Misconceptions About The Vikings

Coming from Scandinavian countries, predominantly Denmark and Norway, the Vikings began raiding the British Isles in the late 700s (James). The Vikings primarily targeted monasteries, because that is where most of the wealth was concentrated (Loughrey). These raids were very violent, people were killed, and the survivors were sold into slavery (Loughrey). These violent raids earned the Vikings the reputation of barbarians, much like the Mongols a few centuries later in Asia. After some time, once the Vikings exhausted most of the wealth in the monasteries, they turned their interest into settling the British Isles (James). By the late 9th century the Vikings had conquered most of England (James). However, even though these Viking kingdoms did not last very long, the Scandinavians who resided there stayed. These Scandinavians would go on to change the British Isles in many ways. Despite the violent and negative impacts of Viking raids on the British Isles, once the Vikings settled down, they had a significant and positive peaceful impact on the British Isles culturally, politically, and economically.

The Vikings were Norse seafarers, who mainly spoke the Old Norse language. They raided and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of northern, central and eastern Europe, during the 9th to 11th century. The Vikings originated from Scandinavia, and the beginning of the Vikings expansion often originates from the raid of the Lindisfarne Monetary on 8 June 793. The Vikings were the first Westerners to sail to Iceland, Greenland, and over to the New World. However, the story of the Vikings is also an important story for the development of the Christian world in the West. Throughout this essay, I will explain the importance of Viking religion, Viking trade, and how the Viking age had an impact on the way Western and

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)

When one sees the word Viking, the mind firstly shifts to men who are uncivilized and unprincipled. Using evidence of achievements and victories will not only show how much they impacted Europe, but how sophisticated Vikings actually were. As Charlemagne’s empire ended, the people of Europe showed extraordinary resilience toward the new movements of the era. From 800 to 1200 CE, Vikings ruled medieval Europe. These Vikings, along with thick soil, are credited with shifting Europe from endemic violence toward cooperation and legal order. An attack on the Lindisfarne monastery off the coast of Northumberland in northeastern England marked the beginning of the Viking Age. Vikings began to appear in Europe due to Scandinavian raiders repeatedly visiting the Christian countries of Europe. At first they were content with just raiding lands, but soon they began to seize land and proclaim rule. They sought riches, not land. With this established rule, Vikings promised safety and began to reform the lands they had acquired. The people agreed due to starvation and possible attacks from eneimes. The new lands had a need for settled agriculture, defensive warfare and commerce. As the Vikings began to fulfill these needs they saw an expansion in cooperation and rule of law among the villagers.

The Vikings lived about one thousand years ago in the lands that we now call Iceland, Lapland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. To most people the Vikings were raiders that got in their longboats and sailed somewhere and then went from town to town killing and pillaging. This is not completely true, because the Vikings were also

France was in Carolingain Empire, which was a problem. The Vikings took advantage and raided France. They fastened the fall of Carolingain Empire. Then they changed the ways of the place they attacked. They were also great explorers, they conquered settlements in lots in of countries they invaded. In 860 they discovered Iceland. The Vikings describes this by quoting from the Landnamabok "Once upon a time, men some say it was Naddod the Viking set out from Norway bound for the Faroes but drifted into the Atlantic and found a large new island." They settled on Iceland in 870. The Vikings conquered and settled in Greenland. Throughout exploring the Vikings expanded Europe's knowledge of their surroundings. Vikings also settled on parts of the countries they raided, and they rebuilt the towns. Many of this made of damage cause by the raids. They also had craftsmen and merchants sent to England, Germany and other countries to trade or sell their goods. Trades were only performed once or twice every

This initial wave of movement westward sparked a larger movement over time of larger Norse populations towards Iceland, where at one point, there were "as many as 12,000 Viking immigrants ultimately settled there, taking their farm animals with them" (Lemonick and Dorfman 2). This mass migration and settlement outside of the native Scandinavian territory mimics the conquest and expansion of other great Empires, the only difference in the Vikings situation is that they did it by sea and all other nations did it by land; that, and the fact that the more westward they moved, the less they had to deal with other nations and more with the fury of the

The ships were massive and wait for it... long. They were slim, durable, and flexible. This allowed the ships to steer through fjords, streams, and the ocean. They only thing they lacked (of which they added later) was a mast and sail. (Only in the 15th century did Europeans create a ship that surpassed the longboat.) Vikings, known for their raiding and pillage, were driven to these acts by overpopulation and poverty. A contrasting image of their big and brute reputation, they were made up of "landless sons, social outcasts, and political refugees." Their later divisions spread even further. Their beginning expeditions were small and mostly unrecognized, but as people started to "recognize" them (not collectively) they were dubbed an assortment of names and were even hired as mercenaries by Byzantian Greeks. They remained mostly in the northern north of the equator, but they were still expansive people considering. They "fell" to their expansion, assimilation, and loss of Scandinavian

The Vikings’ government was unlike any other at that time. In fact, there was no emperor, king, or lord. The only sagas found about Viking law were written late in the 10th century in Iceland. The people were governed by consensus, and legal issues were resolved by compromise and negotiation. This doesn’t mean that feuds didn’t

The "Vikings" were an ancient people that inhabited Northern Europe and Scandinavia known as the Norse (also known as Northmen or Norsemen). The Norse people were spread across Northern Europe, particularly in the regions known today as: Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Finland), Germany, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Ireland, and the surrounding islands), Iceland, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are three countries from Scandinavia in which the Vikings came from. They were mainly farmers, fishermen and traders. Most Vikings had more than one son and it was tradition for the eldest to inherit and take over the farm. Since there was more than one son a lot of men had to choose between working for their brother or leaving to go find their own wealth and land.

In the nineteenth century, the word passed into common English usage, where it has come to be used as a descriptor for the peoples of Scandinavia in the period from the late eighth to eleventh centuries, not just for those who undertook sea-borne raiding. In some ways, the Vikings were not that different from their European contemporaries. Scandinavian social hierarchy involved kings and chieftains who

The evidence to the Vikings success in their land-taking is revealed not only through history and traditional record of these events, but also through the names of people and places around where the land-taking took place. The place names influenced by the Norse language during and after the

Vikings came from three countries of scandinavia; Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. The term Vikings literally means ‘a pirate raid’, they get their name from a scandinavian language called “Old Norse”(BBC-primary history). People who go off raiding in ships were called vikings. Because of the raids and constant battles in many places they were often also called savages, traders, and explorers. In scandinavia they were also called Norsemen. During the time A.D. 700 to 1100(BBC-primary history),

The Vikings spent most of their time raiding villages and killing people. They sailed very far distances in their longships to find land to raid. The Vikings mostly raided western and eastern parts of Europe. They also raided places like Greenland and Canada. While raiding the Vikings would basically kill anyone that got in their way and they would destroy villages completely. If you survived a Viking raid, you were extremely lucky. When the Vikings raided they would steal anything they could, including money, food, cattle and loot from churches. The Vikings would usually not leave places alone. Once they had raided them one time, they would do it again and keep stealing and killing. One famous raid that the Vikings did was in Northumbria, North-east England. Here the Vikings arrived in their longships and burned down buildings, murdered monks, stole things and frightened everyone. Apparently some of the Christian church leaders said