The Viking

The Vikings

Viking History

The Vikings were a group of Scandinavian raiders that were around from about the 8th century to the 11th. They mainly attacked the British Islands , the Frankish empire, England, but they also plundered places such as the Iberian peninsula and northern Africa. Vikings did not always settle into the places that they found, for instance after exploring North America they left the place never to return again. Even so, after landing on Greenland they colonized themselves there, and ancestors of the Vikings still live there today. So now that you know a little about the history of the Vikings lets go into detail about the specifics of the Viking age. (Peter Sawyer, Oxford Ill. History of the Vikings p. 1-19)

On the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, which is located between England and Scotland Irish monks had built a monastery; there they wrote many holy and beautiful books, called the Lindisfarne Gospels. These monks were peaceful people, wouldn't hurt a fly, pity they were chosen by the Vikings, on the 8th of June in 793 to be the first major victim of one of their raids. Their arrival was seen first far off, they could see dragon head carvings on their well crafted ships slowly coming closer and closer to the shore. As soon as they got out of their boats the Vikings poured onto land ripping off the monk's clothing and tearing their bodies apart with their sharp swords, and sometimes drowned them. Viking raiders tipped over the cross of Bishop Ethelwold, which was built out of stone. Before they left that hot day the Vikings had taken all of the monk's treasure, set each building aflame, and killed the monk's cattle to feed themselves on. Then, in an instant they got into their ships and left.

This was the first major Viking attack, as you can see it was pretty gruesome, but they were just getting started. The next summer there were several places on the British North Sea coast attacked. After 799 the Vikings managed some raids on Friskan-Frankish coast, forcing them to set up a coastal watch to warn citizens of the area. (Oxenstierna, Eric, The Norsemen p. 49-74)

The Vikings in the 8th century mainly centered in places along the Dutch coast, but the Norwegian Vikings were settled in the Orkney and Shetland islands. Throughout the 9th century the Viking's expanded their empire to engulf Ireland, and Northwestern England. In the 10th century they settled in Iceland then claimed Greenland and set up shop there. Here in the late 900's Vikings raids thinned out due to civil wars in Scandinavia. Even so in the 11th century they set up temporary residence in North America in what they called Vinland. (Barnes & Noble New American Encyclopedia Vol. 19 p. 594-596)

The first Viking attack on Ireland was in 820, and like the monk's attacked in 793, the people of Ireland had no chance against the powerful Viking army. In the years following the first attack Viking's gained leadership, and by 839, a brave Viking chieftain named Turges, declared himself king of Ireland. Turges sacrificed the Irish kings Armagh and Clonmacnois, to Thor, a Viking god.

The Vikings organized attacks very well, they set more and more extravagant goals, and soon met them. Their attacks on England were successful mostly because no one expected them. In May of 841, Danish Vikings led by a man named Asgeir sailed the River Seine, and they burnt the city Rouen to the ground. Next they moved into St. Denis, but decided that it was in their best interest not to provoke the passing Frankish army. But they went right back at it again in 842 they destroyed Quenstovic, the Frisian harbor town. In 845 they attacked the tri-divided Holy Roman Empire, all at the same time!

Ragnar Lodbrok, a legendary Viking hero and his army sailed up the Loire River and conquered Paris by defeating half of Charles the Bald's army. The other half were on the other side of the river and watched as Ragnar hung 111 of Charles's men as a sacrifice the another Viking god, Woden. The Vikings finally left after Charles gave them 7,000 pounds of silver. After a while paying the Vikings off was the best way to get rid them, but it ended up costing the Christian lands of Europe a lot of money after a while. (Oxenstierna, Eric, The Norsemen p. 49-74)

Even though the Vikings were very good at offensive tactics, they still were good at defending themselves. In the late 10th century the Viking King of Denmark, Harald Bluetooth collected a lot of tax money, despite the fact that he was not well liked by the people, to build four similar well defended forts. These forts were protected by large barriers, or ramparts. All of these forts were divided in four parts with four longhouses in each division, all arranged in small squares. These longhouses were where man and their families lived, where weapons and tools were made, horse stables, and storage places. Viking coastal towns were also well protected, they built them right up on the coast using the ocean or lake as a barrier. Then they built floating buoy walls and spikes to cripple enemies ships as they ran along the coast.

The two foster brothers Ingolf Anarson, and Leif Hrodmarsson are the two adventurers credited with discovering and inhabiting the island of Iceland. The two brothers traveled 700 miles, to a land with lush green cliffs, very beautiful at first glance but once the Vikings traveled inland they discovered large snow covered volcanic peaks. Leif and his brother entered Iceland at a fjord in waters that were full fish and other sea life. Next they carefully scoured the lands searching for people to attack, despite a few Irish monks that weren't that big of a deal the massive island was humanless.

All of the information in the next three paragraphs come from translated Viking reports and some of the truths to these reports may or may not be stretched.

In 900 a Viking voyager that was seeking land was driven off coarse towards the west and accidentally met up with some islands, so he named them after himself, the Gunnbjorn Islands. Not until 82 years later was this land in the North Atlantic paid attention to when Eric the Red called it to his attention. After Eric was banished by the thing (the Vikings kind of government) for killing two sons of one of his enemies, he decided to explore the area to the west of Iceland. He sailed to the west and noticed a large island, this island was not very appealing, the climate was not to warm and the terrain was not very good for habitation. As he sailed southward of this island he noticed that the climate got somewhat warmer, he came upon a fjord area and settled. Eric called his settlement Osterbygden, this means eastern settlement, even though it was on