Digital Resources for Historical & Cultural Context

Museum & Heritage Websites

  • National Trust: search using terms "Anglo-Saxon"* or "Old English" to find several hundred high-quality images
  • English Heritage: includes "The Story of England," with illustrated sections on "Commerce," "Power and Politics," "Religion," "War," and more
  • Swedish History Museum: links to image collections on Flickr containing images from "We Call Them Vikings," their exhibitions on the Viking Age
  • Field Museum: one of the museums that hosted the Swedish History Museum's traveling exhibition; they created a webpage called "Vikings" to accompany the exhibition with images and information from the exhibition and accompanying audio commentary from Associate Curator William A. Parkinson
  • Viking Ship Museum: images of and articles about three Viking-Age ships (Gokstad, Oseberg, and Tune) from ship burials featured at the museum
    • Note: the Viking Ship Museum is currently closed and will reopen in 2025/2026 as the Museum of the Viking Age, but the online content is still accessible.

Image Collections

  • ArtStor: a digital library of over 2.5 million images cleared for educational use
  • Google Arts and Culture: search using terms "Anglo-Saxon,"* "Old English," and "early medieval England" or search directly within British Museum's collections on the Google Arts and Culture platform
  • Anglo-Saxon Churches: features a huge collection of photographs of early medieval churches

Reenactment and Reconstructions

Note: Instructors should carefully examine resources from reenactment and “amateur” societies carefully before sharing them with their students to ensure that they are not associated with hate groups; it is an unfortunate reality that the Middle Ages are the subject of fascination and veneration for these groups.† For more information, see “Resources on Medieval Difference and Diversity" from the Medieval Studies Program at the University of Connecticut, particularly useful sections like “On the Appropriation of the Middle Ages” and “Teaching Medieval Difference & Diversity.”
  • Ða Engliscan Gesiðas (The English Companions): the website of a society devoted to the study of the history and culture of early medieval England, featuring an "Education" section and teaching resources for primary and secondary school
  • Regia Anglorum: a collection of groups across the UK attempting to recreate early medieval England; the website includes a thorough "Historical Resources" section, a "virtual village," a full index, and search function
  • "The Viking Series": a series of YouTube videos by Norwegian novelist Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen on subjects such as ship burials, life in a Viking camp, Viking weaponry, and more
  • The Saxon House, Lincolnshire, UK: recreates the daily experience of a Saxon family; the website features images of the house, the process of building it, and costumed interpreters at the site; information about early medieval England; and video clips of films made at the site
  • The Foteviken Museum, Höllviken, Sweden: a living history museum portraying an entire late Viking Age town; the website features images of the town and costumed interpreters, informational pages, and how-tos on playing Viking games and cooking recipes

Sutton Hoo

  • An early medieval English royal tomb
  • There are several digital resources about the site:

Staffordshire Hoard