Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
boats returned home to Norway with enticing trade goods and tales of poorly defended
coastlines, the Vikings began laying plans to conquer the world. The first Viking raid took
place on St Cuthbert's monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in 793. Soon the Vikings
were spreading across Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe with war on their minds and
returning home with slaves
(thrall)
in their formidable, low Norse longboats.
The Vikings attacked in great fleets, terrorising, murdering, enslaving, assimilating or
displacing local populations. Coastal regions of Britain, Ireland, France (Normandy was
named for these 'Northmen'), Russia (as far east as the river Volga), Moorish Spain
(Seville was raided in 844), and the Middle East (they even reached Baghdad) all came un-
der the Viking sway. Well-defended Constantinople (Istanbul) proved a bridge too far - the
Vikings attacked six times but never took the city. Such rare setbacks notwithstanding, the
Viking raids transformed Scandinavia from an obscure backwater on Europe's northern
fringe to an all-powerful empire.
For all of their destruction elsewhere, Vikings belonged very much to the shores from
which they set out or sheltered on their raids. Viking raids increased standards of living at
home. Emigration freed up farmland and fostered the emergence of a new merchant class,
while captured slaves provided farm labour. Norwegian farmers also crossed the Atlantic
to settle the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland during the 9th and 10th centuries. The world, it
seemed, belonged to the Vikings.
Viking Sites
Kaupang
(Larvik)
