09 The Vikings

Between the 8th and 11th centuries, waves of raiders and migrants swept out of Scandinavia and stamped their mark on a period that has come to be known as the “Viking Age.” Long feared as brutal pillagers and deliverers of merciless slaughter, the Vikings were also expert seafarers, long-distance traders and fine craftsmen, and in many places settled down as peaceful farmers, generally integrating with the indigenous peoples and cultures. By the end of the 11th century nearly all had swapped their pagan beliefs for Christianity.

The term Viking is unknown in modern English before the early 19th century. It may owe its origins to Old English wíc, a temporary camp, or Old Norse vík, an inlet, suggesting the kinds of places these marauders may have been encountered. To their contemporaries, they were simply Norsemen—the men from the north.

The men from the north As far as England was concerned, the Viking Age commenced when the abbey on the island of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast, was destroyed by a fleet of Norse longships on June 8, 793. All the monks were killed. The event sent shockwaves through the Christian kingdoms of northwest Europe: “Never before,” recorded the contemporary scholar Alcuin of York, “has such an atrocity been seen.” Two years later, in search of further treasure, the Vikings attacked the abbey on the small Hebridean island of Iona, the cradle of Christianity in Scotland. Many more such raids were to follow, the Danes attacking the east coast of England and northwest France, while the Norwegians concentrated on the Hebrides, the western seaboard of Scotland, the Isle of Man and the coasts of Ireland. They also occupied the Orkney, Shetland and Faroe Islands, and established colonies on Iceland and Greenland, and even a short-lived settlement in North America that they called “Vinland,” which may have been on Newfoundland, or even in Maine.

“Then the wolves of the

slaughter, careless of water,

Came wading westward

through shimmering rivers,

Bearing shields landward …”

The Battle of Maldon, an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem, c.1000, describing a Viking victory over the English in 991

Vikings from Sweden turned their attention eastward across the Baltic to Russia, sailing down the Volga to the Caspian Sea and the Dnieper to the Black Sea, and even mounting an attack on Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine empire. Although this failed, the Byzantine emperors were so impressed by the fighting skills of the Vikings that they later recruited large numbers to form their personal bodyguard, known as the Varangian Guard. In Russia, the Swedes were known as the Rus, and established the most important early Russian principality, based on Kiev.

Quite what prompted the Viking expansion is the subject of some debate, but it is likely that in their harsh northern homelands agricultural production lagged behind population growth, prompting many to eye up the richer, more temperate lands to the south. The raiders may also have been aware of weaknesses in their target territories: England at this period consisted of a number of competing Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, while across the Channel the Frankish empire created by Charlemagne was beginning to crumble following the death of Louis the Pious in 840.

The Vikings in the British Isles At first in northwest Europe the Vikings came as raiders, but before long they began to settle, and a number of Norse kingdoms, such as those centered on Dublin and York, began to emerge. By the later 9th century the Vikings had overwhelmed the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Only Wessex, under King Alfred the Great, held out, and over the course of the following century his successors fought back and succeeded in unifying England. However, a large swathe of eastern England had been settled by the Danes, and until the late 11th century Danish laws and customs prevailed in this area, known as “the Danelaw.” Viking influence can still be detected in many English place names: for example, the common suffix -by, Old Norse for “farm” or “village,” is found in such names as Grimsby, Whitby and Derby.

The Normans

In 896 a Viking “great host” invaded northwest France. In 911, to buy peace, King Charles the Simple granted Rollo, one of the Viking leaders, extensive lands around the mouth of the River Seine, an area that became known as Normandy (“Norman” being a corruption of “north-man”). In return, Rollo agreed to be baptized, and recognized Charles as his king. The dukes of Normandy went on to adopt the language and culture of France, although frequently asserting their political independence. The Normans carried on the military adventurism of their Norse ancestors, carving out territories for themselves in southern Italy and Sicily, while in 1066 Duke William defeated the English at Hastings and became William the Conqueror. French became the language of the English court for the next 300 years.

The late 10th century witnessed a renewal of large-scale Viking attacks, and the English king, Ethelred the Unready, sought to buy the raiders off with large sums of money known as “Danegeld.” Ethelred’s sobriquet “Unready” is from Old English unraed, meaning “lacking good counsel,” and he justified this description when in 1002—perhaps in an attempt to restore national pride—he ordered the massacre of all the Danes in England. Among the slaughtered was the sister of the king of Denmark, Sweyn Forkbeard, who ordered an escalation in Danish attacks and who in 1013 arrived in England in person. Ethelred fled, and Sweyn was proclaimed king. Although Sweyn died the following year, his son Cnut was to rule England for two decades, a period of peace and relativeprosperity. Cnut himself, who was also the most powerful figure in Scandinavia at this time, was received in Rome by the pope and the Holy Roman emperor as a Christian prince among Christian princes.

Danish rule of England came to an end with the death of Cnut’s son Harthacnut in 1042. But Norse ambition was still focused on England, and in 1066 the invasion of the Norwegian king Harold Hardrada was brought to an end when he was killed at Stamford Bridge near York. Shortly afterward, Duke William of Normandy, the French-speaking descendant of Viking raiders, landed in Sussex. His victory at the Battle of Hastings was to change the course of English history.

“Rollo, disdaining to kneel down, seized the king’s foot and hoisted it to his mouth as he stood upright. The king fell flat on his back, and all the Norsemen broke out in laughter.”

William of Malmesbury, c.1125, describes how the first Duke of Normandy kissed the foot of Charles the Simple of France in mocking homage

Elsewhere in the British Isles, Norse rule continued. In Ireland, Dublin, Wexford, Waterford and Limerick remained largely Viking towns until the Anglo-Norman invasion of the later 12th century. In Scotland, the Hebrides remained in Norwegian hands until the Scots defeated King Haakon IV of Norway at Largs in 1263. Orkney and Shetland were only transferred to the Scottish Crown in 1472, as part of the dowry for a dynastic marriage, and the people of those islands, with their Norse ancestry, still do not regard themselves as an integral part of Scotland.

the condensed idea

Raiders who terrorized northern Europe later became peaceful settlers