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"From the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord deliver us!" From over 1,000 churches, abbeys and monasteries the cry went up as Viking raids spread over Europe in a great arc from Hamburg in Germany to Bordeaux in France. The terrifying Viking bands appeared at the end of the eighth century, and the savage Northerners' long, low ships, with their red dragon prows, were seen sliding swiftly up rivers and estuaries, sailing around headlands, bringing fire, rape and pillage far inland. In 793 the monastery of Lindisfarne, off the north-eastern coast of England, was sacked and its monks slaughtered, its holy treasures stolen. Two years later the Vikings had reached the coast of Ireland near Dublin, and by 799 the west coast of France. And the raids worsened in the next century. The annals of St. Bertin Abbey near Rouen, in northern France, describe the 'Danish pirates' in 841 as 'carrying everywhere a fury of rapine, fire, and sword'; and a French monk's account of the Danes' siege of Paris in 885 calls the Vikings 'wild beasts going by horse and foot through hill and field . . . killing babies, children, young men, old men, fathers, sons and mothers. . . They ravage, they despoil, they destroy, they burn. .' In other words, they were not the sort of people you would want to meet on the way home in the dark. Viking raiders had burst upon an astonished and terrified Europe with such rapacity that the image of the Norse warrior pirate has become a popular stereotype. But consider just one fact - all the above reports come from victims of the attacks - in fact, from churchmen, the only Europeans who could read or write in those days. Even when describing victories over the Vikings, they tend to exaggerate their opponents' numbers and ferocity; and when dealing with the sack of churches, no words could paint the Vikings too black. Unfortunately there are no Viking documents around to give us the other side of the story - there were no such things as literate Vikings. The true facts have to be gleaned from archaeological studies and such third-party - mainly Arab - accounts as there are. And from such research a different picture emerges. True enough, the Vikings did pillage and destroy, especially churches and monasteries. From their pagan point of view, the Christians must have appeared unbelievably stupid, cramming their churches with gold and silver ornaments and leaving them undefended except by the monks and priests. Such rich pickings were obvious targets, as were unfortified towns or villages. But the Vikings did not just leave smoking ruins wherever they went before passing on to fresh pastures for plunder. They were builders as well as destroyers. The Vikings are less well known as a great trading people whose cargo boats exploited the waterways of Europe from Greenland to the Caspian Sea, and who used their new, if illegal, wealth to buy ships in which to carry on trade with far-off countries, or to move their families to settle in lands more fertile than thin-soiled Scandinavia. Take the case of a Dane named Rorik. This man, after repeatedly sacking the port of Dorestad at the mouth of the Rhine, eventually settled down there and became a prosperous merchant. Other Vikings were more adventurous, venturing much farther, and founded trading posts that grew into great cities such as Dublin in Ireland and Kiev in Russia. Though the Vikings usually came to raid, they often stayed to trade, for the same river and sea routes that opened up a land to pirates also opened it to merchants. Scandinavian trade was already flourishing in Roman times. Furs, cattle, dairy produce and Baltic amber were exchanged for luxury goods from the south. There are few historical sources for the succeeding centuries, but evidence of costly ship-burials and treasure hoards tells us that while much of Europe was in turmoil, the Scandinavian peoples continued to trade and grow rich outside the mainstream of events. By the 10th century the raids were more or less over and the Vikings had become colonists. In 911, for instance, they were granted the area of France now known as Normandy on condition that they guarded Paris against attack from the north. Once established, they soon adopted not only the language but the religion of their French neighbours. The Duke of Normandy became one of the most powerful rulers in Europe, and his Christian soldiers conquered the whole of England in 1066 and, a few years later, all of southern Italy and Sicily. Farther north, the Norwegians sailed out beyond the paths of earlier voyagers, who had hugged the coasts in terror of the deep oceans. With neither compasses nor maps and with single-sailed boats no more than 50 to 70 feet long, they daringly explored vast stretches of unknown water. On previously uninhabited Iceland they founded a republic of fishermen and farmers, with a unique assembly in which all free men could vote and speak. This, the first democracy the world had seen since ancient Greece, still survives, a living tribute to the productive rather than destructive genius of the Vikings. Farther west loomed a larger, even colder island than Iceland. It was discovered in 982 by a Norwegian called Erik the Red, who - optimistically - named it Greenland. When, a few years later, Erik's son Leif, otherwise known as Leif Erikson, reached a land he called Vinland, which was probably Newfoundland, he too tried to colonize it but failed. Had he succeeded, the discovery of America might have been attributed to a Viking and not an Italian. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 29 MAY 2000 |
