Vikings biography

And they came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars, and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers; some they took away with them in fetters; many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults; and some they drowned in the sea.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. This is the latest accepted revisionreviewed on 26 January Period of European history about — Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden. Nordic model Finland Sweden. Context [ viking biography ].

Background [ edit ]. Probable causes [ edit ]. Yellow, green and blue denote related Germanic languages. Old Norse religion. Rituals and worship. Main article: Viking expansion. Demographic models [ edit ]. Economic model [ edit ]. Ideological model [ edit ]. Political model [ edit ]. Overview [ edit ]. Northern Europe [ edit ]. England [ edit ].

Ireland [ edit ]. Scotland [ edit ]. Main article: Scandinavian Scotland. Earldom of Orkney [ edit ]. Kings of the Isles [ edit ]. Main article: Kingdom of the Isles. Wales [ edit ]. Iceland [ edit ]. Kvenland [ edit ]. Main article: Kvenland. Estonia [ edit ]. Main article: Viking Age in Estonia. Curonians [ edit ]. Main article: Curonians.

Eastern Europe [ edit ]. Central Europe [ edit ]. Further information: Pomerania during the Early Middle Ages. Norse people. Scandinavia History. WikiProject Norse history and culture. Western Europe [ edit ]. Frisia [ edit ]. Main article: Viking raids in the Rhineland. France [ edit ]. Southern Europe [ edit ]. Italy [ edit ]. Spain [ edit ].

Further information: Vikings in Iberia. Portugal [ edit ]. North America [ edit ]. Greenland [ edit ]. Mainland North America [ edit ]. Main article: L'Anse aux Meadows. Technology [ edit ]. Further information: Longship and Viking Age arms and armour. Religion [ edit ].

Vikings biography

See also: Norse paganism and Norse mythology. Trade [ edit ]. Culture [ edit ]. Women in Viking society [ edit ]. Language [ edit ]. Old Norse influence on other languages [ edit ]. Genetics [ edit ]. Settlements outside Scandinavia [ edit ]. Atlantic [ edit ]. Baltic [ edit ]. British Isles [ edit ]. Isle of Man [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ].

The Vikings. Cambridge University Press. ISBN X. In the 9th and 10th centuries, it came to be used more especially of those warriors who left their homes in Scandinavia and made raids on the chief European countries. This is the narrow, and technically the only correct use of the term 'Viking', but in such expressions as 'Viking civilisation', 'the Viking Age', 'the Viking movement', 'Viking influence', the word has come to have a wider significance and is used as a concise and convenient term for describing the whole of the civilisation, activity and influence of the Scandinavian peoples, at a particular period in their history Scandinavians and the English in the Viking Age.

University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 23 April Retrieved 5 September The Viking period is, therefore, best defined as the period when Scandinavians played a large role in the British Isles and western Europe as raiders and conquerors. It is also the period in which Scandinavians settled in many of the areas they conquered, and in the Atlantic islands Women in the Viking Age.

ISBN International contact is the key to the Viking Age. In Scandinavian history, this period is distinct because large numbers of Scandinavian people left their homelands and voyaged abroad The period is thus defined by the impact the Scandinavians had on the world around them. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings. Penguin Books.

In this sense, most Viking-age Scandinavians were not Vikings at all, but peaceful farmers and craftsmen who stayed quietly at home all their lives. Archived from the original on 4 October Retrieved 3 January The term 'Viking' has come in modern times to be applied to all early medieval Scandinavians and it is directly as a result of this that the controversy has arisen.

As used originally in the Viking Age itself, the word was applied only to someone who went i viking, that is someone whose occupation was piracy. The earliest use of the word predates the Viking Age by some years and it was not even used exclusively to describe Scandinavian pirates. Most Viking Age Scandinavians were not Vikings at all in this original sense of the word but were simply peaceful farmers, craftsmen and merchants.

The Vikings in the Isle of Man. Aarhus University Press. The word 'Viking' did not come into general use in the English language until the middle of the nineteenth Century—at about the same time that it was introduced into serious academic literature in Scandinavia—and has since then changed its meaning and been much abused. It must, however, be accepted that the term is today used throughout the world as a descriptor of the peoples of Scandinavia in the period from the late eighth Century until the mid-eleventh Century.

Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 23 May The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 November Retrieved 21 October The Viking Diaspora. English Heritage. Archived from the original on 7 March Retrieved 3 March The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Psychology Press. The Viking World. It is asserted that the closest documented viking biography is a sentence from an antiphon for churches dedicated to St.

Vaast or St. Medard: Summa pia gratia nostra conservando corpora et cutodita, de gente fera Normannica nos libera, quae nostra vastat, Deus, regna"Our supreme and holy Grace, protecting us and ours, deliver us, God, from the savage race of Northmen which lays waste our realms. New York: E. DuttonISBNp. Simeon of Durham recorded the raid in these terms: And they came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars, and seized all the treasures of the holy church.

Archived from the original on 11 March Retrieved 4 August Northern Shores: a history of the Baltic Sea and its peoples. London: John Murray. OCLC Hallsal, Guy ed. Selective female infanticide as partial explanation for dearth of women in Viking Age Scandinavia. Woodbridge: Boydell press. Retrieved 15 December Journal of Archaeological Research.

ISSN Princeton University Press. The Vikings: A History. The Age of the Vikings. New York: Viking, Leiden: Brill, A bibliography of French-language", Caen, Centre for research on the countries of the North and Northwest, University of Caen,p. Britannia 37 : Web. Douglas Retrieved 25 July In Allard, Joe; North, Richard eds. The Vikings in Britain. Medieval and Classical Literature Library.

Archived from the viking biography on 13 April Retrieved 7 June Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Archived from the original on 14 April Retrieved 16 October Cnut was a strong and effective king. He introduced some Danish customs to England, but England also influenced Denmark. For instance, Cnut appointed several Englishmen as bishops in Denmark, and even today most of the ordinary Danish words of church organisation are English in origin.

She was the daughter of the duke of Normandy, himself the descendant of Vikings or Northmen Normans. When Edward died without children, it was natural that Emma's great-nephew, Duke William, should lay claim to the throne. It was just as natural that this claim should be resisted by Harold, the son of Godwin, Edward's most powerful noble. Even when he and his troops arrived, exhausted, at Hastings three weeks later to face William's Norman invaders, he nearly prevailed.

He has published a number of books and articles on early medieval France, including The Franks Blackwell, and is currently writing a book called Europe's Barbarians for Longman. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience.

Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Viking raids Raids by seaborne Scandinavian vikings biography on sites in Britain, especially largely undefended monastic sites, began at the end of the eighth century AD.

England and Scotland We cannot be sure of the impact the Vikings had on Scotland due to a real scarcity of written material from the area. Danegeld After AD there was a generation of peace on the island of Britain. Hands on History: Ancient Britain. Mythology describes how female valkyrie would greet fallen Viking warriors and lead the boldest to a glorious afterlife.

You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States. Your Profile. Email Updates. Table of Contents Who Were the Vikings? Who Were the Vikings? Early Viking Raids. Read more. Valhalla: How Viking Belief in a Glorious Afterlife Empowered Warriors Mythology describes how female valkyrie would greet fallen Viking warriors and lead the boldest to a glorious afterlife.

The Vikings are broadly viewed as pagan plunderers, but they were quick to adopt Christianity alongside their own gods. Their sagas and chronicles tell us much about the Vikings, but runes, coins and even DNA can tell us plenty more. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.