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Vikings: North America
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The raids of the Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries are among the best-known episodes of early medieval history. These fierce attacks from Scandinavia fell on the British Isles, the Atlantic and North Sea shoreline of the Carolingian Empire, which included most of what are now France, Germany, and the Low Countries, and to the east on what became Russia. They took a heavy toll on the fragile political development and stability of Europe, although the damage caused by the Vikings may well have been exaggerated by the main historians of the period. These historians were usually priests who looked upon the pagan Vikings with particular horror. In addition, the Church, as a wealthy and relatively defenseless target, may have suffered more heavily than many other sectors of European society. Despite the notoriety the Vikings attracted because of their ferocity, within a century or two they converted to Christianity and settled in the lands they had raided.
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Easier - Vikings were a Scandinavian people from the Northeastern coast of Europe. This region includes what are now Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. From the ninth to the eleventh centuries, Vikings sailed along the coasts of Europe raiding and ransacking the villages. They settled in Iceland, Greenland, and the North America.
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The Vikings pillaged monasteries on Ireland’s west coast in 795, and then spread out to cover the rest of the coastline. The north and east of the island were most affected. During the first 40 years, the raids were conducted by small, mobile Viking groups. From 830 on, the groups consisted of large fleets of Viking ships. From 840, the Vikings began establishing permanent bases at the coasts. Dublin was the most significant settlement in the long term.
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Around 800, Vikings raided the coasts of the British Isles and the western portions of the Carolingian Empire. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded their arrival: “In this year [793] the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne [Holy Island, off the northeast coast of England], with plunder and slaughter.” The Vikings landed on undefended coasts and attacked churches as well as isolated farmsteads, town, and villages. Their well-constructed longboats could carry 50 or more men, and because of their very shallow draft, these boats were able to travel up rivers to settlements that had seemed immune to maritime attack. Sieges of and raids on Paris from the 840s onward show how deep into the heartland of continental Europe the Vikings could strike. Additionally, the Vikings conquered much of northern England (the Danelaw) in the 9th century, and they established a kingdom in Ireland. The Viking hold on such North Atlantic islands as the Shetlands, Hebrides, and Faroes lasted through and beyond the Middle Ages.
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When the very distant ancestors of the Vikings reached the end of their long migration from - probably - the Indus valley, they ran into a real problem. The sea. They were a nomadic people from an area with few areas of open water and certainly with no seaboard. Yet, within a few generations, they seem to have invented more or less from scratch a design of hull that became common throughout Europe for several centuries. It is possible to follow a line of development through previous boat designs found on the European west coast, but around the beginning of the seventh century after Christ, some northern genius invented the long narrow hull that became known as the Longship.
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Ten centuries ago, Vikings lived in northern Europe, in an area that now includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Vikings were infamous pirates and warriors, terrorizing Europe for hundreds of years. But warfare was not their only pursuit. They excelled on the sea, and were among the best shipbuilders of their time. Learn more at the following sites.
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