Vikings

2012
Vikings

Seasons & Episodes

  • 1

EP1 Who Were the Vikings Sep 11, 2012

Neil Oliver heads for Scandinavia to reveal the truth behind the legend of the Vikings. In the first programme, Neil begins by discovering the mysterious world of the Vikings' prehistoric ancestors. The remains of weapon-filled war boats, long-haired Bronze Age farmers, and a Swedish site of a royal palace and gruesome pagan ritual conjure up an ancient past from which the Viking Age was to suddenly erupt.

EP2 The Trading Empire Sep 18, 2012

Neil Oliver heads out from the Scandinavian homelands to Russia, Turkey and Ireland to trace the beginnings of a vast trading empire that handled Chinese silks as adeptly as Pictish slaves. Neil discovers a world of 'starry-eyed maidens' and Buddhist statues that are a world away from our British experience of axe-wielding warriors, although it turns out that there were quite a few of those as well.

EP3 End of the Viking Age Sep 25, 2012

Neil Oliver explores how the Viking Age finally ended, tracing the Norse voyages of discovery, the first Danish kings, and the Christian conversions that opened the door to European high society. He also uncovers the truth about England's King Canute - he was not an arrogant leader who thought he could hold back the waves, but the Viking ruler of an entire empire of the north and an early adopter of European standardisation.
7.7| 0h30m| en| More Info
Released: 11 September 2012 Ended
Producted By: BBC
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ms4sh
Synopsis

Vikings is a 2012 BBC television documentary series written and presented by Neil Oliver charting the rise of the Vikings from prehistoric times to the empire of Canute.

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Reviews

l_rawjalaurence In this four-part documentary series, presenter Neil Oliver offers a more nuanced portrait of the Vikings, as a corrective to the prevailing notion that they were a barbarous race concerned solely with conquering other nations.By traveling northwards to Sweden and Denmark, and as far south as Turkey as well as within the United Kingdom, he argues that the Vikings were a communal race, accustomed to self-sufficient lifestyles in small settlements. The fact that they acquired such power in ancient times was due to their loyalty to one another: every person mattered, and hence had to be looked after by others. There was little of the self-interest or concern for personal aggrandizement that characterized other nations, or individuals of such nations, in battle.As traders, the Vikings spread their net far and side, conducting business with nations as far away as India and China, and regularly commuting to Istanbul (or Constantinople as it was known then) to exchange goods. Oliver's treatment of this subject was slightly orientalist in tone - complete with Middle Eastern music and shots of head-scarfed women - but he did make the valid point that the Vikings left their mark in the city, as a piece of graffiti now preserved in Hagia Sophia, the ancient church now converted into a mosque.The Vikings invaded Britain and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in capturing important strategic centers at Lindisfarne and Repton (now a small country town but in the Anglo-Saxon era a site of trade and government). They went further south and ended up forging a treaty with King Alfred the Great, where Alfred ruled the south, while the Vikings stayed in the north. Their influence lives on in the way many of their words have entered the English language.Straightforwardly structured, with the minimum of intervention from expert witnesses - which can sometimes hold up the narrative flow - THE VIKINGS is a really good example of a quality documentary that informs as well as entertains.