The Vikings, whether you know of them as violent savages who raided churches, intrepid explorers
sticking it to Columbus, or as horned-helmet-wearing dragon riders, there’s no doubt they’ve
left a pretty good image of themselves on us.
Except, most of the stories we hear about the Vikings came from those who interacted
with them, and so if their interactions weren’t all that friendly, I think you can guess where
the stereotype of them being bloodthirsty raiders and pillagers comes from.
That being said, these Scandanavian warriors and traders have sailed all around the world
and explored territories then barely known or even completely unknown to Europe.
So just where did the Vikings manage to sail?
Now, the Vikings weren’t a single, cohesive empire with a definite founding date, like
the Romans or the Abbasids or the Parthians, and so there isn’t really much of a definite
founding date of the Viking Age, with perhaps the exception of the raiding of the monastery
at Lindisfarne in 793.
Now, the Vikings of course started off in Scandinavia (everyone knows that), but Lindisfarne
was way over just off the coast of Northern England.
It is this particular raid that most historians nevertheless agree saw the beginning of a
new age in Europe, the Age of the Vikings.
After all, the term “Viking” comes in fact from the Old Norse term “vikingr”,
which comes from the root words “vík” meaning inlet or fjord, “ing” meaning
one who frequents or one who originates from, and the “-r” suffix making the phrase
nominative, one who frequents the inlets of the seas.
The Old English word “wicing” also has the article “wic”, referring to the campsites
that the Vikings would often establish during their raids.
In the 9th century AD, pressured by various pressures back home, the Vikings first spread
around and colonized parts of Britain and Ireland, as well as the Baltic Sea coast and
modern-day Russia.
The Vikings repeatedly invaded the kingdoms of England, establishing what became known
as the Danelaw, an interesting history that we sadly don’t really have time for in this
video.
Nearby, they also established rule in parts of France (I mean, where do you think Normandy
gets its name?) as well as parts of the Baltic Sea, including down into the territory of
the Kievan Rus’, where they arguably helped establish Russia as we know it today.
Through the rivers in the area, the Vikings made it down even further, venturing into
the Capsian Sea, and down into the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantinople.
The Varangians, as the Vikings were known in the eastern half of Europe, would often
attack Byzantine ships, but often lost because of the whole Greek fire thing.
Later on though, after 988, the Christianized Varangians actually went from attacking the
Byzantines to becoming part of the emperor’s personal guard for 400 years, so go figure.
Before we go further southeast, let’s also see what we all know they also did up northwest.
In fact before the Vikings came along, not a single person in the world had ever heard
of an “Iceland” before, and thus (although this is very much up for debate) it was likely
the Viking chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson who was the first to colonize the island in 874.
Later, Erik the Red was convicted of murder in 982 and promptly exiled from Iceland, and
a few years later discovered and settled Greenland, whose climate was actually a little different
(i.e. greener) than it is today.
Although the colonies would eventually fade into obscurity due to attacks from the Inuits
and shifting climates, this wouldn’t happen until around 1450.
In the meantime, the colonies the Vikings established on Greenland’s southwestern
coast actually did fairly well, maintaining over 250 farms supporting 5,000 people in
14 distinct communities.
Of course, you all also know where else they went after that.
Yes, I am indeed talking about Vinland, a series of outposts spread all along Canada’s
far northeastern coast.
North America was discovered during expeditions by Bjarni Herjólfsson and Leif Erikson, as
the Greenlandic settlements were in need of timber.
The Vikings did have many conflicts with the natives, but barter trades also occurred during
this time.
However, since this was just the Greenland contingency over here, they were a bit too
outnumbered for their settlements to last long.
Make no mistake, they did last a while… just not a super long time.
Back in a southeasterly direction, the Vikings also made frequent contact with the Islamic
world, establishing lucrative trading relations, effectively connecting the two halves of the
Mediterranean together in many ways.
In exchange for goods such as amber, Frankish swords, unpaid workers, and walrus ivory,
the Arabian traders gave them silver dirhams.
In fact, silver coins minted in Baghdad have even been found all the way up in Gotland.
The Varangians sailed all the way down to the Levant, and also provided a wealth of
information for the other side, in the form of the accounts written by Ahmad ibn Fadlan,
a Baghdadi traveler who served as part of the Abbasid embassy to the Bulgars in 921-22.
[Ahmad ibn Fadlan provides a detailed view into Viking culture through the travel log
he kept while acting as a member of the embassy of the Abbasid Caliphate.
During the Viking Age, there were significant connections between the Scandinavian and Islamic
worlds.
Ibn Fadlan’s journey from Baghdad to Volga Bulgaria provides an insightful account of
what the Vikings were like from an Arabic perspective.
In his account, ibn Fadlan writes about the daily life of the Vikings he met, as well
as a ship burial he witnessed.
The Volga Vikings ibn Fadlan met on his journey were a people he called the Rus’, and it
is from this word that the modern country of Russia gets its name.
By the way, I’m Noah from the History of the Vikings YouTube channel, and this video
is actually part of a collaboration that KhAnubis and I are doing, so if you want to learn more
about Ahmad ibn Fadlan, be sure to check out my video, linked in the end screen or in the
description below.]
Thanks, Noah!
I’ll be sure to remind you about that video once I wrap this one up.
So yeah, to wrap it all up, the Vikings traveled all over the place.
No surprise they went basically everywhere Europeans went before them (like the Middle
East and North Africa and Russia), but also into places seldom explored by Europeans,
like the Caspian Sea, and even Iceland, Greenland, and Canada.
However, since the Vikings weren’t one cohesive group, but a bunch of related tribes and clans
looking for new places to settle for themselves, news about their discoveries didn’t exactly
make it back to Scandinavia all that often, so these findings didn’t exactly launch
the huge waves of colonization that would be spurred on 500 years later.
However, their legacy still remained even after the “Age of the Vikings” technically
ended, especially with the Normans who invaded all across Europe, and also established themselves
as the rulers of England… so not exactly all that inconsequential on world history.
Thank you as always for watching this video.
If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it and share it, and check out the video accompanying
this one all about the travels of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, which is actually an incredibly interesting
story that you seriously need to hear for yourself.
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