The Vikings (500 to 1100)
The Vikings (meaning
"northmen") were the last of the barbarian tribes called Germans by
the Romans to terrorize Europe. Spreading out from
their homelands in Scandinavia, they struck suddenly
across the seas from their dragon boats (called such because of the dragon
heads carved on the bow and stern). They began by raiding, pillaging, and
withdrawing before any serious armed resistance could be mounted, but they
gradually grew more bold. Eventually they occupied and settled significant
parts of Europe.
Being pagan, they did not
hesitate to kill churchmen and loot church holdings, and they were feared for
their ruthlessness and ferocity. At the same time, they were remarkable
craftsmen, sailors, explorers, and traders.
The Viking homelands were Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark.
They and their descendants controlled, at least temporarily, most of the
Baltic Coast, much of inland Russia, Normandy in France, England, Sicily,
southern Italy, and parts of Palestine. They discovered Iceland
in 825 (Irish monks were there already) and settled there in 875. They
colonized Greenland in 985. Some people think that the
Vikings reached Newfoundland
and explored part of North America 500 years before
the voyage of Columbus.
Vikings began raiding and then
settling along the eastern Baltic Sea in the sixth and
seventh centuries. At the end of the eighth century, they were making long
raids down the rivers of modern Russia
and setting up forts along the way for defense. In the ninth century, they
were ruling Kiev and in 907 a
force of 2000 ships and 80,000 men attacked Constantinople.
They were bought off by the emperor of Byzantium
with very favorable terms of trade.
Vikings struck first in the
West in the late eighth century. Danes attacked and looted the famous island
monastery at Lindisfarne on the northeast coast of England,
beginning a trend. The size and frequency of raids against England,
France, and Germany
increased to the point of becoming invasions. Settlements were established as
bases for further raids. Viking settlements in northwestern France
came to be known as Normandy
("from the northmen"), and the residents were called Normans.
In 865 a large Danish army
invaded England,
and they went on to hold much of England
for the next two centuries. One of the last kings of all England
before 1066 was Canute, who ruled Denmark
and Norway
simultaneously. In 871 another large fleet sailed up the Seine
River to attack Paris.
They besieged the city for two years before being bought off with a large
cash payment and permission to loot part of western France
unimpeded.
In 911 the French king made the
Viking chief of Normandy a duke
in return for converting to Christianity and ceasing to raid. From the Duchy
of Normandy came a remarkable series of warriors, including William I, who
conquered England
in 1066, Robert Guiscard and his family, who took Sicily
from the Arabs between 1060 and 1091, and Baldwin I, king of the crusader kingdom
of Jerusalem.
Viking raids stopped at the end
of the tenth century. Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway
had become kingdoms, and much of their king's energy was devoted to running
their lands. The spread of Christianity weakened the old pagan warrior
values, which died out. The Norse were also absorbed by the cultures into
which they had intruded. The occupiers and conquerors of England
became English, the Normans
became French, and the Rus became Russians.
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