A History of Tyneside

Post-Roman Tyneside to The Middle Ages (1x2)

Air date: Oct 19, 2006

In 680 AD Bede entered the monastery of St. Peter aged about 7 years old. The buildings were less than 10 years old – some of the first stone buildings to be built in Northumbria after the Romans left – and completely different to anything that he had previously seen. Bede became a great scholar and wrote the very first history of the English people. The area became one of the beacons of learning and enlightenment in the country after the Romans in an era often called The Dark Ages. In the 7th Century the Angles defeated the Celtic kings of the North-East and imposed their own language, obliterating the Celtic Welsh language previously spoken in the region – sowing the seeds of the Geordie dialect known today. For a time the kingdom of Northumbria was the most powerful in the country. In 793 AD Viking ships attacked Saint Cuthbert’s monastery on the island of Lindisfarne...a tremendous shock to the monks. Over the next few decade Viking attacks on churches near the coast increased, leading the monks at Saint Cuthbert’s monastery to move his relics inland to Durham. The Vikings began settling the area during the 9th Century leading to further influences on the Geordie language. Following the Norman invasion of England in 1066 they saw the difficulty of controlling the lands to the north, and saw the River Tyne as the natural border, leading to the building of a “New Castle” and the establishment of the “County Palatine of Durham”. By the middle of the 13th Century the decision was made to encircle the town of Newcastle with substantial walls...both for protection and prestige.