Vikings

Vikings were a seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden). From the late 8th to the late 11th centuries, they raided, pirated, traded, and settled in parts of Europe. They sailed as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland (present-day Newfoundland in Canada, North America). In their homelands, and in some of the places they raided and settled, this time is popularly known as the Viking Age.

The Vikings had a strong effect on the early medieval history of northern and Eastern Europe. They helped shape the political and social development of England, including the English language, and parts of France. They also helped found Kievan Rus', which became the ancestor of the later states of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.

Expert sailors and navigators, the Vikings sailed their famous longships. They set up Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast. They also travelled along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in Eastern Europe, where they were known as Varangians. The Normans, Norse-Gaels, Rus, Faroese, and Icelanders all grew out of these Norse colonies. Some Rus Vikings went so far south that they briefly served as bodyguards for the Byzantine emperor, and later attacked the Byzantine city of Constantinople. Vikings also sailed to the Caspian Sea and Arabia. They were the first Europeans to reach North America, briefly settling in Newfoundland (Vinland). While they spread Norse culture to faraway lands, they also brought slaves, concubines, and foreign cultural influences back to Scandinavia. During the Viking Age, the Norse homelands gradually joined from smaller kingdoms into three larger kingdoms: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

The Vikings spoke Old Norse and wrote inscriptions in runes. For most of the Viking Age, they followed the Old Norse religion, but became Christians over the 8th to 12th centuries. They had their own laws, art, and architecture. Most Vikings were also farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and traders. The popular picture of Vikings often differs greatly from the complex, advanced civilisation of the Norsemen that appears in archaeology and historical sources.

Ideas about the Vikings have changed over time. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to appear in the 18th century, and it became widely spread during the 19th-century Viking revival. Today, people still disagree about whether Vikings were violent, piratical heathens or brave adventurers, and these views reflect myths that took shape by the early 20th century. Modern popular images are usually based on cultural clichés and stereotypes and are rarely accurate. For example, there is no evidence that Vikings wore horned helmets, a costume element that first appeared in the 19th century.

Etymology

Scholars have long debated where the word Viking comes from, and many ideas have been proposed. One idea is that it comes from the Old English word wicing, meaning 'settlement,' and the Old Frisian word wizing, which appears almost 300 years earlier. Another, less popular idea is that víking came from vík, meaning 'creek,' 'inlet,' or 'small bay.' The Old Norse word víkingr does not appear in written sources until the 12th century, apart from a few runestones. A newer idea, which gained support in the early 21st century, links Viking to a word meaning 'sea mile,' which first referred to the distance between two shifts of rowers. This idea is better supported by language evidence.

In the Middle Ages, viking came to mean Scandinavian pirates or raiders. The earliest English reference to wicing is in the Épinal-Erfurt glossary (around 700), about 93 years before the first known Viking raid in England. The glossary translates wicing into Latin as piraticum, meaning 'pirate.' In Old English, the word appears in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith, probably from the 9th century. It was not used to describe nationality; other terms, such as Northmen and Dene, were used for that. In the Latin work of Asser about King Alfred, the Danes are called pagani, meaning 'pagans.' Historian Janet Nelson says this became "the Vikings" in standard translations, while Eric Christiansen argues it was a mistranslation. When the word entered Modern English during the late 18th-century Viking revival, it took on romantic meanings of a "barbarian warrior" or a noble savage.

History

See also: Scandinavian prehistory, Battle Axe culture, and Nordic Bronze Age

Main article: Viking Age

The Viking Age in Scandinavian history is taken to have been the period from the earliest recorded raids by Norsemen in 793 until the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south. Vikings settled in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands, in Iceland, in Greenland, and at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Vikings also took part in the Danelaw, and Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut the Great both ruled England. The Vikings travelled to Novgorod, Kiev, and the Rus, to Byzantium, where Scandinavians served in the Varangian Guard, and as far as Baghdad. Important trading ports included Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, and Staraya Ladoga. Traders moved furs and slaves along routes such as the Volga.

Viking expansion into continental Europe was limited. The Vikings were often in conflict with the Saxons, and the Danes built the Danevirke defence fortification near Hedeby. In the Viking Age, the present-day nations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not yet exist. After the Viking Age, these kingdoms gradually became nations, which went hand-in-hand with their Christianisation. By the late 11th century, royal dynasties were legitimised by the Catholic Church, and towns and monetary economies began to emerge. The Viking Age ended as Scandinavia became part of the wider Christendom of Europe, and slave-taking from other European peoples declined. In 1107, Sigurd I of Norway sailed for the eastern Mediterranean to fight for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Culture

See also: Old Norse and Saga

The Vikings were mostly a non-literate culture and left no literary legacy, but they had an alphabet and described themselves and their world on runestones. Most written sources about them come from other cultures they met, such as Christian and Islamic communities. Later writings, including the Icelandic sagas, were written down in the 12th to 14th centuries and must be read with care. Viking words and place names, such as York, also still show their influence today. Since the mid-20th century, archaeologists have helped build a fuller picture of Viking life through finds of homes, crafts, ships, trade goods, and religious objects.

Viking society was divided into three classes: thralls (slaves), karls (free peasants), and jarls (the wealthy aristocracy). Slavery was important to the economy, and thralls did much of the hard work on farms and in building projects. Free women had more independence than women in many other parts of medieval Europe, though most were subordinate to their husbands and fathers. Women could own property, manage farms, and sometimes take on religious or business roles. Viking ships were used for travel, trade, exploration, and raids, and some high-status people were buried in them, as at Gokstad and Oseberg in Norway.

Vikings enjoyed a varied diet of meat, fish, bread, dairy products, fruits, and berries, and they drank beer and mead. Sports such as wrestling, swimming, skiing, and ice skating were popular, and games like hnefatafl were played for fun. People gathered for festivals where music was played, poems were recited, and stories were told. Over time, Viking settlers blended into their neighbouring societies. This happened quickly in Normandy, where the Frankish culture was strong, while links to a Viking identity lasted longer on the remote islands of Iceland and the Faroes.

Weapons and warfare

Main article: Viking Age arms and armour

Historians learn about Viking weapons and armour from archaeological finds, pictures, and, to some extent, the Norse sagas and Norse laws written in the 13th century. All free Norse men had to own weapons and could carry them at all times. A wealthy Viking had a full set of a helmet, shield, mail shirt, and sword, which showed his social status. Swords were rarely used in battle, probably because they were not strong enough for combat, and were most likely symbolic or decorative. A typical free man was more likely to fight with a spear and shield and often carried a seax as a utility knife. Vikings were unusual at the time for using axes as their main battle weapon. The Húscarls, the elite guard of King Cnut and later of King Harold II, used two-handed axes that could easily split shields or metal helmets.

Warfare and violence were often inspired by Norse religion, which focused on Thor and Odin, the gods of war and death. Violence was common in Viking Age Norway, but less so in Denmark, which had a more centralized society. Today, popular culture often links Vikings with wild rage and frenzied fighting, but the words berserkergang and berserker had different meanings for medieval Norse people. Some have suggested that this fighting style may have been used on purpose by shock troops, or that it may have been caused by drinking large amounts of alcohol or by eating certain plants or mushrooms with psychoactive effects, such as Hyoscyamus niger or the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria. However, Roderick Dale says there is no evidence for this from the Viking Age or from Old Norse literature.

Trade

See also: Trade during the Viking Age, Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, Volga trade route, and Bukhara slave trade

The Vikings set up and took part in wide trading networks across the known world, and their trade had a big effect on the economies of Europe and Scandinavia. Apart from trading centres such as Ribe and Hedeby in Denmark, Scandinavia did not use coins. Instead, its economy was based on bullion, meaning the purity and weight of precious metals used in exchange. Silver was the most common precious metal used, though gold was also used. Traders carried small scales so they could measure weight exactly.

The Vikings bought luxury goods from far away. Spices came from Chinese and Persian traders who met them in Russia, and glass was made into beads, thousands of which have been found. Åhus in Scania and the old market town of Ribe were major centres of bead making. Silk came from Byzantium, now Istanbul, and China, and wine was brought from France and Germany as a drink of the wealthy, alongside mead and beer. To pay for these goods, the Vikings exported many items. Amber was found along the North Sea and Baltic coasts and was made into beads. Furs from pine martens, foxes, bears, otters and beavers were sold, as were woollen cloth made from wool and down for bedding. The Muslim writer Ahmad ibn Rustah described the Viking Rus' as people who lived by raiding, and many slaves were taken to Scandinavia, while others were sold in the markets of Atil. Other exports included weapons, walrus ivory, wax, salt, cod, and hunting birds sent from Norway to European nobles from the 10th century. Goods were also traded within the Viking world, such as soapstone from Iceland and Jutland and whetstone for sharpening tools. Wool was important for warm clothing and sails, and organised textile work in Scandinavia goes back to the early Iron Ages.

Legacy

The Vikings strongly influenced Old English, which helped shape Modern English. Nouns lost their grammatical gender, and preposition stranding also entered English, a feature already allowed in Old Norse. In England, the Viking Age began dramatically on 8 June 793, when Norsemen destroyed the abbey on Lindisfarne. The attack shocked the royal courts of Europe, and it shaped how people viewed the Vikings for the next twelve centuries. Scholars outside Scandinavia did not begin to recognise Viking artistry, technical skill, and seamanship until the 1890s. Stories from Norse Mythology, sagas, and literature describe Scandinavian culture and religion, and many of these sagas were written in Iceland by Icelanders. In the 19th century, a romantic image of the Viking grew popular, though it had little basis in historical fact.

Fascination with the Vikings continued into modern times. Richard Wagner and other writers, artists, and filmmakers have used Viking themes, and the Minnesota Vikings team takes its name from the large Scandinavian population in Minnesota. Many popular ideas about Vikings are not accurate. Historians believe Viking warriors did not wear horned helmets, and there is no evidence that Vikings drank from the skulls of their enemies.

Main article: Norse mythology in popular culture

Genetic legacy

A 2020 study looked at 442 people from Viking-age sites across Europe and found they were closely related to modern Scandinavians, with similar Y-DNA. The most common group was I1, followed by R1b and R1a, especially the Scandinavian R1a-Z284 subclade. The results supported what historians had suggested: Norse settlers often married local women. Some people from Foggia had Scandinavian Y-DNA but southern European ancestry, and they were likely Normans. Similar mixing appeared among Varangians buried near lake Ladoga and among Vikings in England. The study also found Swedish settlers in Estonia and Finland, and Norwegian settlers in Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. The authors noted that Danish-like ancestry in the British Isles could not be told apart from that of the Angles and Saxons, who had migrated earlier.

The same study examined 42 people from the Salme ship burials in Estonia. They were warriors who had died in battle and were buried with weapons and armour, and their DNA showed they came from central Sweden. Studies of female ancestry show Norse roots closest to Scandinavia, such as on the Orkney islands, while farther areas show most Norse ancestry in the male Y-chromosome lines. In Liverpool, up to half of the males in families living there before industrialisation had Norse heritage, with high levels also in the Wirral and West Lancashire. Recent research suggests that Somerled, a Celtic warrior who drove the Vikings out of western Scotland and was the ancestor of Clan Donald, may have had Viking descent. A warrior buried in Bodzia, Poland, around 1010–1020 AD had both Scandinavian ancestry and links to Kiev, and he may have belonged to the family of Sviatopolk the Accursed. He carried haplogroup I1-S2077.