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This Day in History
no:3 ~ Beginning of the Viking Age
1,229 years ago today a group of rascals kicked off what we now know as the Viking Age, which spread between the Lindisfarne raid in Northumbria England up until the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.
The raid on the English monastery on June 8, 793, caused widespread fear across Europe. Not because they burnt down a church and killed a bunch of Christians, the Christians were doing that to themselves for centuries before that. The difference with this particular attack was that it was done by foreign pagans.
VIKINGS STRATEGICALLY PUT FEAR INTO THEIR ENEMIES
A little known fact is that the noun for someone who goes raiding is a Vikingr. The word Viking is not a noun, it's a verb, they would ‘go Viking’. Even though it's not accurate, just to save confusion, I’ll keep referring to the people as Vikings.
Did the Vikings HAVE to kill all the monks? No, but they were war smart. Rule 1 in war is to put fear into the enemy, and that they knew it. This was not the first Viking raid though, just the one that started their age of notoriety. The Anglo Saxon Chronicles suggest that raids from the Norsemen were occurring decades before this particular attack.
Here’s a fun fact about Viking raids; they were done by adolescents as a type of training for future wars and so the boys could prove themselves as men. Usually when the Vikings raided a town they wouldn’t take everything, this ensured the raided communities would live another year so the Vikings could come back and raid them again.
This method shows is a big difference between how Vikings and armies operate. Vikings were doing what they did simply to snatch and grab valuables. Armies are generally formed to take land, or in many cases, revenge.
VIKING RAIDS WERE DONE BY ADOLESCENTS AS TRAINING FOR FUTURE WARS
The cause of the Viking Age has a few plausible theories.
1: Bad Weather
Scandinavia had just suffered a mini ice-age which meant a severe lack of fertile lands. The population was decreasing so the search for new fertile lands was an act of survival.
2: Revenge
For decades before the Lindisfarne attack, Charlemagne (Charles the “great”), had committed mass pagan genocide, killing anyone who wouldn’t convert to the Christian faith. This happened North from Francia (modern day France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Southern Germany) in Northern Europe.
At the Massacre of Verden in 782, Southern Germany, he had 4,500 pagans beheaded while he ate lunch and watched. Those kinds of actions create a lot of anger. It's a no-brainer that you'd expect that to spark a massive call for revenge against the religion responsible. This messed up human even had his army destroy all pagan temples and sacred areas, including the famous great pillar Irminsul, which took his army 3 days to tear down.
3: Money
England and France had something the Scandinavians didn’t have at the time - churches filled with riches. Once they discovered how wealthy and unprotected the monasteries were it was as easy as stealing candy from a baby. These treasures would be melted down and used to pay for agricultural equipment and more ships for future raids.
VIKINGS ALWAYS LEFT SOME VALUABLES SO COMMUNITIES COULD SURVIVE FOR FUTURE RAIDS
Were the Vikings Super Violent?
Of course they were, all societies of that time were. In fact, they were probably less violent than their enemy neighbours. Difference being is they were just BETTER at being violent. Their state of the art longboats gave them a huge advantage.
The Vikings made a huge social impact in England, Ireland and Scotland that lasts to this day. Not just because of their raids, but because they settled in places they raided over the centuries. This gave birth to cities such as York and Dublin. Hundreds of towns, lakes, hills and rivers still have old Norse names, suggesting their influence may have been a lot greater than we know.
VIKINGS WERE NOT CONSIDERED AN ARMY AS THEY STOLE VALUABLES BUT NOT LAND
Why Did the Viking Age End?
Just like how Viking raids happened before the start of the 'age', the raids were still happening after the age ended. So there's not really an exact date on when Vikings stopped doing their thing, just a meaningful date that marked their downfall.
1066 is referred to as the end of the Viking age as that was the last great invasion attempt by Norway. At that time the King of Norway was Harald Hardrada, who is now nicknamed ‘The Last Viking’. He lost the battle of Stamford Bridge when he was caught by surprise and killed by the English army at age of 51.
The Norseman never tried invading England on a large scale again after that loss. However, the Normans invaded England and won just a week later which changed the country forever.
RESCUING AND KEEPING TREASURE FROM A FIRE IS STILL CONSIDERED THEFT
Well there’s a few little fun facts about the Viking Age.
Have an A1 day, y’all.
Hope you learned something!
Skål.
