Three Centuries of Achievement 

911 - 1204

From their origins as Viking ‘Northmen’ who left Scandinavia in search of adventure and wealth in Western Europe, the exhibition charts their settlement in Normandy and development as a thriving French duchy.

Their opportunist involvement in the affairs in southern Italy created an exotic Mediterranean kingdom, while cool, calculated ambition and good fortune gave them the rich prize of England.

Yet tables were turned when, 800 years ago in 1204, the Norman duke cum English king saw the duchy annexed by force at the hands of the king of France.