully we'll see that kind of address itself because it's hugely important in the formation of Scotland as a country. And it sits right at the heart of a period of time that's changing, you know, so dynamically.
54:11 Matt Lewis? Well, thank you so much, Todd. I feel like we've packed so much into this discussion. We've centered it on the Siege of Dunbarthen that might have seemed like nothing, a four-month siege, and then nothing really happens without clues afterwards. But I think you've put it in a fairly immense context. And I feel like I know what's going on in the west of Scotland far, far better than I did before. So, thank you so much for joining us, Todd, and sharing your expertise about the Siege of Dunbarthen.
54:37 Speaker 02 Absolutely. It's been a great pleasure to be here. And I hope more people will take it on board and go and research it, because it's a fantastic piece of history that has wider repercussions, as I said, not just for Scotland, but for the wider British Isles and Ireland and Europe as well.
54:50 Matt Lewis? Yeah, wonderful. Thank you very much.
54:52 Speaker 02 Thank you.
54:54 Matt Lewis? I hope you found that story interesting. If you'd like to hear more about Scottish history, you can find recent episodes on the sagas of the Earls of Orkney and on the medieval queens of Scotland. For more Vikings, you might like the episode Eleanor's done recently on the origins of the Viking Age. And there are loads of great Viking episodes throughout our back catalogue for you to hop into a longship and rage your way through. There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release
55:38 Matt Lewis? every week. Head over to historyhit.com/subscribe right now. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.
56:08 Speaker 01 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use. Like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini.
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