No force made a bigger impact on the history of early Christian Europe than the Vikings. The pagan
raiders and pirates were the most audacious seafarers of their time who found Russia,
discovered North America, and changed the landscape of Britain and France forever. But
to make these omelets they had to break eggs, and they broke a lot of them. Viking raids were
nightmares for Christian Europe and the tales of their plundering and pillaging became tales
of legends. Welcome to Nutty History, today we are going to look back at Why Viking Raids
were so Barbaric? During the first Viking age, the Vikings of Ireland didn’t plan to
attack North Africa but circumstances made it happen. Vikings had enjoyed phenomenal success
in their first raid on the shores of southern Spain. They had plundered many fortunes, goods,
as well as a significant number of prisoners from the ports of Lisbon and Sevilla during their first
raid of the Muslim Caliphate of Andalusia. When they arrived the second time in 859 AD,
Ibn-al-Habib suggested Caliph Abdu-al-Rahman intercept them at sea instead of waiting for
them to arrive at the shores as Viking berserkers were unstoppable on land. The strategy worked and
with the help of cannons and archers installed at the port of Lisbon, the Andalusians burned half
of seventy advancing Vikings ships forcing the rest of the fleet to retreat. According
to Andalusian records, Vikings lost nearly a thousand men and about five to six thousand of
them were captured by the Caliphate. The remaining fleet of Vikings was forced to sail through the
Mediterranean Sea and they ended up spending eight days in Morocco to regroup. While there,
they raided the city of Nekor, took the lives of many, and took many men and women with them,
including the daughter of the local Emir, and plundered until nothing was left. The Vikings
returned to Morocco in the next decade and faced the Berber king of Mauretania. Unfortunately,
there aren’t any reliable sources for what followed and when it happened exactly in the
860s but it is certain that the Berbers engaged with Vikings and the battle was quite hairy for
both sides according to the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland. There were thousands of deaths on
both sides but when the Berber king lost his hand, the battle was paused till the next day. However,
unfit to fight anymore, the Berber king fled from the battleground that night and Vikings
took the remaining native soldiers as captives so that they could sell them in Ireland.
If Ragnar Lodbrok was real, then the siege of Paris was one of his biggest accomplishments.
The siege was one of the first two major raids conducted by Vikings against the kingdom of
Frankia in the 9th century. The very first attempt of raiding the Frankish kingdom happened in 799
when Charlamagne was still alive and ruling. This raid was the reason behind Charlamagne
building a defense system along the northern coast in 810. Even after Charlemagne's death,
the defense system was the reason France was able to repulse the Viking invasion at the mouth of the
Seine in 820. But in 834, Danes managed to break through it in Frisia and Dorestad. While Seine
and Frisia were minor skirmishes, Vikings began systematic raiding in the mid-830s, with large
raids took place in Antwerp and Noirmoutier in 836, in Rouen, on the Seine, in 841,
and in Quentovic and Nantes in 842. But Vikings showed what they were capable of in March of 845
when a grand fleet of 120 ships brought more than 5000 men. Charles the Bald was asked to pay ransom
to the Vikings in return for them leaving Paris. The negotiations led to Charles paying a total of
7,000 pounds of silver and gold. That number of precious metals would be anywhere between
2 million to 100 million US Dollars in today’s worth. We have no idea exactly how much silver and
how much gold made up the total of 7000 pounds, but it's worth has to be somewhere in that range
today. They invaded the Seine under the command of a man named Ragnar. The records are hazy to verify
if it was ‘the’ Ragnar Lodbrok from the Viking legends but it was a Ragnar indeed. One can’t
blame modern historians over it because historians of that era intentionally meshed the legend and
the real person so much that centuries later, it’s hard to differentiate now, which is which. When
the Norsemen arrived at the Seine, Charles the Bald, the then-king of Frankia,
assembled a small army to stop their advance. The Franks divided their army into two parties
and positioned themselves on either side of the river. However, Ragnar got word of the ambush
and the Vikings captured a hundred prisoners and offered them to Odin by dangling them in
a row along the Seine. Yes, just like the row of “offerings” Danny saw in Game of Thrones when she
arrived at Mereen. This act of brutality instilled a dark fear in Frankish soldiers that helped
Norsemen in their campaign. It was Easter Sunday when the horde of Vikings became visible on the
horizon from the fortification of Paris. Despite being aware of the arrival of the Norsemen,
Paris was severely ill-prepared to deal with the berserkers. Unlike the show Vikings which shows
Ragnar’s forces having a hard time in Paris, Ragnar’s Vikings were swift as lightning and
sacked the city long before Paris's defensive forces could understand what just happened.
After getting the ransom, the Vikings left Paris promptly but not for home. Instead of
turning around immediately, they took their sweet time and continued raiding other towns, villages,
and abbeys on their way back, including the Abbey of Saint Bertin. Charles lost
the confidence of his subjects for being useless during the defense of Paris and folding so easily
to the ridiculous demands of the Norsemen. Also, another thing of significance here,
according to the History channel’s Vikings show, Ragnar and Rollo were brothers who were part of
the same raid on Paris. But, in reality, Rollo, who was nowhere remotely related to Ragnar,
arrived in Paris 40 years later in 885 leading another Viking raid on the city of love. He
too was as successful as his predecessor, in fact, some may argue, his raid was even more successful.
Rollo decided to stay after plundering Paris and in 911, he was granted significant portions of
lands in Northern France, allowing him and his raiders to permanently settle in France. Their
territory came to be known as Normandy, the land of the Norsemen. Raider Rollo and his
future generations turned into the protectors of France and saved it from future pillaging.
While the Danes and Norwegians sailed west, the Swedes were enticed by the high-quality silver
coins minted by the Abbasid Caliphate and they crossed the Baltic Sea to descend across eastern
Europe. Finnish branded these Vikings as Rus, derived from the word ‘ruotsi’ which meant “a
crew of oarsmen.” The Rus were the forefathers of modern Russia and as they migrated down the
Dnieper and Volga Rivers, they established settlements along trade routes to the Black
and Caspian Seas. They conquered the then Slavic population of modern Russia, Ukraine,
and Belarus and by the middle of the ninth century, they arrived at Baghdad. Baghdad back
then was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and it was perhaps the world’s most flourishing city
and largest as well. More than 1 million people resided in Baghdad back then but Rus-Vikings found
Constantinople a more lucrative prospect. The reason might have been the economic difference
between the two cities. Yes, Baghdad was rich but Constantinople was harboring treasures beyond
imagination. Moreover, the bigger population in Baghdad may have also meant that they had
a larger army to defend the city. Constantinople was also a more trade-friendly city that allowed
Rus to enjoy its glory and pursue its wealth as merchants. The city still used gold coins
which had become less and less common since the fall of the Roman Empire. But Constantinople was
also one of the strongest fortified cities of the ninth century. The shores of the Bosporus strait,
which enabled the prosperity of Constantinople, were also the gateway for all kinds of invasions.
So, Constantinople had itself encircled by a moat and three parallel walls. There was also a large
iron chain that could be stretched across the mouth of the city’s harbor to protect it from
a naval invasion. Rus showed up unexpectedly in June, 860. The Byzantine Emperor Michael
III was battling the Abbasid Caliphate in Asia Minor and the Byzantine navy was engaged with
Pirates of Arabia on the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, this was the best time to plunder the
wealthiest city in the world with most of its defenders absent. The Greek patriarch Photius,
the Archbishop of Constantinople, described the appearance of Rus ships on the shores of
Constantine as a thunderbolt from heaven. Michael the III’s predecessor Theophilus was wary of the
Rus from the day they arrived at Constantinople back in 838 as merchants and even though trade
relations were established after the first visit, Theophilus always kept looking over his shoulder
for the rest of his reign. Across the Black Sea two Rus leaders, Askold and Dir had set their
bases in Kiev. When Rus showed up to lay a siege at Constantinople, the Queen of cities was not
expecting them to know about the protectors of the city being occupied somewhere else. The city only
had its normal city garrison to defend the walls under the command of City Prefect Nicetas Oryphas.
It was one of the most anarchic raids in the history of Viking raids. Photius further described
20,000 Vikings as a swarm of wasps who charged the city walls but the city prefect managed to
shut the gates on time. While Constantinople was safe under the protection of its thick walls and
shackles, the capital’s extensive suburbs, the thickly settled shores, and the islands of the
Sea of Marmara were now defenseless. Left alone to do whatever they desired outside the city walls,
Rus plundered the suburbs of Constantinople and launched coastal raids around the Sea of
Marmara burning houses, churches, and monasteries while routing the patriarch’s servants. The nine
islands in the Sea of Marmara were devastated but the Rus had next to no siege skills and they
were against one of the best-fortified cities in history. While Rus Vikings waited outside
hoping the city would starve and be forced to open the gates and fight, the highly developed
Byzantine military signal system managed to alert the emperor. Michael the III rode at
breakneck speed to defend his capital city and his return prompted Askold and Dir to retreat
but they weren’t going home empty-handed. They returned to Kiev laden with treasure,
only to be taken out some years later by Oleg of the Rurikid Dynasty, who founded the first Russian
state, Kievan Rus. Like Rollo in France, the Rus too turned around and many of them founded and
became part of the Varangian Guards, the personal guards of the Byzantine Emperor from the tenth to
the fourteenth century. Vikings had everything in their time that other cultures didn’t, ferocity,
naval technology, and rich culture, what they didn’t have was enough warm land and they had to
cut their own piece from others’ cakes even if the end result was brutal. We hope you enjoyed
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