Free The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction by Julian D. Richards Page B
Authors: Julian D. Richards
England.
55
In 850 a Viking force over-wintered in England for the first time, signalling the beginning of a new phase of more sustained attack by highly mobile forces. In 865 reference is made for the first time to the payment of Danegeld, in return for which the people would be left in peace. The clearest evidence for this phase of Viking activity in Europe comes from Scandinavia itself, where there are thousands of Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon coins.
This extraction of wealth must also have helped weaken the Carolingian Empire, but the Scandinavian impact has otherwise left little trace in the archaeological record in Frankia. There are Scandinavian influenced place names along the line of the Lower Seine to Rouen, but almost all the artefacts are confined to Normandy and Brittany in the north-west. In Normandy, as in England, interaction between the native Franks and Scandinavians led to the rapid formation of a distinctive local Norman culture.
s
There are also a handful of coastal burial sites, including a 10th-g
kin
century ship burial on the Île de Groix in Brittany. A longship with a e Vi
smaller boat inside had been dragged along a processional way of Th
standing stones, and then filled with a rich assemblage of objects, including weapons, riding gear, gold and silver jewellery, ivory gaming pieces, smith’s tools, and farming equipment. The bodies of an adult male and an adolescent – possibly a sacrifice – were placed in the ship, which was surrounded by 24 shields and set alight. This is the only known example of the burning of a ship as part of the burial rite, although it has become an essential part of the Viking stereotype. In fact it was carried out at a time when most Scandinavian warriors had been converted, and represents the reinvention of a pre-Christian identity in the face of widespread assimilation.
There are other examples of the retention and reinvention of Viking identity in the Scandinavian colonies in the British Isles and the North Atlantic and these form the subject of subsequent chapters.
First, however, it is necessary to consider Scandinavian expansion eastwards.
56
Expansion in the East
While Scandinavians from Denmark and Norway looked predominately westwards, those from Sweden looked eastwards, where they encountered very different cultures. The significance of a Viking presence to the development of Russia has been much debated and views have swung in time with the pendulum of internal Russian politics and the East–West relationship. It has been claimed, alternately, that Scandinavians were responsible for founding the great towns of European Russia (the so-called Normanist view), or that the Russian state was established by people of Slavonic origin (the anti-Normanist view), according to Across th
whether the dominant views of the time are pro- or anti-Western.
Much depends upon the identity of a people known as the Rus who e ocean: seafarin were invited to bring order to Central Russia in 860–2, and whether they were Slavic or Scandinavian.
There is no dispute that Scandinavians from the Baltic were active g an
down the great Russian river routes such as the Don, the Dnieper, d o
and the Volga. With overland portage to transfer boats and goods ver
from one river to the next they could have reached the Caspian and sea
s expansion
Black Seas and gained access to the treasures of Byzantium, but did they come as traders or raiders? Over one hundred Swedish rune stones testify to men who died in the East, including many on an ill-fated expedition led by one Ingvar, but the purpose of their journeys is rarely given. Exotic Eastern objects and Byzantine silks are found throughout Scandinavia, and there are over 60,000
Arabic coins, but were these acquired as loot, protection money, tribute, or through trade?
In truth there was probably an element of all four. Tenth-century Arabic texts refer to people described as the Rus as traders in furs and slaves in the
55
In 850 a Viking force over-wintered in England for the first time, signalling the beginning of a new phase of more sustained attack by highly mobile forces. In 865 reference is made for the first time to the payment of Danegeld, in return for which the people would be left in peace. The clearest evidence for this phase of Viking activity in Europe comes from Scandinavia itself, where there are thousands of Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon coins.
This extraction of wealth must also have helped weaken the Carolingian Empire, but the Scandinavian impact has otherwise left little trace in the archaeological record in Frankia. There are Scandinavian influenced place names along the line of the Lower Seine to Rouen, but almost all the artefacts are confined to Normandy and Brittany in the north-west. In Normandy, as in England, interaction between the native Franks and Scandinavians led to the rapid formation of a distinctive local Norman culture.
s
There are also a handful of coastal burial sites, including a 10th-g
kin
century ship burial on the Île de Groix in Brittany. A longship with a e Vi
smaller boat inside had been dragged along a processional way of Th
standing stones, and then filled with a rich assemblage of objects, including weapons, riding gear, gold and silver jewellery, ivory gaming pieces, smith’s tools, and farming equipment. The bodies of an adult male and an adolescent – possibly a sacrifice – were placed in the ship, which was surrounded by 24 shields and set alight. This is the only known example of the burning of a ship as part of the burial rite, although it has become an essential part of the Viking stereotype. In fact it was carried out at a time when most Scandinavian warriors had been converted, and represents the reinvention of a pre-Christian identity in the face of widespread assimilation.
There are other examples of the retention and reinvention of Viking identity in the Scandinavian colonies in the British Isles and the North Atlantic and these form the subject of subsequent chapters.
First, however, it is necessary to consider Scandinavian expansion eastwards.
56
Expansion in the East
While Scandinavians from Denmark and Norway looked predominately westwards, those from Sweden looked eastwards, where they encountered very different cultures. The significance of a Viking presence to the development of Russia has been much debated and views have swung in time with the pendulum of internal Russian politics and the East–West relationship. It has been claimed, alternately, that Scandinavians were responsible for founding the great towns of European Russia (the so-called Normanist view), or that the Russian state was established by people of Slavonic origin (the anti-Normanist view), according to Across th
whether the dominant views of the time are pro- or anti-Western.
Much depends upon the identity of a people known as the Rus who e ocean: seafarin were invited to bring order to Central Russia in 860–2, and whether they were Slavic or Scandinavian.
There is no dispute that Scandinavians from the Baltic were active g an
down the great Russian river routes such as the Don, the Dnieper, d o
and the Volga. With overland portage to transfer boats and goods ver
from one river to the next they could have reached the Caspian and sea
s expansion
Black Seas and gained access to the treasures of Byzantium, but did they come as traders or raiders? Over one hundred Swedish rune stones testify to men who died in the East, including many on an ill-fated expedition led by one Ingvar, but the purpose of their journeys is rarely given. Exotic Eastern objects and Byzantine silks are found throughout Scandinavia, and there are over 60,000
Arabic coins, but were these acquired as loot, protection money, tribute, or through trade?
In truth there was probably an element of all four. Tenth-century Arabic texts refer to people described as the Rus as traders in furs and slaves in the
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