![]() ![]() In the 800s and 900s, the Vikings effectively controlled most of what would become the United Kingdom a millennia later. Only Alfred the Great, king of Wessex in the south, was able to successfully resist them. In the 800s, Danes ravaged the coast of England and the Norse took over much of Scotland & Ireland. (This raid is the earliest known reference to the Vikings in historical documents.) Some Viking bands also consisted of "berserker" warriors during the 800s and 900s that clothed themselves in bear and wolf skins that were notorious for violence and causing fear in all who set eyes upon them.Īfter the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, the Viking raids continued in regularity and intensity and within 50 years the Vikings controlled the Atlantic Ocean and could move across the waterway of their choice without fear of opposition. ![]() The truth is that while they may have been viewed as barbarian raiders by popular culture until recent times, they were primarily skilled traders and explorers who opened up a host of new trade routes and discovered a number of new lands during their brief, but significant, reign as a prominent empire of early Europe.Īlthough the Vikings were, for the most part, traders and explorers, they were initially perceived as vicious raiders and feared as the first contact with the Vikings took the form with raids, that started in 793 with a seaborne assault by Norwegian marauders on a Christian monastery on Lindisfarne Island (off of the northeast shoulder of England) that was captured looted, and eventually destroyed. Not only does the concept of the Vikings have a firm hold in the Danish consciousness to this day, but Scandinavian traces are still apparent in the dialects of Scotland and Northern England today. While the common consensus is that the impact of the Vikings during the Viking Age, which lasted from about 800 AD to 1100 AD, was not very enduring as the Vikings were skilled at assimilating into the local population, the Viking culture has had a lasting impact on the art, technology, society, and trade of every population they encountered. The influence of Vikings on European cultureīy Michael G. ![]()
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