Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
So fearsome were the Vikings that the English introduced a special prayer into church
services: 'From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us'.
The Vikings
To the modern imagination, the word 'Viking' commonly conjures images of bearded thugs
in horned helmets, jumping from longships and pillaging their way through early Christen-
dom. While some of these Northmen (as they were known in Britain) were partial to a spot
of looting and slaughter - not to mention slave trading - the real history of these Scand-
inavian seafarers is far more complex.
The Viking era spanned several centuries and took on different characteristics
throughout the time. Although unrecorded raids had probably been occurring for decades,
the start of the Viking Age is generally dated from AD 793, when Nordic Vikings ran-
sacked Lindisfarne Monastery, off the coast of Northumbria in northeastern England. Sur-
vivors described the Vikings' sleek square-rigged vessels as 'dragons flying in the air' and
the raiders as 'terrifying heathens'.
Early Viking raiders often targeted churches and monasteries for their wealth of gold
and jewels. Books and other precious but perishable cultural artefacts were just some of
the raids' collateral damage. Roughing up monks - who wrote the history of the age -
hardly endeared the Vikings to posterity.
The Vikings were initially adventurous opportunists who took advantage of the region's
turmoil and unstable political status quo but in time their campaigns evolved from piratical
forays into organised expeditions that established far-flung colonies overseas.
They were successful traders, extraordinary mariners and insatiable explorers whose ex-
ploits took them to Byzantium, Russia and North Africa, and even as far as the Caspian
Sea and Baghdad. They also established settlements in Iceland, Greenland and Newfound-
land.
The Vikings settled in several places too, including Northern France and the British
Isles, proving to be able farmers. They were also shrewd political players, establishing
their own kingdoms and intermarrying with local nobles or squeezing protection money
from local kings. Even the historically pivotal 1066 Battle of Hastings can be thought of
not as a battle between England and France, but essentially a fight between two leaders
descended from this Nordic stock (William and Harald).
