Vikings
The Vikings were adventurous seafarers and raiders from Scandinavia who
spread through Europe and the North Atlantic in the period of vigorous
Scandinavian expansion (800-1100 CE) known as the Viking Age. From
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, they appeared as traders, conquerors, and
settlers in Finland, Russia, Byzantium, France, England, Iceland, Greenland
and the Netherlands. For many centuries before the year 800, such tribes as
the Cambrian’s, Goths, Vandals, Burundian’s, and Angles had been wandering
out of Scandinavia. The Vikings were different because they were sea warriors
and they carried with them a civilization that was in some ways more developed
than those of the lands they visited. Scandinavia was rich in iron, which seems
to have stimulated Viking cultural development. Iron tools cleared the forests
and plowed the lands, leading to a great increase in population. Trading cities
such as Birka and Hedeby appeared and became the centers of strong local
kingdoms.The Viking ship, with its flexible hull and its keel and sail, was far
superior to the overgrown rowboats still used by other peoples. Kings and
chieftains were buried in ships, and the rich grave goods of these and other
burial sites testify to the technical expertise of the Vikings in working with
textiles, stone, gold and silver, and especially iron and wood.
The graves also contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks, Frankish weapons,
Rhenish glass, and other products of an extensive trade. In particular, the
silver kufic (or cufic) coins that flowed into the Viking lands from the caliphate
further stimulated economic growth. Viking civilization flourished with its
skaldic literature and eddic poetry, its runic inscriptions, its towns and
markets, and, most of all, its ability to organize people under law to...
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