Vikings Sack Lindisfarne!, Again?

Article excerpt

Norway's soccer team staged a Viking-themed World Cup photo shoot at Lindisfarne, the English monastery famously raided by Norse warriors in 793 A.D. The stunt sparked debate about whether the publicity stunt appropriately honored or trivialized historical violence. Medieval historian Richard Utz unpacks how modern culture continues to weaponize Viking imagery, sometimes literally, and why a monastery that survived actual Norse conquest now finds itself caught between historical commemoration and contemporary spectacle.