Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the name of the period between 793 and 1066 AD in Scandinavia and Britain, following the Germanic Iron Age (and the Vendel Age in Sweden). During this period, the Vikings, Scandinavian warriors, leidangs and traders, raided and explored most parts of Europe, south-western Asia, northern Africa and north-eastern North America. Apart from exploring Europe by way of its oceans and rivers with the aid of their advanced navigational skills and extending their trading routes across vast parts of the continent, they also engaged in warfare and looted and enslaved numerous Christian communities of Medieval Europe for centuries, contributing to the development of feudal systems in Europe, which included castles and barons (and was a defense against Viking raids).
Viking society was based on agriculture and trade with other peoples and placed great emphasis on the concept of honour both in combat and in the criminal justice system.
It is unknown what triggered the Vikings expansion and conquests, but historians have suggested that technological innovations imported from Mediterranean civilizations along with a milder climate led to population growth due to a long period of good crops. Another factor was the destruction of the Frisian fleet by Charlemagne around 785, which interrupted the flow of many trading goods from Central Europe to Scandinavia and led the Vikings to come looking for it themselves.
The beginning of the Viking Age is commonly given as 793, when Vikings raided the important British island monastery of Lindisfarne; and the end of the Viking Age is traditionally marked by the failed invasion of England, attempted by Harald Hårdråde, who was defeated by the Saxon king Harold Godwinson (himself an Anglocized Viking), in 1066. Godwinson himself was next defeated that same year by another Viking descendant, William, Duke of Normandy (Normandy had itself been acquired by Vikings (Normans) in 911).
The clinker-built longships used by the Scandinavians were uniquely suited to both deep and shallow waters, and thus extended the reach of Norse raiders, traders and settlers not only along coastlines, but also along the major river valleys of north-western Europe. Rurik also expanded to the east, and founded the first Russian state, with a capital at Novgorod, (which means, "new city"). According to one author, the word "Rus" originally meant "Viking raider", as distinct from the native slavic peoples. Other Norse people, particularly those from the area that is now modern-day Sweden, continued south on Russian rivers to the Black Sea and then on to Constantinople (which had been established in 667 B.C., and was re-named Constantinople in 330 A.D. by Constantine the Great). Whenever these viking ships would run aground in shallow waters, the Vikings would reportedly turn them on their sides and drag them across the land, into deeper waters.
France, "the Kingdom of the Franks" (a Germanic tribe who settled in Gaul, after the fall of the Roman Empire, and whose famous King was Charlemagne, who had re-united the Kingdom by 771), was particularly hard-hit by these raiders, who could sail down the Seine River with near impunity. The region now known as Normandy (after the Viking "Norsemen, men from the north") was profoundly disrupted during this period.
In 911, the French king, Charles the Simple, was able to make an agreement with the Viking warleader Hrolf Ganger, later called Rollo. Charles gave Hrolf the title of duke, and granted him and his followers possession of Normandy. In return, Hrolf swore fealty to Charles, converted to Christianity, and undertook to defend the northern region of France against the incursions of other Viking groups. The results were, in a historical sense, rather ironic: several generations later, the Norman descendants of these Viking settlers not only thereafter identified themselves as French, but carried the French language, and their variant of the French culture into England in 1066, after the Norman Conquest, and became the ruling aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon England. These Norman Viking descendants, although converting to Christianity, maintained their warlike nature, and eventually adopted chivalry, which joined learning to fight on horseback (like their Moorish enemies in Spain) with becoming knights or "holy warriors" of the Cross. One of their pass-times was jousting, or tournaments of armored knights fighting with lances (the Celtic "lancia") on horse-back.
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Timeline
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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 possibly-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, and to tell stories of their adventures. They became wandering raiders and mercenaries, like 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 the year 1050. York was the center of the kingdom of Jorvik from 866, and discoveries there show that Scandinavian trade connections in the 10th century reached beyond Byzantium (e.g. a silk cap, a counterfeit of a coin from Samarkand and a cowry shell from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf), although they could be Byzantine imports, and there is no reason to assume that the Varangians themselves travelled significantly beyond Byzantium and the Caspian Sea.
England
The Danes sailed south, to Friesland, France and the southern parts of England. In the years 1013-1016 Canute the Great succeeded to the English throne.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, after Lindisfarne was raided in 793, Vikings continued on small-scale raids across England. In 865 a larger army, supposedly led by Ivar, Halfdan and Guthrum (and other 'landless' kings) arrived in East Anglia. They proceeded to cross England into Northumbria, where some settled as farmers. Most of the English kingdoms, being in turmoil, could not stand against the Vikings. However, Alfred of Wessex managed to keep the Vikings out of his country. Alfred and his successors continued to drive back the Viking frontier. A new wave of Vikings appeared in England in 947 when Erik Bloodaxe captured York. The Viking presence continued through the reign of Canute (1016-1035), after which a series of inheritance arguments weakened the family reign. The Viking presence dwindled until 1066, when the Danes lost their final battle with the English. See also Danelaw.
Ireland
The Vikings conducted extensive raids in Ireland and founded a few towns, including Dublin. At some points, they seemingly came close to taking over the whole isle; however, the Vikings and Scandinavians settled down and intermixed with the Irish. One of the last major battles involving Vikings was the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, in which Vikings fought both for High King Brian Boru's army and for the Viking-led army opposing the High King. The Normans invaded Ireland in 1172.
Iceland
The Norwegians travelled to the north-west and west, founding vibrant communities in the Faroe Islands, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, 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 sagas of Eric the Red, and Leif Ericson, the Vikings named the inhabitable island "Iceland" (to discourage their enemies), and named the uninhabitable land "Greenland" (to trick their enemies into going there).
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.
- The Eastern Settlement (61°N 45°W). The remains of ca. 450 farms have been found here. Erik the Red settled at Brattahlid on Ericsfjord.
- The Middle Settlement (62°N 48°W) near modern Ivigtut, consisting of ca. 20 farms.
- The Western Settlement, at modern Godthabsfjord (64°N 51°W), established before the 12th century. It has been extensively excavated by archaeologists.
Eastern Europe
The Swedes sailed east into Russia, where Rurik founded the first Russian state, and on the rivers south to the Black Sea, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.
America
In about the year 986 A.D., North America was reached by Bjarni Herjólfsson. Leifur Eiríksson (Leif Ericsson) and Þórfinnur Karlsefni from Greenland attempted to settle the land, which they dubbed Vinland about the year 1000 A.D. A small settlement was placed on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, near L'Anse aux Meadows, but previous inhabitants, and a cold climate brought it to an end within a few years (see Freydís Eiríksdóttir). The archaeological remains are now a UN World Heritage Site. It has now been scientifically established that at the height of the Scandinavian expansion, the northern hemisphere entered into a period of unusual, and long-lasting cold, which continued for several hundred years. This miniature ice-age decimated the Greenland colonies, hampered the Scandinavian homelands and stopped further westward expansion. Also, around this time, a plague broke out in Europe, which decimated the population, and also stopped westward expansion into America. The Viking out-post in Iceland was reportedly left without supplies, and cut off from reinforcements.
Technology
The Vikings were equipped with the then technologically superior longships; for purposes of conducting trade, however, another type of ship, the knarr, wider and deeper in draught, 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. It is the effectiveness of these tactics that earned them their formidable reputation as raiders and pirates, and the chroniclers paid little attention to other aspects of medieval Scandinavian culture. This is further accentuated by the absence of contemporary primary source documentation from within the Viking Age communities themselves, and little documentary evidence is available until later, when Christian sources begin to contribute. It is only over time, as historians and archaeologists have begun to challenge the one-sided descriptions of the chroniclers, that a more balanced picture of the Norsemen has begun to become apparent.
Besides allowing the Vikings to travel vast distances, their longships gave them certain tactical advantages in battle. They could perform very efficient hit-and-run attacks, in which they approached quickly and unexpectedly, then left before a counter-offensive could be launched. Because of their negligible draught, longships could sail in shallow waters, allowing the Vikings to travel far inland along the rivers. Their 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; and, together with an increasing centralisation 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. Shipbuilding in the rest of Europe also led to the demise of the longship for military purposes. By the 11th and 12th centuries, fighting ships began to be built with raised platforms fore and aft, from which archers could shoot down into the relatively low longships.
There is an archeological find in Sweden of a bone fraction that has been fixated with in-operated material; the piece is as yet undated. These bones might possibly be the remains of a trader from the Middle East.
The nautical achievements of the Vikings were quite exceptional. For instance, they made distance tables for sea voyages that were so exact, that they only differ 2-4% from modern satellite measurements, even on long distances, such as across the Atlantic Ocean.
There is a finding at the island of Gotland in Sweden that might possibly be components from a telescope, although the "telescope" was invented in the 1600's. See Visby lenses.
Religion and Archaelogy
The Vikings adhered to a system of beliefs they called Ásatrú. Their pantheon of gods and goddesses included their belief in Valhalla, or "Heaven for Warriors" (which partly explains their war-like nature). According to Viking beliefs, valorous 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", or a burial on land, which may have included a ship, treasure, weapons, tools, clothing and even live slaves and women buried alive with the dead chieftain, for his "journey to Valhalla, and adventure and pleasure in the after-life". Then, living sages would compose sagas about the exploits of these chieftains, keeping their memories alive on earth as well (a different kind of "immortality"). These sometimes vast, often rich burial mounds have been found extensively through-out the regions visited by the Vikings, and have provided archaelogists with rich material about the Vikings (who apparently were illiterate themselves; their stories were passed down by oral tradition, until the Christian monks and other clergy wrote them down).
Trading Cities
Important trading ports during the period include both existing and ancient cities such as Birca (Sweden), Hedeby (Denmark), Kaupang (Norway), Staraja Ladoga (Russia) and Jorvik (England).
See also
External links
- Old Norse litterature from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.
- BBC - History - Blood of the Vikings
- All About Vikingsda:Vikingetid