Abstract

Each of the different cultural zones of what used to be called ‘The British Isles’(namely Britain and Ireland, with their associated smaller islands; Davies 2000) had its own tradition or traditions of chronicling in the Viking Age. Nor should we forget Brittany, a complex Continental polity of Insular Celtic heritage situated alongside a predatory Frankish empire (Dumville 2007c). It is certain that these zones interacted variously. Because of shared ecclesiastical history there were significant, especially generic, points of similarity. But different interactions and differing local cultures generated chronicles whose character and tone differed between the cultural zones. When the Viking Age began, with apparent suddenness in the chronicle-records, shared experiences nonetheless seem to have provoked a range of generically different responses (see Dumville 2002c).