Viking Migration and Settlement in East Anglia: The Place-Name Evidence

David Boulton uses Scandinavian-influenced place-names to reconsider how Viking migration and settlement unfolded in East Anglia between the late ninth and eleventh centuries. Rather than treating names in isolation, he places them within their linguistic, geographical and archaeological settings, drawing on GIS mapping and the growing body of Scandinavian metalwork recovered by detectorists.

The study is the first comprehensive treatment of East Anglia’s Scandinavian place-names, including names in -bý and -thorp and so-called Grimston hybrids. Boulton argues that their formation needs to be understood alongside changes already reshaping the late Anglo-Saxon countryside, particularly arable expansion and settlement on inland claylands. Place-name evidence ultimately supports a detailed reassessment of migration, naming and rural settlement within the Danelaw.