Y302: the Viking Age C.790-1066 | OCR A-Level History A (H505)

Y302: the Viking Age C.790-1066

140 questions
14 subtopics
Thematic study and historical interpretations, one of twenty-one
Y301 to Y321

The Viking Age C.790–1066 is unit Y302 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-one options in unit group 3, the thematic study and historical interpretations; a student sits one of them.

Its four key topics and three depth studies are Viking society, administration and livelihood, warfare and raids, settlements, culture and religion, raids on England in the late eighth and ninth centuries, the Danelaw, the Vikings in Ireland. 140 recall questions across 14 subtopics.

Sample questions from Y302: the Viking Age C.790-1066

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Viking society, administration and livelihood: Viking identity and Scandinavian administration

Describe the legal and practical position of free women in Scandinavian society.

Show the answer
They could own and inherit property, run the farm and its stores while the men were away, initiate divorce and commission memorial stones, though they were excluded from public office and formal legal action.
Viking society, administration and livelihood: royal power and Scandinavian livelihood

How did the adoption of the sail change Scandinavian seafaring?

Show the answer
A single square sail on a keeled hull gave long-range voyaging without exhausting crews at the oars, which made open-sea crossings, distant raiding and bulk cargo trade practical for the first time.
Warfare and raids: Athelstan, the second Viking age and expansion abroad

Explain why paying Danegeld proved counter-productive.

Show the answer
It advertised England's wealth and its rulers' weakness, so each payment attracted further and larger fleets, while the taxation needed to raise it exhausted the country and discredited the king.
Settlements: Scandinavian rural and urban settlements, English rural and urban settlements, Danelaw

Define the Danelaw.

Show the answer
It was the area of northern and eastern England in which Danish law and custom were recognised, comprising broadly Northumbria, the east midlands and East Anglia.
Culture and religion: old religion and new religion

Who are the Norns?

Show the answer
They are the three female powers who determine fate at the roots of the world tree, expressing the belief that a person's destiny is fixed and cannot be escaped.
Culture and religion: culture, poetry and its purpose, sagas, feasting

What are the Icelandic sagas and why are they problematic as evidence?

Show the answer
They are prose narratives about the settlement period and its feuds, written down in Iceland in the thirteenth century, so they preserve genuine traditions, law and social attitudes but were composed by Christian authors two or three hundred years after the events.
Depth study: Raids on England in the late eighth and ninth centuries — significance of the 860s

What can be said about the leadership of the great army?

Show the answer
The sources name several leaders acting together rather than one king, which suggests a confederation of chieftains held together by shared profit, and later Scandinavian tradition attached legendary motives to them that historians treat with caution.
Depth study: The Danelaw — Definitions, origins, organisation and growth

Describe how the Danelaw was organised at local level.

Show the answer
Territory was divided into wapentakes taking decisions at open assemblies, land was assessed in carucates rather than hides, the boroughs each supported an army under a jarl, and groups of lawmen presided over legal business under a distinct scale of fines and penalties.

The 14 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Viking society, administration and livelihood: Viking identity and Scandinavian administration	Recall questions on Viking identity, Scandinavian land and climate, Scandinavian society, including slaves, the free, women, children, elites and rules of conduct, Scandinavian administration.	9
Viking society, administration and livelihood: royal power and Scandinavian livelihood	Recall questions on royal power, political developments in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Scandinavian livelihood, including trade, developments in shipbuilding, seafaring, money, farming, hunting and craft-working.	11
Warfare and raids: early raids on England and Scotland and Alfred’s response	Recall questions on the first recorded attack, Lindisfarne, motives for the early raids, Iona, Viking pressure and Scottish unity, the change in the 860s and Alfred’s recovery and defences after 878.	8
Warfare and raids: Athelstan, the second Viking age and expansion abroad	Recall questions on Athelstan and the north, peace after 955, the second Viking age and Danegeld, Danish rule in England and its fall, and Viking expansion to Normandy, the east, Iceland, Greenland, Wales and Man.	12
Settlements: Scandinavian rural and urban settlements, English rural and urban settlements, Danelaw	Recall questions on Scandinavian rural and urban settlements, English rural and urban settlements, including York, the Danelaw.	10
Settlements: kingship, move towards a united English kingdom, settlements in Western and Eastern Europe	Recall questions on kingship, the impact of settlements on livelihood, including farming, craft‑working, trade, society, including social structure, families, kinship and customs, the move towards a united English kingdom.	10
Culture and religion: old religion and new religion	Recall questions on old religion, the gods, including Odin, Thor, Frey and the Norns, outdoor worship, including ship-settings, sacrificial sites, burial customs.	11
Culture and religion: culture, poetry and its purpose, sagas, feasting	Recall questions on culture: art, language, writing, including runes, and naming customs, poetry and its purpose, including rune poems, eddaic poems and skaldic verse, sagas, feasting.	9
Depth study: Raids on England in the late eighth and ninth centuries — motives, success and impact of the raids	Recall questions on the debate over the early raids, Sawyer and Brooks, army size, the timing of the raids, England’s political condition, Alcuin on Lindisfarne, and the impact on English politics, government, economy and Church.	11
Depth study: Raids on England in the late eighth and ninth centuries — significance of the 860s	Recall questions on the significance of the 860s, the response to raids and the first settlements.	9
Depth study: The Danelaw — Definitions, origins, organisation and growth	Recall questions on definitions, origins, organisation and growth.	9
Depth study: The Danelaw — response from Anglo-Saxons and importance of York	Recall questions on response from Anglo-Saxons, the impact on the northern and eastern economy, society, culture, religion and politics, the importance of York.	11
Depth study: The Vikings in Ireland — Motives for raiding, trading and settlement	Recall questions on motives for raiding, trading and settlement, phases of involvement and links to Viking activity elsewhere.	8
Depth study: The Vikings in Ireland — Clontarf and the impact on the Irish economy and Church	Recall questions on the Vikings in Irish politics, Clontarf and its reinterpretation, the economic effects, money and trade, excavation in Dublin, the Irish Church, cultural traces and the views of Ó Corráin.	12

Y302: the Viking Age C.790-1066 is 140 of the 6,240 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.