A quick glance at the maps documenting Viking incursions during the Middle Ages is enough to conclude that Scandinavian warriors were capable of poking their nose almost anywhere in Europe and the Mediterranean basin.
The Vikings’ global reach began as an unpretentious mix of piracy and commerce, but its effect over three centuries has transformed the region’s geopolitics in ways that still influence the modern world.
England and Russia, for example, would probably not have come into being without a little Viking push, and the same is perhaps true of France. Descendants of the Nordic pirates also played prominent roles in medieval Italian politics and the Crusades. Not bad for inhabitants of a remote and economically marginal corner of the European continent.
Details of the changes brought about by Scandinavian travelers are described in “Vikings: The Definitive History of the People of the North”, a book by British archaeologist Neil Price who recently arrived in Brazil.
Price, who is a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, says the secret ingredient behind the Nordic adventurers’ historical influence is their tremendous adaptability and ability to take advantage of the different situations they found themselves in – a “Viking way”. let’s say.
“The unintended side effect of this is that they left long-term legacies wherever they went,” Price explained to sheet. “The key point is that these legacies, in practice, took different forms from place to place.”
The so-called Viking Age is considered to run from AD 793 to AD 1066. Both dates have to do with events in England: at the beginning, the first attack by Scandinavian pirates on a Christian monastery on the island of Lindisfarne; at the end of the period, the defeat of the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge – Harald had tried to take the English throne for himself and was killed in action.
The geographic reach of Viking travels and attacks, however, was much broader (see infographic below). Cities and kingdoms were founded in English territory and also in Ireland, Scotland, France and in several areas of present-day Eastern Europe. Coastal cities in Spain and Italy were attacked, and diplomatic and commercial contacts were established with representatives from the Islamic world.
In fact, one of the most interesting accounts of a Viking funeral, including gory details about human sacrifice, was written by the traveler and scholar Ahmad ibn Fadlan, sent by the Caliph of Baghdad to the Volga River basin in present-day Russia, in the year 921.
The factors that triggered the Viking Age are manifold, and there is still considerable debate about them. British historian Peter Heather, from Oxford University, points out that the end of the 8th century of the Christian Era was a time of economic recovery for several port regions in northern Europe.
At the same time, a few decades earlier, Scandinavians had already mastered the technology of Viking boats, quite reliable in the open sea but also capable of going up rivers inland.
With that, hunger was joined with the desire to eat. “Various regions of Scandinavia, mainly in Jutland [penÃnsula da Dinamarca], had consolidated markets, with routes and points of contact throughout the North Sea”, explains historian Johnni Langer, director of Neve (Nucleus for Viking and Scandinavian Studies) at the Federal University of ParaÃba.
The Scandinavians could take advantage of the growing prosperity in these regions to strengthen their trading activities — or to turn themselves into pirates.
By the way, this is more or less the original meaning of “viking”, which is not an ethnic designation, but a kind of occupational term, which could also be used as a verb (the subject “would vikingar”, that is, would do incursions or looting by sea).
In addition to the rich markets of the North Sea, Nordic pirates discovered that there was a considerable concentration of precious metals lying around, without military defenders, in the monasteries and churches of the region – and, as they had not yet converted to Christianity, they had not had any itching. to seize that wealth.
Another important ingredient that has increasingly driven the attacks, according to Langer: political pulverization in regions under harassment.
“The 8th and 9th centuries were characterized by the weakening of centralizing powers, giving rise to the beginnings of feudalism in Europe, as in France and England. These regional political powers were fragile and for a long time ended up receiving Scandinavian influences”, explains the historian.
It is necessary to take into account, for example, the fact that the English territory did not correspond to a unified kingdom, being divided into small monarchies such as Mercia (central region), Wessex (west of the country) and Northumbria (northern region).
This is the scenario in Western Europe, but it is also necessary to consider what was happening in the far east of the continent. As Danish and Norwegian Vikings advanced into today’s United Kingdom and France, Swedish pirates and merchants began to control the trade routes that passed through the interior of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
They came to be known as “Rus'”, a name that probably derives from the Norse term for “rowers” and which would eventually give rise to the very name of Russia. Eventually, some joined the army of the Byzantine Empire, forming the famous Varangian Guard, fiercely loyal to the emperor.
“They also came to act as crucial economic partners, as economic stimulators, mercenaries and, sometimes ironically, as defenders of the state,” sums up Price.
In the east, the kingdoms founded by Vikings became Christianized, joined the local Slav population and eventually gave rise to imperial Russia. In England, it was the reaction to the Scandinavian invasions that led to the emergence of a unified kingdom (which, in the early 11th century, came to be dominated by Canuto the Great, a Danish king who also ruled Norway).
And on French soil, an agreement between the local monarchy and the invaders led to the creation of the duchy of Normandy, dominated by the Vikings and named after them (“Norman” means “man of the North”).
The adventurous history of the Normans in the following centuries showed that they had “pulled” their Scandinavian ancestors. William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, took over England in 1066, while other military men in the region forged kingdoms in Sicily and even Syria during the Crusades.
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