Viking Age is the term for the period in
European history, especially
Northern European and
Scandinavian history, spanning the
eighth to eleventh centuries. Scandinavian (
Norse)
Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and
rivers through trade and warfare.
The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and
Anatolia
.
Additionally, there is evidence to support the
Vinland legend that Vikings reached farther south to
the North American continent.
Historical considerations
In
England
the Viking Age began dramatically on June 8, 793 when Norwegian Vikings destroyed the
abbey on Lindisfarne
, a center of learning famous across the
continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the
sea to drown or carried away as
slaves along
with the church treasures. Three Viking ships had beached in
Portland Bay four years earlier, but that incursion may have been a
trading expedition that went wrong rather than a piratical raid.
Lindisfarne was different.
The Viking devastation of Northumbria
's Holy Island shocked and alerted the royal Courts
of Europe. "Never before has such an atrocity been seen,"
declared the Northumbrian scholar
Alcuin
of York. More than any other single event, the attack on
Lindisfarne cast a shadow on the perception of the Vikings for the
next twelve centuries. Not until the 1890s did scholars outside
Scandinavia begin seriously to reassess the achievements of the
Vikings, recognizing their artistry, the technological skills and
the seamanship.
Until
Victoria's reign in
Britain
, Vikings were portrayed as violent and
bloodthirsty. The chronicles of medieval England had always
portrayed them as rapacious 'wolves among sheep'. During the
nineteenth century, public perceptions changed. In 1920 a
winged-helmeted Viking was introduced as a radiator cap figure on a
new
Rover car. That marked the cultural
rehabilitation of the Vikings in Britain.
The first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain
emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the
Viking Age began to reach a small readership in Britain.
Archaeologists began to dig up Britain's Viking past. Linguistic
enthusiasts started to work on identifying Viking-Age origins for
rural idioms and proverbs. The new dictionaries of the Old Norse
language enabled the Victorians to grapple with the primary
Icelandic Sagas.
In Scandinavia
Thomas Bartholin and
Ole Worm, the 17th-century Danish scholars
and Olaf Rudbeck in Sweden were the first to set the standard for
using runic inscriptions and Icelandic Sagas as historical sources.
During the
Age of Enlightenment
and Nordic Renaissance, historical scholarship in Scandinavia
became more rational and pragmatic in the works of a
Danish-Norwegian historian
Ludvig
Holberg and Swedish
Olof von
Dalin. During the latter half of the 18th century the Icelandic
Sagas were still used as important historical sources, but the
Viking Age was regarded as a barbaric and uncivilized period in the
history of the Nordic countries. Until recently the history of the
Viking Age was largely based on
Icelandic Sagas, the
history of the Danes written by
Saxo
Grammaticus, the Russian
Primary Chronicle and the
The War of
the Irish with the Foreigners. Few scholars still accept
these texts as reliable sources; historians nowadays rely more on
archaeology and
numismatics, disciplines
that have made valuable contributions toward understanding the
period.
Historical background
The
Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly from
Denmark
, Norway
and Sweden
.
They also
settled the Faroe
Islands
, Iceland
, Caithness
in Scotland, Greenland
and (briefly) North
America.
Their language became the mother-tongue of present-day Nordic
languages. By 801, a strong central authority appears to have been
established in Jutland, and the Danish were beginning to look
beyond their own territory for land, trade and plunder.
In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural
boundaries. Communities there remained independent of each other,
unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30
small kingdoms existed in Norway.
The sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian
kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the eighth century that
Scandinavians began to build ships of war and send them on raiding
expeditions to initiate the Viking Age. The northern sea rovers
were traders, colonizers and explorers as well as plunderers.
Probable causes of Viking expansion
Viking society was based on agriculture and trade with other
peoples and placed great emphasis on the concept of honour, both in
combat (for example, it was unfair and wrong to attack an enemy
already in a fight with another) and in the criminal justice
system.
It is unknown what triggered the Vikings' expansion and conquests.
This era coincided with the
Medieval Warm Period (800 – 1300) and
stopped with the start of the
Little Ice
Age (about 1250 – 1850). The lack of pack-ice would have
allowed Scandinavians to go "a-Viking" or "raiding".
With the means of travel (longships and open water), their desire
for goods led Scandinavian traders to explore and develop extensive
trading partnerships in new territories. It has been suggested that
the Scandinavians suffered from unequal trade practices imposed by
Christian advocates and that this
eventually led to the breakdown in trade relations and raiding.
British merchants who declared openly that they were Christian and
would not trade with heathens and infidels (Muslims and the Norse)
would get preferred status for availability and pricing of goods
through a Christian network of traders. A two-tiered system of
pricing existed with both declared and undeclared merchants trading
secretly with banned parties. Viking raiding expeditions were
separate from and coexisted with regular trading expeditions. A
people with the tradition of raiding their neighbours when their
honour had been impugned might easily fall to raiding foreign
peoples who impugned their honour.
Historians also suggest that the
Scandinavian population was too large for the
peninsula and there were not enough crops to feed everyone. This
led to a hunt for more land to feed the ever growing Viking
population. Particularly for the settlement and conquest period
that followed the early raids, the internal strife in Scandinavia
resulted in the progressive centralisation of power into fewer
hands. This meant that lower classes who did not want to be
oppressed by greedy kings went in search of their own lands.
Thus,
Iceland became
Europe's first modern republic, with an
annual assembly of elected officials called the Althing.
Historic overview
The earliest date given for a Viking raid is 787 AD when, according
to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of men from Norway
sailed to Portland, in Dorset. There, they were mistaken for
merchants by a royal official. They murdered him when he tried to
get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax
on their goods.
The
beginning of the Viking Age in the British Isles
is, however, often given as 793. It was
recorded in the
Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle that the Northmen raided the important island
monastery of Lindisfarne:
- "AD. 793. This year came dreadful
fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the
people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing
through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across
the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed
by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the
ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen
men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island
(Lindisfarne), by rapine and slaughter." -Anglo Saxon
Chronicle.
In 794,
according to the Annals of
Ulster, there was a serious attack on Lindisfarne's
mother-house of Iona
, which was
followed in 795 by raids upon the northern coast of Ireland
. From
bases there, the Norsemen attacked Iona again in 802, causing great
slaughter amongst the
Céli Dé
Brethren, and burning the abbey to the ground.
The end
of the Viking Age is traditionally marked in England by the
failed invasion attempted by the Norwegian king Harald III
(Haraldr Harðráði), who was defeated
by Saxon King Harold Godwinson in
1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge
; in Ireland, the capture of Dublin
by Strongbow and his
Hiberno-Norman forces in 1171; and
1263 in Scotland by the defeat of King Hákon Hákonarson at the Battle of
Largs
by troops loyal to Alexander III. Godwinson
was subsequently defeated within a month by another Viking
descendant,
William, Duke of
Normandy (Normandy had been acquired by
Vikings (
Normans) in 911). Scotland took its
present form when it regained territory from the
Norse between the thirteenth and the fifteenth
centuries.
The traditional definition is no longer accepted by most
Scandinavian historians and archaeologists. Instead, the Viking age
is thought to have ended with the establishment of royal authority
in the Scandinavian countries and the establishment of Christianity
as the dominant religion. The date is usually put somewhere in the
early 11th century in all three Scandinavian countries.
The end
of the Viking-era in Norway is marked by the Battle of
Stiklestad
in 1030. They proclaimed Norway as a
Christian nation, and Norwegians could no longer be called
Vikings.
The
clinker-built
longships used by the Scandinavians were uniquely
suited to both deep and shallow waters. They extended the reach of
Norse raiders, traders and settlers along coastlines and along the
major river valleys of northwestern Europe.
Rurik also expanded to the east and in 859 became
ruler either by conquest or invitation by local people of the city
of Novgorod
(which means "new city") on the Volkhov River. His successors moved further, founding the
state of Kievan Rus with the capital in
Kiev
. This persisted until 1240, the time of
Mongol invasion.
Other
Norse people, particularly those from the area that is now
modern-day Sweden and Norway, continued south to the Black Sea
and then on to Constantinople
. Whenever these Viking ships ran aground in
shallow waters, the Vikings would reportedly turn them on their
sides and drag them across the land into deeper waters.
The
Kingdom of the Franks under Charlemagne was particularly hard-hit by these
raiders, who could sail down the Seine
with near
impunity. Near the end of Charlemagne's reign (and
throughout the reigns of his sons and grandsons), a string of Norse
raids began, culminating in a gradual Scandinavian conquest and
settlement of the region now known as Normandy.
In 911, French King
Charles the
Simple was able to make an agreement with the Viking warleader
Rollo, a chieftain of disputed
Norwegian or Danish origins. Charles gave Rollo the title of duke
and granted him and his followers possession of Normandy. In
return, Rollo swore
fealty to Charles,
converted to Christianity, and undertook to defend the northern
region of France against the incursions of other Viking groups.
Several
generations later, the Norman descendants of these Viking settlers
not only identified themselves as French but carried the French
language, and their variant of the French culture, into England in
1066. With the
Norman
Conquest, they became the ruling aristocracy of
Anglo-Saxon England.
Geography
There are various theories concerning the causes of the
Viking invasions. For people
living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by
the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales
and Ireland, which were divided into many different warring
kingdoms, were in internal disarray and became easy prey. The
Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and
heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may
also have been a factor. A reason for the raids is believed by some
to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the
use of iron. Although another cause could well have been pressure
caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia and
their subsequent attacks upon the Viking peoples. Another possible
contributing factor is that
Harald I
of Norway ("Harald Fairhair") had united Norway around this
time, and the bulk of the Vikings were displaced
warriors who had been driven out of his kingdom and
who had nowhere to go. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders,
in search of subsistence and bases to launch counter-raids against
Harald. One theory that has been suggested is that the Vikings
would plant crops after the winter and go raiding as soon as the
ice melted on the sea, then returned home with their loot, in time
to harvest the crops. They became wandering raiders and
mercenaries, similar to their
Celtic
cousins.
One
important center of trade was at Hedeby
.
Close to the border with the Franks, it was effectively a
crossroads between the cultures, until its eventual destruction by
the Norwegians in an internecine dispute around 1050.
York
was the
center of the kingdom of Jórvík
from 866, and discoveries there (e.g. a silk cap, a counterfeit of
a coin from Samarkand
and a cowry shell from the Red Sea or the Persian
Gulf) show that Scandinavian trade connections in the 10th century
reached beyond Byzantium.
On the
other hand, those items could have been Byzantine imports, and
there is no reason to assume that the Varangians travelled significantly beyond
Byzantium and the Caspian
Sea
.
Northwestern Europe
England
According to the
Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles, after Lindisfarne was raided in 793, Vikings
continued on small-scale raids across England. Viking raiders
struck England in 793 and raided a Christian monastery that held
Saint Cuthbert’s relics. The raiders
killed the monks and captured the valuables. This raid was called
the beginning of the “Viking Age of Invasion”, made possible by the
Viking longship. There was great violence during the last decade of
the 8th century on England’s northern and western shores. While the
initial raiding groups were small, it is believed that a great
amount of planning was involved. During the winter between 840 and
841, the Norwegians raided during the winter instead of the usual
summer. They waited on an island off Ireland. In 865 The
Great Heathen Army led by the Brothers
Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan and Ubbe Ragnarsson and also by another
Viking Guthrum the Old, arrived in East Anglia. They proceeded to
cross England into Northumbria and captured York (Jorvik), where
some settled as farmers. Most of the English kingdoms, being in
turmoil, could not stand against the Vikings. By 870 The
Great Summer Army arrived in England led by a
Viking Leader called
Bagsecg and his Five
Earls, they arrived and aided Great Heathen
Army which already had overrun much of England. Bagsecg added his
Viking Forces into this army rebuilding it and making allies with
Halfdan they together raided much of England until 871, when they
planned an invasion of Wessex.
On January 8 871 Bagsecg was killed at The
Battle of
Ashdown
along with his Earls resulting in much of the
Vikings to return to Northern England, but Alfred of Wessex managed to keep them out
of his country. Alfred and his successors continued to drive
back the Viking frontier and take York. A new wave of Norwegian
Vikings appeared in England in 947 when
Erik Bloodaxe captured York. The Viking
presence continued throughout the reign of the Danish King
Cnut the Great (1016-1035), after which a
series of inheritance arguments weakened power of his descendants.
The Viking presence dwindled until 1066, when the Norwegians lost
their final battle with the English. The Vikings by 1012 were in
service in England they became known as
Thingmen a personal bodyguard to the King of
England they were offered Danegeld to become mercenaries by which
this new creation was created and it lasted from 1012 to 1066 it
stopped Viking Raids for almost Twenty Years however only in
England it did The Thingmens had their own law and customs but
which they fought in many battles.
Ireland
The
Vikings conducted extensive raids in Ireland and founded the cities of Cork
, Dublin and Limerick
. The Vikings and Scandinavians settled down
and intermixed with the Irish. Literature, crafts, and decorative
styles in Ireland and Britain reflected Scandinavian culture.
Vikings traded at Irish markets in Dublin. Excavations found
imported fabrics from England, Byzantium, Persia and central Asia.
Dublin became so crowded by the 11th century that houses were
constructed outside the town walls.
The Vikings pillaged monasteries on Ireland's west coast in 795 and
then spread out to cover the rest of the coastline. The north and
east of the island were most affected. During the first 40 years,
the raids were conducted by small, mobile Viking groups. By 830,
the groups consisted of large fleets of Viking ships. From 840, the
Vikings began establishing permanent bases at the coasts. Dublin
was the most significant settlement in the long term. The Irish
became accustomed to the Viking presence. In some cases they became
allies and married each other.
In 832, a Viking fleet of about 120 invaded kingdoms on Ireland’s
northern and eastern coasts. Some believe that the increased number
of invaders coincided with Scandinavian leaders' desires to control
the profitable raids on the western shores of Ireland. During the
mid-830s, raids began to push deeper into Ireland, as opposed to
just touching the coasts. Navigable waterways made this deeper
penetration possible. After 840, the Vikings had several bases in
strategic locations dispersed throughout Ireland.
In 838, a
small Viking fleet entered the River Liffey
in eastern Ireland. The Vikings set up a
base, which the Irish called a
longphort.
This longphort eventually became Dublin. After this interaction,
the Irish experienced Viking forces for about 40 years. The Vikings
also established longphorts in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and
Wexford. The Vikings could sail through on the main river and
branch off into different areas of the country.
Battle of Clontarf
One of the last major battles involving Vikings was the
Battle of Clontarf on the 23rd of April,
1014, in which Vikings fought both for the Irish over-king
Brian Boru's army and for the Viking-led army
opposing him. Irish and Viking literature depict the Battle of
Clontarf as a gathering of this world and the supernatural. For
example, witches, goblins, and demons were present. A Viking poem
portrays the environment as strongly pagan. Valkyries chanted and
decided who would live and die.
[5834]
Scotland
The
Vikings are thought to have led their first raids on what is now
modern Scotland
by the early eighth century AD. While there are few records, their first
known attack was on the holy island of Iona in 794, the
year following the raid on the other holy island of Lindisfarne, Northumbria.
In 839, a
large Norse fleet invaded via the River Tay
and River
Earn
, both of which were highly navigable, and reached
into the heart of the Pictish kingdom of
Fortriu. They defeated
Eogán mac Óengusa, king of the Picts, his
brother
Bran and the king of the Scots of
Dál Riata,
Áed mac Boanta, along with many members
of the Pictish aristocracy in battle. The sophisticated kingdom
that had been built fell apart, as did the Pictish leadership,
which had been stable for more than a hundred years since the time
of
Óengus mac Fergusa
(The accession of
Cináed mac
Ailpín as king of both Picts and Scots can be attributed to the
aftermath of this event).
By the
mid-ninth century the Norsemen had settled in Shetland
, the Orkneys
(the Nordreys- Norðreyjar), the Hebrides
and Man
, (the
Sudreys- Súðreyjar
- this survives in the Diocese of
Sodor and Man
) and parts of mainland Scotland. The Norse
settlers were to some extent integrating with the local
Gaelic population (
see-Gall
Gaidheal) in the Hebrides and Man. These areas were ruled
over by local
Jarls, originally
captains of ships or
Hersirs.
The Jarl of Orkney and Shetland however,
claimed supremacy.
In 875,
King Harald Fairhair led
a fleet from Norway to Scotland.
In his attempt to unite Norway, he found
that many of those opposed to his rise to power had taken refuge in
the Isles. From here, they were raiding not only foreign
lands but were also attacking Norway itself.
He organised a fleet
and was able to subdue the rebels, and in doing so brought the
independent Jarls under his control, many of the rebels having fled
to Iceland. He found himself ruling not only Norway,
but the Isles, Man and parts of Scotland.
In 876 the Gall-Gaidheal of Man and the Hebrides rebelled against
Harald. A fleet was sent against them led by
Ketil Flatnose to regain control. On his
success, Ketil was to rule the Sudreys as a vassal of
King Harald. His grandson
Thorstein the Red and
Sigurd the Mighty, Jarl of Orkney invaded
Scotland were able to exact tribute from nearly half the kingdom
until their deaths in battle. Ketil declared himself King of the
Isles. Ketil was eventually outlawed and fearing the bounty on his
head fled to Iceland.
The Gall-Gaidheal Kings of the Isles continued to act semi
independently, in 973 forming a defensive pact with the Kings of
Scotland and
Strathclyde. In
1095, the
King of Mann and
the Isles Godred Crovan was killed
by
Magnus Barelegs, King of Norway.
Magnus and King
Edgar of Scotland
agreed a treaty. The islands would be controlled by Norway, but
mainland territories would go to Scotland. The King of Norway
nominally continued to be king of the Isles and Man. However, in
1156, The kingdom was split into two.
The Western Isles and
Man continued as to be called the "Kingdom of Man and the Isles",
but the Inner
Hebrides
came under
the influence of Somerled, a Gaelic speaker, who was styled
'King of the Hebrides'. His kingdom was to develop latterly
into the
Lordship of the
Isles.
In
eastern Aberdeenshire
the Danes invaded at least as far north as the area
near Cruden
Bay
.
The Jarls of Orkney continued to rule much of Northern Scotland
until 1196, when
Harald Maddadsson
agreed to pay tribute to
William the
Lion, King of Scots for his territories on the
Mainland.
The end of the Viking age
proper in Scotland is generally
considered to be in 1266.
In 1263, King Haakon IV of Norway, in retaliation for
a Scots expedition to Skye
, arrived on
the west coast with a fleet from Norway and Orkney. His
fleet linked up with those of
King Magnus of Man and King
Dougal of the Hebrides.
After peace talks failed, his forces met
with the Scots at Largs, in
Ayrshire. The battle proved indecisive, but it did ensure
that the Norse were not able to mount a further attack that year.
Haakon died overwintering in Orkney, and by 1266, his son
Magnus the Law-mender ceded the Kingdom
of Man and the Isles, with all territories on mainland Scotland to
Alexander III, through the
Treaty of Perth.
Orkney and Shetland continued to be ruled as autonomous Jarldoms
under Norway until 1468, when King
Christian
I pledged them as security on the dowry of his daughter, who
was betrothed to
James III of
Scotland. The dowry was never paid, and the islands passed to
Scotland.
Wales
Wales was not colonised by the Vikings as heavily as eastern
England.
The Vikings did, however, settle in the
south around St. David's, Haverfordwest
, and Gower
, among
other places. Place names such as Skokholm, Skomer, and
Swansea remain as evidence of the Norse settlement. The Vikings,
however, did not subdue the Welsh mountain kingdoms.
Iceland
The
Norwegians travelled to the north-west and west, founding vibrant
communities in the Faroe
Islands, Shetland, Orkney
, Iceland, Ireland and Great
Britain
. Apart from Britain and Ireland, Norwegians
mostly found largely uninhabited land, and established settlements
in those places. According to the saga of
Erik the Red, when Erik the Red was exiled from
Iceland he went west. There he found a land that he named
"Greenland" to attract people from Iceland to settle it with
him.
Greenland
The
Viking Age settlements in Greenland were established in the sheltered fjords of the
southern and western coast. They settled in three separate
areas along approximately 650 kilometers of the western coast.
Southern and eastern Europe
The
Varangians or
Varyags (
Russian,
Ukrainian : Варяги, Varyagi)
sometimes referred to as
Variagians were
Scandinavians, often
Swedes, who migrated eastwards and southwards
through what is now Russia and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th
centuries.
Engaging in trade,
piracy and mercenary
activities, they roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki, reaching the Caspian Sea and Constantinople.Contemporary English publications also use
the name "
Viking" for early Varangians in
some contexts.
The term Varangian remained in usage in the
Byzantine Empire until the 13th century,
largely disconnected from its Scandinavian roots by then.
Having
settled Aldeigja
(Ladoga) in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists were
probably an element in the early ethnogenesis of the Rus' people, and likely played a role in the
formation of the Rus'
Khaganate. The Varangians (
Varyags, in
Old East Slavic) are first
mentioned by the
Primary Chronicle
as having exacted tribute from the
Slavic and
Finnic
tribes in 859.
It was the time of rapid expansion of the
Vikings in Northern Europe; England began to pay Danegeld in 859, and the Curonians of Grobin
faced an
invasion by the Swedes at about the same date.
In 862, the Finnic and Slavic tribes rebelled against the Varangian
Rus, driving them overseas back to Scandinavia, but soon started to
conflict with each other. The disorder prompted the tribes to
invite back the Varangian Rus "to come and rule them" and bring
peace to the region.
Led by Rurik and his
brothers Truvor and Sineus, the
invited Varangians (called Rus)
settled around the town of Holmgard
(Novgorod).
In the 9th century, the Rus' operated the
Volga trade route, which connected
Northern Russia (
Gardariki) with the
Middle East (
Serkland). As the Volga route
declined by the end of the century, the
Trade route from
the Varangians to the Greeks rapidly overtook it in popularity.
Apart
from Ladoga and Novgorod, Gnezdovo
and Gotland
were major centres for Varangian
trade.
Western historians tend to agree with the Primary Chronicle that
these Scandinavians founded
Kievan Rus'
in the 880s and gave their name to the land. Many Slavic scholars
are opposed to this theory of Germanic influence on the
Rus' and have suggested alternative scenarios
for this part of Eastern European history.
In
contrast to the intense Scandinavian influence in Normandy and the British Isles, Varangian culture did not survive to a great
extent in the East. Instead, the Varangian ruling classes of the
two powerful city-states of Novgorod and Kiev were
thoroughly Slavicized by the end of the 10th century.
Old Norse was spoken in one district of
Novgorod, however, until the thirteenth century.
Central Europe
Viking
Age Scandinavian settlements were set up
along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea
, primarily for trade purposes. Their
appearance coincides with the settlement and consolidation of the
Slavic tribes in the respective areas. Scandinavians had contacts
to the Slavs since their very immigration, these first contacts
were soon followed by both the construction of Scandinavian emporia
and Slavic burghs in their vicinity. The Scandinavian settlements
were larger than the early Slavic ones, their craftsmen had a
considerably higher productivity, and in contrast to the early
Slavs, the Scandinavians were capable of seafaring. Their
importance for trade with the Slavic world however was limited to
the coastal regions and their hinterlands.
Scandinavian settlements at the Mecklenburgian coast include Reric
(Groß Strömkendorf) on the
eastern coast of Wismar
Bay
, and Dierkow
(near Rostock
). Reric was set up around the year 700, but
following later warfare between Obodrites
and Danes, the merchants were
resettled to Haithabu
. Dierkow prospered from the late 8th to the
early 9th century.
Scandinavian settlements at the Pomeranian coast include Wollin
(on the
isle of Wollin
), Ralswiek
(on the isle of Rügen
), Altes Lager
Menzlin
(at the lower Peene
river), and Bardy-Świelubie
near modern Kolobrzeg
(Kolberg). Menzlin was set up in the mid-8th
century. Wollin and Ralswiek began to prosper in the course of the
9th century. A merchants' settlement has also been suggested near
Arkona, but no archeological evidence
supports this theory. Menzlin and Bardy-Świelubie were vacated in
the late 9th century, Ralswiek made it into the new millennium, but
at the time when written chronicles reported the site in the 12th
century it had lost all its importance. Wollin, thought to be
identical with legendary
Vineta and
semilegendary
Jomsborg, base of the
Jomsvikings, was destroyed by the Danes
in the 12th century.
Scandinavian arrowheads from the 8th and 9th centuries were found
between the coast and the lake chains in the
Mecklenburgian and
Pomeranian hinterlands, pointing at periods of
warfare between the Scandinavians and Slavs.
East of
Pomerania, Scandinavian settlements
existed in Truso
and
Kaup (Old
Prussia), and in Grobin (Latvia
).
Western Europe
France
The French region of
Normandy takes its
name from the Viking invaders who were called
Northmanorum, which means ‘men of the North.’
The first Viking raids began between 790 and 800 along the coasts
of western France. They were carried out primarily in the summer,
as the Vikings wintered in Scandinavia. Several coastal areas were
lost during the reign of
Louis the
Pious (814-840).
But the Vikings took advantage of the
quarrels in the royal family caused after the death of Louis the
Pious to settle their first colony in the south-west (Gascony
) of the kingdom of Francia,
which was more or less abandoned by the Frankish kings after their
two defeats at Roncevaux
. The incursions in 841 caused severe damage
to Rouen
and
Jumièges
. The Vikings attackers sought to capture the
treasures stored at
monasteries, easy
prey given the monks' lack of defensive capacity.
In 845 an expedition
up the Seine reached
Paris
. After 851 Vikings began to stay in the
lower Seine valley for the winter. Twice more in the 860s Vikings
rowed to Paris, leaving only when they acquired sufficient loot or
bribes from the
Carolingian
rulers.
The Carolingian kings tended to have contradictory politics, which
had severe consequences.
In 867, Charles
the Bald signed the Treaty
of Compiègne, by which he agreed to yield the Cotentin
Peninsula
to the Breton king
Salomon, on the condition that Salomon would
take an oath of fidelity and fight as an ally against the
Vikings. Nevertheless, in 911 the Viking leader
Rollon forced Charles the Simple to sign the Treaty of
Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, under which Charles gave Rouen and the
area of modern Haute-Normandie
to Rollon, establishing the Duchy of Normandy. In exchange,
Rollon pledged vassalage to Charles in 940, agreed to be
baptized, and vowed to guard the
estuaries of the Seine from further Viking
attacks.
While many buildings were pillaged, burned, or destroyed by the
Viking raids, ecclesiastical sources may have been overly negative
as no city was completely destroyed. On the other hand, many
monasteries were pillaged and all the abbeys were destroyed. Rollon
and his successors brought about rapid recoveries from the
raids.
The Scandinavian colonization was principally Danish, with a strong
Norwegian element. A few Swedes were present. The merging of the
Scandinavian and native elements contributed to the creation of one
of the most powerful
feudal states of
Western Europe. The naval ability of
the Normans would allow them to
conquer England and
southern Italy, and play a
key role in the
Crusades.
Spain
After
842, when the Vikings set up a permanent base at the mouth of the
Loire
River
, they could strike as far as northern Spain.
They attacked Cadiz in AD 844.
Portugal
In 844, many dozens of drakkars appeared in the Sea of Palha, and
the Vikings, after a siege, conquered Lisbon, at the time
Al-Lushbuna, under Muslim rule, leaving after 13 days, due to the
resistance led by Alah Ibn Hazm and the city's inhabitants.Another
raid was performed in 966, without success.
Other territories
North America
In about 986,
Bjarni
Herjólfsson,
Leif Ericson and
Þórfinnur Karlsefni from
Greenland reached
North America and
attempted to settle the land they called
Vinland.
They created a small settlement on the
northern peninsula of present-day Newfoundland
, near L'Anse aux Meadows
. The indigenous peoples and a cold
climate brought the Viking colony to an end within a few years. The
archaeological remains are now a
UN World Heritage Site.
Influence of Viking settlement on the English language
The long-term linguistic effect of the Viking settlements in
England was threefold: over a thousand words eventually became part
of
Standard English; numerous
places in the East and North-east of England have Danish names; and
many English personal names are of Scandinavian origin.
Scandinavian words that entered the English language included
landing, score, beck, fellow, take, busting, and
steersman. The vast majority of loan words did not appear
in documents until the early twelfth century; these included many
modern words which used
sk- sounds, such as
skirt,
sky, and
skin; other words appearing in written
sources at this time included
again, awkward, birth, cake,
dregs, fog, freckles, gasp, law, moss, neck, ransack, root, scowl,
sister, seat, sly, smile, want, weak, and
window.
Some of the words that came into use are among the most common in
English, such as
both, same, get, and
give. The
system of personal pronouns was affected, with
they, them,
and
their replacing the earlier forms. Old Norse
influenced the verb
to be; the replacement of
sindon by
are is almost certainly Scandinavian in
origin, as is the third-person-singular ending
-s in the
present tense of verbs.
There are
more than 1,500 Scandinavian place names in England, mainly in
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (within the former boundaries of the
Danelaw
): over 600 end in -by, the
Scandinavian word for "village" or "town" — for example
Grimsby, Naseby, and Whitby; many others end in
-thorpe ("farm"), -thwaite ("clearing"), and
-toft ("homestead").
The distribution of family names showing Scandinavian influence is
still, as an analysis of names ending in
-son reveals,
concentrated in the north and east, corresponding to areas of
former Viking settlement. Early medieval records indicate that over
60% of personal names in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire showed
Scandinavian influence.
Technology
The Vikings were equipped with the technologically superior
longships; for purposes of conducting trade however, another type
of ship, the
knarr, wider and deeper
in draft, were customarily used. The Vikings were competent
sailors, adept in land warfare as well as at sea, and they often
struck at accessible and poorly defended targets, usually with near
impunity. The effectiveness of these tactics earned Vikings a
formidable reputation as raiders and pirates. Chroniclers paid
little attention to other aspects of medieval Scandinavian culture.
This slant was accentuated by the absence of contemporary primary
source documentation from within the Viking Age communities
themselves. Little documentary evidence was available until later,
when Christian sources began to contribute. As historians and
archaeologists have developed more resources to challenge the
one-sided descriptions of the chroniclers, a more balanced picture
of the Norsemen has become apparent.
The Vikings used their longships to travel vast distances and
attain certain tactical advantages in battle. They could perform
highly efficient hit-and-run attacks, in which they quickly
approached a target, then left as rapidly before a
counter-offensive could be launched. Because of the ships'
negligible draft, the Vikings could sail in shallow waters,
allowing them to invade far inland along rivers. The ships' speed
was also prodigious for the time, estimated at a maximum of 14 or
15
knots. The use of the longships
ended when technology changed, and ships began to be constructed
using saws instead of axes. This led to a lesser quality of
ships.
Together with an increasing centralization of government in the
Scandinavian countries, the old system of
leidang — a fleet mobilization system, where
every
skipen (ship community) had to deliver one ship and
crew — was discontinued. Changes in shipbuilding in the rest of
Europe led to the demise of the longship for military purposes. By
the 11th and 12th centuries, European fighting ships were built
with raised platforms fore and aft, from which archers could shoot
down into the relatively low longships.
The
nautical achievements of the Vikings
were exceptional. For instance, they made distance tables for sea
voyages that were remarkably precise.
They have been found
to differ only 2-4% from modern satellite measurements, even on
such long distances as across the Atlantic Ocean
.
The
archaeological find known as the Visby
lenses from the Swedish island of Gotland may be components of a telescope. It appears to date from long
before the invention of the telescope in the 1600s.
An archaeological find in Sweden consists of a bone fragment
fixated with in-operated material; the piece is as yet undated.
These bones might be the remains of a trader from the
Middle East.
Religion
At the start of the Viking age, the Vikings adhered to the
Norse religion and system of beliefs. They
believed in a pantheon of gods and goddesses, as well as
Valhalla, a heaven for warriors.
The lower class of society would go to a place called "hel",
similar to life on earth. According to Viking beliefs, Viking
chieftains would please their war-gods by their bravery, and would
become "worth-ship;" that is, the chieftain would earn a "burial at
sea". They also performed land burials which often still included a
ship, treasure, weapons, tools, clothing and even slaves and women
buried alive with the dead chieftain, for his "journey to Valhalla,
and adventure and pleasure in the after-life." Sages then composed
sagas about the exploits of these chieftains, keeping their
memories alive.
Freyr and his sister Freya were fertility gods. They were
responsible for ensuring that people had many children and that the
land produced plentiful crops. Some farmers even called their
fields after Freyr, in the hope that this would ensure a good
harvest. Towards the end of the Viking Age, more and more
Scandinavians were converted to Christianity, often (or mostly) by
force. The introduction of Christianity did not immediately end
Viking voyages, but it may have been a contributing factor to
bringing the Viking Age to an end.
Trade centres
Some of
the most important trading ports during the period include both
existing and ancient cities such as Aarhus
(Denmark),
Jelling
(Denmark), Ribe
(Denmark), Roskilde
(Denmark), Hedeby (Denmark,
now Germany), Vineta (Pomerania), Truso (Poland),
Kaupang (Norway), Birka
(Sweden),
Bordeaux
(France), Jorvik (England),
Dublin (Ireland)
and Aldeigjuborg
(Russia).
Settlements outside Scandinavia
- Britain
- Eastern Europe
- Atlantic
Notes
- The Viking Age from the Norway article at
Encyclopædia Britannica
- The Viking Age from the Denmark article
atEncyclopædia Britannica
- The Viking Age from the Sweden article at
Encyclopædia Britannica
- The
raid on Lindisfarne per the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- Northern Shores by Alan Palmer ; p.21; ISBN 0719562996
- The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings By
Peter Hayes SawyerISBN 0198205260
- the material suggesting a Norwegian origin identifies him with
Hrolf Gangr,
also known as Rolf the Walker
- C. Michael Hogan (2008) Catto Long Barrow fieldnotes, The Modern
Antiquarian
- Welsh place names.
- Viking (Varangian) Oleg at Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Viking (Varangian) Rurik at Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A massive majority (40,000) of all Viking-Age Arabian coins
found in Scandinavia were found in Gotland. In Skåne, Öland and
Uppland together, about 12,000 coins were found. Other Scandinavian
areas have only scattered finds: 1,000 from Denmark and some 500
from Norway. Byzantine coins have been found almost exclusively in
Gotland, some 400. See Arkeologi i Norden 2. Författarna
och Bokförlaget Natur & kultur. Stockholm 1999. See also
Gardell, Carl Johan: Gotlands historia i fickformat, 1987.
ISBN 91-7810-885-3.
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.17,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.15,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, pp.16,17,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.12,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.18,
ISBN 3515076719
- Joachim Herrmann, Die Slawen in Deutschland,
Akademie-Verlag Berlin, 1985, pp.pp.237ff,244ff
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, pp.15,16,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.13,
ISBN 3515076719
- Ole Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die
Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9.
Bis ins 13. Jahrhundert: Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz,
Leipzig, 4.-6. Dezember 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001, p.16,
ISBN 3515076719
- World
Heritage Site reference
- Crystal, David, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language, CUP, 2001 edition, ISBN 0-521-59655-6, p25-6.
- "The -by ending is almost entirely confined to the
area of the Danelaw, supporting a theory of Scandinavian origin,
despite the existence of the word by "dwelling" in Old
English." Crystal, p 25.
- Crystal
- Visby lens reference
References
- Carey, Brian Todd. “Technical marvels, Viking longships sailed
seas and rivers, or served as floating battlefields”, Military
History 19, no. 6 (2003): 70-72.
- Downham, Clare. Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The
Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin
Academic Press, 2007
- Forte, Angelo. Oram, Richard. Pedersen, Frederik. Viking
Empires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
- Henry, Francoise. Irish Art in the Early Christian
Period. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1940
- Hudson, Benjamin. Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty,
Religion, and Empire in North America. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-19-516237-4.
- Maier, Bernhard. The Celts: A history from earliest times
to the present. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2003.
- TimeRef - Viking Invasions of England
External links
( ) near modern Ivigtut
, consisting of about 20 farms.
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