The Vikings

From Odin to Christ

Martyn Whittock, Hannah Whittock

• Publisher: Lion Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780745980188
• eBook ISBN: 9780745980195
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: British History

The popular image of the Vikings is of tall red-headed men, raping and pillaging their way around the coast of Europe, stopping only to ransack monasteries and burn longships. But the violent Vikings of the 8th century became the pious Christians of the 11th century, who gave gold crosses to Christian churches and in whose areas of rule pagan idols were destroyed and churches were built.

So how did this radical transformation happen, and why?

What difference did it make to the Vikings, and to those around them, and what is their legacy today?

This book takes a 'global' look at this key period in Viking history, exploring all the major areas of Viking settlement. Written to be an accessible and engaging overview for the general reader.

CHAPTER 1

The Pagan Vikings

Who and what were the Vikings? Where did they come from? What did they believe before conversion to Christianity? What are our modern images of the Vikings and how do they affect our outlook regarding them? We need to answer these questions before we explore the Vikings of the Viking Age, those who experienced their impact and how the Vikings eventually converted to Christianity. As we explore the final question, it will become obvious that the “Christian Vikings” do not get a look in when it comes to the popular image of marauders in horned helmets. The pagan Vikings totally dominate the headlines.

WHO AND WHAT WERE THE VIKINGS?

Those at the receiving end of attacks from the north used various names for those responsible.

In Anglo-Saxon written sources, the terms “Danes”, “Northmen”, “pagans” or “heathens” were most often used. What is intriguing is that the term “Danes” did not carry much geographical accuracy. Consequently, when we read “Danes” in the accounts of a particular raid we cannot be certain that those responsible actually came from Denmark. For example, in one report of a raid on Portland, Dorset, in 789, the same entry says they were Danes – yet they came from Norway. The Franks (in what is now France and western Germany) called them the Nordmanni (Northmen) and so an area ceded to them in the tenth century would become Normandy (land of the Northmen).

Slavs knew them from their ruddy complexions as the Rus (red) and a related word, Rhos, was used by the Byzantines, who employed them as mercenaries and met Scandinavians who had travelled down the rivers leading into the Black Sea and on into the eastern Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire. This latter word (in the form Rus) would eventually give rise to the name of Russia: what started as a mixed Viking/Slav state centred on Kiev was at the core of the early Russian nation. The Byzantines also called them Varangians (those who swear loyalty) and the mercenaries of the Varangian Guard served the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. Then in Ireland they were the Lochlannach (Northmen), a designation similar to the one used by the Franks. The Irish went on to differentiate between the Norwegians as Finn-gaill (white foreigners) and the Danes as Dubh-gaill (black foreigners), which will be explained in Chapter 5. Far from Scandinavia, Islamic writers called them al-madjus (heathens) in a religiously derived label similar to that used by Anglo-Saxons. What is surprising to the modern reader is the fact that we hardly ever hear them called Vikings outside of Scandinavia.

So where does the familiar term Viking come from? There is no definite answer as the term may have had a number of possible origins. In Old Icelandic (a variant of the Old Norse language) the word vík (bay, creek) may have been used to describe seamen hiding in, or sailing from, these coastal inlets, so a geographical term may have become a group name. In addition, an area of southern Norway was called Vik, so this may have become attached to those sailing from this area. Then again, the Old Icelandic verb víkja (moving, turning aside) may have come to describe seafarers who were always “on the move”. Old Norse Scandinavian written sources (which appear very late in Scandinavia) call a raider a víkingr, and a raiding expedition of such men a víking. This reminds us that “the word ‘Viking’ is something you did rather than what you were”1

For many so described, this would have been a part-time occupation.2 At other times of the year or during other phases of their lives, they would not have gone out “viking” or been considered as “Vikings”. And this did not necessarily carry a negative connotation. In Old Norse sources, if you were not on the receiving end of one of these raids, then going out viking was an adventure; taking part in a spot of muscular free enterprise. It is not surprising, therefore, that the victims of the Vikings coined their own terms – and these were often not positive ones. Even the red-faced foreigners of the Byzantine accounts suggest a sense of an alien other. However, as we have seen, it must be admitted that sometimes more neutral geographical terms were used (“Danes”, “Northmen”) but even these were usually used in the context of a negative account. There was certainly no romance of the Vikings for those on the receiving end of their attentions.

So, we might ask, when did the term “Viking” get into English usage? There was an Old English term derived from the Old Norse word – in Old English, wicing or wicingas – but this does not appear as a label for Scandinavian pirates until the tenth century. More surprisingly, it is only used very rarely, and (not surprisingly) had a negative connotation. In contrast, some English east coast place names contain the word and, in these cases, it may have been derived from a Scandinavian personal name. In which case, we are back to a more positive spin on the term since the person in question almost certainly carried the name with pride: “I am an adventurer”, rather than “My employment is smash and grab… and worse”. But that is not surprising, given that the person in question was almost certainly a Scandinavian settler. Examples include Wickenby (Lincolnshire) which means “Viking’s by” (village); Wiganthorpe (Yorkshire) which means “Viking’s thorp” (dependent farm); Wigston (Leicestershire) which means “Viking’s tun” (village).3 The last example couples a Scandinavian personal name with an Old English place-name term.

After this infrequent use in Old English, the word did not surface again until almost a millennium later, when it finally became the standard term for Scandinavian invaders during the nineteenth century. It is not known in its modern spelling Viking before 1840. After that, it was used to describe both those involved in raiding expeditions (as Scandinavians originally used the term) and also Scandinavians generally during the Viking Age (as it was never used in the past). It is now so popular that it is the label of choice for most people and it would confuse many if we insisted on using something else. However, we just have to remember that few of those meeting the original Vikings would have recognized the term and most Scandinavian merchants and settlers would not have thought that it applied to them since it was not what they did. But “Vikings” it now is.

What is less contentious is the conclusion that (for all their differences) they shared many common cultural characteristics and this included their mutually understood dialects of what we now call “Old Norse”. This term describes a Scandinavian language spoken between the eighth and thirteenth centuries ad, and generally mutually understood across the range of areas within which it was spoken. There were, though, western and eastern dialects of Old Norse and a third form was spoken on the island of Gotland in the Baltic. From this Old Norse language, modern Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish eventually developed. There were also once the Norn languages of Orkney and Shetland but these have died out. This is why some scholars prefer the term “Norse” to that of “Vikings” as a group term, but we will use the former when describing language or general cultural features (as in “Norse mythology”, which was basically the beliefs of Vikings) but the latter term we will generally use for the people.

Modern historians tend to use the term the “Viking Age” to describe a period which ran from the late eighth century until about 1100. During this period people from Scandinavia first of all raided and then later settled across a wide geographical area, from Russia in the east, to Greenland and the coast of North America in the west. They raided on both sides of the English Channel and then later settled in Normandy, in eastern and northern England, across the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland, and also established a Viking kingdom in Dublin. Vikings colonized Iceland, the Faroe Islands and parts of Greenland. These North Atlantic colonists used both Norway and Ireland as springboards for these particular settlements and modern DNA testing shows that a large proportion of the female genetic heritage in modern-day Iceland is Irish-derived (clearly brought there as wives, slaves or both combined). Some Vikings took part in raids which reached Spain and North Africa, while Swedish Vikings explored the eastern Baltic and followed the river systems down into the eastern Mediterranean. This is a staggeringly diverse area and remarkable in its geographical range. In this book we will, at times, extend the final end date of the Viking Age beyond 1100, in order to see how Christianity influenced some Scandinavian Viking societies.

We are now sure that the Vikings made it to North America and so will include American Vikings. The later (mostly thirteenth-century) sagas refer to exploration of a region to the west of Greenland they call “Vinland”. This was clearly North America but which part remains open to question. The word vínber (wine berries) from which Vinland was named can indicate both wild grapes and other plants. Depending on which plant is described we can guess different areas of the western North American coast that might have been reached, as there is a clear northern geographical limit to the growth of wild grapes. We will explore this later (Chapter 12) but suffice it to say that, since Greenland was so named as a PR ploy to encourage settlement, it may have been that Vinland (wineland) was similarly named in order to give a positive eleventh-century spin to reality. Impressively, Vikings could be found from North Africa to the North Cape and from Greece and Turkey to North America.

In the early part of this period, there were no recognizable nations in Scandinavia and, consequently, when we use the terms “Denmark”, “Norway” and “Sweden” they describe geographical areas and then, a little later, loose political units, not distinct nation states. But things were changing during the Viking Age, as from the tenth century onwards we see the gradual emergence of kingdoms in Denmark, Norway and, finally, Sweden. Then we can start talking of kings of these kingdoms but, even then, nation building took time and the borders of these kingdoms were fluid for many generations. Alongside this, there were political rivalries for dominance, times when kings of Denmark ruled in Norway, and times when kings of Norway ruled an independent kingdom. We will see kings of Denmark ruling large parts of southern Sweden in what we might call Greater Denmark and a king of Norway operating against pagans in Sweden due to a political opportunity provided by a much weaker Swedish kingdom (where the local king exercised much less authority than in neighbouring kingdoms).

WHERE DID THE VARIOUS VIKING SETTLERS COME FROM?

As we have seen, most of the Vikings involved in attacking and settling in England – and Britain generally – came from what we now know as Denmark and Norway.

Norwegians (often today simply described as the “Norse” to differentiate them from the Danes) raided and then settled Shetland, Orkney, northern Scotland, the Western Isles and Ireland. They eventually set up a Viking kingdom in Dublin and from there became actively engaged in northern English politics, so at times kings of Dublin were also kings of York. Back home, Norway was – until the late ninth century when Harald Finehair unified much of the land – divided and dominated by Denmark and it was well into the tenth century before its future as an independent kingdom seemed secure. Even then it was often dominated by (or directly ruled by) Danish kings at various times until the early eleventh century. The richest area was Vestfold, with a trading centre at Kaupang.

In contrast, the Danes raided the coasts of eastern and southern England and France. They would have the greatest impact on Anglo-Saxon consciousness, hence the tendency to describe all raiders as “Danes” in some Anglo-Saxon sources. Things, though, could be more complex since Rollo (the founder of Normandy) is variously described as Danish and Norwegian in different medieval sources, both in Normandy and Britain. Denmark dominated the trade routes from the North Sea to the Baltic, so it always had the potential to develop into a formidable threat to its southern neighbours. The Danes also controlled regions in southern Sweden and often acted as overlords of Norway. Denmark became increasingly centralized by the eighth century. After this, it was strong enough to threaten the coast of the Frankish Empire by the ninth century (by 814 this empire comprised what is now modern-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, western Germany, northern Italy, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia). Denmark then fragmented in the late ninth/early tenth centuries between dynasties competing for control of the kingdom, but was reunited later in the tenth century.

Swedish Vikings mostly sailed eastward into the Baltic and down the river systems of what would later become Russia. It is only from the late tenth/early eleventh century that we hear of Swedish Vikings joining the fleets sailing for England, 200 years afte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Map
• Key People
• Glossary
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Pagan Vikings
• Chapter 2: Storm from the North
• Chapter 3: The Viking Conversion in England
• Chapter 4: The Cross and the Hammer: Christians and Pagans in the North of England
• Chapter 5: The Other Island...
• Chapter 6: The Duchy of the Northmen
• Chapter 7: The Christian Vikings of Denmark
• Chapter 8: The Christian Vikings of Norway
• Chapter 9: The Christian Vikings of Sweden
• Chapter 10: Vikings in the East: Christian Vikings in Russia and the Byzantine Empire
• Chapter 11: Christian Vikings of the North Atlantic
• Chapter 12: The First American Christians
• Chapter 13: A Christian Viking King of England
• Chapter 14: Christian Jarls of the Northern and Western Isles
• A Final Thought: The Viking World in 1150
• About the authors
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index