The Viking Warrior - The Norse Raiders Who Terrorized Medieval Europe

Viking Origins

The sudden and violent Viking raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 CE struck Christian Britain like a thunderbolt. But desecrating the house of God and slaughtering unarmed monks meant little to the pagan warriors who believed in an afterlife of feasting and fighting in Odin’s great hall. Nor were the Vikings and their beliefs anything new. Instead they made up part of a centuries-old culture formed far from view in the cold lands of the north.

The story of the Vikings is one of the people’s relationship with the land and sea, and their isolation from the rest of Europe. From the time of Scandinavia’s prehistoric period through to the eighth century CE, generations of proto-Vikings laid the cultural foundations for the raiders, traders and settlers we know as the Vikings today. They did so unheeded and largely unseen by the civilizations that came and went on the European continent.

Early Inhabitants

The first people to inhabit the Viking homelands of Norway, Sweden and Denmark were hunters and gatherers who emerged at the end of the last Ice Age. As the ice sheets retreated north these prehistoric people followed, fanning out across southern Scandinavia and settling in fertile regions such as Skåne in Sweden. Their preferred mode of transport was simple wooden boats, made watertight with animal hides and rowed with oars. The sea has always been central to life in Scandinavia, and it is no surprise that its first inhabitants were great mariners and boat-builders. They were also proud of their seafaring accomplishments, and made pictorial records of their vessels in ancient rock carvings. The images connect these early people with another great Scandinavian tradition: fighting and raiding. Rock carvings dating from around 1100 BCE in Sweden and Norway depict boats with a similar shape to the Viking longships that would follow 2000 years later; aboard them are passengers carrying axes and bows and arrows.

On land, Scandinavia’s technology followed a similar path to the rest of Europe: agriculture was practised from around 4000 BCE; the Bronze Age emerged in around 2000 BCE; and the Iron Age began around 500 BCE. Little is known about the Scandinavian people during this time, although evidence of a few small farming settlements has been found, as have the human victims of sacrifice, preserved through the ages in peat bogs. More is known about Scandinavian society from the onset of the Imperial Roman Empire. From the first century CE, goods such as amber were traded south to the Roman Mediterranean, and Iron Age weapons made their way north in exchange. This was a dangerous, violent and uncertain time in Scandinavia, where hill forts were built to protect local inhabitants and large caches of weapons were cast into bogs as sacrifices, most notably in the northeast of Denmark’s Jutland. By now, the practice of votive offerings was already hundreds of years old. One famous example is the Hjortspring Boat, buried as a sacrifice in around 350 BCE. The large number of weapons and armour onboard suggests wars between Scandinavian tribes were already in full swing.

On the Viking Brink

The cultural and political developments in Scandinavia took place far from the influence of Europe’s first great superpower – Rome. Rome was the civilization that dominated the rest of Europe during the Iron Age and up until the fifth century CE, but it never came close to conquering Scandinavia. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that Roman ships were sent by Augustus in 5 CE to explore the land around Denmark, although it is unclear if the legionaries landed. It was the only attempt at a Roman incursion by sea, which produced little more than the name “Scandinavia”, a derivation of “Scadinavia” or “the dangerous island”. Any Roman attempts to reach Scandinavia by land were thwarted by the massacre of three of its legions during the 9 CE Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This humiliating defeat ended any further Roman forays east of the Rhine, and Scandinavia’s most southerly border along Denmark’s Eider River was certainly never troubled.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was an unprecedented moment for Rome, the civilization that went on to conquer two-thirds of the known world and create an empire that stretched for over 4 million square km (2.5 million square miles). Every new territory that fell under the Roman legions was quickly turned into a little Rome, as foreign towns and cities were fitted with modern aqueducts, roads, baths and amphitheatres, and ruled by a written law. By spreading the latest in modern infrastructure, technology and literacy to the territories of Europe the Roman Empire brought an end to the prehistory of many of its tribal peoples. But none of Rome’s “civilizing” benefits were experienced by the tribes of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Nor was Scandinavia affected by the Migration Period between 400 and 600 CE, which spelled the end of Rome’s domination and dislocated large sections of the European population. During this time, Angles and Saxons invaded England, Rome was overrun by Visigoths and Christianity began to make its mark across Europe. The Viking ancestors had interactions with all of these people, to be sure, but their own cultural identity was formed entirely in isolation, away from any continental interference.

At the time of Europe’s Migration Period, Scandinavia stood on the brink of the Viking Age. There were many different Scandinavian tribes during this period, although the people as a whole had many cultural elements in common. They all generally lived in small rural settlements where they farmed, fished and, at times, fought one another. Before long, many of these settlements became fortified local centres of power as the regions of Scandinavia became organized into chiefdoms. One such centre was Eketorp on the Swedish island of Öland; another was at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden’s Uppland. Founded in the third century CE, Gamla Uppsala was an important economic, religious and political centre before, during and after the Viking Age proper. The great burial mounds constructed for members of the Yngling dynasty at Gamla Uppsala can still be seen today and are of great archeological significance: they symbolize Scandinavia’s evolution from a population made up of small tribes to regions ruled by kings.

During the final part of the Scandinavian Iron Age, known as the Vendel Period (600–800 CE), lavish burials also took place north of Gamla Uppsala at Valsgärde and Vendel. Here, kings were buried aboard their ships along with fine objects and weapons, a signature of their wealth, power and warrior spirit. This tradition of ship burials continued into the Viking Age.

As we have seen, even the earliest Scandinavian settlers were great ship-builders and sea-farers. Sea voyages were essential to travel around Scandinavia, and the waters around its fjords, inlets and islands served as the major transport arteries, replacing the need for longer and more perilous journeys by land. The Scandinavians’ early maritime prowess showed itself in the daring and dangerous overseas raids that gave the Vikings their fearsome reputation. But while the history of the early Scandinavian people was dominated by the...