For three centuries, Western Europe was explored and plundered by groups of Scandinavians. The dates are set in stone, from 793 to 1066, the terror of these terrible northern people was felt in the hearts of all inhabitants of pre-feudal society Europe. Throughout their reign, these groups of marauders were called by several names: Danes, Norsemen, Northmen, and as generally as ‘The Pagans’ (P.H. Sawyer 1). However, the most prominent of these terms, and still referred to by most modern day Scandinavians, was Vikings. The root “Vik” comes from Norse meaning “inlet”, with the term Viking meaning “Inlet folk” (Logan 423). New technology and inventions enabled the Vikings to roam all across the Atlantic Ocean, from the shores of Greenland and the east coast of North America to the Mediterranean. Although there are still numerous mysteries surrounding this group of explorative warriors that help shape history, substantial knowledge has been found regarding their culture and conquests in Western Europe and the North Atlantic.
These Northern-warriors can be broken down into three groups of people. The Swedes, the Danes, and the Norwegians, commonly called the Norse. These three peoples all shared a generally similar culture as they spoke a Germanic language consisting of two major dialects, both of which were understood by all three groups (Cohen 394). They left evidence of a written language, an alphabet made of runic characters, all across their conquered territory. These Scandinavian people groups lived peacefully amongst themselves, as conflicts were seldom, usually rooted back to small family feuds.
It is still quite unclear as to why the Vikings started their exploration and conquests for wealth and territory in the western world. The most accepted idea is that the population had amassed to a point that had overloaded the available space and natural resources in their homeland. In this situation, they resorted to colonization and the exploration beyond their coasts for more land. The current culture of the Viking era honored many offspring, and when combined with well-accepted and practiced polygamy, population growth was off the charts. An increased amount of land was used for tillage and feeding the exploding population with protein enriched crops such as rye (Logan 424). These large numbers of populace over-burdened the amount of land at hand, and many Scandinavians left their homeland to find wealth or more land. The Norwegians moved down the British Isles, and then westward to Iceland, Greenland, and eventually the coast of North America. The Danes moved south as they explored and conquered the rivers and coasts of Western Europe and England.
There were several technological innovations that enabled the Vikings to effectively and efficiently explore early Western Europe and the North Atlantic. The most advantageous of these discoveries the Vikings made, was how to build ships. By becoming one of the greatest shipbuilding people of the time they were able to travel farther, faster, and more frequently due to the vast number of ships they could construct from the natural timber resources of Scandinavia. Viking ships were of a clinker-hull design, overlapping planks riveted and sealed together (Sawyer 184), to keep a reliably watertight hull. These ships were of a much smaller, lighter design, and could outrun, and out-maneuver a majority of the competing ships of the day. The Vikings discovered that by adding a keel, the long narrow piece of wood attached to the underside of the ship, greatly improved the sailing ability of the Scandinavian ships. The keel reduced the roll of a ship in the water by extending down into the water and running along the center of the entire length of the ship (Cohen 397). By having a more stable ship, it could move much faster through the waters and be maneuvered with greater accuracy. Viking ships employed the use of large square sails when moving through the seas, but also were constructed to be able to move under the propulsion of oars. By having between 15 and 30 pairs of oarsmen per vessel, it extended their range to rivers, bays and estuaries. The sturdy keel enabled the dragon-headed boats to be beached right up on the shore, giving the Vikings lightning quick access to their destination. This was a key element in their early tactics of raiding small, vulnerable unsuspecting towns or monasteries near rivers or the coast.
“It has been nearly three hundred and fifty years that we and our fathers have lived in this most beautiful land and never before has such a terror appeared in Britain and never was such a landing from the sea thought possible”(Logan 424). These words were spoken by Aluin, an English advisor to Charlemagne, as he recounted the first recorded Viking raid in history books. This historical smash-and-grab assault was executed on Lindisfarne, a small Monastery on an island off the coast of England in 793, by a group of Norwegian marauders (Sawyer 50), but this was just the beginning of the new age to come. Within the next ten years, assaults by Norwegian Vikings were recorded in the British Isles and within the next few years the Danish Vikings had started to attack settlements on the Northwestern coast of Europe (Logan 430). Square sails and snarling dragon heads of the Viking ships were being beached upon sandy shelves all over North and Northwestern Europe. Their reputation quickly spread as they defiled monasteries, killing monks and looting gold, and as they pillaged small farming communities, plundering the settlements and then burning them to the ground.
The Norwegians began to exercise their bloodthirstiness as they mercilessly sacked parts of Northeastern England, the Scottish Coast, the Islands of Orkney and Shetland and on both sides of the Irish Sea. The fertile farms and rich monasteries of the area were well known as lucrative targets to the various groups of plundering Vikings (Cohen 398). As the raiding continued, from 793-830, they attempted to conquer and to colonize Shetland and Orkney, (Jahrlshop and Birsay in Norse) as strategic ports to launch further raids, but never fully captured them (Logan 427). This was followed by a period of settlement and development of ports that later developed into towns. Around 870 the raiding groups started to strike targets farther from their homeland as they moved farther south, until they finally turned their sights to the North Atlantic.
Sailing westward from their homeland, the Norwegians came upon uninhabited Iceland, arriving around the early 870s. The Vikings began to settle this area for the next 60 years. The population of immigrated Norwegians grew to between 15,000 and 25,000 in these flourishing settlements (Jordan 155). Even though this new land was to become a large permanent settlement for the Norwegians, Iceland was a stepping stone on there way to Greenland, New Foundland, and eventually North America. An explorer named Eric the Red reached Greenland in the 980s, but quickly returned to Iceland to organize a settling party. Although only 14 of the original 25 ships made it to the new land, towns began sprouting on the south western coast of Greenland. By the 1400’s, however, the Greenland settlements had been abandoned, most likely as a result of the harsh climate (Jordan 155).
In the Greenlanders’ saga and Eric’s saga, the story is recounted how the Icelander Bjarni Herjolfsson, sailing for Greenland in 985 was thrown from the memorized course during a vicious storm. After the seas had settled, the Icelander sailed westward and sighted land, but chose to sail north to Greenland instead of exploring (Logan 428). Years later, after hearing the stories of Bjarni Herjolfsson, Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the Red, re-traced the route that had been found almost a decade before and re-discovered the legendary land. After landing at the southernmost point spoken of by Herjolfsson, Leif found a land in which the salmon were large and plentiful, and ”the night and day were more equal” than in his own northern homeland (Logan 428). Leif named this land Vinland, as he made wine, (vin in the Norse) from the abundance of grapes his party had found. Three voyages were made to this renowned land in the following years, but were only successful for a brief three year settlement due to the large amount of resistance by the natives. These people were named ‘Skraelings’ in the Norse (Jordan 155), meaning ‘Uglies’. It is unknown just how in depth the Vikings explored North America, and many questions still surround the handful of years, but future discovery might shed more light onto their extensive voyages and explorations.
Although the Norwegians taste for blood was appeased as they began to colonize new lands, the Danish Vikings had a vicious greed for plunder, warfare and silver. In 834, Charlemagne’s predictions about the Norsemen came to reality as the Danish Vikings began to sack small cities and monasteries all along the coast of northern Frankia. After the death of Charlemagne in 814, he handed down the rule of his kingdom to Louis the Pious, his weaker son, who began the decline of the Frankish kingdom as he turned to spreading Christianity instead of keeping a firm grasp on his father’s unified kingdom and soon civil wars had begun to break out across the territory (Magnusson 72-73). In 834, the first attack came to Dorestad, a large, reasonably fortified city sitting on the River Lek, and an arm of the Rhine. This was only a pre-cursor to the numerous raids suffered throughout the Frankish kingdom. In the next few years, Antwerp on the Scheldt was sacked as was Witla at the mouth of the Meuse. Across the English Channel other Danish raiding groups plundered the island of Sheppey on the Thames estuary and the trade center of Nourmuotier was burned in 835 (Magnusson 73).
After the death of Louis the Pious in 840, the kingdom was divided among his three bickering sons, and Frankia was in political turmoil as the unity imposed by Charlemagne was beginning to fully disintegrate (Magnusson 73). Until this time, the Vikings style of attack was very quick, depending on the element of surprise to land on the beaches, then run inland to sack the cities by quick force. But the Danish Vikings soon became more aggressive and moved away from attacks on only small islands of inhabitants and isolated cities lying on the shores of the river. As the Frankish kingdom continued to splinter, the Vikings saw this as a most opportune situation. Towns from the Loire River to Seine River were destroyed and with countless dead. The wake of violence would have continued onto Paris, leaving it a smoldering island of ruins. But it’s destruction was thwarted when Charles the Bald, Louis the Pious’ son reigning over the remains of the western part of the Frankish kingdom, offered the Danes 7000 pounds of silver (these ransom payments were recognized as “Danegeld”) to depart in peace. The Vikings however would take the danegeld, and went elsewhere to attack other parts of Francia (Logan 431). This was the first recorded payment of protection money to the Vikings (Magnusson 75), but it would set a precedent for later marauders to follow. At this point with no unified defenses against raiding, no place was safe, and the Vikings plundered and pillaged wherever the Frankish rivers would lead them. But they didn’t stop there, the ambitiousness of a Dane named Bjorn Ironside and a fleet of 62 ships set out on a four-year cruise around the coast of Spain and deep into the Mediterranean with there eyes set on Rome. Although they never sacked the greatest city Rome, they left a trail of havoc throughout the Mediterranean, from Valencia inland on the Rhone and the French Cote de Azur, to the northern shores of Africa and the western coast of Italy before turning around and reaching home in 856 (Logan 431). For thirteen years, starting in 879, the Danes had unchecked movement between the Seine and the Rhine and in the Loire regions. They slew and raided without hindrance, this was the most prolonged period of serious devastation imposed by the Danes. As this period of merciless slaughter tapered off, the ideals of the Danish Vikings shifted to settling in Francia. Most of the colonies were not able to take root, but they were singularly successful at settling in an area now known as Normandy, named after the Normans, or Northmen. However, this Danish colony was soon assimilated into the indigenous culture as they took on Christian names and abandoned their language. (Logan 431)
After the Norwegian Vikings had moved sights to the Atlantic, England underwent attacks by the Danish Vikings, who initiated attacks in 835 and remained a presence until the time of Knut the Great in 1035. There were two major waves in which the Danes flooded England’s coasts with a relative period of peace intervening. (Logan 432) The initial invasion was from 835 to 954, the Danes moved through the eastern parts of England overrunning East Anglia, but were stopped from reaching the western coasts by Alfred the Great and the rich land of the West Saxons. The second wave (980-1035) on England was more organized as it leaned more towards a national campaign as the political structure in Denmark was solidifying. The invasions were led by members of the royal family and generals. Upon arrival the English King Ethelred was no match for the invading hordes and bought off the Vikings attack with silver. The English King never gained a foothold and was forced to pay a sum of danegeld of over 100,000 pounds of silver during a period of 18 years. Eventually, the money didn’t interest the Danes anymore, and the throne was seized in 1014 by Svein, and latter in 1016 by Knut the Great. (Logan 432). Knut carried his rule in England until 1035, and became king of Denmark in 1019, and King of Norway in 1028. After Knut the only other campaign in England was by King Herald Hardrade in 1066 to gain back the throne, but during the attempt he was killed, symbolizing the end of the Viking age.
The Norwegian and the Danish Vikings had a vast impact on the 9th, 10th, and part of the 11th century. After the failure of the last major Viking campaign to capture territory, the Viking dynasty began to decline. The merciless Norsemen built their Western European reign on the crumbling kingdom of the Franks and set up colonies in various parts of the North Atlantic. Their downfall can be attributed to a number of reasons: political changes, a strong German emperor, and new economic patterns were transforming the structure of Europe, a structure that no longer catered to the Viking mindset. The Danish colonies dissolved into the local culture of the area, abandoning heritage and language as the future generations intermarried, erasing the northern past. Only the Atlantic colonies that were founded on virgin territory survived (Magnusson 281) with their Viking heritage trailing them.