Did Vikings Travel Up Rivers to Raid

THE VIKING Globe

The brown areas on this map are Viking settlements. From late in the 8th century, Vikings raided, traded, and explored far and wide. They discovered Iceland in 870 and sailed farther west to Greenland in nearly 985. Leif the Lucky was probably the beginning European to prepare foot in North America. He is thought to have landed in Newfoundland, Canada, in around 1001. Vikings sailed eastward over the Baltic Sea and continued up rivers into Russian federation. They went on overland as far every bit the cities of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Jerusalem. Other Vikings sailed effectually the west coast of Europe and into the Mediterranean Sea. Thanks to their ships and seafaring skills, they could have people completely by surprise.

IN Full Canvas

This shows the #five Roskilde warship replica in total sail. Viking sails were often dyed claret red, to strike fear into anyone who saw them coming. The shields were slotted into a shield rack that ran forth the side of the send. On other ships, the shields hung from cords.

In the early on 830s the Viking raiders started altering their tactics in ominous ways. First, the number of yearly attacks increased markedly. So did the size of the raiding parties, as many Viking fleets grew in size to equally many as xxx to thirty-five ships, and in the decades that followed a few had equally many as a hundred vessels.

Even more disconcerting for the victims, the raiders' ships began sailing far upstream on the larger, navigable rivers, which allowed them to ravage inland areas. In Republic of ireland in 836, for instance, a Viking fleet moved up the Shannon River and sacked the of import monastery at Clonmacnoise, in the island's heartland. Similar forays were launched up the Rhine River in Germany and the Loire and Seine rivers in France.

Adjacent, in the late 830s and early 840s, many Viking raiders ceased returning to Scandinavia each winter. Instead, they congenital longphorts, fortified coastal bases, on the shores of Frg and France and later Ireland and Scotland. Raiding parties spent the winter at such bases, allowing them to become an earlier and easier start in the adjacent raiding season. The tremendous advantage this gave the Vikings can be seen by what happened when such overwintering began in England in 850 or 851. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that "The heathens now for the first time remained over winter in the Isle of Thanet." Thanet is located well-nigh the tip of Kent, in south-eastern England, a strategic spot where the raiders were able to take the time to amass a huge force for their coming campaign. According to the Relate: "The aforementioned twelvemonth came iii hundred and fifty ships into the oral cavity of the Thames [River]; the crew of which went upon land, and stormed Canterbury and London, putting to flight Bertulf [a local king], with his regular army, and and then marched due south over the Thames into Surrey [to conduct more raids]."

Most disquieting of all was when large Viking groups decided to forego ordinary raiding and pursue large-scale conquest and settlement. This happened in many parts of western Europe, most noticeably at offset in south-eastern England. In 865, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded, the Viking forces wintering at Thanet "made peace with the men of Kent, who promised coin." Paying such money, essentially a bribe to guarantee that the intruders would non pillage the countryside, was becoming a mutual tactic among the Vikings' victims. The English called it "Danegold," a reference to the fact that many of the raiders were Danes. In whatsoever example, the Vikings took the coin and then double-crossed the "men of Kent." The Chronicle tells how "under the security of peace, and the hope of money, the [Viking] ground forces in the dark stole upward the land, and overran all Kent eastward." In the years that followed, more and more English language and other European lands savage to the invaders.

Modern scholars have oft debated well-nigh why some Vikings resorted to the conquest and settlement of strange lands. Those scholars generally concord that it was non considering the modest amount of decent farmland in Scandinavia could no longer support the growing population. Instead, such conquests announced to have been away for some of the more determined and competing Viking leaders to create their ain power bases outside the homelands. As Hall points out, the conquered lands

were arenas where ambitious and successful warriors with just a relatively low social standing in their homeland could escape those constraints, dramatically improve their fortunes, and go their own masters. The careers of some leaders advise that they were not mere opportunists, but were prepared to assault target after target in dogged pursuit of a territory over which they could exert control.

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