Northman

Who is Northman?

Northman was a late 10th-century English ealdorman, with a territorial base in Northumbria north of the river Tees. He appears in two different strands of source. These are, namely, the textual tradition of Durham witnessed by Historia de Sancto Cuthberto and the Durham Liber Vitae, and an appearance in a witness list of a charter of King Æthelred II dated to 994. The latter is Northman's only appearance south of the Humber, and came the year after Northumbria was attacked by Vikings.

Neither of these witnesses provide a patronymic nor an "earldom". There is a possibility therefore that the two Northmans are different characters, though they are generally thought to be the same. Almost nothing is known about Northman besides being an ealdorman in northern Northumbia, our ignorance extending to the identities of his parents and any children or spouses he may have had.