Vikings at War

Foreword

For the Viking, war was everywhere. It was part of the fabric of society, it was raw and brutal like all other warfare at that time, and it led to major upheavals in Europe. The warfare of the Vikings left various traces. Among other things, it played a part in the unification of countries such as England under one king, prepared the way for the unification of fragmented northern lands into independent nations and laid the foundations for the kingdom of Russia in the East.

Vikings at War describes Viking military history between 750 and 1100 AD, popularly known as the Viking Age. This was one of the most expansive and innovative periods in the history of the Nordic countries. The Viking expeditions extended to the Caspian Sea in the east, to Jerusalem in the south, to the furthest border of the known world, America, in the west and into the great Russian forests in the north.

We describe the historical developments, causes and conditions which led to the raiding expeditions, military campaigns and conquests originating from Scandinavia during the Viking age. We present many of the most important military events and significant characters and groups. We discuss different aspects of offensive and defensive warfare, weapons technology, military tradition, theory and tactics.

We hope to challenge some of the established presentations of the Viking as a peaceful trader, skilled hand worker and adventurous settler, and instead present an objective and nuanced assessment of the Viking warrior.

Through examples and excerpts from original sources, reconstructions, maps, illustrations and photos, we aim to give the reader a vivid insight into one of the most exciting periods of North European history – the Viking Age.

Vegard Vike wrote the chapter on Viking weapons. The other chapters were written by Kim Hjardar.

Kim Hjardar and Vegard Vike

Beaduheard meets his fate

789 AD: summer was well established and the little kingdom of Wessex in the south of Saxon England must have looked its best. In the fields the golden heads of corn swayed gently in the wind, promising good yields, and the forests were full of wild game. Peace blessed the land.

King Beorhtric of Wessex had recently married the daughter of the mighty neighbouring King Offa of Mercia, thereby sealing the peace between the two peoples. But that summer three unknown ships arrived at Beorhtric’s kingdom. The strangers on board settled on a little island called Portland. They began to take tolls from passing ships and claim support from the fishermen and the farmers living on the island and the nearby mainland. Finally the news of the disrespectful foreigners reached as far as the royal town of Dorchester. Beorhtric was told that they had not declared what business they had with him or his bailiff, and that the people now lay under their control. So he ordered his bailiff, Beaduheard, to travel to the coast and ask the strangers to report to the bailiff in Winchester and make their business known, so that tolls could be collected on the trading goods they surely had with them.

The bailiff and his little group of men shouldered their weapons and rode off on the journey. On the way they met several farmers who confirmed that the foreigners had demanded taxes from the population in the form of both fish and livestock. They had also abducted several of the farmers’ wives and daughters as slaves. People said that the foreigners called themselves Northmen, and that they were from a country called Hordaland, somewhere far north over the sea.

Arriving at the coast, the bailiff’s men could look over to Portland and see the strangers’ ships drawn up on the beach. The number of plumes of smoke rising up from the island indicated that there had to be more than just a handful of men. The bailiff engaged local fishermen to ferry him and his men over to the island. By the time they landed, a group had already assembled on the beach to meet them. Beaduheard observed that some of them looked quite dishevelled, as if they had just got up from a night of drunkenness, but others were well clad and looked more fresh and sober. Some of them had tattoos on their arms and chests, of strange patterns and symbols resembling animals and trees, while others had quite well-groomed beards and hair. All of them had tanned, furrowed faces from their life at sea, but their bare chests were light red as if they had been too long in the hot sun.

Several of the men who swarmed round the bailiff’s little group carried axes and spears, and they immediately started chattering among themselves. The bailiff could only understand a few words they said, but gathered from their speech that he was dealing with the people known as Danes. The men stood aside, and one of them stepped forward. He was taller than the others and had a carefully trimmed beard, long forelocks and a shaved neck. He pushed his cape aside, revealing a silver inlaid sword handle. He said his name and his father’s name and presented himself as the spokesman for these men, and then bade the bailiff and his men to lay down their weapons.

Vikings in the Great Army arrive in England, as illustrated in ‘The Life, Passion and Miracles of St Edmund,’ from around 1130.

Beaduheard was the king’s agent. His duty was to see that everybody who came here followed the laws of the kingdom and that traders paid the king tolls on their goods. He obviously had the right to use whatever force was necessary. So he must have hesitated for a moment in response to the Viking’s request, and reached instead for his own weapon. However, faced with a group of strangers who didn’t respect his authority, he was powerless. By the time he realised this, it was already too late. He and his men were cut down.

The blows which felled Beorhtric’s bailiff and his men would echo through the whole of the Christian world. The episode was seen as so significant that it was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon chronicles. This was the first episode of violence at the hands of seafaring Scandinavians to be recorded in the written sources.

Together with the attack on the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in 793, the Northmen’s raid on Wessex in 789 marked the end of a long time of peace in Christian North Europe. This was a time when people used to a life of peace had pulled down their sea defences and coastal military installations. Lucrative trade had developed between the countries around the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic. For Vikings hunting for wealth and glory, this presented tempting targets. Soon no coast would be safe from the long-ships from the North. The Viking attacks on England initiated a period of 300 years which would have major consequences, both in the Nordic lands and on the continent.

1. THE VIKINGS

Who were the Vikings?

In the early 9th century, Scandinavia did not yet have nations with well-defined borders. Politically, the region consisted of a number of petty kingdoms connected by various military and political alliances. What united the peoples was their common culture, language and belief system.

Scandinavia was not isolated, however. Scandinavians had close trading links and contact with other northern European populations. In fact, they had set fashion trends for the English and French nobility at the end of the 8th century. The royal court of Northumbria adopted Scandinavian fashions in dress and in hairstyle. There had been trade and communication between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe for centuries, however Viking raids were the first direct experience that a French or English farmer would have of Scandinavia, which he would have previously considered only as a vague and unknown world.

Nor was waging war in distant lands a new phenomenon for the Scandinavians. The Scandinavian peoples were able to mobilise large armies and make war both between and beyond their own territories, even before Viking times. In the first few centuries AD, clear power structures already existed and Scandinavian leaders were able to wage war on a scale previously unknown to them. They learned military strategy and technology from the Romans. After a major defeat by the Germans at Teutoburg Forest (in modern-day Germany) in 7 AD, the Roman Empire had established a permanent northern border along the Rhine. German and Celtic mercenaries already made up a large part of the Roman standing army at that time, and chieftains’ sons from the whole of northern Europe received military and cultural education from the Romans. Roman luxury goods and weapons and military skills spread north. These military skills also reached Scandinavia, mainly through the Nordic mercenaries who fought as support troops alongside the Roman legions. This is confirmed by the finding, especially in Denmark, of large quantities of Roman weapons and equipment. Weapons and knowledge were also acquired by trade and through the many alliances and connections between powerful tribal leaders in Scandinavia and tribes further south.

Partly as a consequence of this new military technology, a powerful military aristocracy evolved in Scandinavia during the 3rd century AD. This had its origins in the military leaders of the Germanic tribes, who were called kings. From then until the 6th century, increasing militarisation of the tribal societies and widespread warfare led to the collective tribal institutions being replaced by a system of petty kings who dominated different geographic areas, supported by local chieftains.

Finds of elegant weapons and equipment dating from the centuries before the Viking Age indicate that powerful rulers dwelt in Scandinavia. This 7th-century helmet was found in a boat burial in Vendel in Uppland, Sweden.

After the battle the warriors’ equipment was cast as offerings into a lake in modern-day Illerup on Jutland. The warriors who fell here were probably on their way home to west Norway after the end of their service in the Roman army. The finds confirm the close contacts that existed between Scandinavia and the Roman Empire in the centuries before the Viking Age.

A glimpse of the earlier warrior culture

In c. 200 AD, an army from Norway lost a big battle, not far from Illerup on Jutland in Denmark. All the warriors’ personal equipment and weapons were ritually destroyed and cast as offerings into a nearby lake. Weapons belonging to about 750 ordinary soldiers, 100 soldiers from the middle ranks and 12 officers were found. The warriors were well equipped, with elegant Roman weapons but also with more homely things such as antler combs and working tools. They had been well paid, for their purses were full of Roman denarii. If we estimate that the Norwegian losses were around 50% (which corresponds to a serious defeat), the total force could have been around 1,700 men, about the size of a Roman auxiliary troop. The Norsemen may have been on their way home to western Norway after serving in the Roman army. We know the names of some of those who took part in the fateful expedition, because they had carved their names in runes on their belongings: Wagnijo (Wayfarer), Nithigo, Gauthi, Laguthewa, and Swarta (The Black).

During this period a series of defensive works was raised and major building programmes initiated for military purposes, such as roads, bridges, canals and earthworks. The extraction and use of iron continued to increase in importance, and possession of weapons became more usual among the lower classes. In the course of the 7th and 8th centuries there was further professionalisation of the military forces. All this was happening at a time when Scandinavia was experiencing a period of relative peace.

When was the Viking Age?

The Viking Age is part of the period which Scandinavian archaeologists call the Nordic Late Iron Age (600–1050 AD)

This period is further divided into sub-groups which sometimes overlap. The time before the Viking Age is known in Scandinavia as the Vendel Age (550–800), after the rich finds from Vendel in Sweden, or the Merovingian Age (482–751), after the dynasty of French kings who ruled France from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Carolingians came to power in 751. The Nordic Late Iron Age was followed by what Scandinavian archaeologists call the Middle Ages (1050–1500). The Viking Age comes between the Vendel Age and the Middle Ages.

According to our definition, the Viking Age is mainly a period when people in Scandinavia were heathen, not yet Christianised, and when Nordic chieftains and kings engaged in widespread plundering and warfare both at home and throughout Europe.

The timespan of the Viking Age can be defined in various ways. The most usual is to say that it started with the attack on the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England on 8th June 793. Among other things, this is well documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where English monks wrote their annual reports. The event is also named in several letters written by churchmen. It is clear that this attack shook the church institutions in England, and it has continued since then to be regarded as the event which initiated the Viking Age. However, there are reports of earlier Viking attacks on England. In the introduction, we have already described the killing of Beaduheard and his men in 789. In 792 King Offa, who ruled the English kingdom of Mercia from 757 to 796, organised coastal defences, almost certainly in response to increased Viking pirate activity. We must also consider that many raids were never recorded in writing.

This definition is useful to mark the beginning of the Viking period in England, but an event outside Scandinavia is not well suited to define a Scandinavian epoch. We should look within Scandinavia for other events: we shall consider technological innovations such as the development of sail and increased iron production from the 750s, combined with social and political factors. The same applies to the end of the period which in many cases is defined by the defeat of Harald Hardråde in England in 1066.

The population of Scandinavia gradually converted to Christianity over the course of the Viking Age, and it is reckoned that more or less all of Scandinavia, with the exception of the region of Uppsala in Sweden, had been converted by the middle of the 11th century. The change in religion cannot however be used to define the transition from the Viking Age to the Middle Ages. Many of the leading Vikings – Kings Olav Tryggvason, Canute the Great and Olav Haraldsson (St Olav), to name but a few – were more or less Christian.

In the Middle Ages the Scandinavian countries emerged as independent kingdoms, but the process of nation building was in progress both during and after the Viking Age, and was almost complete in Denmark long before 1100, in Norway sometime after 1100 and in Sweden not before 1200. So neither the change in religion nor the political development of the Nordic countries into statehood can be used to define the end of the Viking Age.

The arrival of the Vikings

787 (789). In this year Beorhtric took King Offa’s daughter Eadburh (as wife). And in his time there came for the first time three ships with Norsemen from Hordaland. And the bailiff rode to them to bid them appear in the king’s town, because he didn’t know who they were. So they killed him. These were the first ships of Danes that came to the English folk’s land.¹

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Peterborough manuscript)

The end of the period cannot be linked to any particular event or societal change, but to many different processes and events: the gradual cessation of plundering raids and invasions from Scandinavia; a break in the stream of immigration to the Islands in the West (Orkney, Shetland, Faeroes, the Hebrides and Iceland) and to England and France; the increasing power of the church over the everyday life of the people; and the increase of royal control by means of military power, law, trade and not least, worldly goods. Looking at all these elements together, we can say that the Viking Age as we understand it was over by the year 1100, though it can be argued that the Viking Age continued later in some places. In the 13th century, people could still be found worshipping the old Norse gods in some parts of Sweden. Caithness in Scotland and the Islands in the West were ruled by Norse earls and chieftains who continued summer plundering forays until the 14th century. However, we choose 1100 as the year when the Viking age ended, and this book will use a time frame of 750–1100 for the Viking Age.

What does ‘Viking’ mean?

The word ‘Viking’ immediately evokes a familiar image: warriors with helmets, shields and axes; traders sailing to England in their longships; or the adventurous settlers fearlessly crossing the sea to Iceland. But ‘Viking’ was an ambiguous description when used either by the Scandinavians themselves or by others. In France they were called Norsemen or Danes. In England they were all labelled as Danes or heathens. In the East they were referred to as Rus or Varangians, but in Muslim Spain they were called al-madjus (fire-raisers) or Norsemen. No distinction was made between Norwegians, Swedes and Danes such as we have today.

Only in Ireland, where the common expression heathens was also used, do we gradually find traces of a differentiation between Norwegian and Danish Vikings. The Norwegians were called Finn Gall and the Danes Dub Gall. Opinions differ about the origin of these terms, but Finn Gall can be interpreted as either ‘the white foreigners’ or ‘the old foreigners’ and Dub Gall as either ‘the dark foreigners’ or ‘the new foreigners’.

The expression ‘Viking’ was used at that time, but not as a description of a race of people. The word is found in sources in both England and Scandinavia, but there are several theories about the etymological origin of the word and what it really means, and no source has confirmed where it originated geographically.

‘Viking’ is found in contemporary sources such as runic inscriptions on stones, in skaldic lays, and in European narratives and chronicles. The first time the expression appears in a literary context is probably in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, which may date from the middle of the 8th century. The words wigendra/wigend and wigfrecan appear and are both interpreted as ‘warrior’.

The word ‘Viking’ as we know it appears for the first time in Anglo-Saxon sources. In The Exeter Book from the 9th century we find a reproduction of a poem, Widsith, which may be from the 6th or 7th century. A part of the poem refers to tribes or groups and chiefs who apparently are Scandinavian.

What were the Vikings called?

In what are now Germany and France the Vikings were called nordmanni, nortmanni or askomanni. In England they were described as dani and northman, and in Ireland as gall or lochlannach. In Spain they were called lordemaõ, madjus, al-madjus or al-magus. In Russia and Byzantium they went by the names of rus, væring, varæger or varjager. In Byzantium they were also called skytere.

Among them are Vikings (line 60) and Sami (line 80). The unknown author of the heroic poem describes a journey through Europe at the time of the tribal migrations in the 5th and 6th centuries:

I was with the Wenlas, Waernes and Wicingas

I was with the Gefthan, Winedas and Gefflegan

I was with the Angles, Swaefe and Aenanas

I was with the Saxons, Sycgans and Sweordweras.

‘Wicingas’ may be the name of a particular tribe, but it is more likely to be either a professional description, for example ‘sea warrior’, or a description of a place of origin, such as Viken, the land around the inlet of the Oslo Fjord.

When the word ‘Viking’ appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 878 (879) the meaning is more apparent. Here, it is probably an expression for ‘sea pirate’ or ‘plunderer’. We can deduce this because the Scandinavian warriors of the large army which was operating in England at the same time, ‘the Great Heathen Army’, are referred to as Danes. Had all Scandinavian warrior bands been called Vikings at that time, the chronicle would surely also have referred to the warriors in the army as Vikings.

Perhaps the best explanation of the meaning of the word comes from Scandinavian sources. The designation ‘Viking’ is found on many rune stones,² both in a masculine form (vikingr), which is translated as ‘sea-warrior’, and in a feminine form (viking) as a term for a military expedition. The most common use of the term on the rune stones is ‘to go on a Viking expedition’, but the word also appears sometimes as a man’s name, or as part of a name (Tóki Vikingr). It may then refer to his main occupation – Toki the Sea-Warrior.

‘Viking’ may at the same time have meant travelling out to acquire wealth. In this sense, it is almost synonymous with piracy. The saga writers in the Middle Ages used the term to refer to pirates and piracy. In his book, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum from c. 1070, the church historian Adam of Bremen uses the term as a Nordic word for sea-pirate, and this is the meaning which many of the authors of the sagas ascribe to it in the centuries following. It is obviously possible that saga writers who knew of writers such as Adam acquired the word and its definition from him.

As the expression was used both in and after the Viking Age as a term for sea pirates, we can suppose that this was a prevalent understanding of the word outside Scandinavia at that time. At any rate, it probably described a military type of event or character. If the rune stones are to be believed, a vikingr was someone who went viking, and that was no peaceful activity, ‘Viking’ is a good description for the people who sailed forth from Scandinavia hunting for booty and glory.

To sum up: The term ‘Viking’ seems to have its origin in the centuries before the Viking Age, as a description for a sea warrior or a member of a band of warriors. During the Viking Age itself the term seems to have acquired more negative connotations and to be synonymous more often with ‘pirate and plunderer’, even though the older sense of the word also continued in use. In the late Viking Age and the Middle Ages, the term became totally negative, a synonym for ‘evildoer’.

In modern times the expression has lost some of these overtones and become more neutral, with a wider meaning than previously. It refers to both a period of time – the Viking Age – and a group of people – the Vikings. Today the term is used to describe all Nordic residents, traders, settlers or warriors. That is how the term is used in this book.

This rune stone from Växjö in Sweden introduces us to a Viking named Toki: (T)oki, Toki vikingR, ræsti stæin æftiR Gunnar, sun Grims. Guð hialpi salu hans! (Tóki, Tóki Viking raised this stone in memory of Gunnar, son of Grim. May God help his soul!)

What does Viking mean to us?

The word Viking evokes thoughts of ancient heroes, hazardous expeditions and military glory. For many northern Europeans, it is part of their sense of identity. Why is this? The Viking has become a universal symbol of the Scandinavian peoples, used by football teams, businesses, organisations, the tourist industry and others. When they travel abroad, Scandinavians feel proud to be recognised as descendants of the Vikings. ‘Viking’ has become a global expression which others can use to categorise Scandinavians and their history. During the football World Cup in 1994, a local South American newspaper carried the front page headline: Vikings v. Aztecs 1-0 when reporting Norway’s match against Mexico; a war of civilisations, ancient heroes against ancient heroes. Norway v. Mexico 1-0, sounds fine to a Norwegian but doesn’t sell papers in Ecuador.

Modern English, French, Germans, Spaniards, Russians and Americans are major consumers of Viking history. Many are proud of having been associated with the Vikings as their victims or as their descendants. The Vikings are among history’s star celebrities.

On important occasions, the Viking is a symbol of unity and identity. Swedish football fans using the Viking helmet as their cultural symbol.

Why did the Vikings start raiding?

Contact between Scandinavia and the European continent was not new in the Viking Age, but had continued more or less unbroken since the Bronze Age. Many spectacular grave finds from the centuries before the Viking Age contain evidence of this contact. There are many indications that the contact was peaceful, and that its main purposes were trade and the support of dynastic links. So why did this contact change to violence in the 8th century? The Viking attacks coincide with several greater or lesser events and social changes, both in Scandinavia and on the continent. We shall consider the most important of these.

At the end of the 8th century, powerful Christian princes such as the French King Charlemagne and King Offa of Mercia in England had brought peace and prosperity to western Europe such as had not been seen since Roman times. Harbours, towns and church establishments stood unprotected along the coasts, and trade between the Christian countries flourished. They did make war with each other from time to time, but the church institutions and their possessions and personnel were mostly shielded from attack by a shared value system. Nobody seems to have feared invaders from the sea, for coastal defences had either been demolished or were non-existent in large areas of France and England.

The heathen Vikings respected none of the established values, such as regarding churches and monasteries as holy places, observing Sunday as a day of rest, and so on. That is why their raids were considered so shocking. The first Viking attacks were on defenceless churches and trading centres. Here they could find riches to carry away without particularly great risk. They were looking for church goods, luxury items, captives to ransom and slaves to sell. Only later did invasion and settlement become important.

One factor which is often quoted as a reason for the Viking expansion at the end of the 8th century is their level of technology, especially in ships and weapons. Marine technology is obviously an important prerequisite for voyages of plunder. The Viking ships were innovative and differed from many European ship types. They carried both oars and sail. They were slender and very flexible, which made them fast. They did not sit low in the water, and so were able to operate in shallow waterways. Tests on a copy of the Oseberg ship show that even when fully laden it had a draught of only 60 cm.

Many people suppose that the Vikings were innovative in the development of sail and ship-building skills. However, sailing ships had been in common use around the continent since Roman times and the rest of Europe was far ahead of Scandinavia in warship technology. But there were some innovations. The introduction of the keel along with the sail as supplement to oars, combined with a gradual development of lighter and more flexible hulls, enabled the Vikings to operate over much greater distances and cross bigger stretches of sea. These developments facilitated the Viking expansion, but they did not initiate it.

Watercolour by Tone Strenger showing a fragment of tapestry from the Viking Age, found on the island of Rolvsøy in Østfold, Norway.

Large amounts of Arab silver coins found their way to Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The silver may be one reason why the Vikings were interested in penetrating even further into Russia. These are some of the 6,000 or more Arab coins which have been found on Gotland.

There has also been an assumption that it was the Vikings’ weapons which made them capable of eventually challenging the armies of the established kingdoms in England and France, and that this was why they started their attacks. The question is whether the Vikings really had better and more advanced weapons than their adversaries.

We know that iron production increased greatly in Scandinavia in the 8th and 9th centuries, and that tools and equipment became more readily available. Weapon manufacture also increased considerably, and many more people now had access to weapons. Some contemporary Irish sources claim that the Vikings’ military success was due to their overwhelming military technology, and especially their use of chainmail, ‘hard, strong and durable’ swords and ‘well-nailed’ spears.

However, the Vikings did not generally have better weapons than their opponents. On the contrary, for example they preferred French sword blades to their own homemade ones, to such an extent that the French kings had to make a law forbidding the sale of weapons to the Scandinavians. Spears and bows were also in common use in Europe. On the other hand, the Vikings used axes as weapons, a practice which seems to have been less common outside Scandinavia, where axes were mainly regarded as a working tool.

Nor did the Vikings have better protection. In fact, leather body armour and padded tunics were much more common than chainmail, which was only available to the elite. There are also many descriptions of the Vikings fighting without any form of body armour at all, which must have made them more vulnerable than their enemy. So the Vikings were not better equipped than their opponents; in fact they generally had inferior weapons and equipment.

To sum up, we can say that the Vikings’ shipbuilding skills, combined with increased iron and weapons production, were basic requirements for them to be able to undertake their raids, but these factors cannot explain why they started raiding in the first place.

There is a common idea that population pressure in Scandinavia in the Viking Age forced parts of the population to emigrate. There were less than a million people in the whole of Scandinavia around the year 800, a slight increase in the population from the centuries before.

Archaeology from all over Scandinavia shows that new farming land was being cultivated and taken into use and old land abandoned throughout the whole of the Viking Age, as everywhere else. This obviously implied that people in marginal areas where new cultivation was impossible, such as around the fjords in the west of Norway, had to move elsewhere or emigrate. However, the population pressure was not enough to bring about a new mass migration.

Nor are there indications in Sweden and Denmark of any sudden increase in population as the cause of the first voyages of plunder. Later in the Viking Age we do however see a greater migration from Denmark to occupied regions of England and to Normandy. A comparatively small Swedish elite settled in trading centres along the Russian and Ukrainian rivers.

The Islands in the West were colonised by people from western Norway. Some scholars have therefore assumed that there was a surplus of population in that area, which made such emigration possible. This could be true to a certain extent, for there must have been enough people in western Norway for the villages and small settlements not to be abandoned. There is however no evidence of a population explosion which forced people to emigrate. Moreover, the colonisation of the Islands in the West only started many years after the start of the voyages of plunder. The settlements on Iceland and the other Islands in the West and later in England and France were more the result of the Viking raiders becoming aware of easily accessible land in these regions, than of a need to emigrate.

There is little evidence that scarcity of resources forced people to leave Scandinavia in the Viking Age. In fact, agriculture in the Viking Age produced surpluses. This freed parts of the population from agricultural labour, giving them time and opportunity to engage in trade and in voyages of plunder.

The opportunities for trade were probably among the most important reasons for the Scandinavian expansion, particularly for the Swedish Vikings. But can that explain the plundering? As mentioned, the 8th century was a time of stability and economic growth in western Europe. Demand was growing steadily, both for luxury goods such as amber, furs and walrus ivory, and for everyday goods such as hides, honey and down. Trade with Scandinavia was becoming more and more important for European countries.

The Northern peoples had been trading for centuries. What was new was that the demand for goods was leading them to travel further north and east looking for the raw materials. Enormous wealth and prestige could be won by those who could control the export of raw commodities or – even better – trading centres in and beyond Scandinavia.

In the course of the 8th century Swedish traders travelled into what is now Russia and settled along the Russian rivers. Here they demanded tax payments in the form of luxury goods which ended up in the western European markets. Around the same time, traders from the Middle East were travelling up the Dnieper, Volga and Don rivers. As a result of this, large numbers of Arab silver coins found their way to Scandinavia. This silver may be one of the reasons why the Vikings were interested to penetrate even further into Russia and Ukraine and set up, take over or establish themselves in trading centres there. The arrival of Arab silver in Scandinavia coincides with the start of Swedish Viking activity.

The numerous trading ships crossing the Baltic were tempting targets for pirates. Piracy was so profitable that it is easy to imagine the trend spreading into the North Sea area, where the trade between France and England had led to the growth of many large trading centres. This increased trade can be part of the explanation for one type of Viking raid: the early inter-Nordic pirate expeditions. The main targets of these were local traders and inhabitants of the settlements along the coasts of Scandinavia, and according to the sagas they were a widespread problem for local chieftains and petty kings throughout the whole Viking Age. But we have to find a different explanation for the major voyages of plunder against monasteries and ecclesiastical centres in western Europe.

At the end of the 8th century, political power in Scandinavia began to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. There are probably many reasons for that. Increased iron production led to more weapons in circulation, and to more warfare. Larger populations required more stable and durable political institutions. Control of the lucrative trading links and trading sites gave the chieftains and kings greater power and more wealth and status. Contact with European culture probably inspired many Nordic leaders to gather more wealth and greater power into their own hands. At the same time, the age-old cult of Odin was in decline and many disillusioned young men needed to find other ways of expressing themselves, just when the elite, who had access to resources in the form of ships and armed men, felt the need to operate in wider arenas. This may be an important cause of the attacks and the wave of plundering against Europe.

In Scandinavia it was common for men with a birthright to princely titles to fight for the right to the highest positions. The structure of society was such that there could be very many claimants to thrones at the same time. Powerful men surrounded themselves with many women, and all male issue from these relationships had theoretically equal rights of inheritance to the father’s land.

According to old Germanic tradition, the usual arrangement was for a kingdom to be divided and shared among all the sons, but this changed during the Viking Age as it became increasingly important to keep the kingdom together. The challenges were therefore many and bloody, and many men of high rank were forced into exile with their followers, often reappearing as leaders of Viking bands in France and England.

At a lower level of society, controls on behaviour were increasing, whether through the collective responsibility of a family for the actions of its members, the system of penalties and punishments set up in parliamentary assembly at the ting, or the concentration of power in the hands of chieftains and kings. This made it difficult for young men to earn themselves honour, renown and the consequent social advancement. Such honour was normally won by undertaking successful raids against neighbours and adjacent regions. As that gradually became more difficult, the hunt for honour may have pushed the Viking voyagers further abroad to find fame and fortune.

When royal power in Norway grew stronger and more assertive at the end of the 9th century, many chieftains refused to submit and decided instead to travel to England and Ireland and to the Islands in the West with their entire households. Many heirs to thrones earned themselves wealth and renown in exile prior to travelling back to the homeland to fight for power. Others tried instead to win kingdoms for themselves abroad. The strengthening of centralised political power in Scandinavia probably led to the increase in attacks on the Continent and on England and Ireland throughout the Viking Age, but this cannot fully explain why they started in the first place.

The Frankish king Louis I (Louis the Pious) had three heirs: Lothar, Louis II (Louis the German) and Charles the Bald. The strife that broke out between them over the inheritance has been seen as a possible trigger for the Viking raids. The Danish King Harald Klak, who was driven out of Denmark in 813, was one of Lothar’s vassals. He probably used his remaining power bases, including Vestfold in Norway, to encourage the Vikings from there to attack Lothar’s rivals. However, Lothar and Harald Klak lost control over the Vikings. The great wealth the Vikings brought back to Scandinavia stimulated further attacks. Soon, Viking bands were attacking all parts of France, including Lothar’s part. But this can only explain the escalation in the 9th century.

It has also been proposed that the Viking attacks on monasteries and ecclesiastical centres in the earliest part of the Viking Age were a political reaction against the development of Christian states on the continent, which threatened the Scandinavian system of small, non-Christian kingdoms.

At the end of the 8th century the Danish kings felt themselves under pressure from the expanding influence of the Christian French. In 782 the Franks forcibly baptised and beheaded 4,500 Saxon men in Verden in modern-day Germany and destroyed religious sanctuaries. News of the massacre and of the French treatment of non-Christians spread throughout the whole of Scandinavia. In the short term, this led to Nordic leaders refusing to enter conflict against the French. In the slightly longer term, however, it may have increased the ill-will against the Christian world and may have been one reason that several of the first Viking raids were directed against high-profile Christian targets in Europe.

In 798 the French discussed the possibilities of converting the Danes to Christianity. They had founded a mission station just south of the Danish border, and two years later Charlemagne proposed an alliance with the kings in England, with the specific intention of an invasion of Denmark and subsequent forced conversion, on the model of what had been done in Saxony. The Danes must obviously have felt this provocative.

The question is whether the wave of Viking raids along the coasts of Friesland, France and England at this time were a reaction to this threat, or whether it was the raids that provoked the plan to forcibly convert the Danes. We cannot give a conclusive answer to that question, but one thing is sure: there was no Frankish invasion of Jutland. Instead the Franks consolidated their kingdom throughout the constant waves of Viking plundering.

Looking at the sources for the 9th century, there is nothing to indicate that Christian institutions were attacked specifically because they were Christian. In 858 the Vikings came to the monastery at St Germain-des-Prés in France. Most of the monks had fled with all the valuables. The Vikings killed a couple of the monks’ servants and set fire to a building before they left. The monks who were left behind extinguished the fire and set about rebuilding. The fact that the Vikings left monks living indicates that Christianity in itself was not their main target.

So it is not possible to show a single cause for the start of the Viking attacks. The Viking raids have to be seen as the result of a variety of factors. There was a slight population surplus in Scandinavia, freed from work on the land, and technical innovations in shipbuilding combined with increased iron extraction enabled the people of the North to cover greater distances faster. Internal conflicts in Scandinavia forced out parts of the warrior aristocracy, who then had to find something else to do. At the same time the pressure on Scandinavia from Christian kingdoms increased. Some chose to meet this pressure with counter-attack. The gradually spreading piracy and the growing trade with Europe revealed that the countries generally lacked coastal defences and that many well-established religious centres were on remote sites, difficult to travel to by land but readily accessible from the sea. This made them tempting targets.

But perhaps the most important reason for the start of the attacks was that from the Vikings’ point of view, attacks on such targets were ideologically unproblematic. So the main explanation is cultural. The people of the Northern lands had a different view of the world to the people in Christian Europe. Such raids were a means for the participants to increase their glory and wealth and achieve greater status at home.

In the next section we shall look more closely at the precise cultural traits which meant that Scandinavian warriors had no scruples about attacking and plundering defenceless monasteries and trading centres.

Viking society

The Vikings lived in a stratified agricultural society where membership of a family, bonds of friendship and control of land were the most important determinants of status and rights. A religion largely based on war and a focus on strength and skill in combat set the framework for individual achievement.

The different social layers within the population were perceived as ordained by the gods. This did not however exclude the possibility of a degree of social mobility. A person could be raised to a higher social level, or could sink to a lower one. At the top of Viking society were the kings, earls and chieftains. In the internal order of rank among these, the kings and earls sat highest and the chieftains were lowest. Chieftains could advance to become earls and even further to become kings if their family relationships allowed. This group were the absolute rulers of society, and they were admired and credited with qualities which others did not have. Those who could claim princely or divine kinship were considered to have a number of inborn qualities. Unusually high intelligence was one such quality. They were also considered to be better qualified to lead religious ceremonies. It was also important for a leader to be generous, to have a capacity for strategic thinking and to be able to show ruthlessness towards his enemies. The prince also needed to be able to show outward qualities such as a strong body and beautiful clothes if he was to be well thought of and considered a worthy leader. A good reputation led to popular support. Being of good family was a sort of guarantee that one had a better chance of good luck than ordinary men. ‘Good luck’ here refers to a person’s talent for making the right choices and taking important decisions, what today we might describe as being favoured by fortune. This was seen as decisive in whether one would succeed as a leader. Prosperity in times of peace and victory in war confirmed that the gods were protecting the leader and that his capacity for good luck had stood the test.

A leader could however lose his reputation for ‘good luck’ if he misused the talent or had bad luck. If this happened the followers, whether they were an entire state or a warring band of brothers, had no other solution than to choose another leader who could restore the relationship with the gods. In extreme circumstances, such as a famine, the leader himself could be killed as an offering in an attempt to restore the balance. The poem Ynglingatal tells that the Swedes once did this with their king.

Generosity was also a central trait of a worthy leader. The princes were obliged to distribute their wealth in gifts and by other means. From a political point of view the most important ‘gift’ was a great feast with food and drink, provided by the prince for his supporters. Gifts such as weapons, gold rings, clothes and sometimes ownership of land were also given. Such gifts obliged the recipient to give the donor political or military support, or preferably both, and thus they forged a bond of friendship. If the prince broke his obligations to provide a feast or gifts, or if he was unable to hold a feast on a large enough scale, the bond of friendship was broken. His supporters were then no longer obliged to maintain their bonds of loyalty to the prince but could support other princely candidates who were seeking to strengthen their position by giving gifts and feasts. Besides the family bonds, friendship appears to have been the most important social cement in the Viking Age.

A member of the royal guard and an enlisted soldier from c. 1100. The royal guardsman, a professional soldier, is sitting on the horse. The simply equipped foot soldier is a landless farmer conscripted in time of war. The cavalryman is based on a picture from the Baldishol tapestry, early 12th century. The foot soldier carries the three basic weapons – shield, axe and spear – as required by law.

Norway in the Viking Age

Around the year 800 there was a more or less homogeneous population with a common language inhabiting the coastal areas from Båhuslen to as far north as Malangen in Troms. The territory was divided into a range of smaller kingdoms, lands, counties and legal districts such as Ringerike (‘Kingdom of Ring’), Oppland (‘The Highlands’), Hedmark (‘The Moorlands’), Trøndelag (‘The Law Area of the Trønder) and so on. These geographical areas comprised several districts with a number of smaller townships which had gathered together under a prince or under a shared legal system. These small kingdoms were often governed by a king. The power of the king could vary greatly between regions. There were probably about twenty petty kings in various parts of the country in the year 800. In Trøndelag things developed slightly differently. Here the kings disappeared around 800 and were replaced by a sort of republic or law-district – an area with shared laws.

We know little about the political situation in Norway prior to the Viking Age. One of the written sources is the Greek geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria who around 150 AD mentioned a Germanic race whom he calls the chaldenoi. This is the same group of people who were later known as the people from heiðnir (Hedmark). The writer of the history of the Goths, Jordanes, names a number of Scandinavian tribes in the middle of the 6th century. Some of these have been identified as Norwegian: håløyger, romerikinger, ranrikinger, greener, egder, adelryger, raumer and horder, to name a few. On the other hand we do know the names of the most important kings in Norway during the Viking Age.

Under the princes were the independent farmers who were the core of old Norse society. The entire Norse world view has its base in the farm collective. Even the gods were idealised farmers, with extensive lands and numerous cattle and slaves. To be recognised as a farmer with full rights, you probably had to demonstrate at least four generations’ cultivation of the farm. The farmers grew all types of produce, but corn and cattle were especially important. Between ploughing and harvest times, farmers who had the means and opportunity could themselves organise voyages of plunder and/or trade. In the late Viking Age and the Middle Ages, the farmers made up the main part of the military mobilisations.

The farmers were divided into various ranks. The hauld had the highest status, sometimes surpassing that of a chieftain. The most powerful hauld in Norway around the year 1000, Erling Skjalgsson, even challenged the king in power. To be considered a hauld, your family must have been on a farm for six generations or more.

Haulds and other big farmers could administer enormous assets. These could be rented out to tenant farmers, who owned no land of their own and who stood lower on the social scale, or they could entrust management to their own slaves. However, most farmers owned less land, which they worked themselves with help from slaves and family members. The farmers were responsible for protecting those who lived on the farm. Moreover, they were important participants and supporters of the chiefs in parliamentary assemblies at the tings, and it was from the ranks of the farmers that young men were recruited into the chiefs’ armed followers.

Lowest in rank were the slaves. The Vikings captured a significant number of people whom they sold as slaves, both at home and abroad. There was a very long tradition of slave ownership in Scandinavia, and by the Viking Age it was a well-developed institution of great importance to the community. Most of the small farmers did not have slaves to work their land. A medium-sized farm might have up to three slaves, and bigger farms could have many more.

The slaves were a supplement to the work force and could free parts of the population for other pursuits, such as warfare and trade. Not without reason, the slave trade was one of the most important and lucrative lines of business for many Vikings. Somewhere between 20 and 30 per cent of the population of Scandinavia in the Viking Age were slaves, varying slightly in different places and times. This was a significant proportion, and to hold them in check, society developed a system of very harsh punishments for rebellion.

Slaves could be granted their freedom. Freed slaves formed a class between freemen and slaves, with strictly defined rights and strong obligations towards whoever had granted them freedom. Many farms made use of freed slaves and their descendants, and of landless peasants without political rights. Slaves and freed slaves could in extreme circumstances be armed to take part in the protection of their owner’s or liberator’s home and possessions. There are examples of a man winning his freedom by distinguished service in the defence of his master, for courage and loyalty were highly valued by the Vikings.

Scandinavia in the Viking Age

Norway, Sweden and Denmark were the Viking heartlands, but their geologies and climates presented different challenges to the inhabitants. Norway, with its long coastline, looked west towards the North Sea and north towards the Arctic, whereas the people of Sweden looked east across the Baltic. Denmark directed its attention south and west.

Sweden in the Viking Age

Around 500 AD the Gothic historian Jordanes wrote that the area which comprises modern-day Sweden was inhabited by many different tribes. At around the same time another historian, Procopius, recorded that Sweden consisted of 13 tribes, each with its king. The Scandinavian sources also tell of many kings in Sweden during the tribal migrations and the early Viking Age. The Yngling sagas at the start of Snorre’s historical account of the Norse kings, relates that a king called Ingjald killed six minor kings in Uppland and created a single kingdom for himself there – probably some time before the start of the Viking Age. The many petty kingdoms were gradually reduced to two or three larger entities, and in the Viking Age Sweden consisted of two ‘peoples’, the Svea and a Gothic tribe known as the Geats. These two peoples were physically separated from each other by the big Lake Vättern and the Kolmården and Tiveden forests, which formed a natural boundary.

The Svea lived along Sweden’s east coast and in the region around the Mälaren Fjord. Their political and religious centre was Old Uppsala (‘The High Halls’) in Uppland. According to Adam of Bremen, the temple there contained magnificent idols of the Norse gods. In the 9th century the lands of Södermanland, Blekinge and Möre together with the islands of Öland and Gotland also belonged to the Svea. Estland (modern Estonia), on the other side of the Baltic, was probably also under the influence of the Svea at that time.

The Geats dwelt on the large plains of southern Sweden. Götaland was divided into two large regions, East Götland and West Götland. The peoples of Svealand and Götland were very different. They had different ways of measuring land, crops and money, and royal power was differently organised.

An example of how separate the regions were is that the first route through the forests dividing them was established at the end of the 12th century. At that time it took a month to travel the land route from the trading town of Birka in the north to Skåne in the south. The route went through the principal town of Skara in West Götland, through East Götland and Södertälje. In winter, considerable time could be saved by crossing the frozen lakes. However, the journey could be made by boat along the coast in five days, from which we must assume that this was the usual way to travel between the regions.

Norway has a very extensive coastline stretching 2,532 kilometres, excluding the fjords. A large mountain range follows the coast from Lindesnes to North Cape, dividing south-eastern Norway from western Norway. There were only a few places where the mountains could be crossed in summer. The centres of population lay mainly along the coast, and the most important means of communication between them was by boat. Long coastal fjords penetrate into the land. Most of the fertile land is concentrated in Østland in the south-east, round Lake Mjøsa and along the internal valleys Østerdal and Gudbrandsdal up towards Trondheim, but there is a thin strip of fertile land along the coast and the fjords. Because of the Gulf Stream coming in from the Atlantic Ocean, the west coast and the fjords mostly remain ice-free, meaning that travel along the coast is possible all year round.

At the start of the Viking Age, areas of human settlement in Sweden were few but large.⁵ In the Viking Age, modern-day Sweden was mostly covered by dense, impenetrable forests. These separated the centres of population in Uppland, around Uppsala, from the Götalands in the south with their power centres on either side of Lake Vättern. North of Uppland, dense forest and huge bogs formed an almost impenetrable barrier against the more sparsely populated areas in Jämtland, Medelpad and Hälsingland. Trade and communication here was also mainly by ship, both along the coast and up the big rivers.

The religious and political capital of Svealand was Uppsala in Uppland. Carl Johan Billmark’s 1858 lithograph of the centre of worship at Uppsala shows the old church from the Middle Ages and the ancient mounds.

The situation in Denmark was quite different.⁶ Here there was a more homogeneous society, politically and geographically consisting of the Jutland Peninsula, the islands of Fyn and Sjæland and