by Peter Archer
Viking society and its structure will be more extensively discussed in Chapter 3.
The End of the Viking Age
By the eleventh century, Viking raids had slowed. The Scandinavians had expanded their territories while at the same time becoming more settled and less aggressive. The last great Viking leader was Harald Hardrada (c. 1015–1066), king of Norway. Before becoming king Harald ranged across Europe, traveling to Russia and then in 1034 to Constantinople, where he and his band of followers joined the imperial guard. He raided the Danes for a time before becoming king of Norway in 1046.
The eleventh century saw great changes in Europe, none more so than in Britain. In 1066, the English king Edward the Confessor died, the throne passing to Harold Godwinson. Harald Hardrada saw opportunity here, and invaded England. Although his forces were initially successful in conquering the countryside in the north, Harold Godwinson rushed north with an army and defeated Harald at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harald was killed during the battle.
Harold Godwinson’s troubles were not over. The following month, an army led by Duke William of Normandy (also called the Bastard) landed on England’s south coast. Harold’s forces met them at Hastings, and for a time the Anglo-Saxon shield wall held back Norman charges. Then William ordered his archers to loose their arrows high in the air. One struck Harold in the eye. In a panic, the Anglo-Saxons broke ranks, and the Norman knights charged the shield wall and dispersed them. The Norman conquest of England had begun.
From the viewpoint of the Viking age, there is a curious completeness to this. The Normans were, in fact, Viking descendants, whose name derives from “Northmen.” So the Norman conquest of England in one sense completed the long process that began in the abbey of Lindisfarne. The Vikings, at last, were triumphant.
Chapter Two
Voyages Across the Seas
The power of the Vikings came from their seamanship and, as we discussed in the previous chapter, their shipbuilding abilities. In this chapter we will look briefly at some of the more spectacular voyages they made, ranging over the seas to almost all corners of the earth.
Leif Erikson and the Voyage to America
Among the most incredible of Viking achievements was one that probably meant little to most Scandinavians when it happened: Leif Erikson’s voyage to America. This journey, unplanned as far as one can tell, was only verified in the 1960s with the discovery of the remains of Leif’s initial settlement.
Sometime in the 980s, an Icelander named Erik the Red killed several men in a dispute about some slaves. Erik had a violent heritage; his father, Thorvald, had come to Iceland, fleeing Norway, where he had killed a neighbor. Icelandic society might have levied one of several penalties against Erik:
His property could be confiscated, and he could be forced to live apart from society; the term for this is skógarmathr, or “man of the forest.” Others would be prohibited from helping him leave the country. Should he leave the country, he could be slain without penalty against whoever did the killing.
He might be exiled (herathsseket) from his district for a given length of time.
Erik’s crime was considered serious enough (although not of the most serious type) that he was sentenced to exile for three summers, in addition to a fine. Erik settled on an island off the coast where he again became involved in a quarrel with neighbors and killed several of them. This time the court decided that Erik should be subject to skógarmathr, the most severe criminal penalty it could impose.
Never one to bow to authority, Erik and his men at once began planning to leave the country.
Some time prior to these events, a Viking sailor, blown off course, had sighted land to the west and north of Iceland, although he had not landed there. Now Erik was determined to follow up on this sighting and to found his own colony. His adventures are described in Erik’s Saga.
The Vinland Sagas
Erik’s Saga and the Grælendinga Saga are collectively known as the Vinland Sagas. They were composed separately sometime in the thirteenth century, although scholars believe they are based on an earlier oral tradition, since they are less consciously literary than other sagas of the Scandinavians. They tell the story of Erik the Red’s journey to Greenland from Iceland and of Leif Erikson’s voyage to North America, which he called Vinland.
Erik and his followers set sail and after a voyage lasting some months landed on the coast of a large body of land that stretched to the north and west. Rather than remain in the place of their first landing, the Icelanders sailed along the coast, rounding the southern end of the land and going some distance north along its west coast. Eventually, they founded two settlements: Brattahlid at the southern end of what they were now calling Greenland, and Lysefjord, farther north.
Leif Erikson
Erik’s son Leif was born in Iceland sometime during the 970s and grew up accustomed to travel in the ships of his father. Erik himself seems to have been too busy to pay much attention to his son, and Leif was largely raised by one of Erik’s followers, a man named Tyrker.
In 999, Leif and a band of men set out for Norway. They were blown off course and ended up wintering in the Hebrides, islands off the coast of Scotland. Eventually, they reached Norway where they became part of the retinue of the great Norse king Olav Tryggvason. Olav succeeded in converting Leif to Christianity, though Leif, according to Erik’s Saga, was reluctant to abandon the gods of his fathers. The king, perceiving Leif’s strength of character, gave him the mission of returning to Greenland to convert its inhabitants to the new faith.
The king said he saw no man more suitable for the job than Leif—“and you’ll have the good fortune that’s needed.”
Leif and his followers set sail for their home. Again, the weather for the crossing was unfavorable, and they were “tossed about at sea for a long time.”
He chanced upon land where he had not expected any to be found. Fields of self-sown wheat and vines were growing there; also there were trees known as maple, and they took specimens of all of them.
Leif also chanced upon men clinging to a ship’s wreck, whom he brought home and found shelter for over the winter. In so doing he showed his strong character and kindness.
Vinland
The land that Erik had found he called Vinland, from the number of vines he found growing. There is some dispute about where exactly it was. One group of archaeologists has argued for L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland. It is clear from ruins discovered there in the 1960s that the area was settled by Norsemen, and it has generally been identified with a settlement by Leif, which was later called Leifsbudir (Leif’s Booths). However, one thing that militates against this being the place described in Erik’s Saga is the fact that the area around L’Anse aux Meadows is completely bare of vines and the other vegetation. A more likely candidate is the area around the entrance to the St. Lawrence Seaway, where there is also evidence of a Viking settlement.
Whatever the case, it is interesting that the Vikings showed no interest in colonizing the new land as they had done with Iceland. In truth, Leif’s discovery came as the Viking age was drawing to an end. North America would remain free from further European incursion for another 500 years.
The Danelaw
Beginning in the eleventh century, the northern and eastern sections of England were formally known as the Danelaw. Although the term signaled the recognition by the Anglo-Saxons that a permanent Scandinavian presence had been established in Britain, it was in fact the result of a defeat for the Vikings.
The Battle of Edington
Since the first raid on Lindisfarne in 793, Viking activity along the shores of Britain had been steadily increasing. In 865, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, our primary source for this period, records the coming of a “great heathen army” led by Ivar the Boneless and his brothers Ubba and Halfdan. This army succeeded in conquering a large area as one by one the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms collapsed. In 870, the Vikings fought the men of Wessex in the
Battle of Merton, during which the West Saxon king Æthelred was killed. He was succeeded by his brother Alfred.
Of all the Anglo-Saxon rulers who preceded the Norman conquest of 1066, Alfred is unquestionably the best known—primarily for his activity in opposing the Viking forces threatening Wessex. Yet he lost the first few battles he fought against them, and by the winter of 877–78 he had been driven into a marshy area in present-day Somerset. There he plotted his strategy to halt the invaders. In the spring of 878 he gathered his followers and met the Vikings at Edington.
Guthrum, leader of the Viking horde, occupied the town and waited, as usual, for a large ransom payment to be made before moving on. In May, he met Alfred’s forces. According to Asser’s Life of Alfred:
Fighting ferociously, forming a dense shield-wall against the whole army of the Pagans, and striving long and bravely, through God’s will, at last [Alfred] gained the victory.
The resulting peace treaty accomplished two important things. First Guthrum agreed to convert to Christianity. Second, he agreed that a boundary should be established between the lands controlled by the Danes and those ruled by Alfred.
Cnut the Great
The most important ruler of the Danelaw was Cnut the Great (c. 995–1035). In a military campaign that climaxed in 1016 he succeeded in doing what other Danish rulers had not and captured London. He and the English king Edmund negotiated a treaty that granted Cnut rule over all the land north of the Thames River. When Edmund died that winter, by the terms of the treaty Cnut became king of all England. Among his first acts was to levy an enormous tax (the Danegeld), which he used to pay off his army.
Kiev and the Rus
According to the Annals of St-Bertin, in 839 a delegation from the Byzantine emperor Theophilus at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) arrived at the court of King Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, to negotiate a treaty of peace between the two monarchs. Attached to the delegation were a group of men who called themselves Rus. They asked Louis for safe conduct through his territory, as they were returning to their own homes.
Louis distrusted them, particularly when he discovered that the homes to which they were returning were in Sweden; people living in Aquitaine had learned over the past half century to be wary of people from Scandinavia. Accordingly, the king indicated that he would detain them for a time and if he found nothing against them, he would give them the safe conduct they were requesting. The story ends there, and we don’t know if the Rus were sent on their way or spent the rest of their lives languishing in prison in Aquitaine. But it is significant as being the earliest mention of the Rus.
Why “Rus”?
Scholars have suggested several reasons for the name Rus. One suggestion is that the Swedes came from Roslagen, an area north of Stockholm. Another is that it is related to the Finnish word ruotsi, which means “men who row.” It is also possible that it relates to their red hair.
Attacks Across the Baltic
There was a long tradition of Scandinavian piracy and attacks across the Baltic Sea. Snorri Sturluson, in the Ynglingasaga, mentions a Swedish king named Sveigdir who traveled across the sea in search of Godheim (God Home) and Odin the Old. He searched for five years, during which he traveled as far as Turkey “and found there many kinsmen.” Accepting Snorri’s account as at least possibly accurate, there appears to have been a Scandinavian migration east as well as west.
The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum describes Viking raids being carried out in Baltic countries in the 840s and 850s by Ragnar Lodbrok and Hasting. However, such raids had one significant obstacle: There were no rich monasteries to plunder.
Saxo Grammaticus
The writer known as Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1150–c. 1220) was possibly a secretary to a prominent Danish archbishop. In this position, he would have been well placed to observe goings on at the Danish royal court. His Gesta Danorum, besides being a valuable written source for the events of the Viking age, is also notable as offering an early version of the story of Hamlet, prince of Denmark.
Instead, the Viking goal seems to have been to find passage to Constantinople and the rich trading possibilities it offered. They were aided by three large rivers: the Western Dvina, the Dnieper, and the Volga. Viking ships were admirably suited for river travel, being of shallow draft and easily steerable. By the 830s, there was a Viking settlement on Lake Ladoga east of the Gulf of Finland. From there it was possible to travel by river (albeit on smaller boats than those they had used to cross the Baltic) south to the Black Sea.
Such river routes were still insecure in the first part of the ninth century; hence the fact that the Rus at the Aquitanian court had traveled north with a group of other people. However, the Rus found an important instrument in securing them: the Kievan, or Old Russian, state.
Kiev
According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, a compilation made in the twelfth century, the people living along the Dnieper River resisted an attempt by a tribe called the Varangians, whom scholars generally identify with the Rus, to impose a tribute on them. Although the local tribes resisted and drove the Varangians back, they proved incapable of governing themselves. A period of conflict ensued, and in the end representatives of the various tribes traveled to Sweden and asked the Rus, or Varangians, (“just as some of them are called Swedes, and others Normans, Angles, and Goths,” says the Chronicle) for leaders who would unite them and protect them. The Rus provided three leaders: Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor. Sineus and Truvor were soon dead, leaving Rurik as the sole leader. Rurik established his capital at Novgorod, which became known as the Kingdom of the Rus.
The Rus now controlled the trade route along the Volga. They expanded south, capturing the city of Kiev and founding the medieval Kievan state. From here they fought various wars with the Byzantine Empire as well as engaging in trade with it. Although their culture did not last, their name did, and eventually the expanding polity was given the name Russia.
Northmen and Normandy
In the 850s when the Vikings sailed up the Seine and besieged Paris, they had been attacking the Frankish coastline for more than three decades. The first attacks came in 820 around the mouth of the Seine and continued, involving increasing numbers of the Northmen.
In 857 two Viking warrior captains, Sigtrygg and Bjorn, joined forces. Having previously fought their way up the Seine as far as Chartres, this time they captured and sacked the town and its great cathedral and then attacked Paris. The two armies continued to raid the area, culminating in 876 when a fleet of 100 ships sailed up the Seine. This time, though, there was no attack; the Vikings were bought off by a bribe from King Charles the Bald of 5,000 livres. This did not, however, stop the Vikings from attacking the church at Bayeux and killing the bishop.
It was evident to the Frankish monarchy that these raids would continue indefinitely. The 5,000 livres represented nothing more than a temporary halt. Next time, the attacks would be more severe and the amount required to stop them would be greater. Clearly a different sort of approach was required. To that end, they decided to offer not money but land.
Rollo of Normandy
The ancestry of the Viking chieftain who was to found the colony of Normandy is uncertain. There is evidence that he took part in the attack on Paris in 876. At some time subsequent to this, he captured the city of Rouen, defeating the Franks by pretending to order his men to flee to their boats; when the Franks pursued them, the city’s defenders fell into concealed pits dug by Rollo’s men. The Vikings thereupon turned back upon those remaining and slaughtered them so effectively that they were able to enter the city unopposed.
It was the completeness of this victory, evidently, that motivated King Charles the Simple to invite Rollo to negotiate a grant of land from the Frankish king. The actual treaty was signed in 912 and gave the Viking chief a large tract of land in northwestern France. In return for this, Rollo agreed to convert to Christianity and to join the king in defending the Kingdom of the Franks from ot
her aggressors.
It was an ingenious solution that belies Charles’s name. By giving motivation for the Vikings to settle down and stop raiding, Charles also enlisted a powerful fighting force in his service, one that could range far afield if need be. A second grant of land in central Normandy was given to Rollo in 924. He died somewhere around 933, and afterward a third grant of land was given to his son, William Longsword.
The Vikings had now succeeded in forcing three negotiated truces with European kingdoms: the treaty of 878 between Alfred the Great of Wessex and Guthrum that created the Danelaw; agreements negotiated in the early tenth century between the Byzantine emperor and the Kievan Rus; and King Charles’s grant of Normandy to Rollo. Although none of the Viking states would survive, their cultural influence was immense.
The Importance of the Normans
Although Normandy is probably associated in most minds today with World War II and the events of June 6, 1944, it played an important role in history long before that. It was, of course, the jumping-off point for William the Conqueror’s 1066 expedition to seize the English throne. By that time, only a bit more than a century since the establishment of the Norman duchy, the Viking founders had changed their religion, their warlike habits, and their language. They now were Christian and spoke an early form of French.