An outline, era by era

Vikings (Scandinavia)

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

The Vikings were seafaring raiders, traders and settlers from Scandinavia, in what is now Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Viking Age is conventionally dated from the raid on Lindisfarne in 793 CE to about 1066 or the decades after, a period in which Scandinavia was gradually and unevenly drawn into Christian Europe. In these centuries Scandinavians sailed in fast, shallow-draught ships across the North Atlantic, the Baltic and the rivers of eastern Europe.

They raided monasteries and towns, extracted tribute, and also founded lasting settlements and trading centres. Norse people settled in the British Isles, Normandy, Iceland and Greenland, and reached North America around 1000 CE. Others, often called Varangians, travelled through Russia to Constantinople and the Caliphate. The Vikings helped shape the kingdoms of England, France and Rus', and their own homelands became Christian kingdoms over time. Our knowledge comes from sagas, chronicles written by their victims, runestones and archaeology.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The raid on Lindisfarne

    Event

    What happened

    In 793, traditionally dated to early June, seaborne raiders attack the island monastery of Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records heathen men destroying God's church there by plunder and slaughter. Raids on Iona and Jarrow follow in the next years.

    The rest is history

    Lindisfarne is traditionally taken as the start of the Viking Age, although there were earlier contacts and raids. The shock was widely felt, and the scholar Alcuin wrote letters of dismay from the court of Charlemagne. Attacks on Ireland, England and Francia grew through the ninth century, and some raiders began to winter and then settle. Excavations show Scandinavian activity in the North Sea region well before 800, so the raid marks a turning point in the written record more than a sudden beginning.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, entry for 793. Old English annals, 9th century onward, manuscripts D and E.
    2. PrimaryAlcuin of York. Letters on the Lindisfarne raid to King Æthelred and Bishop Highbald, 793. Latin letters.
    3. BookSawyer, Peter. The Age of the Vikings. London: Edward Arnold, 1962.

  2. The Great Heathen Army and the Danelaw

    Event

    What happened

    In 865 a large Scandinavian force, called a great heathen army by the chronicle and largely Danish, lands in East Anglia. Over the next years it conquers Northumbria and East Anglia and kills King Edmund, and in 874 it drives the Mercian king Burgred out. Mercia and Wessex resist for a time, and Alfred of Wessex defeats the Danes at Edington in 878.

    The rest is history

    After Edington the Danish leader Guthrum accepted baptism and a treaty set a boundary between Alfred's lands and Danish-ruled territory. That area became known as the Danelaw, where Scandinavian law, place names and speech left a lasting mark. Alfred and his successors later reconquered it, and by 954 England was a single kingdom. The size of the army is debated, but the chronicle record of the campaigns is firm.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 865 to 878. Old English annals.
    2. BookHadley, Dawn M. The Northern Danelaw: Its Social Structure, c. 800-1100. London: Leicester University Press, 2000.
    3. BookAbels, Richard. Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England. Harlow: Longman, 1998.

  3. The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte and Normandy

    Event

    What happened

    Viking fleets raid the Seine from the 840s and besiege Paris in 885 to 886. Around 911 the West Frankish king Charles the Simple grants lands around Rouen to a Viking leader, Rollo. The grant is meant to bring the raiders into the king's service.

    The rest is history

    Rollo's territory grew into the duchy of Normandy, whose rulers adopted French language and Christianity within a few generations. Details of the 911 agreement come mainly from Dudo of Saint-Quentin, writing a century later, so they are treated with caution. The Normans later conquered England in 1066 and parts of southern Italy.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryDudo of Saint-Quentin. History of the Normans. Latin chronicle, c. 1015 to 1026.
    2. BookBates, David. Normandy before 1066. London: Longman, 1982.

  4. The settlement of Iceland

    Event

    What happened

    From about 870 Norse settlers, many from western Norway and from Norse communities in the British Isles, sail to Iceland, which has no firmly attested substantial population before them. In 930 chieftains found the Althing, a general assembly that makes laws. Within about sixty years most of the habitable land is taken.

    The rest is history

    Iceland became a commonwealth without a king until it accepted Norwegian rule in 1262 to 1264. The Landnámabók and Ari Þorgilsson's Book of the Icelanders record the settlement, though both were written around the twelfth century. Archaeology, including a tephra layer dated to about 877, supports settlement in the late ninth century. Whether Irish monks visited earlier is debated. From Iceland Norse people went on to Greenland.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAri Þorgilsson. Íslendingabók (Book of the Icelanders). Old Norse history, c. 1122 to 1133.
    2. PrimaryLandnámabók (Book of Settlements). Old Norse compilation, 12th century onward.
    3. BookByock, Jesse. Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

  5. The Rus' and the eastern river routes

    Event

    What happened

    In the ninth century Scandinavian traders and warriors travel along the rivers of what is now Russia, founding or using trading posts such as Staraya Ladoga and Gnezdovo. They carry furs, slaves and amber south, and receive silver from the Islamic world and goods from Byzantium. In 860 a fleet of Rus' attacks Constantinople.

    The rest is history

    Hoards of Arabic silver coins found in Scandinavia show how large the trade was. The Russian Primary Chronicle, written in the early twelfth century, tells of the calling of Rurik in 862, though its details are debated. The Rus' mixed with Slavic populations and helped form Kievan Rus'. In Constantinople Scandinavians also served as the emperor's Varangian Guard from the late tenth century.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRussian Primary Chronicle (Povest' vremennykh let). Old East Slavic chronicle, early 12th century.
    2. BookFranklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200. London: Longman, 1996.

  6. Harald Fairhair and the unification of Norway

    Event

    What happened

    In the late ninth century Harald Fairhair, a king from the Oslo fjord region, is said by later tradition to have extended his power over much of Norway. Saga tradition places a decisive sea battle at Hafrsfjord, around 872 or later, and says resisting chieftains left, some for Iceland and the North Atlantic islands. These details come mainly from later Icelandic writing.

    The rest is history

    The sources are mostly Icelandic and written three centuries later, so dates and details are uncertain and scholars debate how much of Norway Harald truly held. Lasting kingdoms emerged in Denmark, Norway and Sweden over the tenth and eleventh centuries, with kings such as Harald Bluetooth of Denmark erecting the Jelling stones, which record the conversion of the Danes to Christianity around 965.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySnorri Sturluson. Heimskringla. Old Norse sagas of the kings of Norway, c. 1230.
    2. PrimaryJelling Stones. Runestones raised by Gorm and Harald Bluetooth, Jutland, 10th century.
    3. BookSawyer, Birgit, and Peter Sawyer. Medieval Scandinavia: From Conversion to Reformation, circa 800-1500. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

  7. Norse Greenland and L'Anse aux Meadows

    Event

    What happened

    Around 985 Erik the Red leads settlers to southwest Greenland after being outlawed from Iceland. Around 1000 Norse voyagers reach the coast of North America. At L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, archaeologists have excavated Norse-style buildings and iron working.

    The rest is history

    The Greenland colonies lasted about four hundred years and faded in the fifteenth century. The Newfoundland site, found in 1960 by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, appears to have been occupied only briefly. Tree-ring evidence has dated Norse cutting of wood there to 1021 CE. The Vinland sagas describe the voyages but were written down in the thirteenth century.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySaga of the Greenlanders and Saga of Erik the Red. Old Norse sagas, 13th century.
    2. BookIngstad, Helge. The Viking Discovery of America. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001.

  8. Cnut's North Sea empire and the end of the Viking Age

    Event

    What happened

    In 1016 the Danish prince Cnut becomes king of England after fighting Edmund Ironside. He becomes king of Denmark in 1018 and of Norway in 1028. After his death in 1035 the North Sea union breaks up.

    The rest is history

    Cnut ruled as a Christian king within European norms. The union did not last, though Denmark stayed under his dynasty for a time. In 1066 Harald Hardrada of Norway invaded England and was killed at Stamford Bridge, which is often treated as the end of the Viking Age. By then Scandinavia was increasingly part of Latin Christendom, with church organisation and towns of its own, though conversion was gradual and uneven.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 1016 to 1035. Old English annals.
    2. BookLawson, M. K. Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century. London: Longman, 1993.

  9. Viking horned helmets

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Vikings are widely pictured charging into battle wearing helmets with horns. Cartoons, operas and costumes show them this way.

    The rest is history

    No Viking Age helmet with horns has been found. The only well-preserved helmet of the period, from Gjermundbu in Norway, is a plain rounded cap with a nose guard. The image comes largely from nineteenth-century Romantic art, including Carl Emil Doepler's costumes for Wagner's Ring cycle in 1876. Earlier Scandinavian Bronze Age horned helmets, such as those from Veksø, Denmark, are far older.

    Sources

    1. BookRoesdahl, Else. The Vikings. London: Penguin, 1991.
    2. BookPrice, Neil. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, 2002.

  10. Ragnar Lodbrok and the snake pit

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Ragnar Lodbrok, a famed Viking king, is captured by King Ælla of Northumbria and thrown into a pit of snakes. As he dies he says that the piglets would grieve if they knew how the old boar suffers. His sons then come to avenge him.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in Norse sagas and poems such as Krákumál from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Ragnar himself is hard to pin down, and may be a blend of several figures. The Great Heathen Army of 865 was led by sons later linked to him, such as Ivar, and Ælla of Northumbria was a real king killed in 867 fighting the Danes. Whether Ragnar existed as described is debated.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRagnars saga loðbrókar. Old Norse legendary saga, 13th century.
    2. BookSmyth, Alfred P. Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles, 850-880. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

  11. Valhalla and the Valkyries

    Myth

    The legend

    Warriors who die bravely in battle are chosen by Valkyries and carried to Odin's hall, Valhalla. There they feast and fight each day until the final battle of Ragnarök.

    The rest is history

    The belief is described in Old Norse poetry, especially the Poetic Edda, and by Snorri Sturluson in the thirteenth century, after Iceland became Christian. Surviving accounts are therefore later and may blend older ideas with literary invention. Archaeological finds of weapon burials show warrior ideals, but do not show that everyone believed in one set doctrine. Viking religion varied by region and time.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySnorri Sturluson. Prose Edda (Gylfaginning). Old Norse, c. 1220.
    2. PrimaryPoetic Edda (Grímnismál). Old Norse poems, preserved in the Codex Regius, c. 1270.
    3. BookDavidson, H. R. Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.

  12. Leif Erikson and the discovery of Vinland

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, sails west from Greenland and finds lands of forest, grapes and wild wheat, which he names Vinland. He winters there and returns with timber. Later voyages meet the native people, the Skrælings.

    The rest is history

    Two sagas tell the story with differences. The Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders were written in the thirteenth century, long after the events. The discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland in 1960 confirmed that Norse people reached North America. Where exactly Vinland lay is still debated, and may have been a wider region.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySaga of the Greenlanders. Old Norse saga, 13th century.
    2. PrimarySaga of Erik the Red. Old Norse saga, 13th century.
    3. BookWallace, Birgitta. Westward Vikings: The Saga of L'Anse aux Meadows. St. John's: Parks Canada, 2006.

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