Who are the Vikings?
1- Vikings
3- The beginning of the “Vikings”: the brutality of the warrior and the innocence of the peasant
4- Religion and its beliefs among the "Vikings"
6- Women among the Vikings were respected
10- Before Columbus.. The Vikings in America!
Vikings
Contemporary history witnesses the peak of sophistication, civilizational progress and sustainable development in the Scandinavian countries of the northern hemisphere, in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which have become a dream for everyone who is thirsty for humanity and living in dignity, but history - not long ago - itself, terrified us with the most horrific massacres and human wars that this region has known, drawing a bloody, demonic picture of its inhabitants, and the question here is, have historians been fair to the "Vikings" people?!
Who are the Vikings?
They are Nordic Germanic peoples who settled in the regions of northern Europe and were called "Northmen", meaning the northerners, and it is believed that the origins of the word "Viking" came from the word "Vik" meaning a small bay in the language of the northern regions, and this name may have come from a region of Norway called "Viken" where the Vikings lived.
Some historians say that these people, who were famous for their seafaring and piracy, did not call themselves “Vikings,” but this name, which has been associated with them throughout the years, did not appear in history books until the middle of their era during the tenth century AD.
Their rule extended from the eighth century to the eleventh century (793-1066), and they lived specifically in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), and were famous for their frequent wandering and long-distance travel, as they controlled many areas from Western Europe to Central Asia.
The Viking groups are divided into three branches: the Swedes who crossed the Baltic Sea and penetrated Russia, the Norwegians who cut off lands from eastern England and Ireland, and the Danes who invaded southern Andalusia, northern Morocco, and southern Italy and attacked Constantinople.
The beginning of the “Vikings”: the brutality of the warrior and the innocence of the peasant
No one denies that the Vikings gained their fame and their era began with a tragic bloody massacre in 793 when about 100 heavily armed men from the Viking forces - some historians say that the leader of this campaign was Ragnar Lothbrok, the legendary leader in Norse literature - sailed to an island with the monastery of “Lindis Farn” in the Kingdom of Northumbria, northeast of England.
The warriors found a monastery with peaceful monks and gold and silver possessions that they considered treasures and spoils after they killed and brutally tortured the monks and crucified their senior monk. The poet and theologian Alcuin of York wrote about this massacre that he witnessed: “We have never seen such terror in Britain as we now suffer from the heathen. The barbarians have poured the blood of the saints around the altar, and dragged the bodies of the saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”
The barbaric and pagan attacks, as described by the English monks, continued on the northern coast of England at the invitation of the Vikings, as the records of medieval England always depicted them as “predatory wolves among sheep”, but these attacks had other goals far from bloodlust and wars as mentioned.
One of these reasons was the steady increase in population witnessed by that country, which resulted in a decrease in agricultural lands that were worked by simple farmers who constituted a large percentage of the population of the region, in addition to the fact that the cold climate and the nature of the soil were killing crops and causing famines.
Until that time, the prevailing belief among the Vikings was that the world was confined around them and there was no world beyond the sea, or there might be a world, so the thinkers and explorers wanted their world to expand and the development that occurred in the shipbuilding industry there helped them to roam the seas.
Indeed, the sea was then the easiest means of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world, as it was in the eighth century AD, when the Scandinavian countries began to build warships and send them to raid expeditions to start the Viking Age.
Jealousy for religion was enough reason for most Vikings to kill anyone who did not follow their religion and worshipped other gods, and this justifies their many barbaric attacks on churches and monasteries, but in contrast, many European Vikings lived peaceful lives, farming, trading and integrating into the four continents on which they settled.
Religion and its beliefs among the "Vikings"
Viking mythology is considered one of the most exciting beliefs throughout the ages, and it has influenced the fields of arts and imagination, and has been a source of inspiration for many authors, producers, musicians, painters and other arts. Several films and books have been produced that talk about it, such as Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and the comic book series of the superhero "Thor" issued by "Marvel Comics", and many songs have been written about this mythology. In the field of games as well, many video games have inspired their worlds from the Norse, such as the game "World of Warcraft" and also the game "God of War".
Their religion before Christianity was similar to that of other Germanic tribes, as they worshiped a number of gods such as “Odin”, the lord of gods and the god of war, wisdom and death, who bestowed upon humanity the alphabet, and the leader of the Norse gods “Thor”, the god of thunder, and “Balder”, the god of light, as well as the beautiful goddess “Freya”, who would invade battles to choose the fighters, as well as the goddess of skiing “Skadi”, who was associated with revenge, in addition to Njord, Frey, Aidun, Heimdall, Frigg, Loki and many other gods.
As for the Viking paradise, they called it “Valhalla”, and the Viking warriors believed that if they died heroically, they would be invited to live with Odin in Valhalla in his palace in the world of the gods, and they would prepare with the gods to face a large group of evil giants under the leadership of “Loki”.
The Norse religion had a hierarchical structure and was based on a number of narratives, but they had no written religion, and their mythology was transmitted orally. The Vikings did not practice their religious traditions in temples, but, like the ancient Celts, in sacred places in groves and riverbanks. The priestly office was one of the most honorable houses in which kings were honored, and the priest could make offerings, whether of objects, animals, or people.
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Viking Society and Law
Like societies anywhere and in different eras, Viking society was divided into three classes: the first class was the nobility, who were kings, lords and the wealthy; the second class was the freemen, who were farmers, merchants and state employees; and the third and final class was the slave class, who were either slaves by birth or prisoners of war.
The man was the master of the family, but women enjoyed many rights, while wealthy Vikings used to marry more than one woman, as their numbers multiplied, which led to a significant increase in the population, resulting in the Vikings leaving Scandinavia for the outside world.
The Vikings buried their dead in ships, believing that they would take them to the land of the dead. They also buried the dead person's belongings with him, including his dogs, slaves and sometimes his concubines, and the ship was burned at sea.
As for law, although the Vikings did not have any written laws, their influence on the legal system still lives on today, especially in English-speaking countries, because the word “Law” is a Viking word.
They also had regulations regarding the control of laws in each area, and they were required to attend a meeting known as an “event” where all legal matters were resolved. This meeting was considered a major event in Viking society, and could last for several days, and markets and festivals were held there, and women were allowed to go to this meeting to offer their services.
Women among the Vikings were respected
While women suffered from injustice in advanced societies in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle Ages, women among the Vikings enjoyed great appreciation and rights, as wise and educated men and women could also assume power.
They were the guardians of the keys to property and wealth, especially their men in their foreign campaigns, and this is evidence that some of them were trained in military leadership as well, with descriptions of female warriors in mythology, sagas and legends.
Women also seemed to have spiritual roles in Viking society, with sceptres discovered in the graves of many women, and Frigga, the goddess of marriage, beauty, gold and death, was one of the most revered figures, and she appears in a picture in which she rides a chariot pulled by two cats with the boar Hildisvini.
Although some Viking women were forced to marry at around the age of twelve, they also had the right to divorce, and in order to divorce she had to bring two witnesses to inform them of her separation, for several reasons: either because of the husband’s mistreatment or his laziness in working or even because of the abundance of his chest hair.
Viking Economy
Most Vikings worked in agriculture and livestock, and some worked in fishing or shipbuilding, and others in trade, and these are the ones who sailed the seas in search of trade.
The Scandinavian economy was primarily agricultural, with the short agricultural season sufficient to meet the need for grain, fodder and stock, and because most of them lived along the coasts, fishing and sea trade played an important role in their lives. Even before the Viking attacks, the markets of Europe to the south were interested in raw goods from the North Sea and the Baltic, such as furs, wood, amber and slaves (often brought from Slavic regions).
Historians have credited the Vikings with being among the most skilled shipbuilders of their time, as they improved their construction and shape, and built merchant and naval ships and adapted them to be suitable for sea and river navigation, relying on sails and wind.
Their ships had a distinctive and magnificent shape, with an arched prow, and they also knew their own ways of knowing the direction at sea, for example, they used crows to know the direction of land, and the “sun stone”, which is a stone usually made of crystal, and has the properties of refracting light, so it is used to know the direction of the sun whether the sky is cloudy or after sunset, and researchers were able to simulate the work of the stone actually.
While the slave trade or Slavic slaves flourished in the Viking community, they used to take people from the lower classes of men, women and children from the European islands that they invaded and sell them as slaves, and huge slave markets were organized for them throughout Europe and the Middle East to be sold in.
Viking language.. the origin of modern languages
The Vikings spoke a form of the Old Norse language, consisting of sixteen letters made up of straight lines, and it is a language that influenced the creation of modern languages in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, as the Icelandic language is the closest language to the Old Norse language, and it still exists to this day.
There is one town in Sweden where Old Norse is still spoken, called Älvdalen, and it was used as a written language in that town until 1950. Because of this, the town remained virtually cut off from the outside world until recently, which enabled the Viking culture to survive.
Viking rule of France and England
In 911 AD, the Vikings launched a campaign against Paris that ended in failure, led by their leader "Rollo", who is believed to be the brother of King Ragnar Lothbrok. In the "Battle of Chartres", Rollo was defeated despite the absence of many of the barons of France.
A treaty was concluded between him and the French King Charles the Simple, where Rollo pledged allegiance to the king, who in turn gave him a fiefdom in northern France called the region of "Normandy", where according to the treaty he was to defend the banks of the River Seine, and he married the king's daughter.
Rollo converted to Christianity and did not stop the attacks, as he was a Viking leader, he launched attacks on the region of Flanders (which is almost all of Belgium today), and continued with the capture of Bessin in 924, and also married "Babou of Bayeux" who gave birth to William I, Duke of Normandy.
Thus, the family of the Viking leader "Rollo Lothbrok" "Normandy" ruled France from (911-1066) and then became the kings of England and ruled it from (1066-1144) when the invader "William II" became king of England in 1066 under the will of the previous king, King Edward, after he led the Norman invasion of England and overthrew its king, Harold II, and his descendants became kings of England after him until 1145 with the death of William the invader's granddaughter, Matilda, who is considered the first queen to rule England, and her son from her husband, Geoffrey, ascended.
Before Columbus.. The Vikings in America!
The Vikings first approached America in the fall of 986 AD when Bjarni Herjolfsson arrived with a ship loaded with goods from Norway for the Viking colony in Iceland, and then wanted to head to Greenland, but fog took over the atmosphere and made visibility almost impossible, so the sailors lost their way.
The Viking sagas say that they probably sailed in fog for two weeks, and when the weather cleared, they discovered that they had gone far to the south and found themselves in front of an unknown coast filled with large and dense forests.
Herjolfsson's ship did not land on American soil, but returned to Greenland, and told the people his story until they scolded him for not exploring the new land more thoroughly, because if his account of the great forests is true, this may have been the solution to one of the major problems in the Greenland colonies, which is the "lack of timber" and the shortening of its transportation time.
About 14 years later, the first European Vikings set foot on American soil in the spring of 1000 AD, led by Leif Erikson and a crew of 35, after he convinced Bargny to sell his ship and described the route to him as he saw it.
Erikson spoke of his journey to a country he called “Hyland” meaning “the land of large stone slabs,” a description that matches the coast of “Baffin Island” today. From here, he sailed south to the coast with the large forests that he saw in Bargny.
More controversially, one of the islands near the coast of Canada was known as “Newfoundland,” which he called “the forest country.” After that, he wanted to go south, to the warmer climate of the new country, and found a coast with large meadows and forests in a place he described as “low and full of many sand dunes,” which also matches today’s “Vinland Island.”
Erikson and his men colonized for a few months, perhaps on the island of Labrador, before returning with a large load of wood. It was reported that more than 15 Vikings died on their way back to Greenland when their ship hit a coral reef. In 1960, archaeological expeditions found evidence of Viking ship remains in three other locations near the northern coast of North America, about five centuries before the arrival of European exploration expeditions led by Christopher Columbus.
Vikings and Muslims
History witnessed limited battles between the Vikings and Muslims, but they were devastating. The Viking attack on Andalusia began in 844 from the western side, after they left the coast of England in their long ships, and docked at the city of (Lisbon - today's Lisbon -), with 54 large ships carrying thousands of fierce fighters.
There was a young priest in the city called Alfonso who was very hateful of Islamic rule. He helped the Vikings during their occupation of the city, and showed them its flaws and loopholes. They entered the city and tortured it, then left it after 13 days, after a resistance led by Abdullah bin Hazm and the city's residents.
Andalusia at that time was under Umayyad rule led by Abd al-Rahman al-Awsat, who sent his forces in a hurry to rescue Seville led by Abdullah bin Kulayb and Muhammad bin Rustam. Armies from the various cities of Andalusia gathered for jihad, and the Normans also received new reinforcements and several battles broke out in which they outperformed the Andalusians.
As soon as the decisive battle of Tablada took place in the village of Talliata, west of Seville, led by Muhammad ibn Rustam, about a thousand of them were killed, including the commander, and 30 of their ships were burned and hundreds of prisoners were taken, whom they killed and crucified in front of the eyes of the remaining Vikings, until they retreated towards the remaining ships, and the Andalusians pursued them to ransom their prisoners with whatever goods they found, and the Vikings left far away, so they requested a truce and peace with the Middle East, and peace prevailed between them.
As for the Abbasid era, especially under the rule of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, trade activity between the Arab countries and the peoples of Europe was active, including the Vikings, who worked on trading in a barter system in exchange for goods, such as fur, honey, hides, ivory, fish, and others. The Muslim Arabs were also keen to obtain Scandinavian goods from the Vikings, such as hats and coats made of black fox fur - one of the most expensive furs - as well as Slavic slaves.
Silver was also valuable and expensive at that time, so Viking traders brought large quantities of Abbasid silver to Scandinavia, and thousands of pieces of it were found in the Baltic Sea and Russia. Excavations and prospecting in many modern Scandinavian regions resulted in the discovery of hidden Arab coins, as Arab coins were used as a common currency in Ireland and northern England from the tenth to the twelfth centuries.
Among the interesting and rare historical documents about the relationship between the Islamic world and the Vikings is what the Islamic traveler “Ahmad Ibn Fadlan” recorded in his famous journey to the land of the Vikings, which was translated into dozens of languages, where he went to Norway with a special embassy from the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir Billah, inviting them to Islam.
His travel documents are considered one of the most important references in the history of the Vikings and knowledge of their customs, behaviors, social, political and religious systems, and even a description of their appearance, and the compilation of the early history of Russia and its people.
It is worth mentioning that the remains of a Viking woman were found wearing a silver ring inlaid with a purple stone engraved with the word "Allah" in Kufic script. Although the woman's clothing in the grave was traditional Scandinavian, the decomposition of the body prevented scientists from knowing her ethnicity, whether it was a gift or spoils of war, and whether she converted to Islam or not.
Some researchers have found evidence that the Vikings reached North Africa, Palestine, and even Baghdad, but of course they were unable to occupy those countries in the Arab East due to the strength of the Islamic Empire at the time.
The end of the story
The Viking era ended after their last invasion led by the Norwegian King "Harald III", in the Battle of "Stamford Bridge" in 1066 in England, where he was defeated. Some also believe that the Viking era in Scandinavia ended with the establishment of the ruling authority in these countries and the recognition of Christianity as the prevailing religion.
This date is estimated to be around the end of the 11th century in the three Scandinavian countries, and the end of the Viking Age in Norway was marked by the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Although the army of Olaf Haraldsson (later known as Saint Olaf) lost this battle, Christianity spread after his death, partly by the force of rumors of miraculous signs, and Norwegians were no longer called Vikings.
As the Catholic Church became more prominent in Europe, the Vikings adapted to this religion and its rules, systems of kings and new ideals, so they abandoned invasions and wars and lived in their own land, and now only the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Greenlanders remain.
Thus ends the story of the Vikings, who were famous for their brutality in the wars they excelled in planning, and their period witnessed engineering and agricultural ingenuity and a qualitative leap in the field of navigation and the manufacture of ships that sailed the seas over long distances to transport goods, carrying with them the first ambition of the simple Scandinavian peasant for a decent life.
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