Vikings were a seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9–22. They voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland (present-day Newfoundland in Canada, North America). In their countries of origin, and in some of the countries they raided and settled, this period of activity is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole during the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of northern and Eastern Europe, including the political and social development of England (and the English language) and parts of France, and the establishment of Kievan Rus', the ancestor of the later states of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.
Expert sailors and navigators of their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast, as well as along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes across Eastern Europe where they were also known as Varangians. The Normans, Norse-Gaels, Rus, Faroese, and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. At one point, a group of Rus Vikings went so far south that, after briefly being bodyguards for the Byzantine emperor, they attacked the Byzantine city of Constantinople. Vikings also voyaged to the Caspian Sea and Arabia. They were the first Europeans to reach North America, briefly settling in Newfoundland (Vinland). While spreading Norse culture to foreign lands, they simultaneously brought home slaves, concubines, and foreign cultural influences to Scandinavia, influencing the genetic and historical development of both. During the Viking Age, the Norse homelands were gradually consolidated from smaller kingdoms into three larger kingdoms: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
The Vikings spoke Old Norse and made inscriptions in runes. For most of the Viking Age, they followed the Old Norse religion, but became Christians over the 8th–12th centuries. The Vikings had their own laws, art, and architecture. Most Vikings were also farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and traders. Popular conceptions of the Vikings often strongly differ from the complex, advanced civilisation of the Norsemen that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century; this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.Wawn 2000Johnni Langer, "The origins of the imaginary viking", Viking Heritage Magazine, Gotland University/Centre for Baltic Studies. Visby (Sweden), n. 4, 2002. Varying views of the Vikings—as violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers—reflect conflicting modern Viking myths that took shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes and are rarely accurate—for example, there is no evidence that they wore horned helmets, a costume element that first appeared in the 19th century.
Etymology
The etymology of the word Viking has been much debated by academics, with many origin theories being proposed. One theory suggests that the word's origin is from the Old English 'settlement' and the Old Frisian , attested almost 300 years prior. Another less popular theory is that came from the feminine 'creek', 'inlet', 'small bay'.The Syntax of Old Norse by Jan Terje Faarlund; p. 25 ; The Principles of English Etymology By Walter W. Skeat, published in 1892, defined Viking: better Wiking, Icel. Viking-r, O. Icel. *Viking-r, a creek-dweller; from Icel. vik, O. Icel. *wik, a creek, bay, with suffix -uig-r, belonging to Principles of English Etymology by Walter W. Skeat; Clarendon; p. 479 The Old Norse word víkingr does not appear in written sources until the 12th century, apart from a few runestones.
Another etymology that gained support in the early 21st century derives Viking from the same root as Old Norse 'sea mile', originally referring to the distance between two shifts of rowers, ultimately from the Proto Germanic (to recede). This is found in the early Nordic verb *wikan 'to turn', similar to Old Icelandic 'to move, to turn', with "well-attested nautical usages", according to Bernard Mees. This theory is better attested linguistically, and the term most likely predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of northwestern Europe.
In the Middle Ages, viking came to refer to Scandinavian pirates or raiders.Stafford, P. (2009). A companion to the Early Middle Ages. Wiley/Blackwell Publisher, chapter 13.Bjorvand, Harald (2000). Våre arveord: etymologisk ordbok. Oslo: Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning (Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture). p. 1051. . The earliest reference to in English sources is from the Épinal-Erfurt glossary (), about 93 years before the first known attack by Viking raiders in England. The glossary lists the Latin translation for as 'pirate'.Gretsch. The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. p. 278 In Old English, the word appears in the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith, probably from the 9th century. The word was not regarded as a reference to nationality, with other terms such as and 'Danes' being used for that. In Asser's Latin work The Life of King Alfred, the Danes are referred to as 'pagans'; historian Janet Nelson states that became "the Vikings" in standard translations of this work, even though there is "clear evidence" that it was used as a synonym for Danes, while Eric Christiansen avers that it is a mistranslation made at the insistence of the publisher. The word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the late 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage.
History
Viking Age
The Viking Age in Scandinavian history is taken to have been the period from the earliest recorded raids by Norsemen in 793 until the Norman conquest of England in 1066.Peter Sawyer, The Viking Expansion, The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Issue 1 (Knut Helle, ed., 2003), p. 105. Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south.
The Normans were descendants of those Vikings who had been given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France, namely the Duchy of Normandy, in the 10th century. In that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe. Likewise, King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, had Danish ancestors. Two Vikings even ascended to the throne of England, with Sweyn Forkbeard claiming the English throne in 1013 until 1014 and his son Cnut the Great being king of England between 1016 and 1035.Lund, Niels "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", in Sawyer, History of the Vikings, pp. 167–81.The Royal Household, "Sweyn" , The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2015Lawson, M K (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016–35". The History Press Ltd, 2005, .The Royal Household, "Canute The Great" , The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2015Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, 2000, .
Geographically, the Viking Age covered Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), as well as territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria,"History of Northumbria: Viking era 866 AD–1066 AD". . englandnortheast.co.uk. parts of Mercia, and East Anglia.Toyne, Stanley Mease. The Scandinavians in history Pg.27. 1970. Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland;The Fate of Greenland's Vikings, by Dale Mackenzie Brown, Archaeological Institute of America, 28 February 2000 and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000. The Greenland settlement was established around 980, during the Medieval Warm Period, and its demise by the mid-15th century may have been partly due to climate change. The semi-legendary Viking Rurik is said to have taken control of Novgorod in 862, while his kinsman Oleg captured Kiev in 882 and made it the capital of the Rus. The Rurik dynasty would rule Russia until 1598.
As early as 839, when Swedish emissaries are first known to have visited Byzantium, Scandinavians served as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire.Hall, p. 98 In the late 10th century, a new unit of the imperial bodyguard formed. Traditionally containing large numbers of Scandinavians, it was known as the Varangian Guard. The word Varangian may have originated in Old Norse, but in Slavic and Greek it could refer either to Scandinavians or Franks. In these years, Swedish men left to enlist in the Byzantine Varangian Guard in such numbers that a medieval Swedish law, the Västgötalagen, from Västergötland declared no-one could inherit while staying in "Greece"—the then Scandinavian term for the Byzantine Empire—to stop the emigration,Jansson 1980:22 especially as two other European courts simultaneously also recruited Scandinavians:Pritsak 1981:386 Kievan Rus' and London 1018–1066 (the Þingalið).
There is archaeological evidence that Vikings reached Baghdad, the centre of the Islamic Empire. The Norse regularly plied the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat for boat sealant, and slaves. Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, and Kiev.
Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation, and conquest. In this period, voyaging from their homelands in Denmark, Norway and Sweden the Norsemen settled in the present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, the Netherlands, Germany, Normandy, Italy, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,Butrimas, Adomas. "Dešiniajame Savo Krante Svebų Jūra Skalauja Aisčių Gentis..." Lietuva iki Mindaugo [Lithuania Before Mindaugas] (in Lithuanian). 2003, p. 136. ISBN 9986571898. Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, as well as initiating the consolidation that resulted in the formation of the present-day Scandinavian countries.
In the Viking Age, the present-day nations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not exist, but the peoples who lived in what is now those countries were largely homogeneous and similar in culture and language, although somewhat distinct geographically. The names of Scandinavian kings are reliably known for only the later part of the Viking Age. After the end of the Viking Age, the separate kingdoms gradually acquired distinct identities as nations, which went hand-in-hand with their Christianisation. Thus, the end of the Viking Age for the Scandinavians also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages.
Intermixing with the Slavs Slavic and Viking tribes were "closely linked, fighting one another, intermixing and trading". In the Middle Ages, goods were transferred from Slavic areas to Scandinavia, and Denmark could be considered "a melting pot of Slavic and Scandinavian elements". Leszek Gardeła, of the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at the University of Bonn, posits that the presence of Slavs in Scandinavia is "more significant than previously thought", while Mats Roslund states that "the Slavs and their interaction with Scandinavia have not been adequately investigated".