The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

when

Norsemen The Norsemen (or Northmen) were a cultural group in the Early Middle Ages, originating among speakers of Old Norse in Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a Viking expansion, large-scale expansion in all direc ...

known as

Vikings Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

but also to any place significantly settled by

Scandinavians Scandinavia is a subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer to the Scand ...

during the period. Although few of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age were Vikings in the sense of being engaged in piracy, they are often referred to as ''Vikings'' as well as ''Norsemen''.

Voyaging by sea from their homelands in

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, the Norse people settled in the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

, and the Baltic coast and along the

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

and

Volga trade route In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea and the Sasanian Empire, via the Volga River. The Rus' (people), Rus used this route to trade with Muslim history#The Umayyad Calipha ...

s in eastern Europe, where they were also known as

Varangians The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

settled in Newfoundland, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. The Norse-Gaels,

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

Rus' people The Rus, also known as Russes, were a people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between t ...

, Faroese, and

Icelanders Icelanders () are an ethnic group and nation who are native to the island country of Iceland. They speak Icelandic, a North Germanic language. Icelanders established the country of Iceland in mid 930 CE when the (parliament) met for th ...

emerged from these Norse colonies. The Vikings founded several kingdoms and earldoms in Europe: the

Kingdom of the Isles The Kingdom of the Isles, also known as Sodor, was a Norse–Gaelic kingdom comprising the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and the islands of the Clyde from the 9th to the 13th centuries. The islands were known in Old Norse as the , or "Southern I ...

(''Suðreyjar''),

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

(''Norðreyjar''),

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

(''Jórvík'') and the

Danelaw The Danelaw (, ; ; ) was the part of History of Anglo-Saxon England, England between the late ninth century and the Norman Conquest under Anglo-Saxon rule in which Danes (tribe), Danish laws applied. The Danelaw originated in the conquest and oc ...

(''Danalǫg''),

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

(''Dyflin''),

, and

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

(''

Garðaríki (anglicized Gardariki or Gardarike) or was the Old Norse term used in the Middle Ages for the lands of Rus'_people, Rus'. According to ''Göngu-Hrólfs saga'', the name (also used as a name for Novgorod Land, Novgorodian Rus') was synonymous ...

''). The Norse homelands were also unified into larger kingdoms during the Viking Age, and the short-lived

North Sea Empire The North Sea Empire, also known as the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire, was the personal union of the kingdoms of England, Denmark and Norway for most of the period between 1013 and 1042 towards the end of the Viking Age. This ephemeral Norse-ruled ...

included large swathes of Scandinavia and Britain. In 1021, the Vikings achieved the feat of reaching North America—the date of which was not determined until a millennium later. Several factors drove this expansion. The Vikings were drawn by the growth of wealthy towns and monasteries overseas and weak kingdoms. They may also have been pushed to leave their homeland by overpopulation, lack of good farmland, and political strife arising from the

unification of Norway The Unification of Norway ( Norwegian Bokmål: ''Rikssamlingen'') is the process by which Norway merged from several petty kingdoms into a single kingdom, predecessor to the modern Kingdom of Norway. History King Harald Fairhair is the mo ...

. The aggressive expansion of the

Carolingian Empire The Carolingian Empire (800–887) was a Franks, Frankish-dominated empire in Western and Central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as List of Frankish kings, kings of the Franks since ...

and forced conversion of the neighbouring Saxons to Christianity may also have been a factor.Simek, Rudolf (2005) "The Emergence of the Viking Age: Circumstances and Conditions", "The Vikings first Europeans VIII – XI century – The New Discoveries of Archaeology", other, pp. 24–25 Sailing innovations had allowed the Vikings to sail farther and longer to begin with. Information about the Viking Age is drawn largely from

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an Artifact (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...

s written by those the Vikings encountered, as well as archaeology, supplemented with

secondary source In Scholarly method, scholarship, a secondary sourcePrimary, secondary and tertiar ...

s such as the

Icelandic Sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

Context

In England, the Viking attack of 8 June 793 that destroyed the

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th centu ...

, a centre of learning on an island off the north-east coast of England in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, is regarded as the beginning of the Viking Age.Swanton, Michael (1998). ''The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle''. Psychology Press. . p. 57, n. 15.

Judith Jesch Judith Jesch (born 1954) is a British scholar of Old Norse language and literature, runology, and the Viking Age. She is Professor of Viking Age Studies at the University of Nottingham. Jesch is chair of the international Runic Advisory Group an ...

has argued that the start of the Viking Age can be pushed back to 700–750, as it was unlikely that the Lindisfarne attack was the first attack, and given archeological evidence that suggests contacts between

and the British isles earlier in the century. The earliest raids were most likely small in scale, but expanded in scale during the 9th century. In the Lindisfarne attack, monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown, or carried away as

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

s along with the church treasures, giving rise to the traditional (but unattested) prayer—', "Free us from the fury of the Northmen, Lord." Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier (although due to a scribal error the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

'' dates this event to 787 rather than 789), but that incursion may have been a trading expedition that went wrong rather than a piratical raid. Lindisfarne was different. The Viking devastation of

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

's Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar

Alcuin of York Alcuin of York (; ; 735 – 19 May 804), also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin, was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York. At the invita ...

, who wrote: "Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared". Vikings were portrayed as wholly violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, c. 1300, mentions Viking attacks on the people of East Anglia wherein they are described as "wolves among sheep". The first challenges to the many negative depictions of Vikings in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached only a small readership there, while linguists traced the Viking Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries and grammars of the Old Icelandic language appeared, enabling more Victorian scholars to read the primary texts of the Icelandic Sagas. In Scandinavia, the 17th-century Danish scholars

Thomas Bartholin Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

and

Ole Worm Ole Worm (13 May 1588 – 31 August 1654), who often went by the Latinized form of his name Olaus Wormius, was a Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary. He was a professor at the University of Copenhagen where he taught Greek, Latin ...

and Swedish scholar

Olaus Rudbeck Olaus Rudbeck (also known as Olof Rudbeck the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, and occasionally with the surname Latinized as ''Olaus Rudbeckius'') (13 September 1630 – 12 December 1702) was a Swedish scientist and writer, professor ...

were the first to use

runic inscriptions A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of E ...

and Icelandic Sagas as primary historical sources. During the

Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

and Nordic Renaissance, historians such as the Icelandic-Norwegian Thormodus Torfæus, Danish-Norwegian

Ludvig Holberg Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (3 December 1684 – 28 January 1754) was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Denmark–Norway, Dano–Norwegian dual monarchy. He was infl ...

, and Swedish

Olof von Dalin Olof von Dalin (29 August 1708 – 12 August 1763) was a Swedish nobleman, poet, historian and courtier. He was an influential literary figure of the Swedish Enlightenment. Background Olof Dalin was born in the parish of Vinberg in Hallan ...

developed a more "rational" and "pragmatic" approach to historical scholarship. By the latter half of the 18th century, while the

Icelandic saga The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

s were still used as important historical sources, the Viking Age had again come to be regarded as a barbaric and uncivilised period in the history of the Nordic countries. Scholars outside Scandinavia did not begin to extensively reassess the achievements of the Vikings until the 1890s, recognising their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.

Background

Faroe stamp sheet 406-408 viking voyages

The Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were mainly pagans from the same area as present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They also settled in the

, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland (

Caithness Caithness (; ; ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Scotland. There are two towns, being Wick, Caithness, Wick, which was the county town, and Thurso. The count ...

, the

Hebrides The Hebrides ( ; , ; ) are the largest archipelago in the United Kingdom, off the west coast of the Scotland, Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Ou ...

and the

Northern Isles The Northern Isles (; ; ) are a chain (or archipelago) of Island, islands of Scotland, located off the north coast of the Scottish mainland. The climate is cool and temperate and highly influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main is ...

), Greenland, and Canada. Their

North Germanic language The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

, became the precursor to present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a strong central authority appears to have been established in

Jutland Jutland (; , ''Jyske Halvø'' or ''Cimbriske Halvø''; , ''Kimbrische Halbinsel'' or ''Jütische Halbinsel'') is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It ...

, and the Danes were beginning to look beyond their own territory for land, trade, and plunder. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries. Communities remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in lowland Denmark. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway. The sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. In the eighth century, Scandinavians began to build ships of war and send them on raiding expeditions which started the Viking Age. The

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

rovers were traders, colonisers, explorers, and plunderers who were notorious in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and other places in Europe for being brutal.

Probable causes

Many theories are posited for the cause of the Viking invasions; the will to explore likely played a major role. At the time, England, Wales, and Ireland were vulnerable to attack, being divided into many different warring kingdoms in a state of internal disarray, while the Franks were well defended. Overpopulation, especially near the

Scandes The Scandinavian Mountains or the Scandes is a mountain range that runs through the Scandinavian Peninsula. The western sides of the mountains drop precipitously into the North Sea and Norwegian Sea, forming the fjords of Norway, whereas to the ...

, was a possible reason, although some disagree with this theory. Technological advances like the use of iron and a shortage of women due to selective

female infanticide Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. Female infanticide is prevalent in several nations around the world. It has been argued that the low status in which women are viewed in patriarchal societies creates a bias ...

also likely had an impact. Tensions caused by Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia, and their subsequent attacks upon the Viking peoples, may have also played a role in Viking pillaging.

Harald I of Norway Harald Fairhair (; – ) was a Norwegian king. According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he reigned from 872 to 930 and was the first King of Norway. Supposedly, two of his sons, Eric Bl ...

("Harald Fairhair") had united Norway around this time and displaced many peoples. As a result, these people sought for new bases to launch counter-raids against Harald. Viking Expansion

Debate among scholars is ongoing as to why the Scandinavians began to expand from the eighth through 11th centuries. Various factors have been highlighted: demographic, economic, ideological, political, technological, and environmental models.

Demographic models

Barrett considers that prior scholarship having examined causes of the Viking Age in terms of demographic determinism, the resulting explanations have generated a "wide variety of possible models". While admitting that Scandinavia did share in the general European population and settlement expansion at the end of the first millennium, he dismisses 'population pressure' as a realistic cause of the Viking Age. Bagge alludes to the evidence of demographic growth at the time, manifested in an increase of new settlements, but he declares that a warlike people do not require population pressure to resort to plundering abroad. He grants that although population increase was a factor in this expansion, it was not the incentive for such expeditions. According to Ferguson, the proliferation of the use of iron in Scandinavia at the time increased agricultural yields, allowing for demographic growth that strained the limited capacity of the land. As a result, many Scandinavians found themselves with no property and no status. To remedy this, these landless men took to piracy to obtain material wealth. The population continued to grow, and the pirates looked further and further beyond the borders of the Baltic, and eventually into all of Europe. Historian Anders Winroth has also challenged the "overpopulation" thesis, arguing that scholars are "simply repeating an ancient cliché that has no basis in fact."

Economic model

The economic model states that the Viking Age was the result of growing urbanism and trade throughout mainland Europe. As the Islamic world grew, so did its trade routes, and the wealth which moved along them was pushed further and further north. In Western Europe, proto-urban centres such as those with names ending in ''wich'', the so-called

-wich town A "-''wich'' town" is a settlement in Anglo-Saxon England characterised by extensive artisanal activity and tradean " emporium". The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon suffix , signifying "a dwelling or fortified place". Such settlements were u ...

s of

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or early medieval England covers the period from the end of Roman Empire, Roman imperial rule in Roman Britain, Britain in the 5th century until the Norman Conquest in 1066. Compared to modern England, the territory of the ...

, began to boom during the prosperous era known as the "Long Eighth Century". The Scandinavians, like many other Europeans, were drawn to these wealthier "urban" centres, which soon became frequent targets of Viking raids. The connection of the Scandinavians to larger and richer trade networks lured the Vikings into Western Europe, and soon the rest of Europe and parts of the Middle East. In England, hoards of Viking silver, such as the

Cuerdale Hoard The Cuerdale Hoard is a hoard of more than 8,600 items, including silver coins, English and Carolingian jewellery, hacksilver and ingots. It was discovered on 15 May 1840 on the southern bank of a bend of the River Ribble, in an area called ...

and the Vale of York Hoard, offer insight into this phenomenon. Barrett rejects this model, arguing that the earliest recorded Viking raids were in Western Norway and northern Britain, which were not highly economically integrated areas. He proposes a version of the economic model that points to new economic incentives stemming from a "bulge" in the population of young Scandinavian men, impelling them to engage in maritime activity due to limited economic alternatives.

Ideological model

This era coincided with the

Medieval Warm Period The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that lasted from about to about . Climate proxy records show peak warmth occu ...

(800–1300) and stopped with the start of the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Mat ...

(about 1250–1850). The start of the Viking Age, with the sack of Lindisfarne, also coincided with

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

Saxon Wars The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the thirty-three years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of tribesmen was defeated. In all, 18 campaigns were fou ...

, or Christian wars with pagans in

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

. Bruno Dumézil theorises that the Viking attacks may have been in response to the spread of Christianity among pagan peoples.Bruno Dumézil, master of Conference at Paris X–Nanterre, Normalien, aggregated history, author of conversion and freedom in the barbarian kingdoms. 5th – 8th centuries (Fayard, 2005)"Franques Royal Annals" cited in Sawyer, Peter (2001) ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings''. . p. 20Decaux, Alain and Castelot, André (1981) ''Dictionnaire d'histoire de France''. Perrin. . pp. 184–185Boyer, R. (2008) ''Les Vikings: histoire, mythes, dictionnaire''. R. Laffont. . p. 96 Because of the penetration of Christianity in Scandinavia, serious conflict divided Norway for almost a century.

Political model

The first of two main components to the political model is the external "pull" factor, which suggests that the weak political bodies of Britain and Western Europe made for an attractive target for Viking raiders. The reasons for these weaknesses vary, but generally can be simplified into decentralised polities, or religious sites. As a result, Viking raiders found it easy to sack and then retreat from these areas which were thus frequently raided. The second case is the internal "push" factor, which coincides with a period just before the Viking Age in which Scandinavia was undergoing a mass centralisation of power in the modern-day countries of Denmark, Sweden, and especially Norway. This centralisation of power forced hundreds of chieftains from their lands, which were slowly being appropriated by the kings and dynasties that began to emerge. As a result, many of these chiefs sought refuge elsewhere, and began harrying the coasts of the British Isles and Western Europe. Anders Winroth argues that purposeful choices by warlords "propelled the Viking Age movement of people from Scandinavia." ;Technological model: This model suggests that the Viking Age occurred as a result of technological innovations that allowed the Vikings to go on their raids in the first place. There is no doubt that piracy existed in the Baltic before the Viking Age, but developments in sailing technology and practice made it possible for early Viking raiders to attack lands farther away. Among these developments are included the use of larger sails, tacking practices, and 24-hour sailing. Anders Winroth writes, "If early medieval Scandinavians had not become exquisite shipwrights, there would have been no Vikings and no Viking Age." These models constitute much of what is known about the motivations for and the causes of the Viking Age. In all likelihood, the beginning of this age was the result of some combination of the aforementioned hypotheses. The Viking colonisation of islands in the North Atlantic has in part been attributed to a period of favourable climate (the Medieval Climactic Optimum), as the weather was relatively stable and predictable, with calm seas.

Sea ice Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less density, dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world' ...

was rare, harvests were typically strong, and fishing conditions were good.

Overview

The earliest date given for the coming of Vikings to England is 789 during the reign of King

Beorhtric of Wessex Beorhtric (meaning "magnificent ruler"; also spelled Brihtric) (died 802) was the List of monarchs of Wessex, King of Wessex from 786 to 802, succeeding Cynewulf of Wessex, Cynewulf. During his rule, however, his wife and father-in-law had most ...

. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' three Norwegian boats from

Hordaland Hordaland () was a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark, and Rogaland counties. Hordaland was the third largest county, after Akershus and Oslo, by population. The county government was the Hordaland County Munici ...

(Old Norse: ''Hǫrðalandi'') landed at the

Isle of Portland The Isle of Portland is a tied island, long by wide, in the English Channel. The southern tip, Portland Bill, lies south of the resort of Weymouth, Dorset, Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A barrier ...

off the coast of Dorset. They apparently were mistaken for merchants by a royal official, Beaduhard, a king's reeve who attempted to force them to come to the king's manor, whereupon they killed the reeve and his men. The beginning of the Viking Age in the

is often set at 793. It was recorded in the ''Anglo–Saxon Chronicle'' that the Northmen raided the important island monastery of

(the generally accepted date is actually 8 June, not January): In 794, according to the ''

Annals of Ulster The ''Annals of Ulster'' () are annals of History of Ireland, medieval Ireland. The entries span the years from 431 AD to 1540 AD. The entries up to 1489 AD were compiled in the late 15th century by the scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luin� ...

'', a serious attack was made on Lindisfarne's mother-house of

Iona Iona (; , sometimes simply ''Ì'') is an island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaeli ...

, which was followed in 795 by raids upon the northern coast of Ireland. From bases there, the Norsemen attacked Iona again in 802, causing great slaughter amongst the ''

Céli Dé The Culdees (; ) were members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England in the Middle Ages. Appearing first in Ireland and then in Scotland, subsequently attached to cathedral or collegiate ...

'' Brethren, and burning the abbey to the ground. The Vikings primarily targeted Ireland until 830, as England and the Carolingian Empire were able to fight the Vikings off. However, after , the Vikings had considerable success against England, the Carolingian Empire, and other parts of Western Europe. After 830, the Vikings exploited disunity within the Carolingian Empire, as well as pitting the English kingdoms against each other. Vikings-Voyages

The Kingdom of the

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

under Charlemagne was particularly devastated by these raiders, who could sail up the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

with near impunity. Near the end of Charlemagne's reign (and throughout the reigns of his sons and grandsons), a string of Norse raids began, culminating in a gradual Scandinavian conquest and settlement of the region now known as

in 911. Frankish King

Charles the Simple Charles III (17 September 879 – 7 October 929), called the Simple or the Straightforward (from the Latin ''Carolus Simplex''), was the king of West Francia from 898 until 922 and the king of Lotharingia from 911 until 919–923. He was a memb ...

granted the Duchy of Normandy to Viking warleader

Rollo Rollo (, ''Rolloun''; ; ; – 933), also known with his epithet, Rollo "the Walker", was a Viking who, as Count of Rouen, became the first ruler of Normandy, a region in today's northern France. He was prominent among the Vikings who Siege o ...

(a chieftain of disputed Norwegian or Danish origins) in order to stave off attacks by other Vikings. Charles gave Rollo the title of duke. In return, Rollo swore

fealty An oath of fealty, from the Latin (faithfulness), is a pledge of allegiance of one person to another. Definition In medieval Europe, the swearing of fealty took the form of an oath made by a vassal, or subordinate, to his lord. "Fealty" also r ...

to Charles, converted to Christianity, and undertook to defend the northern region of France against the incursions of other Viking groups. Several generations later, the Norman descendants of these Viking settlers not only identified themselves as Norman, but also carried the

Norman language Norman or Norman French (, , Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a ''Langues d'oïl, langue d'oïl'' spoken in the historical region, historical and Cultural area, cultural region of Normandy. The name "Norman French" is sometimes also used to des ...

(either a French dialect or a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon), and their Norman culture, into England in 1066. With the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, they became the ruling aristocracy of Anglo–Saxon England. The clinker-built

longship Longships, a type of specialised Viking ship, Scandinavian warships, have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by th ...

s used by the Scandinavians were uniquely suited to both deep and shallow waters. They extended the reach of Norse raiders, traders, and settlers along coastlines and along the major river valleys of north-western Europe.

Rurik Rurik (also spelled Rorik, Riurik or Ryurik; ; ; died 879) was a Varangians, Varangian chieftain of the Rus' people, Rus' who, according to tradition, was invited to reign in Veliky Novgorod, Novgorod in the year 862. The ''Primary Chronicle' ...

also expanded to the east, and in 859 became ruler either by conquest or invitation by local people of the city of

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

(which means "new city") on the

Volkhov River The Volkhov ( ; ; ) is a river in Novgorodsky District, Novgorodsky and Chudovsky Districts of Novgorod Oblast and Kirishsky District, Kirishsky and Volkhovsky Districts of Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia. The Volkhov River, Volkhov, whi ...

. His successors moved further, founding the early East Slavic state of

with the capital in

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

. This persisted until 1240, when the Mongols invaded Kievan Rus'. Other Norse people continued south to the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

and then on to

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

. The eastern connections of these "

Varangians The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

Byzantine silk Byzantine silk is silk woven in the Byzantine Empire (Byzantium) from about the fourth century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Byzantine capital of Constantinople was the first significant silk-weaving center in Europe. Silk was one ...

, a

cowrie shell Cowrie or cowry () is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails in the family Cypraeidae. Cowrie shells have held cultural, economic, and ornamental significance in various cultures. The cowrie was the shell most widely used wo ...

from the Red Sea, and even coins from

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

, to Viking York. In 884, an army of Danish Vikings was defeated at the Battle of Norditi (also called the Battle of Hilgenried Bay) on the Germanic

coast by a Frisian army under Archbishop

Rimbert Saint Rimbert (or Rembert) (''c.'' 830 - 11 June 888 in Bremen) was archbishop of Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, Hamburg-Bremen, in the northern part of the East Francia, Kingdom of East Frankia from 865 until his death in 888. He most famously wr ...

of Bremen-Hamburg, which precipitated the complete and permanent withdrawal of the Vikings from

East Frisia East Frisia () or East Friesland (; ; ; ) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisia (peninsula), East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia and to the ...

. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Saxons and Slavs began to use trained mobile cavalry successfully against Viking foot soldiers, making it hard for Viking invaders to fight inland. In Scandinavia, the Viking Age is considered by some scholars to have ended with the establishment of royal authority and the establishment of Christianity as the dominant religion. Scholars have proposed different end dates for the Viking Age, but many argue it ended in the 11th century. The year 1000 is sometimes used, as that was the year in which Iceland converted to Christianity, marking the conversion of all of Scandinavia to Christianity. The death of Harthacnut, the Danish King of England, in 1042 has also been used as an end date. History does not often allow such clear-cut separation between arbitrary "ages", and it is not easy to pin down a single date that applies to all the Viking world. The Viking Age was not a "monolithic chronological period" across three or four hundred years, but was characterised by various distinct phases of Viking activity. It is unlikely that the Viking Age could be so neatly assigned a terminal event. The end of the Viking era in Norway is marked by the

Battle of Stiklestad The Battle of Stiklestad (; ) in 1030 is one of the most famous battles in the history of Norway. In this battle, King Olaf II of Norway () was killed. During the pontificate of Pope Alexander III, the Roman Catholic Church declared Olaf a saint ...

in 1030, in which Óláfr Haraldsson (later known as Olav the Holy), a fervent Christianiser who dealt harshly with those suspected of clinging to pagan cult, was killed. Although Óláfr's army lost the battle, Christianity continued to spread, and after his death he became one of the subjects of the three miracle stories given in the

Manx Chronicle The ''Chronicles of the Kings of Mann and the Isles'' () or Manx Chronicle is a medieval Latin manuscript relating the early history of the Isle of Man. Dating The main part of the manuscript is believed to have been composed and written in 12 ...

. In Sweden, the reign of king

Olof Skötkonung Olof Skötkonung (; – 1022), sometimes stylized as Olaf the Swede, was King of Sweden, son of Eric the Victorious and, according to Icelandic sources, Sigrid the Haughty. He succeeded his father in c. 995. He stands at the threshold of record ...

() is considered to be the transition from the Viking Age to the Middle Ages, because he was the first Christian king of the Swedes, and he is associated with a growing influence of the church in what is today southwestern and central Sweden. Norse beliefs persisted until the 12th century; Olof was the last king in Scandinavia to adopt Christianity. The end of the Viking Age is traditionally marked in England by the failed invasion attempted by the Norwegian king Harald III ( Haraldr Harðráði), who was defeated by Saxon King

Harold Godwinson Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the decisive battle of the Norman ...

in 1066 at the

Battle of Stamford Bridge The Battle of Stamford Bridge () took place at the village of Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire, in England, on 25 September 1066, between an English army under Harold Godwinson, King Harold Godwinson and an invading Norwegian force l ...

; in Ireland, the capture of

by Strongbow and his

Hiberno-Norman Norman Irish or Hiberno-Normans (; ) is a modern term for the descendants of Norman settlers who arrived during the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Most came from England and Wales. They are distinguished from the native ...

forces in 1171; and 1263 in Scotland by the defeat of King Hákon Hákonarson at the

Battle of Largs The Battle of Largs (2 October 1263) was a battle between the kingdoms of Kingdom of Norway (872–1397), Norway and Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde near Largs, Scotland. The conflict formed part of the Scottish–Norwegian ...

by troops loyal to Alexander III. Godwinson was subsequently defeated within a month by another Viking descendant,

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

, Duke of

. Scotland took its present form when it regained territory from the Norse between the 13th and the 15th centuries; the

Western Isles The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islands form part ...

and the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

remained under Scandinavian authority until 1266.

and

Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

belonged to the king of Norway as late as 1469. Consequently, a "long Viking Age" may stretch into the 15th century.

Northern Europe

England

According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'', Viking raiders struck England in 793 and raided Lindisfarne, the monastery that held Saint Cuthbert's relics, killing the monks and capturing the valuables. The raid marked the beginning of the "Viking Age of Invasion". Great but sporadic violence continued on England's northern and eastern shores, with raids continuing on a small scale across coastal England. While the initial raiding groups were small, a great amount of planning is believed to have been involved. The Vikings raided during the winter of 840–841, rather than the usual summer, having waited on an island off Ireland. In 850, the Vikings overwintered for the first time in England, on the island of Thanet,

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

. In 854, a raiding party overwintered a second time, at the

Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred from central London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the districts of England, local government district of Borough ...

in the Thames estuary. In 864, they reverted to Thanet for their winter encampment. The following year, the

Great Heathen Army The Great Heathen Army, also known as the Viking Great Army,Hadley. "The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872–3, Torksey, Lincolnshire", ''Antiquaries Journal''. 96, pp. 23–67 was a coalition of Scandinavian warriors who invaded ...

, led by brothers

Ivar the Boneless Ivar the Boneless ( ; died ), also known as Ivar Ragnarsson, was a Viking leader who invaded England and Ireland. According to the '' Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok'', he was the son of Aslaug and her husband Ragnar Loðbrok, and was the brother of ...

Halfdan Halfdan (, , Medieval : "half Dane") was a late 5th and early 6th century legendary Danish king of the Scylding (Skjöldung) lineage, the son of king named Fróði in many accounts, noted mainly as the father to the two kings who succeeded hi ...

and

Ubba Ubba (Old Norse: ''Ubbi''; died 878) was a 9th-century Viking and one of the commanders of the Great Heathen Army that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the 860s. The Great Army appears to have been a coalition of warbands drawn from Scandinavia, ...

, and also by another Viking

Guthrum Guthrum (, – c. 890) was King of East Anglia in the late 9th century. Originally a native of Denmark, he was one of the leaders of the "Great Summer Army" that arrived in Reading during April 871 to join forces with the Great Heathen Army, wh ...

, arrived in East Anglia. They proceeded to cross England into Northumbria and captured York, establishing a Viking community in

Jorvik Scandinavian York or Viking York () is a term used by historians for what is now Yorkshire during the period of Scandinavian domination from late 9th century until it was annexed and integrated into England after the Norman Conquest; in parti ...

, where some settled as farmers and craftsmen. Most of the English kingdoms, being in turmoil, could not stand against the Vikings. In 867, Northumbria became the northern kingdom of the coalescing

, after its conquest by the Ragnarsson brothers, who installed an Englishman, Ecgberht, as a puppet king. By 870, the "Great Summer Army" arrived in England, led by a Viking leader called

Bagsecg Bagsecg (830 – 8 January 871), also known as Bacgsecg, was a viking and a leader of the Great Army (Viking), Great Army, which invaded England. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', Bagsecg and Healfdene (Great Army), Healfdene (Norse ...

and his five

earl Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the Peerages in the United Kingdom, peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ...

s. Aided by the Great Heathen Army (which had already overrun much of England from its base in Jorvik), Bagsecg's forces, and Halfdan's forces (through an alliance), the combined Viking forces raided much of England until 871, when they planned an invasion of Wessex. On 8 January 871, Bagsecg was killed at the Battle of Ashdown along with his earls. As a result, many of the Vikings returned to northern England, where Jorvic had become the centre of the Viking kingdom, but

Alfred of Wessex Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when A ...

managed to keep them out of his country. Alfred and his successors continued to drive back the Viking frontier and take York. A new wave of Vikings appeared in England in 947, when

Eric Bloodaxe Eric Haraldsson ( , ; c.930−954), nicknamed Bloodaxe ( , ) and Brother-Slayer (), was a Norwegians#Viking Age, Norwegian king. He ruled as List of Norwegian monarchs, King of Norway from 932 to 934, and twice as List of monarchs of Northumbr ...

captured York. In 1003, the Danish King

Sweyn Forkbeard Sweyn Forkbeard ( ; ; 17 April 963 – 3 February 1014) was King of Denmark from 986 until his death, King of England for five weeks from December 1013 until his death, and King of Norway from 999/1000 until 1014. He was the father of King Ha ...

started a series of raids against England to avenge the St. Brice's Day massacre of England's Danish inhabitants, culminating in a full-scale invasion that led to Sweyn being crowned king of England in 1013.Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, . Sweyn was also king of Denmark and parts of Norway at this time.Lund, Niels (2001). "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", pp. 167–181 in ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings''. Ed. P.H. Sawyer. Oxford University Press. . The throne of England passed to

Edmund Ironside Edmund Ironside (30 November 1016; , , ; sometimes also known as Edmund II) was King of the English from 23 April to 30 November 1016. He was the son of King Æthelred the Unready and his first wife, Ælfgifu of York. Edmund's reign was marre ...

of Wessex after Sweyn's death in 1014. Sweyn's son,

Cnut the Great Cnut ( ; ; – 12 November 1035), also known as Canute and with the epithet the Great, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. The three kingdoms united under Cnut's rul ...

, won the throne of England in 1016 through conquest. When Cnut the Great died in 1035 he was a king of Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden.Lawson, M.K. (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016–35". The History Press Ltd. .

Harold Harefoot Harold Harefoot or Harold I (died 17 March 1040) was regent of Kingdom of England, England from 1035 to 1037 and King of the English from 1037 to 1040. Harold's nickname "Harefoot" is first recorded as "Harefoh" or "Harefah" in the twelfth cen ...

became king of England after Cnut's death, and Viking rule of England ceased. The Viking presence declined until 1066, when they lost their final battle with the English at Stamford Bridge. The death in the battle of King

Harald Hardrada Harald Sigurdsson (; – 25 September 1066), also known as Harald III of Norway and given the epithet ''Hardrada'' in the sagas, was List of Norwegian monarchs, King of Norway from 1046 to 1066. He unsuccessfully claimed the Monarchy of Denma ...

of Norway ended any hope of reviving Cnut's

, and it is because of this, rather than the Norman conquest, that 1066 is often taken as the end of the Viking Age. Nineteen days later, a large army containing and led by senior Normans, themselves mostly male-line descendants of Norsemen, invaded England and defeated the weakened English army at the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conquest of England. It took place appr ...

. The army invited others from across Norman gentry and ecclesiastical society to join them. There were several unsuccessful attempts by Scandinavian kings to regain control of England, the last of which took place in 1086. In 1152, Eystein II of Norway led a plundering raid down the east coast of Britain.

Ireland

In 795, small bands of Vikings began plundering monastic settlements along the coast of

Gaelic Ireland Gaelic Ireland () was the Gaelic political and social order, and associated culture, that existed in Ireland from the late Prehistory of Ireland, prehistoric era until the 17th century. It comprised the whole island before Anglo-Norman invasi ...

. The

state that in 821 the Vikings plundered

Howth Howth ( ; ; ) is a peninsular village and outer suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The district as a whole occupies the greater part of the peninsula of Howth Head, which forms the northern boundary of Dublin Bay, and includes the ...

and "carried off a great number of women into captivity". From 840 the Vikings began building fortified encampments, '' longphorts'', on the coast and overwintering in Ireland. The first were at

and Linn Duachaill. Their attacks became bigger and reached further inland, striking larger monastic settlements such as

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

Clonmacnoise Clonmacnoise or Clonmacnois (Irish language, Irish: ''Cluain Mhic Nóis'') is a ruined monastery in County Offaly in Republic of Ireland, Ireland on the River Shannon south of Athlone, founded in 544 by Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise, Ciarán, ...

Glendalough Glendalough (; ) is a glacial valley in County Wicklow, Ireland, renowned for an Early Medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin. From 1825 to 1957, the head of the Glendalough Valley was the site of a galena lead min ...

, Kells, and

Kildare Kildare () is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. , its population was 10,302, making it the 7th largest town in County Kildare. It is home to Kildare Cathedral, historically the site of an important abbey said to have been founded by Saint ...

, and also plundering the ancient tombs of

Brú na Bóinne (, "mansion or palace of the Boyne"), also called the Boyne Valley tombs, is an ancient monument complex and ritual landscape in County Meath, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, located in a bend of the River Boyne. It is one of the world's most im ...

. Viking chief Thorgest is said to have raided the whole midlands of Ireland until he was killed by Máel Sechnaill I in 845. In 853, Viking leader

Amlaíb Olaf or Olav (, , or British ; ) is a Dutch, Polish, Scandinavian and German given name. It is presumably of Proto-Norse origin, reconstructed as ''*Anu-laibaz'', from ''anu'' "ancestor, grand-father" and ''laibaz'' "heirloom, descendant". Old Eng ...

(Olaf) became the first king of Dublin. He ruled along with his brothers

Ímar Ímar ( ; died c. 873) was a powerful Viking leader in Ireland and Scotland in the mid-late ninth century. He was the progenitor of the Uí Ímair dynasty, who would go on to dominate the Irish Sea region for several centuries. He was the son o ...

(possibly

) and

Auisle Auisle or Óisle ( or ; died c. 867) was a Viking leader in Ireland and Scotland in the mid-late ninth century. He was the son of the king of Lochlann, identified in the non-contemporary '' Fragmentary Annals of Ireland'' as Gofraid, and brothe ...

. Over the following decades, there was regular warfare between the Vikings and the Irish, and between two groups of Vikings: the Dubgaill and Finngaill (dark and fair foreigners). The Vikings also briefly allied with various Irish kings against their rivals. In 866,

Áed Findliath Áed mac Néill (died 879), called Áed Findliath ("fair-grey Áed"; Modern Irish: ''Aodh Fionnadhliath'') to distinguish him from his paternal grandfather Áed Oirdnide, was king of Ailech and High King of Ireland. He was also called Áed Olach ...

burnt all Viking longphorts in the north, and they never managed to establish permanent settlements in that region. The Vikings were driven from Dublin in 902. They returned in 914, now led by the

Uí Ímair The Uí Ímair (; meaning ‘''scions of Ivar’''), also known as the Ivar dynasty or Ivarids, was a Norse-Gael dynasty which ruled much of the Irish Sea region, the Kingdom of Dublin, the western coast of Scotland, including the Hebrides and ...

(House of Ivar). During the next eight years the Vikings won decisive battles against the Irish, regained control of Dublin, and founded settlements at

Waterford Waterford ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...

Wexford Wexford ( ; archaic Yola dialect, Yola: ''Weiseforthe'') is the county town of County Wexford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the ...

Cork "Cork" or "CORK" may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container *** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine Places Ireland * ...

, and

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

, which became Ireland's first large towns. They were important trading hubs, and Viking Dublin was the biggest slave port in western Europe. These Viking territories became part of the patchwork of kingdoms in Ireland. Vikings intermarried with the Irish and adopted elements of Irish culture, becoming the Norse-Gaels. Some Viking kings of Dublin also ruled the

kingdom of the Isles The Kingdom of the Isles, also known as Sodor, was a Norse–Gaelic kingdom comprising the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and the islands of the Clyde from the 9th to the 13th centuries. The islands were known in Old Norse as the , or "Southern I ...

and

; such as

Sitric Cáech Sitric Cáech or Sihtric Cáech or Sigtrygg Gále, ( , , died 927) was a Hiberno-Scandinavian Viking leader who ruled Dublin and then Viking Northumbria in the early 10th century. He was a grandson of Ímar and a member of the Uí Ímair. S ...

, Gofraid ua Ímair,

Olaf Guthfrithson Olaf Guthfrithson or Anlaf Guthfrithson ( ; ; ; died 941) was a Hiberno-Scandinavian (Irish-Viking) leader who ruled Dublin and Viking Northumbria in the 10th century. He was the son of Gofraid ua Ímair and great-grandson of Ímar, making ...

, and Olaf Cuaran.

Sigtrygg Silkbeard Sigtrygg II Silkbeard Olafsson (also Sihtric, SitricÓ Corráin, p. 123 and Sitrick in Irish texts; or SigtrygWinn, p. 46 and SigtryggrMac Manus, p. 278 in Scandinavian texts) was a Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin (possibly AD 989–994; restor ...

was "a patron of the arts, a benefactor of the church, and an economic innovator" who established Ireland's first

mint Mint or The Mint may refer to: Plants * Lamiaceae, the mint family ** ''Mentha'', the genus of plants commonly known as "mint" Coins and collectibles * Mint (facility), a facility for manufacturing coins * Mint condition, a state of like-new ...

, in Dublin. In , Máel Sechnaill Mór defeated the Dublin Vikings and forced them into submission. Over the following thirty years,

Brian Boru Brian Boru (; modern ; 23 April 1014) was the High King of Ireland from 1002 to 1014. He ended the domination of the High King of Ireland, High Kingship of Ireland by the Uí Néill, and is likely responsible for ending Vikings, Viking invasio ...

subdued the Viking territories and made himself

High King of Ireland High King of Ireland ( ) was a royal title in Gaelic Ireland held by those who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over all of Ireland. The title was held by historical kings and was later sometimes assigned anachronously or to leg ...

. The Dublin Vikings, together with

Leinster Leinster ( ; or ) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, in the southeast of Ireland. The modern province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige, which existed during Gaelic Ireland. Following the 12th-century ...

, twice rebelled against him, but they were defeated in the battles of Glenmama () and Clontarf (). After the battle of Clontarf, the Dublin Vikings could no longer "single-handedly threaten the power of the most powerful kings of Ireland". Brian's rise to power and conflict with the Vikings is chronicled in ''

Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib ''Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib'' ("The War of the Irish with the Foreigners") is a medieval Irish text that tells of the depredations of the Vikings and Uí Ímair dynasty in Ireland and the Irish king Brian Boru's great war against them, begin ...

'' ("The War of the Irish with the Foreigners").

Scotland

While few records are known, the Vikings are thought to have led their first raids in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

on the holy island of

in 794, the year following the raid on the other holy island of

, Northumbria. In 839, a large Norse fleet invaded via the

River Tay The River Tay (, ; probably from the conjectured Brythonic ''Tausa'', possibly meaning 'silent one' or 'strong one' or, simply, 'flowing' David Ross, ''Scottish Place-names'', p. 209. Birlinn Ltd., Edinburgh, 2001.) is the longest river in Sc ...

and River Earn, both of which were highly navigable, and reached into the heart of the Pictish kingdom of

Fortriu Fortriu (; ; ; ) was a Pictish kingdom recorded between the 4th and 10th centuries. It was traditionally believed to be located in and around Strathearn in central Scotland, but is more likely to have been based in the north, in the Moray and ...

. They defeated Eogán mac Óengusa, king of the Picts, his brother Bran, and the king of the Scots of

Dál Riata Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaels, Gaelic Monarchy, kingdom that encompassed the Inner Hebrides, western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North ...

Áed mac Boanta Áed mac Boanta (died 839) is believed to have been a king of Dál Riata. The only reference to Áed in the Irish annals is found in the Annals of Ulster, where it is recorded that " Eóganán mac Óengusa, Bran mac Óengusa, Áed mac Boanta, a ...

, along with many members of the Pictish aristocracy in battle. The sophisticated kingdom that had been built fell apart, as did the Pictish leadership, which had been stable for more than 100 years since the time of Óengus mac Fergusa (The accession of

Cináed mac Ailpín Kenneth MacAlpin (; ; 810 – 13 February 858) or Kenneth I was King of Dál Riada (841–850), and King of the Picts (848–858), of likely Gaelic origin. According to the traditional account, he inherited the throne of Dál Riada from his ...

as king of both Picts and Scots can be attributed to the aftermath of this event). In 870, the Britons of the Old North around the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde, is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre, Kintyre Peninsula. The ...

came under Viking attack as well. The fortress atop

Alt Clut Dumbarton Castle (, ; ) has the longest recorded history of any stronghold in Scotland. It sits on a volcanic plug of basalt known as Dumbarton Rock which is high and overlooks the Scottish town of Dumbarton. History Dumbarton Rock was forme ...

("Rock of the Clyde", the Brythonic name for

Dumbarton Rock Dumbarton (; , or ; or , meaning 'fort of the Britons') is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. In 2006, it had an estimated population of 19,99 ...

, which had become the

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...

for their kingdom) was besieged by the Viking kings

and

. After four months, its water supply failed, and the fortress fell. The Vikings are recorded to have transported a vast prey of British, Pictish, and English captives back to Ireland. These prisoners may have included the ruling family of Alt Clut including the king Arthgal ap Dyfnwal, who was slain the following year under uncertain circumstances. The fall of Alt Clut marked a watershed in the history of the realm. Afterwards, the capital of the restructured kingdom was relocated about 12miles (20km) up the River Clyde to the vicinity of

Govan Govan ( ; Cumbric: ''Gwovan''; Scots language, Scots: ''Gouan''; Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile a' Ghobhainn'') is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of southwest Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the sout ...

and

Partick Partick (, Scottish Gaelic: ''Partaig'') is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch, to the east Yorkhill and Kelvingrove Park (across the River Kelvin), and to the north Broo ...

(within present-day

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

), and became known as the

Kingdom of Strathclyde Strathclyde (, "valley of the River Clyde, Clyde"), also known as Cumbria, was a Celtic Britons, Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Scotland in the Middle Ages, Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland an ...

, which persisted as a major regional political player for another 150 years. The land that now comprises most of the

Scottish Lowlands The Lowlands ( or , ; , ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. The region is characterised by its relatively flat or gently rolling terrain as opposed to the mountainous landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. This area includes ci ...

had previously been the northernmost part of the Anglo-Saxon

kingdom of Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

, which fell apart with its Viking conquest; these lands were never regained by the Anglo-Saxons, or England. The upheaval and pressure of Viking raiding, occupation, conquest and settlement resulted in alliances among the formerly enemy peoples that comprised what would become present-day Scotland. Over the subsequent 300 years, this Viking upheaval and pressure led to the unification of the previously contending Gaelic, Pictish, British, and English kingdoms, first into the

Kingdom of Alba The Kingdom of Alba (; ) was the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900 and of Alexander III in 1286. The latter's death led indirectly to an invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England in 1296 and the First War of Scotti ...

, and finally into the greater

Kingdom of Scotland The Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a Anglo-Sc ...

. The Viking Age in Scotland came to an end after another 100 years. The last vestiges of Norse power in the Scottish seas and islands were completely relinquished after another 200 years.

Earldom of Orkney

By the mid-9th century, the Norsemen had settled in Shetland, Orkney (the Nordreys- '' Norðreyjar''), the Hebrides and Isle of Man, (the Sudreys- '' Suðreyjar''—this survives in the

Diocese of Sodor and Man The Diocese of Sodor and Man is a diocese of the Church of England. It is one of only two Church of England dioceses not within the United Kingdom (the other is the Diocese in Europe). Originally much larger, today it covers just the Isle of Man ...

) and parts of mainland Scotland. The Norse settlers were to some extent integrating with the local

Gael The Gaels ( ; ; ; ) are an Insular Celtic ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic languages comprising Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic ...

ic population (see Norse-Gaels) in the Hebrides and Man. These areas were ruled over by local Jarls, originally captains of ships or ''

hersir A hersir was a local Viking military commander of a ''hundred'' (a county subdivision), of about 100 men, and owed allegiance to a jarl or king. They were also aspiring landowners, and, like the middle class in many feudal societies, supported th ...

s''. The Jarl of Orkney and Shetland, however, claimed supremacy. In 875, King Harald Fairhair led a fleet from Norway to Scotland. In his attempt to unite Norway, he found that many of those opposed to his rise to power had taken refuge in the Isles. From here, they were raiding not only foreign lands but were also attacking Norway itself. After organising a fleet, Harald was able to subdue the rebels, and in doing so brought the independent Jarls under his control, many of the rebels having fled to Iceland. He found himself ruling not only Norway, but also the Isles, Man, and parts of Scotland.

Kings of the Isles

In 876, the Norse-Gaels of Mann and the Hebrides rebelled against Harald. A fleet was sent against them led by

Ketil Flatnose Ketill Björnsson, nicknamed Flatnose (Old Norse: ''Flatnefr''), was a Norse King of the Isles of the 9th century. Primary sources The story of Ketill and his daughter Auðr, or Aud the Deep-Minded, was probably first recorded by the Icelande ...

to regain control. On his success, Ketil was to rule the Sudreys as a vassal of King Harald. His grandson,

Thorstein the Red Thorstein the Red or Thorstein Olafsson was a viking chieftain who flourished in late ninth-century Scotland. Biography He was born around 850 AD and was the son of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, and Aud the Deep-minded, who was the daughter o ...

, and Sigurd the Mighty, Jarl of Orkney, invaded Scotland and were able to exact tribute from nearly half the kingdom until their deaths in battle. Ketil declared himself King of the Isles. Ketil was eventually outlawed and, fearing the bounty on his head, fled to Iceland. The Norse-Gaelic Kings of the Isles continued to act semi independently, in 973 forming a defensive pact with the Kings of Scotland and

Strathclyde Strathclyde ( in Welsh language, Welsh; in Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic, meaning 'strath

alley An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, footpath, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path, w ...

of the River Clyde') was one of nine former Local government in Scotland, local government Regions and districts of Scotland, regions of Scotland cre ...

. In 1095, the King of Mann and the Isles

Godred Crovan Godred Crovan (died 1095), known in Gaelic as Gofraid Crobán, Gofraid Meránach, and Gofraid Méránach, was a Norse-Gaelic ruler of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Dublin, Dublin and the Kingdom of the Isles, Isles. Although his precise parentage h ...

was killed by

Magnus Barelegs Magnus III Olafsson (Old Norse: ''Magnús Óláfsson'', Norwegian: ''Magnus Olavsson''; 1073 – 24 August 1103), better known as Magnus Barefoot (Old Norse: ''Magnús berfœttr'', Norwegian: ''Magnus Berrføtt''), was the King of Norway ...

, King of Norway. Magnus and King

Edgar of Scotland Edgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim ( Modern Gaelic: ''Eagar mac Mhaoil Chaluim''), nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" (c. 1074 – 8 January 1107), was King of Alba (Scotland) from 1097 to 1107. He was the fourth son of Malcolm III and Margaret o ...

agreed on a treaty. The islands would be controlled by Norway, but mainland territories would go to Scotland. The King of Norway nominally continued to be king of the Isles and Man. However, in 1156, The kingdom was split into two. The Western Isles and Man continued as to be called the "Kingdom of Man and the Isles", but the

Inner Hebrides The Inner Hebrides ( ; ) is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides compri ...

came under the influence of

Somerled Somerled (died 1164), known in Middle Irish as Somairle, Somhairle, and Somhairlidh, and in Old Norse as Sumarliði , was a mid-12th-century Norse-Gaelic lord who, through marital alliance and military conquest, rose in prominence to create the ...

, a

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

speaker, who was styled 'King of the Hebrides'. His kingdom was to develop latterly into the

Lordship of the Isles Lord of the Isles or King of the Isles ( or ; ) is a title of nobility in the Baronage of Scotland with historical roots that go back beyond the Kingdom of Scotland. It began with Somerled in the 12th century and thereafter the title was h ...

. In eastern

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...

, the Danes invaded at least as far north as the area near

Cruden Bay Cruden Bay is a small village in Scotland, on the north coast of the Bay of Cruden in Aberdeenshire, north of Aberdeen. Just west of Slains Castle, Cruden Bay is said to have been the site of a battle in which the Scots under King Malcolm II ...

. The Jarls of Orkney continued to rule much of northern Scotland until 1196, when

Harald Maddadsson Harald Maddadsson (Old Norse: ''Haraldr Maddaðarson'', Gaelic: ''Aralt mac Mataid'') (c. 1134 – 1206) was Earl of Orkney and Mormaer of Caithness from 1139 until 1206. He was the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and Margaret, daughter ...

agreed to pay tribute to

William the Lion William the Lion (), sometimes styled William I (; ) and also known by the nickname ; e.g. Annals of Ulster, s.a. 1214.6; Annals of Loch Cé, s.a. 1213.10. ( 1142 – 4 December 1214), reigned as King of Alba from 1165 to 1214. His almost 49 ...

, King of Scots, for his territories on the

mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or demogr ...

. The end of the Viking Age ''proper'' in Scotland is generally considered to be in 1266. In 1263, King Haakon IV of Norway, in retaliation for a Scots expedition to

Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some o ...

, arrived on the west coast with a fleet from Norway and Orkney. His fleet linked up with those of King Magnus of Man and King Dougal of the Hebrides. After peace talks failed, his forces met with the Scots at

Largs Largs () is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about from Glasgow. The original name means "the slopes" (''An Leargaidh'') in Scottish Gaelic. A popular seaside resort with a pier, the town markets itself on its histor ...

, in Ayrshire. The battle proved indecisive, but it did ensure that the Norse were not able to mount a further attack that year. Haakon died overwintering in Orkney, and by 1266, his son Magnus the Law-Mender ceded the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, with all territories on mainland Scotland to Alexander III, through the

Treaty of Perth The Treaty of Perth, signed 2 July 1266, ended military conflict between Magnus the Lawmender of Norway and Alexander III of Scotland over possession of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man. The Hebrides and the Isle of Man had become Norwegian t ...

. Orkney and Shetland continued to be ruled as autonomous Jarldoms under Norway until 1468, when King

Christian I Christian I ''(Christiern I)'' (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a German noble and Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he ...

pledged them as security on the

dowry A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's (woman's) family to the groom (man) or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price ...

of his daughter, who was betrothed to

James III of Scotland James III (10 July 1451/May 1452 – 11 June 1488) was King of Scots from 1460 until his death at the Battle of Sauchieburn in 1488. He inherited the throne as a child following the death of his father, King James II, at the siege of Roxburg ...

. Although attempts were made during the 17th and 18th centuries to redeem Shetland, without success, and Charles II ratifying the pawning in the Orkney and Shetland Act 1669, explicitly exempting them from any "dissolution of His Majesty's lands", they are currently considered as being officially part of the United Kingdom.

Wales

Incursions in Wales were decisively reversed at the Battle of Buttington in Powys, in 893, when a combined Welsh and Mercian army under

Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians Æthelred (died 911) became Lord of the Mercians in England shortly after the death or disappearance of Mercia's last king, Ceolwulf II, in 879. He is also sometimes called the Ealdorman of Mercia. Æthelred's rule was confined to the wester ...

, defeated a Danish band. Wales was not colonised by the Vikings as heavily as eastern England. The Vikings did, however, settle in the south around

St. David David (; ; ) was a Welsh Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Mynyw during the 6th century. He is the patron saint of Wales. David was a native of Wales, and tradition has preserved a relatively large amount of detail about his life. ...

's,

Haverfordwest Haverfordwest ( , ; ) is the county town of Pembrokeshire, Wales, and the most populous urban area in Pembrokeshire with a population of 14,596 in 2011. It is also a Community (Wales), community consisting of 12,042 people, making it the secon ...

, and Gower, among other places. Place names such as Skokholm, Skomer, and Swansea remain as evidence of the Norse settlement. The Vikings, however, did not subdue the Welsh mountain kingdoms.

Iceland

According to the

Icelandic sagas The sagas of Icelanders (, ), also known as family sagas, are a subgenre, or text group, of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives primarily based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early elev ...

, Iceland was discovered by Naddodd, a Viking from the Faroe Islands, after which it was settled by mostly Norwegians fleeing the oppressive rule of Harald Fairhair in . While harsh, the land allowed for a pastoral farming life familiar to the Norse. According to the saga of

Erik the Red Erik Thorvaldsson (), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color o ...

, when Erik was exiled from Iceland, he sailed west and pioneered Greenland.

Kvenland

Kvenland, known as Cwenland, Kænland, and similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Scandinavia and

Fennoscandia __NOTOC__ Fennoscandia (Finnish language, Finnish, Swedish language, Swedish and ; ), or the Fennoscandian Peninsula, is a peninsula in Europe which includes the Scandinavian Peninsula, Scandinavian and Kola Peninsula, Kola peninsulas, mainland ...

. A contemporary reference to Kvenland is provided in an

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

account written in the 9th century. It used the information provided by the Norwegian adventurer and traveller named

Ohthere Ohthere, also Ohtere (Old Norse: ''Óttarr vendilkráka'', ''Vendelcrow''; in modern Swedish ''Ottar Vendelkråka''), was a semi-legendary king of Sweden of the house of Yngling, Scylfings, who is said to have lived during the Germanic Heroic Ag ...

. Kvenland, in that or close to that spelling, is also known from Nordic sources, primarily Icelandic, but also one that was possibly written in the modern-day area of Norway. All the remaining Nordic sources discussing Kvenland, using that or close to that spelling, date to the 12th and 13th centuries, but some of them—in part at least—are believed to be rewrites of older texts. Other references and possible references to Kvenland by other names or spellings are discussed in the main article of

Kvenland Kvenland, known as ''Cwenland'', ''Qwenland'', ''Kænland'', and similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Fennoscandia and Scandinavia. Kvenland, in that or nearly that spelling, is known from an Old English account w ...

Estonia

During the Viking Age, Estonia was a Finnic area divided between two major cultural regions, a coastal and an inland one, corresponding to the historical cultural and linguistic division between Northern and Southern Estonian. These two areas were further divided between loosely allied regions. The Viking Age in Estonia is considered to be part of the Iron Age period which started around and ended . Some 16th-century Swedish chronicles attribute the Pillage of Sigtuna in 1187 to Estonian raiders.< The society, economy, settlement and culture of the territory of what is in the present-day the country of Estonia is studied mainly through archaeological sources. The era is seen to have been a period of rapid change. The Estonian peasant culture came into existence by the end of the Viking Age. The overall understanding of the Viking Age in Estonia is deemed to be fragmentary and superficial, because of the limited amount of surviving source material. The main sources for understanding the period are remains of the farms and fortresses of the era, cemeteries and a large amount of excavated objects. The landscape of Ancient Estonia featured numerous hillforts, some later hillforts on

Saaremaa Saaremaa (; ) is the largest and most populous island in Estonia. Measuring , its population is 31,435 (as of January 2020). The main island of the West Estonian archipelago (Moonsund archipelago), it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hi ...

heavily fortified during the Viking Age and on to the 12th century. There were a number of late prehistoric or medieval harbour sites on the coast of Saaremaa, but none have been found that are large enough to be international trade centres. The Estonian islands also have a number of graves from the Viking Age, both individual and collective, with weapons and jewellery. Weapons found in Estonian Viking Age graves are common to types found throughout Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Curonians

The Curonians were known as fierce warriors, excellent sailors and pirates. They were involved in several wars and alliances with Swedish, Danish, and

. In , according to

Norna-Gests þáttr ''Nornagests þáttr'' or the ''Story of Norna-Gest'' is a legendary saga about the Norse hero Nornagestr, sometimes called Gestr, and here anglicized as Norna-Gest. ''Nornagests þáttr'' is as an episode of the '' Saga of Óláfr Tryggvason'' ...

saga Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia. The most famous saga-genre is the (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between ...

from , Sigurd Hring ("ring"), a legendary king of Denmark and Sweden, fought against the invading Curonians and Kvens (Kvænir) in the southern part of what today is Sweden: :''"Sigurd Ring (Sigurðr) was not there, since he had to defend his land, Sweden (Svíþjóð), since Curonians (Kúrir) and Kvænir were raiding there."'' Curonians are mentioned among other participants of the Battle of Brávellir. Grobin (Grobiņa) was the main centre of the Curonians during the

Vendel Age In Scandinavian prehistory, sometimes specifically Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period, or Vendel Age (; ) appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish ...

. From the 10th to 13th century,

Palanga Palanga (; ; ) is a resort town, resort city in western Lithuania, on the shore of the Baltic Sea. Palanga is the busiest and the largest summer resort in Lithuania and has sand, sandy beaches (18 km, 11 miles long and up to 300 metres, 10 ...

served as an important economical, political and cultural centre for the Curonians. Chapter 46 of

Egils Saga ''Egill's Saga'' or ''Egil's saga'' ( ; ) is an Icelandic saga (family saga) on the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson (Anglicised as Egill Skallagrimsson), an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The saga spans the years c. 850–1000 ...

describes one Viking expedition by the Vikings Thorolf and

Egill Skallagrímsson Egil Skallagrímsson ( ; Modern Icelandic: ; 904 995) was a Viking Age war poet, sorcerer, berserker, and farmer.Thorsson, 3 He is known mainly as the anti-hero of '' Egil's Saga''. ''Egil's Saga'' historically narrates a period from approx ...

in Courland. According to some opinions, they took part in attacking Sweden's main city

Sigtuna Sigtuna is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality situated in the eponymous Sigtuna Municipality, in Stockholm County, Sweden with 9,689 inhabitants in 2020. It is the namesake even though the seat of the municipality is in another locality, Märsta. S ...

in 1187. Enn Tarvel (2007)
''Sigtuna hukkumine''
Haridus, 2007 (7–8), p 38–41 Curonians established temporary settlements near

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

and in overseas regions including eastern

and the islands of

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

and

Bornholm Bornholm () is a List of islands of Denmark, Danish island in the Baltic Sea, to the east of the rest of Denmark, south of Sweden, northeast of Germany and north of Poland. Strategically located, Bornholm has been fought over for centuries. I ...

. Scandinavian settlements existed along the southeastern Baltic coast in Truso and Kaup ( Old Prussia),

(

Samogitia Samogitia, often known by its Lithuanian language, Lithuanian name ''Žemaitija'' (Samogitian language, Samogitian: ''Žemaitėjė''; see Samogitia#Etymology and alternative names, below for alternative and historical names) is one of the five ...

, Lithuania) as well as Grobin (

Courland Courland is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia. Courland's largest city is Liepāja, which is the third largest city in Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland as they were ...

, Latvia).

Eastern Europe

The

Varangians The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...

, and

mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...

activities, they roamed the river systems and portages of '' Gardariki'', reaching the Caspian Sea and Constantinople. Contemporary English publications also use the name "

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

" for early Varangians in some contexts. The term ''Varangian'' remained in usage in the Byzantine Empire until the 13th century, largely disconnected from its Scandinavian roots by then. Having settled

Aldeigja Staraya Ladoga ( rus, Ста́рая Ла́дога, p=ˈstarəjə ˈladəɡə, r=Stáraya Ládoga, t=Old Ladoga), known as Ladoga until 1704, is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Volkhovsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Vo ...

(Ladoga) in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists were probably an element in the early ethnogenesis of the

, and likely played a role in the formation of the

Rus' Khaganate Rus' Khaganate (, ''Russkiy kaganat'', , ''Ruśkyj kahanat''), or Kaganate of Rus is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe b ...

. The Varangians are first mentioned by the ''

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

'' as having exacted tribute from the Slavic and Finnic tribes in . It was the time of rapid expansion of the Vikings in Northern Europe; England began to pay

Danegeld Danegeld (; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute) was a tax raised to pay tribute or Protection racket, protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the ''geld'' or ''gafol'' in eleventh-c ...

in , and the

Curonians :''The Kursenieki are also sometimes known as Curonians.'' The Curonians or Kurs (; ) were a medieval Balts, Baltic tribe living on the shores of the Baltic Sea in the 5th–16th centuries, in what are now western parts of Latvia and Lithuania. ...

of Grobin faced an invasion by the Swedes at about the same date. The text of the Primary Chronicle says that in 860–862, the Finnic and Slavic tribes rebelled against the Varangian Rus', driving them back to Scandinavia, but soon started to conflict with each other. The disorder prompted the tribes to invite back the Varangian Rus' to "Come and rule and reign over us" and bring peace to the region. This was a somewhat bilateral relation with the Varangians defending the cities that they ruled. Led by

and his brothers Truvor and Sineus, the Varangians settled around the town of Novgorod (Holmgarðr). In the 9th century, the Rus' operated the

, which connected northern Russia (''Gardariki'') with the Middle East (''

Serkland In Old Norse sources, such as sagas and runestones, Serkland (also ''Særkland'', ''Srklant'', ''Sirklant'', ''Serklat'', etc.) was the "land of the ''Serkir''", usually identified with the Saracens. The exact etymology is disputed. ''Serk''- may ...

''). As the Volga route declined by the end of the century, the

trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks was a medieval trade route that connected Scandinavia, Kievan Rus' and the Eastern Roman Empire. The route allowed merchants along its length to establish a direct prosperous trade with the Empire ...

rapidly overtook it in popularity. Apart from Ladoga and Novgorod,

Gnezdovo Gnezdovo or Gnyozdovo () is an archeological site located near the village of Gnyozdovo in Smolensky District, Smolensk Oblast, Russia. The site contains extensive remains of a Slavic-Varangian settlement that flourished in the 10th century as ...

and

were major centres for Varangian trade. The consensus among western scholars, disputed by Russian scholars, who believe them to be a Slavic tribe, is that the

originated in what is currently coastal eastern Sweden around the 8th century, and that their name has the same origin as that of

Roslagen Roslagen is the name of the coastal areas of Uppland province in Sweden, which also constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Historically, it was the name for all the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, including the eastern par ...

. The maritime districts of East Götland and Uppland were known in earlier times as Roþer or Roþin, and later as Roslagen. According to Thorsten Andersson, the Russian folk name ''Rus ultimately derives from the noun roþer ('rowing'), a word also used in naval campaigns in the leþunger (Old Norse: ''leiðangr'') system of organizing a coastal fleet. The

Old Swedish Old Swedish ( Modern Swedish: ) is the name for two distinct stages of the Swedish language that were spoken in the Middle Ages: Early Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1225 until about 1375, and Late Old Swedish (), spoken from about 1375 unti ...

place name Roþrin, in the older iteration ''Roþer'', contains the word ''roþer'' and is still used in the form of

Roden Roden is a name of Germanic origin, originally meaning "red valley" or an anglicization of the Gaelic name "O'Rodain". It may refer to: Places *Roden, Bavaria, a town in the Main-Spessart district of Bavaria, Germany *Roden, Netherlands, a town ...

as a historical name for the coastal areas of

Svealand Svealand (), or Swealand, is the historical core region of Sweden. It is located in south-central Sweden and is one of the three historical lands of Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by Götaland. Deep forests, Tive ...

. In modern times the name still exists as Roslagen, the name of the coastal area of

Uppland Uppland is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The name literally ...

province. According to Stefan Brink, the name ''Rus'' derives from the words ''ro'' (row) and ''rodd'' (a rowing session). The term "Varangian" became more common from the 11th century onwards. In these years, Swedish men left to enlist in the Byzantine

Varangian Guard The Varangian Guard () was an elite unit of the Byzantine army from the tenth to the fourteenth century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors. The Varangian Guard was known for being primarily composed of recruits from Nort ...

in such numbers that a medieval Swedish law,

Västgötalagen ( or ) or the Västgöta (Westrogothic) law is the oldest Swedish text written in Latin script and the oldest of all Swedish provincial laws.The Scanian law is older, but Scania was not incorporated into Sweden until late 17th century, and it ...

, used in the province

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

, declared that no one could inherit while staying in "Greece"—the then Scandinavian term for the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

—to stop the emigration, especially as two other European courts simultaneously also recruited Scandinavians:

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

1018–1066 (the

Þingalið The Thingmen () was a unit (or a body of men) in the service of the Kings of England during the period 1013–1051. The unit was financed by direct taxation which had its origins in the tribute known as Danegeld. It consisted mostly of men of S ...

). In contrast to the notable Scandinavian influence in Normandy and the British Isles, Varangian culture did not survive to a great extent in the East. Instead, the Varangian ruling classes of the two powerful city-states of

and Kiev were thoroughly Slavicised by the beginning of the 11th century. Some evidence suggests that Old Norse may have been spoken amongst the Rus' later, however.

Old East Norse Old East Norse was a dialect of Old Norse which evolved into the languages of Old Danish and Old Swedish from the 9th century to the 12th century. Between 800 and 1100, East Norse is in Sweden called '' Runic Swedish'' and in Denmark ''Runic ...

was probably still spoken in

at Novgorod until the 13th century, according to the ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (Swedish National Encyclopedia).

Central Europe

Viking Age Scandinavian settlements were set up along the southern coast of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

, primarily for trade purposes. Their emergence appears to coincide with the settlement and consolidation of the coastal Slavic tribes in the respective areas. The archaeological record indicates that substantial cultural exchange between Scandinavian and Slavic traditions and technologies occurred. It is known that Slavic and Scandinavian craftsmen had different processes in crafts and productions. In the lagoons and delta of the eastern and southern Baltic there is evidence of Slavic boatbuilding practices somewhat divergent from the Viking tradition, and of a fusion of the two in a shipyard site from the Viking Age on the island of Falster in Denmark. Slavic-Scandinavian settlements on the

Mecklenburg Mecklenburg (; ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Wismar and Güstrow. ...

ian coast include the maritime trading center

Reric Reric or Rerik was one of the Viking Age multi-ethnic Slavic- Scandinavian emporia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, located near Wismar in the present-day German state of Mecklenburg-VorpommernOle Harck, Christian Lübke, Zwischen Reri ...

(

Groß Strömkendorf Gross or Groß in German is the correct spelling of the surname under German orthographic rules. In Switzerland, the name is spelled Gross. Some Germans and Austrians also use the spelling with "ss" instead of "ß". It is a surname of German, Pru ...

) on the eastern coast of Wismar Bay, and the multi-ethnic trade emporium Dierkow (near

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

). Reric was set up around the year 700, but following later warfare between

Obodrites The Obotrites (, ''Abodritorum'', ''Abodritos'') or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (), were a confederation of medieval West Slavs, West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany (see Polabian S ...

and

Danes Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. History Early history Denmark ...

, the inhabitants, who were subject to the Danish king, were resettled to Haithabu by him. Dierkow apparently belongs to the late 8th to the early 9th century. Scandinavian settlements on the

Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...

n coast include

Wolin Wolin (; ) is a Polish island in the Baltic Sea, just off the Polish coast. Administratively, the island belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Wolin is separated from the island of Usedom (Uznam) by the Strait of Świna, and from mainla ...

(on the isle of

), Ralswiek (on the isle of

Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...

), Altes Lager Menzlin (on the lower

Peene The Peene (; ) is a river in Germany. Geography The Westpeene, with the Ostpeene as its longer tributary, and the Kleine Peene/Teterower Peene (with a ''Peene '' without specification (or ''Nordpeene'') as its smaller and shorter affluent) f ...

river),Herrmann, Joachim (1985) ''Die Slawen in Deutschland''. Akademie-Verlag Berlin. pp. 237ff, 244ff and Bardy-Świelubie near modern

Kołobrzeg Kołobrzeg (; ; ) is a port and spa city in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in north-western Poland with about 47,000 inhabitants (). Kołobrzeg is located on the Parsęta River on the south coast of the Baltic Sea (in the middle of the section ...

. Menzlin was set up in the mid-8th century. Wolin and Ralswiek began to prosper in the course of the 9th century. A merchants' settlement has also been suggested near Arkona, but no archeological evidence supports this theory. Menzlin and Bardy-Świelubie were vacated in the late 9th century, Ralswiek survived into the new millennium, but by the time written chronicles reported news of the island of Rügen in the 12th century, it had lost all its importance. Wolin, thought to be identical with the legendary

Vineta Vineta (sometimes ''Wineta'') is the name of a legendary city at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. The legend evolved around traditions about the Medieval emporium called Jumne, Jomsborg, Julin or similar names by the chronicles, and with wh ...

and the semilegendary

Jomsborg Jomsborg or Jómsborg () was a semi-legendary Viking stronghold at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (medieval Wendland, modern Pomerania), that existed between the 960s and 1043. Its inhabitants were known as Jomsvikings. Jomsborg's exact lo ...

, base of the

Jomsvikings The Jomsvikings were a legendary order of Viking mercenaries or conquerors of the 10th and 11th centuries. Though reputed to be staunchly dedicated to the worship of the Old Norse gods, they would allegedly fight for any lord who could pay t ...

, was destroyed in 1043 by Dano-Norwegian king

Magnus the Good Magnus Olafsson (; Norwegian and Danish: ''Magnus Olavsson''; – 25 October 1047), better known as Magnus the Good (; Norwegian and Danish: ''Magnus den gode''), was King of Norway from 1035 and King of Denmark from 1042 until his death in ...

, according to the ''

Heimskringla () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland. While authorship of ''Heimskringla'' is nowhere attributed, some scholars assume it is written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson (117 ...

''. Castle building by the Slavs seems to have reached a high level on the southern Baltic coast in the 8th and 9th centuries, possibly explained by a threat coming from the sea or from the trade emporiums, as Scandinavian arrowheads found in the area indicate advances penetrating as far as the lake chains in the Mecklenburgian and Pomeranian hinterlands.

Western Europe

Frisia

Frisia was a region which spanned from around modern-day Bruges to the islands on the west coast of Jutland—including large parts of the

Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...

. This region was progressively brought under Frankish control ( Frisian-Frankish wars), but the

Christianization Christianization (or Christianisation) is a term for the specific type of change that occurs when someone or something has been or is being converted to Christianity. Christianization has, for the most part, spread through missions by individu ...

of the local population and cultural assimilation was a slow process. However, several Frisian towns, most notably

Dorestad Dorestad (''Dorestat, Duristat'') was an early medieval emporium, located in the present-day province of Utrecht in the Netherlands, close to the modern-day town of Wijk bij Duurstede. It flourished during the 8th to early 9th centuries, as a ...

were raided by Vikings.

Rorik of Dorestad Rorik (, ; ; – ) was a Danish Viking, who ruled over parts of Friesland between 841 and 873, conquering Dorestad and Utrecht in 850. Rorik swore allegiance to Louis the German in 873. He was born in Denmark around 800. He died at some point ...

was a famous Viking raider in Frisia. On

Wieringen Wieringen () is located in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. Now a part of the municipality of Hollands Kroon, it was a separate municipality before 2012. Its name first appeared in 8th and 9th century records. By 1200 it was an i ...

the Vikings most likely had a base of operations. Viking leaders took an active role in Frisian politics, such as

Godfrid, Duke of Frisia Godfrid, Godafrid, Gudfrid, or Gottfrid (; murdered June 885) was a Danish Viking leader of the late ninth century. He had probably been with the Great Heathen Army, descended on the continent, and became a vassal of the emperor Charles the Fat, ...

, as well as Rorik.

France

The French region of Normandy takes its name from the Viking invaders who were called ''Normanni'', which means 'men of the North'. The first Viking raids began between 790 and 800 along the coasts of western France. They were carried out primarily in the summer, as the Vikings wintered in Scandinavia. Several coastal areas were lost to

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

during the reign of

Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (; ; ; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only ...

(814–840). But the Vikings took advantage of the quarrels in the royal family caused after the death of Louis the Pious to settle their first colony in the south-west (

Gascony Gascony (; ) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part of the combined Province of Guyenne and Gascon ...

) of the kingdom of Francia, which was more or less abandoned by the Frankish kings after their two defeats at Roncevaux. The incursions in caused severe damage to

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

and

Jumièges Jumièges () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in north-western France. Geography A forestry and farming village situated in a meander of the river Seine, some west of Rouen, at the junction of the D 65 and t ...

. The Viking attackers sought to capture the treasures stored at

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which m ...

, easy prey given the monks' lack of defensive capacity. In an expedition up the Seine reached

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. The presence of Carolingian ''deniers'' of , found in 1871 among a hoard at Mullaghboden, County Limerick, where coins were neither minted nor normally used in trade, probably represents booty from the raids of 843–846. However, from 885 to 886, Odo of Paris (Eudes de Paris) succeeded in defending Paris against Viking raiders. His military success allowed him to replace the Carolingians. In 911, a band of Viking warriors attempted to siege Chartres but was defeated by

Robert I of France Robert I ( – 15 June 923) was the elected King of West Francia from 922 to 923. Before his election to the throne he was Count of Poitiers, Count of Paris and Marquess, Marquis of Neustria and Orléans. He succeeded the overthrown Carolingian ...

. Robert's victory later paved way for the baptism, and settlement in Normandy, of Viking leader Rollo.

reached an agreement with Charles the Simple to sign the

Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte The treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) is the foundational document of the Duchy of Normandy, establishing Rollo, a Norse warlord and Viking leader, as the first Duke of Normandy in exchange for his loyalty to Charles III, the king of West Fra ...

, under which Charles gave Rouen and the area of present-day Upper Normandy to Rollo, establishing the

Duchy of Normandy The Duchy of Normandy grew out of the 911 Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between Charles the Simple, King Charles III of West Francia and the Viking leader Rollo. The duchy was named for its inhabitants, the Normans. From 1066 until 1204, as a r ...

. In exchange, Rollo pledged vassalage to Charles in 940, agreed to be

baptised Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...

, and vowed to guard the

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

of the Seine from further Viking attacks. During Rollo's baptism Robert I of France stood as his godfather. The Duchy of Normandy also annexed further areas in Northern France, expanding the territory which was originally negotiated. The Scandinavian expansion included Danish and Norwegian as well as Swedish elements, all under the leadership of

. By the end of the reign of

Richard I of Normandy Richard I (28 August 932 – 20 November 996), also known as Richard the Fearless (French: ''Richard Sans-Peur''; Old Norse: ''Jarl Rikard''), was the count of Rouen from 942 to 996.Detlev Schwennicke, ''Europäische Stammtafeln, Europäische S ...

in 996 (aka Richard the Fearless / Richard sans Peur), all descendants of Vikings became, according to Cambridge Medieval History (Volume 5, Chapter XV), 'not only Christians but in all essentials Frenchmen'. During the Middle Ages, the Normans created one of the most powerful feudal states of

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

. The Normans conquered England and

southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

in 11th century, and played a key role in the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

Southern Europe

Italy

In 959, a major long-distance Viking expedition, under the command of two famed Vikings,

Björn Ironside Björn Ironside ( Swedish: ''Björn Järnsida''; Old Norse: ''Bjǫrn Járnsíða'') according to Norse legends, was a Norse Viking chief and Swedish king. According to the 12th- and 13th-century Scandinavian histories, he was the son of notor ...

and Hásteinn, set out for Spain from their base on the Loire with the objective of sacking the city of Rome. They tried to land at Galicia and were driven off. Then they sailed down the west coast of the peninsula and burned the mosque at Seville, but were repelled by a large Muslim force there before entering the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar and burning the mosque at Algeciras, following which they headed south to Nekor on the coast of Morocco, plundered the city and defeated a Muslim force that attempted to stop them. According to an account by the Norman monk

Dudo of Saint-Quentin Dudo, or Dudon, was a Picard historian, and dean of Saint-Quentin, where he was born the 960s. He was an erudite scholar and he likely acquired his education in Liège or perhaps Laon. By 987, Dudo had become a canon at St Quentin, the abbacy of ...

, a Viking fleet under Björn Ironside and Hásteinn landed at the Ligurian port of Luni and sacked the city. The Vikings then moved another 60 miles down the Tuscan coast to the mouth of the

Arno The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. Source and route The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a sou ...

, sacking

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

and then, following the river upstream, also the hill-town of

Fiesole Fiesole () is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km (3 miles) northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times. ...

above

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. Many Anglo-Danish and Varangian mercenaries fought in Southern Italy, including

and William de Hauteville who conquered parts of Sicily between 1038 and 1040, and

Edgar the Ætheling Edgar is a commonly used masculine English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Edgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and '' gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the Late Middle Ages; it was, howeve ...

who fought in the

Norman conquest of southern Italy The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern thi ...

.''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'', p. 217; Florence of Worcester, p. 145

Runestones A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic alphabet, runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition of erecting runestones as a memorial to dead men began in the 4th centur ...

were raised in Sweden in memory of warriors who died in Langbarðaland ( Land of the Lombards), the Old Norse name for southern Italy. Several Anglo-Danish and Norwegian nobles participated in the

, like

, who left England in 1086, and Jarl

Erling Skakke Erling Ormsson (1115 – 18 June 1179), known as Erling Skakke, was a Norwegian Jarl during the 12th century. He was the father of Magnus Erlingsson, who reigned as King of Norway from 1161 to 1184. Biography Erling Ormsson was born at Etne in ...

, who won his nickname ''("Skakke", meaning bent head)'' after a battle against Arabs in Sicily. On the other hand, many Anglo-Danish rebels fleeing

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

, joined the Byzantines in their struggle against the

Robert Guiscard Robert Guiscard ( , ; – 17 July 1085), also referred to as Robert de Hauteville, was a Normans, Norman adventurer remembered for his Norman conquest of southern Italy, conquest of southern Italy and Sicily in the 11th century. Robert was born ...

duke of Apulia The County of Apulia and Calabria (), later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria (), was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1043, composed of the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It becam ...

, in Southern Italy.

Spain

After 842, the Vikings set up a permanent base at the mouth of the river

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

from whence they could strike as far as northern Spain. These Vikings were Hispanicised in all the Christian kingdoms, while they kept their ethnic identity and culture in

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

. The southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, both sides of the

Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

, and much of the Iberian peninsula were under Muslim rule when Vikings first entered the Mediterranean in the 9th century. The Vikings launched their campaigns from their strongholds in

into this realm of Muslim influence; following the coastline of the

Kingdom of Asturias The Kingdom of Asturias was a kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula founded by the nobleman Pelagius who traditionally has been described as being of Visigothic stock. Modern research is leaning towards the view that Pelagius was of Hispano-Roman ...

they sailed through the Gibraltar strait (known to them as ''Nǫrvasund'', the 'Narrow Sound') into what they called ''Miðjarðarhaf'', literally 'Middle of the earth' sea, with the same meaning as the

Late Latin Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in ...

''Mare Mediterrāneum''. The first Viking attacks in al-Andalus in 844 CE greatly affected the region. Medieval texts such as the ''Chronicon albeldense'' and the ''

Annales Bertiniani ''Annales Bertiniani'' (''Annals of Saint Bertin'') are late Carolingian, Frankish annals that were found in the Abbey of Saint Bertin, Saint-Omer, France, after which they are named. Their account is taken to cover the period 830-82, thus con ...

'' tell of a Viking fleet that left

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

and made raids in Asturias and Galicia. According to the '' Historia silense'' it had 60 ships. Being repulsed in Galicia (''Ghilīsīa''), the fleet sailed southward around the peninsula, raiding coastal towns along the way. In Irene García Losquiño's telling, these Vikings navigated their boats up the river

Guadalquivir The Guadalquivir (, also , , ) is the fifth-longest river in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-longest river with its entire length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is the only major navigable river in Spain. Currently it is navigable from Seville ...

towards ''Išbīliya'' (

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

) and destroyed ''Qawra'' (Coria del Río), a small town about 15 km south of the city. Then they took ''Išbīliya'', from which they controlled the region for several weeks. Their attack on the city forced its inhabitants to flee to '' Qarmūnâ'' (Carmona), a fortified city. The Emirate of Qurṭuba made great exertions to recover ''Išbīliya'', and succeeded with the assistance of ''Qurṭuba'' ( Córdoba) and the

Banu Qasi The Banu Qasi, Banu Kasi, Beni Casi (, meaning "sons" or "heirs of Cassius"), Banu Musa, or al-Qasawi were a Muladí (local convert) dynasty that in the 9th century ruled the Upper March, a frontier territory of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba, l ...

, who ruled over a semi-autonomous state in the

Upper March The Upper March (; Spanish ''Marca Superior'') was an administrative and military division in northeastern al-Andalus, roughly corresponding to the Ebro valley and adjacent Mediterranean coast, from the 8th century to the early 11th century. It ...

of the

Ebro Valley The Ebro (Spanish and Basque ; , , ) is a river of the north and northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain. It rises in Cantabria and flows , almost entirely in an east-southeast direction. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea, forming a del ...

. Consequently, defensive walls were built at ''Išbīliya'', and the emir Abd al-Raḥmān II invested in the construction of a large fleet of ships to protect the entrance of the Guadalquivir and the coast of southern al-Andalus, after which Viking fleets had difficulties battling the Andalusī armada. Gwyn Jones writes that this Viking raid had occurred on 1 October 844, when most of the Iberian peninsula was controlled by the emirate. His account says a

flotilla A flotilla (from Spanish, meaning a small ''flota'' ( fleet) of ships), or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. Composition A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same cla ...

of about 80 Viking ships, after attacking Asturias, Galicia and Lisbon, had ascended the Guadalquivir to ''Išbīliya'', and besieged it for seven days, inflicting many casualties and taking numerous hostages with the intent to ransom them. Another group of Vikings had gone to ''Qādis'' (

Cádiz Cádiz ( , , ) is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated fr ...

) to plunder while those in ''Išbīliya'' waited on ''Qubtil'' (''Isla Menor''), an island in the river, for the ransom money to arrive. Meantime, the emir of Qurṭuba, Abd ar-Rahman II, prepared a military contingent to meet them, and on 11 November a pitched battle ensued on the grounds of ''Talayata'' (Tablada). The Vikings held their ground, but the results were catastrophic for the invaders, who suffered a thousand casualties; four hundred were captured and executed, some thirty ships were destroyed. It was not a total victory for the emir's forces, but the Viking survivors had to negotiate a peace to leave the area, surrendering their plunder and the hostages they had taken to sell as slaves, in exchange for food and clothing. According to the Arabist Lévi-Provençal, over time, the few Norse survivors converted to Islam and settled as farmers in the area of ''Qawra'', ''Qarmūnâ'', and '' Moron'', where they engaged in animal husbandry and made dairy products (reputedly the origin of Sevillian cheese). Knutson and Caitlin write that Lévi-Provençal offered no sources for the proposition of conversion to Islam by northern Europeans in al-Andalus and thus it "remains unsubstantiated". By the year 859 a large Viking force again invaded al-Andalus, beginning a campaign along the coast of the Iberian Peninsula with smaller groups that assaulted various locations. They attacked Išbīliya (Seville), but were driven off and they returned down the Guadalquivir to the Strait of Gibraltar. The Vikings then sailed round Cape Gata and followed the coastline to the ''Kūra'' (cora) of Tudmir, raiding various settlements, as mentioned by the 10th-century historian Ibn Hayyān. They finally ventured inland, entering the mouth of the river Segura and sailing towards ''ḥiṣn Ūriyūla'' (

Orihuela Orihuela (; ''Corpus Toponímic Valencià''. Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua. 2009, València.) is a city and municipality located at the foot of the Sierra de Orihuela mountains in the province of Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain. The c ...

), whose inhabitants had fled. The assailants sacked this important town, and according to the Arab sources, they attacked the fortress and burnt it to the ground. There is only brief mention in the historical record of this Viking army's attacks on south-eastern al-Andalus, including at ''al-Jazīra al-Khadrā'' (

Algeciras Algeciras () is a city and a municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain belonging to the province of Cádiz, Andalusia. Located in the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, near the Strait of Gibraltar, it is the largest city on the Bay of G ...

), ''Ūriyūla'', and the ''Juzur al-Balyār'' (جزُر البليار) (

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago forms a Provinces of Spain, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain, ...

). Ibn Hayyān wrote about the Viking campaign of 859–861 in al-Andalus, perhaps relying on the account given by Muslim historian Aḥmad al-Rāzī, who tells of a Viking fleet of sixty-two ships that sailed up to Išbīliya and occupied ''al-Jazīra al-Khadrā''. The Muslims seized two of their ships, laden with goods and coins, off the coast of ''Shidūnah'' (

Sidonia Sidonia or Sidonie is a feminine given name which may refer to: People * Sidonie of Bavaria (1488–1505), eldest daughter of Duke Albert IV of Bavaria-Munich, wife of the Elector Palatine Louis V * Sidonie of Poděbrady (1449–1510), daugh ...

). The ships were destroyed and their Viking crews killed. The remaining vessels continued up the Atlantic coast and landed near ( Pampeluna), called ''Banbalūna'' in Arabic, where they took their emir Gharsīa ibn Wanaqu ( García Iñiquez) prisoner until in 861 he was ransomed for 70,000

dinar The dinar () is the name of the principal currency unit in several countries near the Mediterranean Sea, with a more widespread historical use. The English word "dinar" is the transliteration of the Arabic دينار (''dīnār''), which was bor ...

s. According to the ''Annales Bertiniani'', Danish Vikings embarked on a long voyage in 859, sailing eastward through the Strait of Gibraltar then up the river

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Ròse''; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Rôno'') is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and Southeastern France before dischargi ...

, where they raided monasteries and towns and established a base in the

Camargue The Camargue (, also , , ; ) is a coastal region in southern France located south of the city of Arles, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône river delta. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western is the ''P ...

. Afterwards they raided Nakūr in what is now Morocco, kidnapped women of the royal family, and returned them when the emir of Córdoba paid their ransoms. The Vikings made several incursions in the years 859, 966 and 971, with intentions more diplomatic than bellicose, although an invasion in 971 was repelled when the Viking fleet was totally annihilated. Vikings attacked Talayata again in 889 at the instigation of Kurayb ibn Khaldun of Išbīliya. In 1015, a Viking fleet entered the river Minho and sacked the episcopal city of Tui Galicia; no new bishop was appointed until 1070.

Portugal

In 844, a fleet of several dozen Viking

s with square brown sails appeared in the ''Mar da Palha'' ("Sea of Straw"), i.e., the mouth of the river

Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...

. At the time, the city later called

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

was under Muslim rule and known in Arabic as ''al-Us̲h̲būna'' or ''al-ʾIšbūnah'' (الأشبونة). After a thirteen-day siege in which they plundered the surrounding countryside, the Vikings conquered ''al-Us̲h̲būna'', but eventually retreated in the face of continued resistance by the townspeople led by their governor, Wahb Allah ibn Hazm. The chronicler Ibn Hayyān, who wrote the most reliable early history of al-Andalus, in his ''Kitāb almuqtabis'', quoted the Muslim historian Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Rāzī:

North America

Greenland

The Viking-Age settlements in Greenland were established in the sheltered

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

s of the southern and western coast. They settled in three separate areas along roughly of the western coast. While harsh, the

microclimate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often slightly but sometimes substantially. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square m ...

s along some fjords allowed for a pastoral lifestyle similar to that of Iceland, until the climate changed for the worse with the

. * The Eastern Settlement: The remains of about 450 farms have been found here. Erik the Red settled at Brattahlid on Ericsfjord. * The Middle Settlement, near modern Ivigtut, consisted of about 20 farms. * The Western Settlement at modern Godthåbsfjord, was established before the 12th century. It has been extensively excavated by archaeologists.

Mainland North America

In about 986, the Norwegian Vikings Bjarni Herjólfsson, Leif Ericson, and Thorfinn Karlsefni, Þórfinnr Karlsefni from Greenland reached North America, Mainland North America, over 500 years before Christopher Columbus, and they attempted to settle the land they called Vinland. They created a small settlement on the northern peninsula of present-day Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland, near L'Anse aux Meadows. Conflict with indigenous peoples and lack of support from Greenland brought the Vinland colony to an end within a few years. The archaeological remains are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Technology

Viking naval technology was among the most advanced in all societies of the time; their other technological works were also well-regarded. The Vikings were equipped with the technologically superior longships; for purposes of conducting trade however, another type of ship, the ''knarr'', wider and deeper in draft, were customarily used. The Vikings were competent sailors, adept in land warfare as well as at sea, and they often struck at accessible and poorly defended targets, usually with near impunity. The effectiveness of these tactics earned Vikings a formidable reputation as raiders and pirates. The Vikings used their longships to travel vast distances and attain certain tactical advantages in battle. They could perform highly efficient hit-and-run attacks, in which they quickly approached a target, then left as rapidly as possible before a counter-offensive could be launched. Because of the ships' negligible draft, the Vikings could sail in shallow waters, allowing them to invade far inland along rivers. The ships were agile, and light enough to be carried over land from one river system to another. "Under sail, the same boats could tackle open water and cross the unexplored wastes of the North Atlantic." The ships' speed was also prodigious for the time, estimated at a maximum of . The use of the longships ended when technology changed, and ships began to be constructed using saws instead of axes, resulting in inferior vessels. While battles at sea were rare, they would occasionally occur when Viking ships attempted to board European merchant vessels in Scandinavian waters. When larger scale battles ensued, Viking crews would rope together all nearby ships and slowly proceed towards the enemy targets. While advancing, the warriors hurled spears, arrows, and other projectiles at the opponents. When the ships were sufficiently close, melee combat would ensue using axes, swords, and spears until the enemy ship could be easily boarded. The roping technique allowed Viking crews to remain strong in numbers and act as a unit, but this uniformity also created problems. A Viking ship in the line could not retreat or pursue hostile ships without breaking the formation and cutting the ropes, which weakened the overall Viking fleet and was a burdensome task to perform in the heat of battle. In general, these tactics enabled Vikings to quickly destroy the meagre opposition posted during raids. Together with an increasing centralisation of government in the Scandinavian countries, the old system of ''leidang''—a fleet mobilisation system, where every ''skipreide'' (ship community) had to maintain one ship and a crew—was discontinued as a purely military institution, as the duty to build and man a ship soon was converted into a tax. The Norwegian leidang was called under Haakon Haakonson for his 1263 expedition to Scotland during the Scottish–Norwegian War, and the last recorded calling of it was in 1603. However, already by the 11th and 12th centuries, perhaps in response to the longships, European fighting ships were built with raised platforms fore and aft, from which archers could shoot down into the relatively low longships. This led to the defeat of longship navies in most subsequent naval engagements—e.g., with the Hanseatic League. The Vikings were also said to have fine weapons. Generally, Vikings used axes as weapons due to the lessened amount of iron required for their creations; swords were typically seen as a mark of wealth. Spears were also a common weapon among Vikings. Great amounts of time and artistry were expended in the creation of Viking weapons; ornamentation is commonly seen among them. Scandinavian architecture during the Viking Age most often involved wood, due to the abundance of the material. Longhouses, a form of home, often featuring ornamentation, are commonly seen as the defining building of the Viking Age. Exactly how the Vikings navigated the open seas with such success is unclear. A study published by the Royal Society in its journal, ''Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences'', suggests that the Vikings made use of an optical compass as a navigation aid, using the light-splitting and polarisation-filtering properties of Iceland spar to find the location of the sun when it was not directly visible. While some evidence points to such use of Sunstone (medieval), calcite "sunstones" to find the sun's location, modern reproductions of Viking "sky-polarimetric" navigation have found these sun compasses to be highly inaccurate, and not usable in cloudy or foggy weather. The archaeological find known as the Visby lenses from the Swedish island of Gotland may be components of a telescope. It appears to date from long before the invention of the telescope in the 17th century.

Religion

For most of the Viking Age, Scandinavian society generally followed Norse paganism. The traditions of this faith, including Valhalla and the Æsir, are sometimes cited as a factor in the creation of Viking warrior culture. However, Scandinavia was eventually Christianised towards the later Viking Age, with early centres of Christianity especially in Denmark.

Trade

Some of the most important trading ports founded by the Norse during the period include both existing and former cities such as Aarhus (Denmark), Ribe (Denmark), Hedeby (Germany), Vineta (Pomerania), Truso (Poland), Bjørgvin (Norway), Kaupang (Norway), Skiringssal (Norway), Birka (Sweden), Bordeaux (France), Jorvik, York (England), Dublin (Ireland) and Staraya Ladoga, Aldeigjuborg (Russia). As Viking ships carried cargo and trade goods throughout the Baltic area and beyond, their active trading centres grew into thriving towns. One important centre of trade was at Hedeby. Close to the border with the Franks, it was effectively a crossroads between the cultures, until its eventual destruction by the Norwegians in an internecine dispute around 1050. York was the centre of the kingdom of Jórvík from 866, and discoveries there (e.g., a silk cap, a counterfeit of a coin from Samarkand, and a cowry shell from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf) suggest that Scandinavian trade connections in the 10th century reached beyond Byzantine Empire, Byzantium. However, those items could also have been Byzantine imports, and there is no reason to assume that the Varangians travelled significantly beyond Byzantium and the Caspian Sea. Viking trade routes extended far beyond Scandinavia. As Scandinavian ships penetrated southward on the rivers of Eastern Europe to acquire financial capital, they encountered the nomad peoples of the steppes, leading to the beginning of a trading system that connected Russia and Scandinavia with the northern routes of the Eurasian Silk Road network. During the

, the

connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea, via the Volga River. The international trade routes that enabled the passage of goods by ship from Scandinavia to the east were mentioned in early medieval literature as the ''Austrrvegr'' passing through the eastern Baltic region. Ships headed to the river Volga sailed through the Gulf of Finland, while those destined for Byzantium might take one of several routes through present-day north-eastern Poland or the Baltic lands. The Vikings catered to the demand for slaves in the southern slave markets in the Orthodox Eastern Roman Empire and the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, both of whom desired slaves of a religion different from their own. The

connected

and the Eastern Roman Empire. The Rus' people, Rus' were of note as merchants who supplied honey, wax, and slaves to Constantinople. The Varangians served as mercenaries of Russian princes, then of the Swedish princes who founded and ruled Norse kingdoms in Eastern Europe such as at Kiev and Novgorod.

Culture

The Viking Age saw many of the earliest Scandinavian cultural developments. The traditional

, still often read today, are seen as characteristic literary works of Northern Europe.

works such as ''Beowulf'', written in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend, show Viking influences; in ''Beowulf'', this influence is seen in the language and setting of the poem. Another example of Viking Age cultural influence is the

influence in the English language; this influence is primarily a legacy of the various Viking invasions of England.

Women in Viking society

According to archaeologist Liv Helga Dommasnes writing in 1998, although archaeological sources pertinent to the study of women's roles in Scandinavia were most plentiful from the Viking Age compared to other historical eras, not many archaeologists took advantage of the opportunities they represented. She alludes to the fact that the picture commonly presented of Viking society during the Viking Age was of a society of men engaged in their various occupations or positions, with scant mention of the women and children who were also part of it. In her reckoning, given this basic flaw in the modern image of Viking society, how knowledge of the past is organised must be considered. Accordingly, language is an essential part of this organisation of knowledge, and the concepts of modern languages are tools for understanding the realities of the past and for organising that knowledge, even though they are artefacts of our own time and perceived reality. Written sources, although scarce, appear to have been prioritised, even though it is understood that these written sources are biased. Almost all of them originate from other cultures, as literature from Viking societies is sparse. Since it unambiguously transmits meaning in literary terms, it is fairly clear that this meaning is not derived from the ideology of Viking Age people, but rather from that of early northern Christianity. Medieval studies scholar Gro Steinsland argues that the transformation from heathen to Christian religion in Viking society was a "radical break" rather than a gradual transition, and Dommasnes says this should have bearing on consideration of the transformation of late Viking Age traditions before they were recorded in 12th- or 13th-century literature. By this reasoning, changing cultural values necessarily greatly affected perceptions of women particularly and of gender roles generally.

, professor of Viking Age studies at the University of Nottingham, suggests in her ''Women in the Viking Age'' that "If historians' emphasis on vikings as warriors made invisible the women in the background, then it is not always clear where the more visible female counterparts of the new urban vikings have come from." She says it is impossible to study the Vikings without a conception of the entire historical period they lived in, of the culture that produced them, and of other cultures they influenced. By her lights, not accounting for the doings of half the population would be ludicrous. Published in 1991, ''Women in the Viking Age'' develops Jesch's thesis that the texts of the

(''Íslendingasögur'') are recordings of mythological narratives preserved in the forms in which they were written by 13th-century antiquarian, antiquaries in Iceland. They cannot be interpreted literally as the "authentic voice of Vikings", embodying as they do the preconceptions of those medieval Icelanders. These sagas, formerly believed to have been based on actual historical traditions, are now commonly regarded as imaginative creations. With their origins in oral traditions, there is little confidence in them as historical truth, but they express what they tell more directly than "the dry bones of archaeology" or the brief messages on runestones. The modern view of the Viking Age is completely entwined with knowledge imparted by the sagas, and they are the main source of a broadly held belief that women in the Viking Age were independent, assertive, and had Agency (sociology), agency. Jesch describes the content of

as connecting people who live in modern times with women of the Viking Age similarly to archaeological evidence, often telling more about the lives of women than the Material culture#Archaeology, material remains revealed in archaeological excavations. She considers these inscriptions as contemporary evidence originating within the culture instead of from the incomplete or prejudiced viewpoint of the cultural outsider, and sees most of them as narratives in a narrow sense that supply details illuminating the overall picture derived from archaeological sources. They allow actual persons to be identified and reveal information about them such as their family relationships, their names, and perhaps facts concerning their individual lives. Birgit Sawyer says her book ''The Viking-age Rune-stones'' aims to show that the corpus of runestones considered as a whole is a fruitful source of knowledge about the religious, political, social, and economic history of Scandinavia in the 10th and 11th centuries. Using data from her database she finds that runestones cast light on settlement patterns, communications, kinship and naming customs, and the evolution of language and poetry. Systematically researching the material leads to her hypothesis that runic inscriptions mirrored inheritance customs entailing not only lands or goods, but also rights, obligations, and rank in society. Although women in Viking society, like men, had tombstones over their graves, runestones were raised primarily to memorialise men, with the lives of few women being commemorated by runestones (Sawyer says only 7 per cent), and half of those were with men. Because there was a much larger per centage of women's graves with rich appointments in the Iron Age, the comparatively smaller number of runestones memorialising women indicates that the trend reflects changes in burial customs and religion only in part. Most of those honoured with runestones were men, and the emphasis was on those who sponsored the monuments. Typical medieval grave monuments name only the deceased, but Viking Age runestones prioritise the sponsors, first and foremost; therefore, they "are monuments to the ''living'' as much as to the ''dead''".

Language

The 12th-century

ic ''Gray Goose Laws'' () state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Danes spoke the same language, ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said '). Another term was ("northern speech"). Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic language, Icelandic, Faroese language, Faroese, Norwegian language, Norwegian, Danish language, Danish, Swedish language, Swedish, and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain North Germanic languages#Mutual intelligibility, considerable mutual intelligibility while Icelandic remains the closest to Old Norse. In present-day Iceland schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Written sources of Old Norse from the Viking Age are rare: there are rune stones, but the inscriptions are mostly short. A good deal of the vocabulary, Morphology (linguistics), morphology, and phonology of the runic inscriptions (little is known definitely about their syntax) "can be shown to develop regularly into Viking-Age, medieval and modern Scandinavian Reflex (linguistics), reflexes", says Michael Barnes. According to David Arter, Old Norse was for a while during the Viking Age a ''lingua franca'' spoken not just in Scandinavia but also in the courts of the Scandinavian rulers in Ireland, Scotland, England, France and Russia. The Norse origin of some words used today is obvious, as in the word ''haar'' referring to the cold sea mist on the east coast of Scotland and England; it derives from the Old Norse ''haárr''.

Old Norse influence on other languages

The long-term linguistic effects of the Viking settlements in England were threefold: List of English words of Old Norse origin, over a thousand Old Norse words eventually became part of Standard English; numerous places in the East and North-east of England have Danish names, and many English personal names are of Scandinavian origin.Crystal, David, ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language'', CUP, 2001 edition, , pp. 25–26. Scandinavian words that entered the English language included ''landing, score, beck, fellow, take, busting'', and ''steersman''. The vast majority of loan words did not appear in documents until the early 12th century; these included many modern words which used ''sk-'' sounds, such as ''skirt, sky,'' and ''skin''; other words appearing in written sources at this time included ''again, awkward, birth, cake, dregs, fog, freckles, gasp, law, moss, neck, ransack, root, scowl, sister, seat, sly, smile, want, weak'' and ''window'' from Old Norse meaning "wind-eye". Some of the words that came into use are among the most common in English, such as ''to go, to come, to sit, to listen, to eat, both, same, get'' and ''give''. The system of personal pronouns was affected, with ''they, them'' and ''their'' replacing the earlier forms. Old Norse influenced the verb ''to be''; the replacement of ''sindon'' by ''are'' is almost certainly Scandinavian in origin, as is the third-person-singular ending ''-s'' in the present tense of verbs. There are more than 1,500 Scandinavian place names in England, mainly in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (within the former boundaries of the ''Danelaw''): over 600 end in ''-by'', the Scandinavian word for "village"—for example ''Grimsby, Naseby'', and ''Whitby''; many others end in ''-thorpe'' ("farm"), ''-thwaite'' ("clearing"), and ''-toft'' ("homestead"). According to an analysis of names ending in ''-son'', the distribution of family names showing Scandinavian influence is still concentrated in the north and east, corresponding to areas of former Viking settlement. Early medieval records indicate that over 60% of personal names in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire showed Scandinavian influence.

Genetics

A genetic analysis, genetic study published at bioRxiv in July 2019 and in ''Nature'' in September 2020 examined the population genomics of the Viking Age. The remains of four hundred forty-two ancient humans from across Europe and the North Atlantic were surveyed, stretching from the Bronze Age to the early modern period. In terms of Y-DNA composition, Viking individuals were similar to present-day Scandinavians. The most common Y-DNA haplogroup in the study was Haplogroup I1, I1 (95 samples), Haplogroup R1b, R1b (84 samples) and Haplogroup R1a, R1a, especially (but not exclusively) of the Scandinavian R1a-Z284 subclade (61 samples). It was found that there was a notable foreign gene flow into Scandinavia in the years preceding the Viking Age and during the Viking Age itself. This gene flow entered

and eastern

, from which it spread into the rest of Scandinavia. The Y-DNA of Viking Age samples suggests that this may partly have been descendants of the Germanic tribes from the Migration Period returning to Scandinavia. The study also found that despite close cultural similarities, there were distinct genetic differences between regional populations in the Viking Age. These differences have persisted into modern times. Inland areas were found to be more genetically homogenous than coastal areas and islands such as Öland and

. These islands were probably important trade settlements. Consistent with historical records, the study found evidence of a major influx of Danish Viking ancestry into England, a Swedish influx into Estonia and Finland; and Norwegian influx into Ireland, Iceland and Greenland during the Viking Age. The Vikings were found to have left a profound genetic imprint in the areas they settled, which has persisted into modern times with, e.g., the contemporary population of the United Kingdom having up to 6% Viking DNA. The study also showed that some local people of Scotland were buried as Vikings and may have taken on Viking identities. Margaryan et al. 2020 examined the skeletal remains of 42 individuals from the Salme ships, Salme ship burials in Estonia. The skeletal remains belonged to warriors killed in battle who were later buried together with numerous valuable weapons and armour. DNA testing and isotope analysis revealed that the men came from central Sweden. Margaryan et al. 2020 examined an elite warrior burial from Bodzia Cemetery, Bodzia (Poland) dated to 1010–1020. The cemetery in Bodzia is exceptional in terms of Scandinavian and Kievian Rus links. The Bodzia man (sample VK157, or burial E864/I) was not a simple warrior from the princely retinue, but he belonged to the princely family himself. His burial is the richest one in the whole cemetery; moreover, strontium analysis of his teeth enamel shows he was not local. It is assumed that he came to Poland with the Prince of Kiev, Sviatopolk I of Kiev, Sviatopolk the Accursed, and met a violent death in combat. This corresponds to the events of 1018 when Sviatopolk himself disappeared after having retreated from Kiev to Poland. It cannot be excluded that the Bodzia man was Sviatopolk himself, as the genealogy of the Rurikids at this period is extremely dubious, and the dates of birth of many princes of this dynasty may be quite approximative. The Bodzia man carried haplogroup I1-Haplogroup I-Z63, S2077 and had both Scandinavian ancestry and Russian admixture. The genetic data from these areas affirmed conclusions previously drawn from historical and archaeological evidence.

Settlements outside Scandinavia

Atlantic

* Greenland

Baltic

* Grobiņa, Seeburg (Latvia) * Palanga, Polange (Lithuania)

British Isles

England

* Jórvík (York) * Cumbria

Ireland

* Arklow * Early Scandinavian Dublin, Dyflin (

) * Hlymrekr (

) * History of Waterford, Veðrafjǫrðr (

) * Víkingr-ló (Wicklow)Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names * Veisafjǫrðr (

)

Isle of Man

* Isle of Man, Mann

Scotland

* Galloway * Kintyre * Norðreyjar (

and

) * Ross, Scotland, Ross * Suðreyjar (

) * Sutherland

Eastern Europe

Western Europe

North America

* Norse colonisation of the Americas * L'Anse aux Meadows (and possibly a larger area called Vinland)

Notes

Cited sources

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

Vikings
– BBC History (collection of short articles under the headings Overview, Raiders and Settlers, Viking Culture, Evidence)
Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga
– Smithsonian website for travelling exhibition, 2000–2003

Old Norse literature
from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway
ScienceNordic's article on "How Vikings navigated the world"
{{Middle Ages Viking Age, History of Scandinavia Iron Age cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures in Sweden Archaeological cultures in Denmark Archaeological cultures in Norway Archaeological cultures in Estonia Archaeological cultures in England Archaeological cultures in Scotland Archaeological cultures in Ireland Archaeological cultures in France Early Middle Ages Historical eras Vikings, *

Context

Background

Probable causes

Demographic models

Economic model

Ideological model

Political model

Overview

Northern Europe

England

Ireland

Scotland

Earldom of Orkney

Kings of the Isles

Wales

Iceland

Kvenland

Estonia

Curonians

Eastern Europe

Central Europe

Western Europe

Frisia

France

Southern Europe

Italy

Spain

Portugal

North America

Greenland

Mainland North America

Technology

Religion

Trade

Culture

Women in Viking society

Language

Old Norse influence on other languages

Genetics

Settlements outside Scandinavia

Atlantic

Baltic

British Isles

England

Ireland

Isle of Man

Scotland

Eastern Europe

Western Europe

North America

Notes

Cited sources

Further reading

Background

General surveys

External links