The Vikings Research Paper

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 usual perception of Vikings plays reference to their role mainly as raiders, being disruptive and destructive. However conquerors and colonists made a more positive contribution by encouraging commerce, the growth of towns and re-shaping political structures. We can see this by the fact that much of North England had been

Viking expansion was caused by Christian churchmen, beginning with Alcuin, who attributed it to God’s doing. These men deemed the Viking raids punishment for religious laxity. However, an eleventh century Saxon cleric claimed that Viking expansion was actually the result of overpopulation and poverty in the Viking homeland. The Norse, or the Viking peoples, had gone to the Atlantic islands as landless sons, social outcasts, and political refugees because they were forced to leave their homes to search for opportunities elsewhere. The reason of Viking expansion is similar to that of the Europeans when they discovered and conquered the New World. The Viking emigration spread all over Europe, with the Danes spreading through Holland all the way down to Spain and in to the Mediterranean. The Swedes traveling east, across the Baltic

When Charlemagne died, he split his kingdom to his sons. His sons wanted to rule over the whole empire so they fought each other. Since there was nobody left to protect villages because soldiers were at war, the Vikings saw this as a big chance to raid. They attacked while everyone was at war so they could easily steal some valuable things. So by the time someone wins, there is nothing left to rule.

Mohamed Bach Steven Zani Engl 200 – 1 July 5, 2017 Vikings Vikings alludes to the action of the Scandinavian raiding ocean and a variety of people who vanquished wider parts of Northern Europe, parts of Britain, France and parts of Russia toward the East between the eight and eleventh century. They were not the same as the European people groups they confronted as they have originated from an outside land, they were not "acculturated" in the neighborhood comprehension of the word and their main principle was that they are not Christian.

Vikings were a group of people from Scandanavia (modern-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden) who navigated the North Atlantic and Baltic Regions, sailing to destinations in the south to North Africa, and east to Russia, Constantinople (“Istanbul”) and the Middle East, as ‘hit-and-run’ looters, traders and colonists. Notably, the Vikings were seen as a barbaric clan by their victims, especially to those in Europe with whom they had an imposing influence. Equally, as the Old Norse (the language of the Norsemen) translation of the word ‘Viking’ signifies, the Vikings were feared as fierce and ruthless pirates. However, most of these people may not have called themselves Vikings since only a few engaged in raiding and pillaging, which was seen as a

Regardless, settlements did start to spring up, and grow into centers of trade and commerce. The actual effects of these Viking settlements varies based on the preexisting society within each region. This is despite the geographical proximity to one another, the societies within Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England remained vastly different up to that point, as many areas had remained isolated. For areas of little previous development, such as in Ireland, the Vikings slowly developed into the system of chiefdoms, and in turn increased trade and settlement within the local populations. In areas such as South England, that had seen a gradual increase in powerful kingdoms, the Vikings gave a reason for even greater unification.

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.

The Vikings were a group of Scandinavian raiders that existed from about the 8th century to the 11th century. They mainly attacked the British Islands, the Frankish empire and England, but also plundered places such as the Iberian peninsula and Northern Africa. They are known to be explorers, conquerors, and fighters seeking quick profit through their effective smash and grab techniques (Stokstad & Watkins, 172). Having developed navigation, ship-building and rigging skills, many Scandinavian people with new cultures, traditions, and gods arrived on the coasts of these foreign islands (Hull, 24). One of their majorly overlooked aspects which added to the material culture and wealth of the time is their art.

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.

The fierce competition over the scarce, barren land of Scandinavia encouraged many of the Vikings to leave their homeland. Viking society grew rapidly as they began to run into considerable complications with their land. In Viking Scandinavia, “as the population increased, so did warfare, as regional Viking kings competed for the few resources available” (Hubbard 94). Because Scandinavian terrain was rough and mountainous, habitable land was a scarce resource. The lack of available land often led to many disputes between neighboring kings. In an attempt to cease the fighting, the kings began expanding their territory by conquering other lands across Europe, the British Isles, and Greenland. Moving to these new lands gave the Vikings space to continue to expand their nation, enabling them to gain power over other territories. Not only was there limited land in Scandinavia, but little of it was functional. The mountainous land in Scandinavia was not suitable for farming as it was unfit for growing crops (“Viking Age”). The Vikings

Then there was a second Vikings age in 978-1016 AD. This age was very different from the first. Royal leaders organized larger scaled raids. Extortion was their intention. After the raiding was over the Vikings claimed all of England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden in 1027.

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 Viking Age was from 800 to 1050 AD ("Where Did They Come From?”). During that time the Vikings attacked, plundered, and created their own culture in Scandinavia and other islands. The very first Vikings were from Scandinavia and most of them left their homeland to seek freedoms and fortunes elsewhere (History.com Staff.). There are many famous viking leaders, explorers, and gods. Many people think of Vikings as uncivilized and bloodthirsty, but many of the things that people think about the Vikings are not true.

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)