The Context Behind Viking Raid Locations

There is a distinct pattern of geographical tendencies to plunder certain types of places in the Viking age. There are many factors that may have influenced plunder locations, and to assume only one or a couple of them seems both insufficient and illogical. In addition, many Vikings could have had different motives about the reason they were raiding, and to lump them all together in a static way also seems to be doing a disservice. There were obvious economic and political reasons to raid, but there is also evidence of religious, technological, cultural, and geographical reasons too. In light of this, certain factors need to be considered contextually to understand why raiding began in the first place, as these factors influenced where the Vikings went in a major way. These evolving factors also demonstrate why, ultimately, raiding ended. Further, Eastern Vikings, or The Rūs, and Western Vikings had blatantly different goals, and were quite separate. Western Vikings can further be distinguished because Norwegians could have potentially had land shortage, which is a different reason to raid than the Danes, which was with the aim of accumulating wealth.

There are essential contextual things to consider: raiding was not exclusively Scandinavian, nor were they the first raiders to come to England. From a religious perspective, there is a possibility that the Christians did, in fact, bring a little of the raids on themselves. In 700, well before the start of the Viking Age, missionaries were sent to Scandinavia with the intent to convert Pagans into Christians.

Emperor Charlemagne of Frankia himself led expeditions to Scandinavia to remove Paganism, and was successful in Saxony; in addition, his son, Louis the Pious, interfered with Danish politics consistently. Alcuin, a scholar consistently writing in this period, had a political agenda as he was living in Frankia at the court, and no doubt had political and religious reasons for painting the Vikings out to be worse than they truly were. 

Norway could have had a land shortage because the law did not give land to the eldest but divided the father's wealth evenly among all sons. This could have truly spread wealth very thin causing young men to seek wealth out elsewhere. The implications of this law caused issues concerning geography and economic stability.

In addition, in the literature there is evidence of selective female infanticide in Scandinavia, though there is not much archaeological evidence to support this. A potential repercussion of this is that bridewealth could have been too expensive for young men as there could have been a shortage of potential wives, and thus they went raiding to afford a wife and land to start a family. 

Technologically, the perfection of Viking Long ship allowed raiding to happen because it was a well manufactured boat. It was light, fast, shallow, and maneuverable, which allowed for swift attacks with little chance of provocation should they make it back to the boats. The boats could as easily sail in the ocean as in narrow, winding rivers. 

Culturally, there are several important factors that could have caused raiding to occur. The first is the increase of global trade around Scandinavia and increased contact of Norse aristocracy with well-travelled people. Logically, only the rich would have had any boats to begin with, so the Earls would take warriors and go on expeditions to these new lands. Upon their return with wealth, stories, and glory, more and more people would want a piece of that action. Young men would be the first to take up the offer to go as they have no responsibilities with little land, little wealth, no wife, or dependants. 

To raiders, travelling could serve as an escape from social constraints and at the same time they could gain knowledge, travel, see new places, and gain wealth and reputation that could lead to political power upon the return. If raiders were successful, on their return, they could climb the social hierarchy in a way that was not possible prior to raiding. The context of raiding is a dynamic one with lots of moving and evolving pieces as the Viking Age progressed.

The first notable raid was Lindisfarne in 793, a Holy site in the kingdom of Northumbria. This was a very important raid because there were signs of an attack before it happened. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, there is an account of severe lightning, fiery dragons crossing the sky, and a famine, right before the attack. The Christians took these as ill omens and believed they were being punished for their sinful ways. Right out of the gate, the Christians are coming to this situation under the pretense of religion and assume the Vikings are too.

Therefore, all literature written by the Christians has preconceived notions about the reasons Viking raids are happening, and this skewed interpretation could have all sorts of implications. Raids in the beginning of the Viking Age were small and inconsistent. They remained along the coast for quick attacks. 

In 794, another Northumbrian monastery—likely Jarrow—was attacked, but it was not successful, and the Vikings were defeated. There is some discrepancy between sources as another source says Jarrow was raided not in 794, but in 796. This defeat is likely the cause of raiding moving to Ireland where there was little in the way of defence. In 795, the islands of Skye and Rathlin were attacked, and in 798, Inispatrick was attacked; a shrine was destroyed, and some cattle were stolen. The next major raid was in Iona, and it was sacked several times in 795, 802, and 806. In 806, Iona was burned, and 68 people were killed. Raids continued like this until the 830's.

In the beginning of the Viking Age, raiding was a no-brainer. It was easy wealth with little resistance and no punishment. It was an easy decision to be selfish at the expense of others because the reward was so sweet. They could take anything of value, including people, and there would be no punishment for doing so. Individuals who were valuable were ransomed (expensively), and those that were not ransomed were sold into slavery. Slavery and furs were of particular note to The Rūs in the area of modern Russia, though they assimilated well before the Western Vikings did. 

Eventually, the Western Vikings had to adapt as the situation changed around them. As more and more raiders joined, the wealth on simple coastal raids was no longer sufficient and wealth was spread thin. In Ireland in particular, the raiding and slave trade proved to be very lucrative and significantly jumpstarted the economic welfare of the kingdom. Everything was sped up and advanced, especially politically and economically. Those who could gain control of cities did so. 

Raiding in Ireland quickly turned from ‘hit and runs’ to raiding on the spot, and taxes began to be the main source of income apart from trade. Trade was boosted significantly, and as a result, towns became more peaceful and order began to form. Trade could not happen if it was turbulent, so it was in the interest of those in power to control everything. It was no longer about simple raids because it evolved into land ownership and political power.

Due to the fact that Vikings preferred easy pickings, these more established towns and citieswere avoided at first in lieu of other places. Vikings began to move inland and became bolder as their success grew. They were superior to the Anglo-Saxons in the beginning for the simple reason that the Vikings travelled in small groups, could move quickly, could adapt, band up and disband at a moment's notice, and were opportunistic and self-serving. If there was weakness, the Vikings would find it and exploit it. In contrast, the kingdoms of England, Wales, and Scotland were in political disarray and the Vikings took advantage of this. 

The Christians had no standing armies, no defence, no allies, and could therefore be easily taken advantage of. It is at this point in history that we start to see the emergence of Vikings mercenaries for hire. With hired militia, the political landscape evolved even quicker, and alliances between Vikings and English kingdoms began to take shape. A direct example of this is the Viking support for the Britons of Cornwall against the West-Saxons.

It was a lot easier to sack cities with little to no leadership than the booming trading towns on the coast as there was political order in those places. Therefore, Vikings turned their attention to places that were in political disarray. Frankia, in 834, was one such place. Louis the Pious was deposed by his sons, and the three sons were mildly fratricidal, though they achieved a semblance of peace by being placed in separate kingdoms. The Viking reputation helped when numbers began to swell. When the Vikings showed up at Paris, they were offered 7,000 pounds of silver to leave Paris alone. This became known as Danegeld, and it became a somewhat common practice to pay the Vikings to be left alone. 

A direct example of a failed attempt at raiding politically intact places is in the expeditions to the Mediterranean. A Viking host travelling in 844 attacked everything in their path on the way to Toulouse as they sailed up the Garonne. In their greed after several successful raids, they attempted to sail into the Iberian Peninsula and were massacred and mostly vanquished by the superior fleet.

This is a turning point in the Viking Age. Objectively and retrospectively, raiding was helping England and the British Isles unify. It was speeding up the process of trade and wealth through raiding and was establishing political power. In Ireland, Vikings began to winter over allowing further permanent settlements to take root. In 851, a fleet wintered in Thanet and they remained there for several years. This allowed the constant pillaging of Kent, and the sacking of Canterbury and London. This permanent arrangement, no doubt, had some effect on the ability of the Great Heathen Army to form and sustain itself, as it no longer had to waste time travelling between the British Isles and Scandinavia. Reinforcements could come easily enough, and retreat was easily defended.

In 865, the Great Heathen Army was said to have been a vast force of hundreds of ships and thousands of warriors and it attacked both England and Frankia for approximately 30 years. With such a force, it makes little sense to raid only along the coast and only undefended Holy sites. It is difficult to establish how exaggerated (or how accurate) the numbers were, but given the victories of the Vikings, it was obviously a massive force unlike anything ever seen. In Frankia, by 870, the fortification of cities caused the focus to move to England.

The Vikings conquered three kingdoms: Northumbria in 867, East Anglia in 869, and Mercia in 874. Only Wessex remained independent under King Alfred the Great. King Alfred had learned from Frankia and built defensive structures and a fleet to defend the last kingdom of Wessex. Politically, the landscape of England was utterly transformed. The conquered English kingdoms had petty kings at first, but eventually the kingdoms were taken over by Norse kings and ruled under Danelaw. Guthrum, a Viking warlord who was King of East Anglia, fought King Alfred of Wessex, but they came to an accord and Guthrum was baptised as a Christian in 896. This is a definitive turning point in history as they signed a peace treaty, one that brought relative peace in England for almost a century until the year 980. The remaining heathen army began to plough and till the land as their own.

Due to the unification and peace treaty in England, the Vikings turned their attention to Frankia, where succession issues were going on from 879-891. They raided locations that had not yet been fortified, but when those locations were strengthened, the raids ceased in Frankia. Meanwhile, the Rūs slowly integrated with the other groups in their area including the Finns, the Slavs, and the Balts. It was a peaceful assimilation, and no raiding resulted. They took on the cultures they were exposed to and they no longer were people they once were. This is particularly evident in Kiev, where a Scandinavian dynasty family became Christian by the end of the ninth century.

Of particular note, in 911, a Viking named Rollo (he wasn’t Ragnar’s brother) ceased raiding in lieu of accepting nobility, land, reputation, and wealth in Frankia. The terms of this agreement ensured that in return for giving Rollo these things, Rollo would then defend Frankia against other Vikings. This is indicative of the idea that fighting is not what mattered to the Vikings. They wanted opportunity, and when they got it, they were peaceful. Within a generation, Rollo's descendants were definitively Christian, and became the founders of Normandy in Frankia. This type of arrangement worked very well for Frankia. His descendant, William the Conqueror, would later become the King of England.

Raiding is renewed at the end of the tenth century, approximately 980. In the beginning of the century, the only way to gain wealth was from small-scale raids, similar to the 790's. Large-scale raiding was not possible at this time because of political turmoil in Scandinavia with prospective Viking leaders concerning unification of kingdoms. However, by 980, Harold Bluetooth and his son Sven Forkbeard prevailed in Denmark and led expeditions to England with the intent of conquering, which indeed, Sven succeeded in doing in 1013. England is rich and prosperous and King Æthered was more than willing to pay Danegeld to keep the peace, even if the peace was short lived, which it was. When Sven became King of England, Æthered was exiled to Normandy, but Sven died six weeks after the crown.

The stakes of raiding in the Viking Age grew far beyond what anyone could have imagined, starting off only with the small-scale intention of gaining wealth to bring back home. The Vikings were smart about acting in self-interest, so eventually, raiding stopped likely because it was no longer beneficial to do so. Instead, settlement and trade were in their best interest, which ultimately led to assimilation.

The Viking Age and the expansion that came with it caused greed and ambition to take hold. By the end of the Viking Age, it was about conquering Kingdoms and leadership. Due to this evolving dynamic, the raid locations grew in proportion along with the ambitions of those who undertook these feats. Therefore, to say that raiding was limited only to small-scale, coastal locations seems a gross underestimation of the situation. 

The Viking Age grew from three ships from Norway attacking a reeve, to the conquering of a united England. Of course, it did not last long, and William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy succeeded, but the point remains that even though the Vikings were either defeated or assimilated, it was much more than simple hit and run escapades against the 'defenseless' Christians of Monasteries, churches, and towns. Only when England, Norway, and Denmark were starting to unify and evolve, each in their own way, did the Viking Age end, and that seems important.

 

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