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VIKING
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VIKING . The word " Viking," in the sense in which it is used to-See also:
Jonsson, 1906, p. 135). It is in this more generic sense that the word "viking " is now generally employed. Historians of the See also:
Bd. i. p. 356; Steenstrup and others, Danmarks Riges Historie, bk. ii. &c.). At the same time, the significance which the word "viking " has had in our See also: language is due in part to a false etymology, connecting the word with " See also:
If we could know the Viking Age from the other, the Scandinavian See also: side, it would doubtless See also:present far more See also:interest than in the See also:form in which the Christian chroniclers present it. But from knowledge of this sort we are almost wholly cut off. We have to content ourselves with what is for the greater part of this age a See also:mere See also:catalogue of embarkations and plunderings along all the coasts of western Europe without distinctive characteristics. The Viking Raids.—The detail of these raids is quite beyond the See also:compass of the present See also:article, and a See also:summary or synopsis must suffice. For all See also:record which we have, the Viking Age was inaugurated in A.D. 789 by the appearance in England on our See also:Dorset See also:coast of three pirate ships " from Haerethaland " (Hardeland or Hardyssel in Denmark or Hordeland in Norway), which are said in the Anglo-Saxon See also:Chronicle to be " the first ships of the Danish men " who sought the See also:land of England. They killed the See also:port-See also:reeve, took some See also:booty and sailed away. Other pirates appeared in 793 on a different coast, See also:Northumbria; attacked a monastery on Lindisfarne (See also:Holy Island), slaying and capturing the monks; the following See also:year they attacked and burnt See also:Jarrow; after that they were caught in a See also:storm, and all perished by shipwreck or at the hands of the See also:country-men. In 795 a fleet appeared off See also:Glamorganshire. They attacked See also:Man in 798 and See also:Iona in 802. But after this date for the lifetime of a See also:generation the chief See also:scene of viking exploits was Ireland, and probably the western coasts and islands of Scotland. The usual course of procedure among the northern adventurers remains the same to whatever land they may See also:direct their attacks, or during whatever years of the 9th century these attacks may fall.They begin by more or less desultory raids, in the course of which they seize upon some island, which they generally use as an See also: arsenal or point d'appui for attacks on the mainland. At first the raids are made in the summer: the first wintering in any new scene of See also:plunder forms an epoch so far as that country or region is concerned. Almost always for a period all See also:power of resistance on the part of the inhabitants seems after a while and for a limited time to break down, and the plunderers to have See also:free course wherever they go. Then they show an ambition to See also:settle in the country, and some sort of See also:division of territory takes See also:place. After that the northerners assimilate themselves more or less to the other inhabitants of the country, and their history merges to a less or greater extent in that of the country at large. This course is followed in the history of the viking attacks on Ireland, the earliest of their continuous See also:series of attacks. Thus they begin by seizing the island of Rechru (now Lambay) in See also:Dublin Bay (A.D. 795); in the course of about twenty years we have notice of them on the northern, western and southern coasts; by A.D. 825 they have already ventured raids to a considerable distance inland. And in A.D. 832 comes a large fleet (" a great royal fleet," say the Irish See also:annals) of which the See also:admiral's name is given, Turgesius (Thorgeis or Thorgisl ?). The new invader, though with a somewhat chequered course, extended his conquests till in A.D.842 one-See also: half of Ireland (called Lethcuinn, or See also:Con's Half) seems to have submitted to him; and we have the curious picture of Turgesius establishing his wife Ota as a sort of volva, or priestess, in what had been one of Ireland's most famous and most See also:literary monasteries, See also:Clonmacnoise. Turgesius was, however, killed very soon after this (in 845); and though in A.D. 853 See also:Olaf the See also:
802, 8o6. In the course of a generation almost all the monastic communities in western Scotland had been destroyed. But details of these viking plunderings are wanting. On the See also: continent there were three distinct regions of attack. First the mouth of the See also:Scheldt. There the Danes very early settled on the island of Walcheren, which had in fact been given by the See also:emperor See also:
The first wintering of the vikings in the Seine territory (A.D. 850) was in " Givoldi fossa," the See also: tomb of one Givoldus, not far from the mouth of the See also:river, but no longer exactly determinable. Their first attack on See also:Paris was in A.D. 845: a much more important but unsuccessful one took place in A.D. 885-87, unsuccessful that is so far as the See also:city itself was concerned; but the invaders received an See also:indemnity for raising the See also:siege and leave to pass beyond Paris into See also:Burgundy. The settlement of Danes under Rollo or Rolf on the See also:lower Seine, i.e. in Normandy, dates from the treaty of St Clair-sur-Epte, A.D. 912 (or 911). The third region is the mouth of the See also:Loire. Here the island point d'appui was See also:Noirmoutier, an island with an See also:abbey at the Loire mouth. The northmen wintered there in A.D. 843. No region was more often ravaged than that of the lower Loire, so See also:rich in abbeys—St See also:
But the country ceded to the vikings under Hasting at the Loire mouth was insignificant and not in permanent occupation. Near the end of the 9th century, however, the plundering expeditions which emanated from these three See also: sources became so incessant and so widespread that we can signalize no part of west France as free from them, at the same time that the vikings wrought immense See also:mischief in the Rhine country and in Burgundy. The defences of west France seem quite to have broken down, as did the Irish when Turgesius took " Con's half," or when in A.D. 853 Olaf the White became over-king of Ireland. Unfortunately at this point our best authority ceases; and we cannot well explain the changes which brought about the Christianization of the Normans and their settlement in Normandy as vassals, though recalcitrant ones, of the West Frankish See also:kings. For the viking attacks in the 5th (or 6th) territory, our own country, the course of events is much clearer. As a part of English history it is, however, sufficiently known, and the briefest summary thereof must suffice. That will show how in its general features it follows the normal course. The first appearance of the vikings in England we saw was in A.D. 789. The first serious attacks do not begin till 838. The island of See also:Sheppey, however, was attacked in 835, and in the following year the vikings entrenched themselves there.The first winteringsuddenly though not so unaccountably as it was later in West See also: Francia. As Rollo was to do in 912, the Danish See also:leader Guthorm received See also:baptism, taking the name of Aethelstan, and settled in his assigned territory, See also:East Anglia, according to the terms of the peace of Wedmore. But the forces which Alfred defeated at Aethandune represented but half of the viking See also:army in England at the time. The other half under Half See also:dan (Ragnar Lodbrog's son ?) had never troubled itself about Wessex, but had taken See also:firm possession in Northumbria. The six territories which we have signalized—Ireland, Western Scotland, England, the three in West Francia which See also:merge into each other by the end of the 9th century—do not comprise the whole See also:
Later the name of Ragnar (probably Ragnar Lodbrog) appears, along with Weland, Hasting and one of the sons of Ragnar, Bjorn. Farther to the east we meet the names of Rurik, Godfred and Siegfried. In the eastern region the viking leaders seem to have been closely connected with one of the Danish royal families, the kings of See also: Jutland. The See also:practical though See also:short-lived See also:conquest of England begins under Ivar, Ubbe and Halfdan, reputed sons of Ragnar, and is completed by the last of the three in See also:conjunction with the Guthorm above mentioned. This is, of course, what we should expect, that larger acquaintance gives to the Christian chroniclers more knowledge of their enemy. Precisely the same See also:process in a converse sense develops the casual raids of early times into a See also:scheme of conquest. For at the outset the Christian See also:world was wholly See also:strange to these northmen. We have, it has been said, hardly any means of viewing these raids from the other side. But one small point of See also:light is so suggestive that it may be cited here. The mythical saga of Ragnar Lodbrog is undoubtedly concerned with the Viking Age, though it is impossible now to identify most of the expeditions attributed to this northern See also:hero, stories of conquest in See also:Sweden, in See also:Finland, in Russia and in England, which belong to quite a different age from this one. In the Christian See also:chronicles the name of Ragnar is associated with an attack on Paris in A.D. 845, when the adventurers were (through the interposition of St Germain, say the Christians) suddenly enveloped in darkness—in a thick See also:fog ?—and fell before the arms of the defenders.In Saxo Grammaticus's See also: account of Ragnar Lodbrog, this event seems to be reflected in the See also:story of an expedition of Ragnar's to Bjarmaland or See also:Perm in Russia. For Bjarmaland, though it gained a See also:local habitation, is also in Norse tradition a wholly mythical and mythological place, more or less identical with the under-world (Niflhel, mist-See also:hell). So it appears in the history given by Saxo Grammaticus of the voyage to Bjarmaland of one " Gorm the old." It " looks like a vaporous See also:cloud " and is full of tricks and illusions of sense. We see then that in virtue of some quite See also:historical misfortune to the viking invaders connected with a mist and with a great sickness which invaded the army, the place they have come to (in reality Paris) is in Scandinavian tradition identified with the mythic Bjarmaland; and later, in the history of Saxo Grammaticus, it is identified with the See also:geographical Bjarmaland or Perm. (Saxo Grammat., Hist. Dan. p. 452, Gylfaginning (See also:Edda Snorra); Acta SS. 18th May and 1 rth Oct.; Steenstrup, Normannerne, i. p. 97 seq.; See also:Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom, pp. 162, 26o.) No example could better than this bring See also:home to us the strangeness of the Christian world to the first adventurers from the north, nor better explain the process of familiarity which gradually extended the See also:sphere of their ambition. The expedition which we have made mention of took place almost in the See also:middle of the 9th century, and exactly fifty years after the effective opening of the Viking Age. But after this date events See also:developed rapidly.It was fourteen years later (in A.D. 859) that Ragnar's son Bjorn Ironside and Hasting made their great expedition round Spain to the Mediterranean. In 865 or 866 came to England what we know as the Army, or the Great Army, whose first attacks were in the north of England. Five kings are mentioned in connexion with this veritable invasion of England, and many earls. Their course was not unchequered; but it was only in Wessex that they met with any effective resistance, and the victory of Ashdown (871) put no end to,their advance; for, as we know, Alfred himself had at last to wander a fugitive in the fastnesses of Selwood See also: Forest. Much was retrieved by the victory of Aethandune; yet even after the peace of Wedmore as large a part of the land See also:lay under the power of the Danes as of the English. It is from this time that we discern two distinct tendencies in the viking people. While one See also:section is ready to settle down and receive territory at the hands of the Christian rulers, with or without See also:homage, another section still adheres to a See also:life of mere See also:adventure and of plunder. A large portion of the Great Army refused to be See also:bound by the peace of Wedmore, made some further attempts on England which were frustrated by Alfred's powerful new-built fleet, and then sailed to the continent and spread devastation far and wide. We see them under command of two Danish " kings," Godfred and Siegfried, first in the country of the Rhine-mouth or the Lower Scheldt; after-wards dividing their forces and, while some devastate far into Germany, others extend their ravages on every side in northern France down to the Loire. The whole of these vast countries, Northern Francia, with part of Burgundy, and the Rhineland, seem to lie as much at their See also:mercy as England had done before Aethandune, or Ireland before the death of Turgesius. But in every country alike the See also:wave of viking conquest now begins to recede.The settlement of Normandy was the only permanent outcome of the Viking Age in France. In England under See also: Edward the See also:Elder and Aethelflaed, See also:Mercia recovered a great portion of what had been ceded to the Danes. In Ireland a great See also:expulsion of the invaders took place in the beginning of the loth century. Eventually the Norsemen in Ireland con-tented themselves with a small number of colonies, strictly confined in territory around certain seaports which they them-selves had created: Dublin, Waterford and See also:Wexford; though as the whole of Ireland was divided into See also:petty kingdoms, it might easily happen that the Norse king in Ireland See also:rose to the position—not much more than nominal—of over-king (Ard-Ri) for the whole land. See also:Character of the Vikings.—Severe, therefore, as were the viking raids in Europe, and great as was the suffering they inflicted—on account of which a See also:special See also:prayer, A furore Normannorum libera nos, was inserted in some of the litanies of the West—if they had been pirates and nothing more their place in history would be an insignificant one. If they had been no more than what the Illyrian pirates had been in the early history of See also:Rome, or than the Arabic corsairs were at this time in southern Europe, the disappearance of the evil would have been quickly followed by its oblivion. But even at the out-set the vikings were more than isolated bands of freebooters. As we have seen, the viking outbreak was probably part of a x xv1Yr. 365 national See also:movement. We know that at the same time that some Scandinavian folk were harrying all the western lands, others were See also:founding Garllariki (Russia) in the east; others were pressing still farther See also:south till they came in contact with the eastern empire in See also:Constantinople, which the northern folk knew as Mikillgar6r (Mikklegard); so that when Hasting and Bjorn had sailed to Luna in the gulf of See also:Genoa the northern folk had almost put a See also:girdle round the Christian world. There is every See also:evidence that the vikings were not a mere lawless folk—that is, in their See also:internal relations—but that a See also:system of See also:laws existed among them which was generally respected. The nearest approach to it now preserved is probably the See also:code of laws attributed to the mythic king Fro8i (the See also:Wise) and preserved in the pages of Saxo Grammaticus.It contains provisions for the partition of booty, punishments for See also: theft, See also:desertion and treachery. But some of the clauses securing a See also:comparative See also:liberty for See also:women appear less characteristic of the Viking Age (cf. See also:
They were not entirely unlettered; for the use of See also: runes dates back considerably earlier than the Viking Age. But these were used almost exclusively for See also:lapidary See also:inscriptions. What we can alone describe as a literature, first the early Eddic See also:verse, next the See also:habit of narrating sagas: these things the Norsemen learned probably from their See also:Celtic subjects, partly in Ireland, partly in the western islands of Scotland; and they first developed the new literature on the See also:soil of Iceland. Nevertheless, some of the Eddic songs do seem to give the very form and pressure of the viking period.' In certain material possessions—those, in fact, belonging to their See also:trade, which was See also:war and See also:naval adventure—these viking folk were ahead of the Christian nations: in See also:shipbuilding, for example. There is certainly a historical connexion between the ships which the tribes on the Baltic possessed in the days of See also:Tacitus and the viking ships (Keary, The Vikings in Western Europe, pp. 108–9): a fact which would See also:lead us to believe that the See also:art of shipbuilding had been better preserved there than elsewhere in northern Europe. See also:Merchant vessels must of course have plied between England and France or Frisia. But it is certain that even Charlemagne possessed no adequate See also:navy, though a See also:late chronicler tells us how he thought of See also:building one. His descendants never carried out his designs. Nor was any English king before Alfred stirred up to undertake the same task. And yet the See also:Romans, when threatened by the Carthaginian power, built in one year a fleet capable of holding its own against the, till then, greatest maritime nation in the world. The viking ships had a character apart.They may have owed their origin to the Roman galleys: they did without doubt owe their sails to them.2 Equally certain it is that this special type of shipbuilding was developed in the Baltic, if not before ' More especially the beautiful series contained in See also: book iii. of the Corpus Poeticum Boreale, and ascribed by the editors of that collection to one poet—" the Helgi Poet." Here vikings are mentioned by name—e.g.: VartS Ara ymr, ok iarna glymr; Blast rond rond; rero vikingar." 2 " See also:Sail " in every Teutonic language is practically the same word, and derived from the Latin sagulum. 1I the time of Tacitus, See also:long before the See also:dawn of the Viking Age. Their structure is adapted to short voyages in a sea well studded with harbours, not exposed to the most violent storms or most dangerous tides. To the last, judging by the specimens of Scandinavian boats which have come down to us, they must have been not very seaworthy; they were shallow, narrow in the See also:beam, pointed at both ends, and so eminently suitable for manceuvring (with oars) in creeks and bays. The viking See also:ship had but one large and heavy square sail. When a naval battle was in progress, it would depend for its manceuvring on the rowers. The accounts of naval battles in the sagas show us, too, that this was the case. The rowers in each See also:vessel, though among the northern folk these were free men and warriors, not slaves as in the Roman and Carthaginian galleys, would yet need to be supplemented by a contingent of fighting men, See also:marines, in addition to their See also:crew. Naturally the ship-building developed: so that vessels in the viking time would be much smaller than in the Saga Age. In saga literature we read of See also:craft (of " long ships ") with 20 to 30 benches of rowers, which would mean 40 to 6o oars. There exist at the museum in Christiania the remains of two boats which were found in the neighbourhood: one, the G6kstad ship, is in very tolerable preservation. It belongs probably to the rsth century.On this See also: boat there are places for 16 oars a side. It is not probable that the largest viking ships had more than so oars a side. As these ships must often, against a contrary See also:wind, have had to See also:row both day and See also:night, it seems reasonable to imagine the crew divided into three shifts (as they See also:call them in See also:mining districts), which would give See also:double the number of men available to fight on any occasion as to row.' Thus a 20-oared vessel would carry 6o men. But some 40 men per ship seems, for this period, nearer the See also:average. In 896, toward the end of our age, it is incidentally mentioned in one place that five vessels carried 200 vikings, an average of 40 per ship. Elsewhere about the same time we read of 12,000 men carried in 250 ships, an average of 48. The round and painted See also:shields of the warriors hung outside along the bulwarks: the vessel was steered by an See also:oar at the right side (as whaling boats are to-day), the steerboard or See also:star-See also:board side. See also:Prow and See also:stem rose high; and the former was carved most often into the likeness of a snake's or See also:dragon's See also:head: so generally that " dragon " or " See also:worm " (snake) became synonymous with a war-ship. The warriors were well armed. The byrnie or See also:mail-See also:shirt is often mentioned in Eddie songs: so are the See also:axe, the See also:spear, the See also:javelin, the See also:bow and arrows and the See also:sword. The Danes were specially renowned for their axes; but about the sword the most of northern poetry and See also:mythology clings. An immense joy in battle breathes through the earliest Norse literature, which has scarce its like in any other literature; and we know that the language recognized a peculiar battle fury, a veritable madness by which certain were seized and which went by the name of " berserk's way " (berserksgangr) 2 The courage of the vikings was See also:proof against anything, even as a rule against superstitious terrors." We cannot easily realize how all-embracing that courage was. A trained soldier is-often afraid at sea, a trained sailor lost if he has not the protecting sense of his own ship beneath him. The viking ventured upon unknown See also: waters in ships very See also:ill-fitted for their work. He had all the spirit of adventure of a See also:Drake or a See also:Hawkins, all the trained valour of reliance upon his comrades that See also:mark a soldiery fighting a See also:militia " (The Vikings in Western Christendom, p. 143). He was unfortunately hardly less marked for See also:cruelty and faithlessness. See also:Livy's words, " inhuman crudelitas, perfidia plus quam Punica," might, it is to be feared, have been applied as justly to the vikings as to any people of western 1 Steenstrup (Normannerne, i. p. 352), to get the number of men on (say) a 3o-oared vessel, adds but some 20 more. This seems an unlikely See also:limitation, throwing an impossible amount of work upon the crew, and leaving each ship terribly weak supposing a naval battle had to be undertaken—as with some See also:rival viking fleet, even before any Christian nation possessed a fleet. 2 Cf. Grett. S. ch.42, Njala, ch. too, &c., and many other sources. Europe. It is also true, however, that they showed a great capacity for See also:
O'See also: Donovan) and the Chronicon Scottorum (ed. Henessy). Finally, The War of the Gaidhill with the Gaill (ed. Todd) ; Three Fragments of Irish History (O'Donovan) ; cf. W. F. See also:Skene, Celtic Scotland. For England the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Annales Lindisfarnenses (in See also:Pertz, Monumenta, vol. xix.) See also:Simeon of See also:Durham, Historia Dunelmi Ecclesiae. For the Frankish empire the chief sources of our information are The Annales See also:Regal Francorum, Annales Bertiani (Pertz, vol. i.) in three parts (the first anonymous, the second by See also:Prudentius, the third by See also:Hincmar, A.D. 830-82). The Annales Xantenses (A.D. 876, 873 ; Pertz, vol. ii.) are the authorities for the northern and eastern regions, and the Annales Fuldenses (which begin with Pipin of Herestel and go down to A.D.900; Pertz, vol. i.) for Germany. Toward the end of the 9th century the Annales Vedastini (Pertz, vols. i. and ii.) are almost the exclusive authority for the western raids. In the historians of Normandy, especially in See also: Dudo of St Quentin, much incidental See also:matter may be found. References to the Viking Age in a general way are to be found in a vast number of books, especially histories of the Scandinavian countries, of which Munch's Det Norske Fclks Historie (1852, &c.) is the most distinguished; J. J. A. Worsaae has written Minder om de Danske og See also:Nord-Mandene i England, Skotland og Irland (1851), an antiquarian rather than an historical study; G. B. Depping, L'Histoire See also:des expeditions maritimes des Normands (1843), a not very See also:critical work, and E. Mabille, " See also:Les Invasions Normandes dans la Loire " (Ecole des See also:charter bibl. t. 30, 1869). A completer work than either of these is W.Vogel's See also: Die Normannen and das Frankische Reich (1906). It does not, however, break any fresh ground. J. C. H. Steenstrup's Normannerne (1876-82), in four volumes, is not a continuous history, but a series of studies of great learning and value; C. F. Keary, The Vikings in Western Europe (1891) is a history of the viking raids on all the western lands, but ends A.D. 888. A. Bugge's Vikingerne (19o4-6) is a study of the moral and social side of the vikings, or, one should rather say, of the earliest Scandinavian folk. (C.F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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