Vikings, the Great Raiders

The Vikings were feared raiders for roughly three centuries, or approximately 790 AD to 1065 AD.[footnoteRef:2] They took slaves, pillaged, raped, looted, burned, and leveled villages; later they began to winter over in the regions they conquered; and in England they even acquired their own kingdom known as Danelaw. These raiders were fierce, and accounts from Christian monks at the time reveal how absolutely brutal the situation must have been: one monk writing in 860 AD reported on the terror of seeing the Viking ships approaching: The number of ships grows: the endless stream of Vikings never ceases to increase. Everywhere the Christians are the victims of massacres, burnings, plundering. The Vikings conquer all in their path and nothing resists them: They seize Bordeaux, Perigeux, Limoges, Angouleme, and Toulouse. Angiers, Tours, and Orleans are annihilated and an innumerable fleet sails up the Seine.[footnoteRef:3] Another monk in 884 wrote The Norsemen continued to kill and take Christian people captive, destroy churches, tear down fortifications and burn towns. Along all the roads lay the bodies of clergy and laity, nobles and commoners, women, children and infants. There was no highway or village where the dead did not lie, and all were filled with torment and grief to see the devastation of the Christian people, driven to the point of extermination.[footnoteRef:4] In short, the Vikings were not just traders, merchants and farmersthey were also terrifying raiders who for nearly three centuries terrorized the coastal regions of England and northern Europe, meeting little to no resistance due to the political disorganization of the times. Thanks to their size, brute strength, disregard for manners or human respect, mastery of the navy, the element of surprise, and a thirst for conquest, the Vikings were masterful raiders for centuries until finally driven back to Scandinavia. [2: Vikings as Raiders, History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders] [3: Vikings as Raiders, History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders] [4: Vikings as Raiders, History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders]

The very name Viking is said to have derived from the old vikingr, which meant pirateand like pirates of the modern era, the Vikings would attack for the purposes of plundering: their mode of existence depended on their ability to take from others what they themselves lacked.[footnoteRef:5] However, the raiding of the Vikings was really only one aspect of their lifestylethey also contributed to the development of societies and cultures as they penetrated, took over, and settled the regions they raided in previous generations. The fact is that the Scandinavian region which gave birth to the Vikings was in a mode of expansion at the end of the 8th century, and that expansion continued on for several generations as Europe itself had fallen into the Dark Ages and was only beginning to emerge from them under the leadership of men like Charlemagne. [5: Muneera Lula, The Vikings: Raiders or Settlers? Manchester Historian, 2015. https://manchesterhistorian.com/2015/the-vikings-raiders-or-settlers/]

In the 800s, Vikings used European rivers to launch their raids and attacks on Christian communities; in this manner they attacked Paris and other French communities, often targeting monasteries and churches because of the stores of wealth these places held. The Christian communities had long-standing traditions of giving alms and gifts of great wealth to churches and monasteries; the Vikings saw these places as prime targets, which is why the ancient reports of Viking assaults are often written by monks.

However, another writer from the time of the Vikings, who actually journeyed to the land of the Norsemen, was Ahmad ibn Fadlan, from Arabia. His story has been depicted in both book and filmEaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton and in the film The 13th Warrior, directed by John McTiernan. In the film, Fadlan was a poet in Arabia who happened to encounter the Vikings after the Norse defended his party from an attack by Tatars. In reality, Fadlan was interested in the Scandinavian merchants who...

…their fearsome strength and giant size. But they also relied on knowledge, which for them was poweras they used a network of spies that they dispatched across Europe to find out where the best places to attack were.[footnoteRef:13] Vikings did not waste time attacking areas that they knew nothing about. They were not going to risk their lives for the sake of nothing. They attacked where they knew there would be booty. They knew exactly what they were getting when they went in for a raid because their network of spies had already given them good intelligence. [13: 5 Reasons the Vikings were So Successful at Raiding European Villages, Medium, 2021. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/5-reasons-the-vikings-were-so-successful-at-raiding-european-villages-744dcc6c3230]

The Vikings even entered into agreements with nobles in Europe who wanted to capitalize on the chaos that the Vikings brought. For example, in one raid, The Vikings surveilled the areas within their reach. They then waited for the right moment to strike and [in the case of Nantes] they had most likely also made an alliance with a Frankish count who wanted to secure the city forhimself.[footnoteRef:14] The Vikings were thus not above collaborating with European nobles who wanted to take advantage of the Vikings raids to seize power for themselves. [14: 5 Reasons the Vikings were So Successful at Raiding European Villages, Medium, 2021. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/5-reasons-the-vikings-were-so-successful-at-raiding-european-villages-744dcc6c3230]

In conclusion, the Vikings were a strong, fierce tribe of raiders, who would use stealth attacks, brutality, and intelligence to wreak havoc upon Christian Europe for approximately three centuries from about the time of Charlemagne to the time of the Crusades. They targeted churches and monasteries because of the wealth these places often stored. As they made their way south from present-day Scotland to Europe, they began to see on the Continent a new future for themselves, and they would begin wintering in the regions they sacked. The Vikings would eventually be driven out once Europe united against them, but for nearly three hundred years the Vikings were…