Stefan's Florilegium

TEIO-Vikings-art

TEIO-Vikings-art - 1/10/97

The Earlšs Info on ... the Vikings by S.J. Lean.

NOTE: See also the files: Norse-msg, pst-Vik-Norse-msg, N-drink-ves-msg,
Norse-games-art, N-drink-trad-art, Norse-archery-msg, N-calenders-art.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that
I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some
messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium.
These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with
seperate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes
extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were
removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I
make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the
individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these
messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this
time. If information is published from these messages, please give
credit to the orignator(s).

Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THL Stefan li Rous
mark.s.harris@motorola.com stefan@florilegium.org
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From: earlofwarwick@msn.com (S.J. Lean)
Subject: VIKINGS
Date: 4 Jan 97 13:59:57 -0800
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

THE EARL'S INFO ON ... THE VIKINGS

VIKINGS (also called NORSEMAN, or NORTHMAN)

These pagan Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish warriors
were probably prompted to undertake their raids by a
combination of factors ranging from overpopulation at
home to the relative helplessness of victims abroad.

"Viking" originally meant a man from the Vik, the shore
between Cape Lindesnes in South Norway and the mouth of
the Gota River in Sweden (called Skagerrak since 1500).
Their burning, plundering, and killing meant that the
word "vikingr", became identical in meaning with
"pirate" in the early Scandinavian languages.

The "Viking Age" is approx. 800 AD to 1050 AD, when Vik
dwellers plundered abroad through surplus population.
Through superior ships and weapons and a well-developed
military organization this expansion was successful.

The Norwegians raided (and settled in) already-peopled
areas:

England
Northern France
Ireland
Scotland
the Hebrides
the Isle of Man, and
the Orkneys
the Shetlands

and settled in unpopulated or very sparsely populated areas:

Faeroe Islands
Iceland
Southern Greenland
possibly Labrador (Vinland)

Many Vikings returned home ensuring the unification and
Christianization of Norway.

Small scattered Viking raids began in the last years of
the 8th C. In the 9th C, large-scale plundering
incursions were made in Britain and in the Frankish
empire as well. In 838 the Saxon king Egbert defeated a
large Viking force that had combined with the Britons
of Cornwall.

In 851 Aethelwulf won a great victory over a Viking
army that had stormed Canterbury and London and put the
Mercian king to flight, but it was difficult to deal
with an enemy that could attack anywhere on a long and
undefended coastline. Destructive raids are recorded
for Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex.

A large Danish army came to East Anglia in the autumn
of 865, apparently intent on conquest. By 871, when it
first attacked Wessex, it had already captured York,
been bought off by Mercia, and had taken possession of
East Anglia. Many battles were fought in Wessex,
including one that led to a Danish defeat at Ashdown in
871.

ALFRED

Alfred the Great, a son of Aethelwulf, succeeded to the
throne in 871 and made peace. This gave him a respite
until 876. Meanwhile the Danes drove out Burgred of
Mercia, putting a puppet king in his place, and one of
their divisions made a permanent settlement in
Northumbria.

Alfred was able to force the Danes to leave Wessex in
877, and they settled northeastern Mercia. A Viking
attack in the winter of 878 came near to conquering
Wessex. It did not succeed because of Alfred's
tenacity. He retired to the Somerset marshes, and in
the spring he secretly assembled an army that routed
the Danes at Edington. Their king, Guthrum, accepted
Christianity and took his forces to East Anglia, where
they settled.

The importance of Alfred's victory cannot be
exaggerated. It prevented the Danes from becoming
masters of the whole of England. Wessex was never again
in danger of falling under Danish control, and in the
next century the Danish areas were reconquered from
Wessex. Alfred's capture of London in 886 and the
resultant acceptance of him by all the English outside
the Danish areas was a preliminary to this reconquest.
That Wessex stood when the other kingdoms had fallen
must be put down to Alfred's courage and wisdom, to his
defensive measures in reorganizing his army, to his
building fortresses and ships, and to his diplomacy,
which made the Welsh kings his allies. Renewed attacks
by Viking hosts in 892-896, supported by the Danes
resident in England, caused widespread damage but had
no lasting success.

In the second half of the 9th century, the Viking chief
Harald I Fairhair from the Oslo Fjord area managed, in
alliance with chiefs of the Frostatingslag and parts of
the Gulatingslag, to pacify the western coast. The
final battle took place in Hafrs Fjord near Stavanger
sometime between 872 and 900. Harald proclaimed himself
king of the Norwegians. His son and successor, Erik I
(called "Bloodaxe" -- he murdered seven of his eight
brothers), ruled about 930-935. He was replaced by his
only surviving brother, Haakon I, who had been reared
in England.

Haakon was Norway's first missionary king, but his
efforts failed. He died in battle in 960.

* * *

VIKING SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The Vikings were made up of landowning chieftains and
clan heads, their retainers, freemen, and any energetic
young clan members who sought adventure and booty
overseas. At home these Scandinavians were independent
farmers, but at sea they were raiders and pillagers.
During the Viking period the Scandinavian countries
seem to have possessed a practically inexhaustible
surplus of manpower, and leaders of ability, who could
organize groups of warriors into conquering bands and
armies, were seldom lacking. These bands would
negotiate the seas in their longships and mount
hit-and-run raids at cities and towns along the coasts
of Europe.

The exact ethnic composition of the Viking armies is
unknown in particular cases, but the Vikings' expansion
in the Baltic lands and in Russia can reasonably be
attributed to the Swedes. On the other hand, the
non-military colonization of the Orkneys, Faroes, and
Iceland was clearly due to the Norwegians.

* * *

ENGLAND

In England desultory raiding occurred in the late 8th
C. but began more earnestly in 865, when a force led by
the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok -- Healfdene, Inwaer, and
perhaps Hubba -- conquered the ancient kingdoms of East
Anglia and Northumbria and reduced Mercia to a fraction
of its former size. Yet it was unable to subdue the
Wessex of Alfred the Great, with whom in 878 a truce
was made, which became the basis of a treaty in or soon
after 886. This recognized that much of England was in
Danish hands. Although hard pressed by fresh armies of
Vikings from 892 to 899, Alfred was finally victorious
over them, and the spirit of Wessex was so little
broken that his son Edward the Elder was able to
commence the reconquest of Danish England. Before his
death in 924 the small Danish states on old Mercian and
East Anglian territory had fallen before him. The more
remote Northumbria resisted longer, largely under
Viking leaders from Ireland, but the Scandinavian power
there was finally liquidated by Edred in 954. Viking
raids on England began again in 980, and the country
ultimately became part of the empire of Canute.
Nevertheless, the native house was peacefully restored
in 1042, and the Viking threat ended with the
ineffective passes made by Canute II in the reign of
William I. The Scandinavian conquests in England left
deep marks on the areas affected, in social structure,
dialect, place-names, and personal names.

* * *

THE WESTERN SEAS AND IRELAND

In the western seas, Scandinavian expansion touched
practically every possible point. Settlers poured into
Iceland from at least about 900, and from Iceland
colonies were founded in Greenland and attempted in
North America. The same period saw settlements arise in
the Orkneys, the Faroes, the Shetlands, the Hebrides,
and the Isle of Man.

Scandinavian invasions of Ireland are recorded from
795, when Rechru, an island not identified, was
ravaged. Thenceforth fighting was incessant, and
although the natives often more than held their own,
Scandinavian kingdoms arose at Dublin, Limerick, and
Waterford. The kings of Dublin for a time felt strong
enough for foreign adventure, and in the early 10th
century several of them ruled in both Dublin and
Northumberland. The likelihood that Ireland would be
unified under Scandinavian leadership passed with the
Battle of Clontarf in 1014, when the Irish
Scandinavians, supported by the Earl of Orkney and some
native Irish, suffered disastrous defeat. Yet in the
12th century the English invaders of Ireland found the
Scandinavians still dominant (though Christianized) at
Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Wexford, and Cork.

* * *

FRANCE

Scandinavian influence on continental languages and
institutions is, outside Normandy, very slight.
Sporadic raiding occurred until the end of the Viking
period, and in the 10th century settlements on the
Seine River became the duchy of Normandy, the only
permanent Viking achievement in what had been the
empire of Charlemagne. These Normans were the people
who successfully invaded England in 1066, which was the
last effective invasion of that country.

Farther south than France -- in the Iberian peninsula
(Spain and Portugal) and the Mediterranean coasts --
the Vikings raided from time to time but accomplished
little of permanence.

* * *

THE RUS

The eastern Viking expansion was probably a less
violent process than that on the Atlantic coasts.
Although there was, no doubt, plenty of sporadic
raiding in the Baltic and although to go on the
"east-Viking" was an expression meaning to indulge in
such activity, no Viking kingdom was founded with the
sword in that area.

The greatest eastern movement of the Scandinavians was
that which carried them into the heart of Russia. The
extent of this penetration is difficult to assess,
because although the Scandinavians were at one time
dominant at Novgorod, Kiev and other centres they were
rapidly absorbed by the Slavonic population, (who gave
them the name Rus, or "Russians.")

The Rus were traders, and two of their commercial
treaties with the Greeks are preserved in the Primary
Chronicle under 912 and 945 -- the Rus signatories have
Scandinavian names. Occasionally the Rus attempted
voyages of plunder like their kinsmen in the West.
Their existence as a separate people did not continue
past 1050 at the latest.

The first half of the 11th C. appears to have seen a
new Viking movement towards the East. Swedish rune
stones record the names of men who went with Yngvarr on
his journeys. These journeys were to the East, but only
legendary accounts of their precise direction and
intention survive. A further activity of the
Scandinavians in the East was service as mercenaries in
Constantinople (now Istanbul), where they formed the
Varangian Guard of the Byzantine emperor.

After the 11th C. the Viking chief became a figure of
the past. Norway and Sweden had exhausted their
external adventures and Denmark became a conquering
power, able to absorb the more unruly elements of its
population into its own royal armies. Olaf II
Haraldsson of Norway, before he became king in 1015,
was practically the last Viking chief of the old
independent tradition.

earlofwarwick@msn.com

<the end>