Early Scandinavia Viking Age

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Scandinavia
Surname/tag: Early Scandinavia

<-- This page has been copy/pasted from a variety of websites like WIkipedia. This has introduced numerous errors for templates, which I have tried to correct herein. -->

The Viking Age is the period A.D. 793–1066 in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids and conquest. In this period, the Norsemen settled in Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Normandy, Scotland, England, Ukraine, Ireland, Russia, Germany, and Anatolia. Though Viking travellers and colonists were seen at many points in history as brutal raiders, many historical documents suggest that their invasion of other countries was retaliation in response to the encroachment upon tribal lands by Christian missionaries, and perhaps by the Saxon Wars prosecuted by Charlemagne and his kin to the south, or, were motivated by overpopulation, trade inequities, and the lack of viable farmland in their homeland. Information about the Viking Age is drawn largely from what was written about the Vikings by their enemies, and primary sources of archaeology, supplied with secondary sources like the Icelandic Sagas.

The Norwegian Empire, also called the Hereditary Kingdom of Norway (Old Norse: Norégveldi, Norwegian Bokmål: Norgesveldet, Norwegian Nynorsk: Noregsveldet) or The Norwegian Realm, refers to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power at the 13th century after a long period of civil war before 1240. The empire was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jamtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike and Idre & Særna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been colonised by Norwegian seafarers for centuries before being incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. Norway's expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reaching its height between 1240 and 1319. During this period of about 450 years, Norway was an influential European power both intellectually and militarily.

They settled in Great Britain and controlled the Irish Sea with international slave trade, through powerful Viking city states. Under leadership of the Norwegian noble Viking Rollo, Danes and Norwegians sacked Paris twice and established the Duchy of Normandy, under Danish leadership of Canute the Great they conquered England, and Norwegians also conquered Northumbria alone. However, Norway would become more concerned with diplomacy and intellectual culture after the death of Saint Olav. The death of Norway's patron saint marks the modern-day city of Trondheim becoming the most important pilgrimage site in Northern Europe. In the years 1042 - 1047 the King of Norway Magnus the Good did also rule Denmark, before he made Sweyn II his heir.

The Norwegians are credited for the only written sources of Norse religion and the Icelandic Sagas, written in Old West Norse, the main language of medieval Norway. The language and the texts are of immense historical value, as one of the classical European languages and literary works along with Latin and Ancient Greek. Old West Norse in a relatively well-preserved form is still the official language of the modern-day nations Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but in Norway the language became mixed with Old East Norse from Denmark. At the peak of the Norwegian Empire before the civil war, Sigurd I successfully leads the Norwegian Crusade (1107 - 1110) in order to aid in the liberation of Muslim occupied territory in Europe. This includes Lisbon, before Sigurd and his Norwegian force heads for the Middle East to aid Baldwin I in establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Norway was the second European country after England to enforce a unified code of law to be applied for the whole country, called Landslov (1274). One of the most noteworthy facts about the Kingdom is undoubtedly the story of the official hirdman Leif Erikson, who discovered America almost 500 years before Columbus, with either himself or his crew sharing the story, only to find that it sparked interest only as far as Bremen, Germany.

The secular power was at its strongest at the end of King Haakon Haakonsson reign at 1263. An important element of the period was the ecclesiastical supremacy of the archdiocese of Nidaros from 1152. There are no reliable sources for when Jamtland was placed under the archbishop of Uppsala. Uppsala was established later, and was the third metropolitan diocese in Scandinavia after Lund and Nidaros. The church participated in a political process both before and during the Kalmar Union that aimed at Swedish side, to establish a position for Sweden in Jemtland. This area had been from time immemorial as a borderland in relation to the Svearike, and probably in a some sort of alliance with Trøndelag, just as with Hålogaland.

A unified realm was initiated by King Harald I Fairhair in the 9th century. His efforts in unifying the petty kingdoms of Norway, resulted in the first known Norwegian central government. The country however fragmented soon, and was collected into one entity in the first half of the 11th century. Norway has been a monarchy since Fairhair, passing through several eras.

The North Sea Empire is the name usually given to the historical unified kingdom ruled by Cnut the Great as king of England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of what is now Sweden between 1016 and 1035. It can also be called more specifically the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire. As one historian put it:

When the eleventh century began its fourth decade, Canute was, with the single exception of the Emperor, the most imposing ruler in Latin Christendom. . . . [H]e was lord of four important realms and the overlord of other kingdoms. Though technically Canute was counted among the kings, his position among his fellow-monarchs was truly imperial. Apparently he held in his hands the destinies of two great regions: the British Isles and the Scandinavian peninsulas. His fleet all but controlled two important seas, the North and the Baltic. He had built an Empire.

Contents 1 Formation 1.1 England 1.2 Denmark 1.3 Norway 1.4 Sweden 1.5 Tributary areas 2 Historical considerations - Viking Age 3 Historical background 4 Probable causes of Norse expansion 5 Historic overview 6 Geography 7 Northwestern Europe 7.1 England 7.2 Ireland 7.2.1 Longphort phase 7.2.2 Battle of Clontarf 7.3 Kvenland 7.4 Scotland 7.4.1 Earldom of Orkney 7.4.2 Kings of the Isles 7.5 Wales 7.6 Iceland 7.7 Greenland 8 Southern and eastern Europe 9 Central Europe 10 Western Europe 10.1 France 10.2 Italy 10.3 Spain 10.4 Portugal 11 North America 12 Settlements outside Scandinavia 13 History of the Norwegian Empire 14 Mainland 14.1 Administrative divisions 14.2 Tax territory 15 Norwegian expansion 16 Overseas 16.1 Territories under varying influence of the Kingdom 17 Monarchs of the Norwegian Empire 18 Background 18.1 Orkney and Shetland 18.2 Hebrides 18.3 Ireland 18.4 Isle of Man 18.5 Faroe Islands 18.6 Iceland 18.7 Greenland 18.8 Jamtland 18.9 Herjedalen 19 End of the self-rule 20 See also 21 Notes 22 References 23 Cited sources 24 External links 25 Further reading 25.1 Background 25.2 General surveys

Formation

England

Cnut was the younger son of the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard. When his father died on 3 February 1014 during an invasion of England, Cnut, who had been left in command of the fleet in the River Trent while Sweyn was in the south of England, was acclaimed by the Danes. However, the invasion fell apart: the men of the Kingdom of Lindsey, who had promised to supply horses for a tactical raid, were not ready before the English nobles had reinstalled King Æthelred the Unready, whom they had previously sent into exile, after forcing him to agree to govern less harshly.^[1]

Cnut's brother Harald became king of Denmark, but with help from Jarl Eiríkr Hákonarson of Norway, Cnut raised a new invasion fleet of his own and returned to England in summer 1015. The English were divided by intrigue among the king, his sons, and other nobles; within four months one of Æthelred's sons had pledged allegiance to Cnut and he controlled Wessex, the historic heart of the kingdom. Before the decisive battle for London could be fought, Æthelred died on 23 April 1016. The Londoners chose his son Edmund Ironside as their king, while most of the nobles met at Southampton and swore fealty to Cnut. Cnut blockaded London, but was forced to leave to replenish his supplies and beaten by Edmund in battle at Otford in 1016; however, following the Danes as they raided into Essex, Edmund was in turn defeated at the Battle of Assandun. He and Cnut struck an agreement under which Edmund would retain Wessex and Cnut rule all of England north of the Thames. But on 30 November 1016, Edmund in turn died, leaving Cnut king of England.^[2]

In summer 1017 Cnut cemented his power by marrying Æthelred's widow, Emma of Normandy, although he had previously married an English noblewoman, Ælfgifu of Northampton. ^[3] In 1018 he paid off his fleet (with money especially from the citizens of London) and was fully recognised as King of England.^[4]

Denmark

King Harald died childless in 1018 or 1019, leaving the country without a king. Cnut was his brother's heir and went to Denmark in 1019 to claim it. While there he sent his subjects in England a letter saying he was abroad to avert an unspecified "danger",^[5] and he only returned to quell incipient rebellions.^[6] One Danish chronicle states that the Danes had previously deposed Harald in favour of Cnut, then brought back Harald because of Cnut's frequent absences, until Cnut finally became king permanently after his brother's death.^[7]

King Olaf of Norway and King Anund Jacob of Sweden, seeing the combined Anglo-Danish kingdom as a threat - Cnut's father Sweyn had asserted power over both their countries - took advantage of Cnut's being in England to attack Denmark in 1025 or 1026, and were joined by Ulf Jarl, Cnut's Danish regent, and his brother. Cnut took Olaf's fleet by surprise and took the battle to the Swedish fleet at the Battle of the Helgeå.^[8] The precise outcome is disputed, but Cnut came out best; Olaf fled and the threat to Denmark was dispelled.^[9][10]

In 1027, Cnut traveled to Rome, partly to expiate his sin for having Jarl Ulf killed the previous Christmas, partly to attend the coronation of Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor and to demonstrate his importance as a ruler. He secured relaxation of tolls levied on pilgrims journeying to Rome from Northern Europe, and on Papal fees for English archbishops receiving their pallium; he also began a relationship with Conrad that led to the Emperor's son Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor marrying Cnut's daughter Gunhilda and before that to the Emperor ceding to Denmark Duchy of Schleswig and a strip of ancient Danish territory between Hedeby and the Eider that the Germans had occupied as a buffer zone against the Danes. ^[11][12]

Norway

Olaf II had extended his power throughout Norway while Jarl Erik was with Cnut in England.^[13] Cnut's enmity with him extended further back: Æthelred had returned to England in a fleet provided by Olaf.^[14] In 1024 Cnut had offered to let Olaf govern Norway as his vassal;^[15] but after Helgeå, he set about undermining his unpopular rule with bribes, and in 1028 set out with 50 ships to subjugate Norway. A large contingent of Danish ships joined him, and Olaf withdrew into the Oslo Fjord while Cnut sailed along the coast, landing at various points and receiving oaths of allegiance from the local chieftains. Finally at Nidaros (now Trondheim) he was acclaimed king at the Eyrathing, and in a few months Olaf fled to Sweden.^[16][17][18]

In 1030, Olaf attempted to return, but the people of the Trondheim area did not want him back and he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Stiklestad.

Sweden

After Helgeå, Cnut also claimed to rule "part of Sweden" together with England, Denmark, and Norway.^[19] He had coins minted either in the capital, Sigtuna, or in Lund, then part of Denmark, with the inscription CNVT REX SW ("Cnut King of the Swedes"). Western Götaland or Blekinge have been suggested.^[20] Most England runestones are in Uppland. It was probably either overlordship or disputed rule; Cnut did not have to be present in Sweden to order the minting of coins, coins were also minted asserting he ruled Ireland,^[21][22] and Swedish history at this early date is very uncertain.^[23]

Tributary areas

In addition to Sweden, of which he or the person who wrote the heading to his letter claimed he was king, Cnut received tribute from the Wends and was allied with the Poles; in 1022, together with Godwin, Earl of Wessex andUlf Jarl, he took a fleet east into the Baltic to confirm his overlordship of the coastal areas that the Danish kings dominated from the Jomsborg.^[24]

Immediately after his return from Rome, Cnut led an army into Scotland and made vassals of Malcolm II High King of Scotland, and two other kings,^[25] one of whom, Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, was a sea-king whose lands included Galloway and the Isle of Man and would become king of Dublin in 1036. All these and likely also the Welsh^[26] paid tribute, on the model of the Danegeld that Æthelred had instituted to pay off the Danes; and Cnut was thus reasserting the dominion over the Celtic kingdoms that recent English kings had had to let lapse, as well as punishing those who had supported Olaf against him.^[15] A verse by the Icelandic skald, Óttarr svarti calls Cnut "king of the Danes, the Irish, the English and the Islanders"; presumably Norway is omitted because Cnut had not yet come to power there.^[27]

Historical considerations - Viking Age

In England, the beginning of the Viking Age is dated to 8 June 793,[1]when Vikings destroyed the holy abbey of Lindisfarne, a centre of learning on an island off the northeast coast of England in Northumberland, and famous across the continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown, or carried away as slaves along with the church treasures, giving rise to the traditional (but unattested) prayer—A furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine, "From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, Lord."[2]

Three Viking ships had beached in Portland Bay four years earlier (although due to a scribal error the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates this event to 787 rather than 789), but that incursion may have been a trading expedition that went wrong rather than a piratical raid. Lindisfarne was different. The Viking devastation of Lindisfarne Northumbria's Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote: "Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared".[3]

Vikings were portrayed as uniformly violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious "wolves among sheep".

The first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a small readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britain's Viking past. Linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas.

In Scandinavia, the 17th century Danish scholars Thomas Bartholin and Ole Worm and Swedish scholar Olaus Rudbeck were the first to use runic inscriptions and Icelandic Sagas as primary historical sources. During the Age of Enlightenment and Nordic Renaissance, historians such as the Danish-Norwegian Ludvig Holberg and Swedish Olof von Dalin developed a more "rational" and "pragmatic" approach to historical scholarship.

By the latter half of the 18th century, while the Icelandic Sagas were still used as important historical sources, the Viking Age had again come to be regarded as a barbaric and uncivilized period in the history of the Nordic countries.

Not until the 1890s, during Queen Victoria's reign in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, did scholars outside Scandinavia begin to extensively reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.[4]

Until recently, however, the history of the Viking Age was still largely based on Icelandic Sagas, the history of the Danes written by Saxo Grammaticus, the Kyivan Rus' Primary Chronicle and The War of the Irish with the Foreigners. Today most scholars take these texts as sources not to be understood literally and are relying more on concrete archaeological findings, numismatics and other direct scientific disciplines and methods.[5]

Historical background

The Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, Scotland (Caithness, the Hebrides and the Northern Isles), Greenland, and Canada.

Their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a strong central authority appears to have been established in Jutland, and the Danes were beginning to look beyond their own territory for land, trade and plunder.

In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries. Communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway.

The sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war and send them on raiding expeditions to initiate the Viking Age. The North Sea rovers were traders, colonists and explorers as well as plunderers.

Probable causes of Norse expansion

Norse society was based on agriculture and trade with other peoples and placed great emphasis on the concept of honor, both in combat and in the criminal justice system. It was, for example, unfair and wrong to attack an enemy already in a fight with another.

This era coincided with the Medieval Warm Period (800–1300) and stopped with the start of the Little Ice Age (about 1250–1850). The start of the Viking Age, with the sack of Lindisfarne, also coincided with Charlemagne's Saxon Wars, or Christian wars with pagans in Saxony. Historians Rudolf Simek and Bruno Dumézil theorise that the Viking attacks may have been in response to the spread of Christianity among pagan peoples. Professor Rudolf Simek believes that "it is not a coincidence if the early Viking activity occurred during the reign of Charlemagne".^[28][29] Because of the penetration of Christianity in Scandinavia, serious conflict divided Norway for almost a century.^[30]

With the means of travel (longships and open water), their desire for goods led Scandinavian traders to explore and develop extensive trading partnerships in new territories. It has been suggested that the Scandinavians suffered from unequal trade practices imposed by Christian advocates and that this eventually led to the breakdown in trade relations and raiding.^{[citation needed]} British merchants who declared openly that they were Christian and would not trade with heathens and infidels (Muslims and the Norse) would get preferred status for availability and pricing of goods through a Christian network of traders. A two-tiered system of pricing existed with both declared and undeclared merchants trading secretly with banned parties. Viking raiding expeditions were separate from and coexisted with regular trading expeditions. A people with the tradition of raiding their neighbours when their honour had been impugned might easily fall to raiding foreign peoples who impugned their honour.

Historians also suggest that the Scandinavian population was too large for the peninsula and there was not enough good farmland for everyone.^{[citation needed]} This led to a hunt for more land. Particularly for the settlement and conquest period that followed the early raids, internal strife in Scandinavia resulted in the progressive centralisation of power into fewer hands.^{[citation needed]} Formerly empowered local lords who did not want to be oppressed by greedy kings emigrated overseas. Iceland became Europe's first modern republic, with an annual assembly of elected officials called the Althing, though only goði (wealthy landowners) had the right to vote there.

Historic overview

The earliest date given for a Viking raid is 789 AD when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of men from Norway sailed to the Isle of Portland in Dorset although due to a scribal error the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates this event to 787. There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official. They murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods.^[31] The beginning of the Viking Age in the British Isles is, however, often given as 793. It was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the Northmen raided the important island monastery of Lindisfarne (note that the generally accepted date is actually 8 June, not January^[32]):

A.D. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island (Lindisfarne), by rapine and slaughter. | Anglo Saxon Chronicle.^[33]

In 794, according to the Annals of Ulster, there was a serious attack on Lindisfarne's mother-house of Iona, which was followed in 795 by raids upon the northern coast of Ireland. From bases there, the Norsemen attacked Iona again in 802, causing great slaughter amongst the Céli Dé Brethren, and burning the abbey to the ground.

The end of the Viking Age is traditionally marked in England by the failed invasion attempted by the Norwegian king Harald III (Harald Hardrada|Haraldr Harðráði) , who was defeated by Saxon King Harold Godwinson in 1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge[6]; in Ireland, the capture of Dublin by Strongbow and his Hiberno-Norman forces in 1171; and 1263 in Scotland by the defeat of King Haakon IV of Norway|Håkon Håkonsson at the Battle of Largs by troops loyal to Alexander III of Scotland|Alexander III.^{[citation needed]} Godwinson was subsequently defeated within a month by another Viking descendant, William I of England|William, Duke of Normandy (Normandy had been conquered by Vikings (Normans) in 911). Scotland took its present form when it regained territory from the Norse between the 13th and the 15th centuries; the Western Isles and the Isle of Man remained under Scandinavian authority until 1266. Orkney and Shetland belonged to the king of Norway as late as 1469.

In Scandinavia the Viking age is considered to have ended with the establishment of royal authority in the Scandinavian countries and the establishment of Christianity as the dominant religion.^{[citation needed]} The date is usually put somewhere in the early 11th century in all three Scandinavian countries. The end of the Viking-era in Norway is marked by the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Although Olafr Haraldsson (later known as Olav the Holy) army lost the battle, Christianity spread, partly on the strength of rumours of miraculous signs after his death. Norwegians would no longer be called Vikings. In Sweden, the reign of king Olof Skötkonung (appr. 995–1020) is considered to be the transition from the Viking age to the Middle Ages, because he was the first Christian king of the Swedes and he is associated with a growing influence of the church in what is today southwestern and central Sweden.

The clinker-built longships used by the Scandinavians were uniquely suited to both deep and shallow waters. They extended the reach of Norse raiders, traders and settlers along coastlines and along the major river valleys of north-western Europe. Rurik also expanded to the east and in 859 became ruler either by conquest or invitation by local people of the city of Novgorod (which means "new city") on the Volkhov River. His successors moved further, founding the early East Slavic state of Kievan Rus with the capital in Kiev. This persisted until 1240, when the Mongols invaded Russia.

Other Norse people, particularly those from the area that is now modern-day Sweden and Norway, continued south to the Black Sea and then on to Constantinople. Whenever these Viking ships ran aground in shallow waters, the Vikings would reportedly turn them on their sides and drag them across the shallows into deeper waters. The Eastern connections of these "Varangians" brought Byzantine silk, coins from Samarkand, even a cowrie shell from the Red Sea, to Viking York.

The Kingdom of the Franks under Charlemagne was particularly hard-hit by these raiders, who could sail up the Seine with near impunity. Near the end of Charlemagne's reign (and throughout the reigns of his sons and grandsons), a string of Norse raids began, culminating in a gradual Scandinavian conquest and settlement of the region now known as Normandy.

In 911, French King Charles the Simple was able to make an agreement with the Viking warleader Rollo, a chieftain of disputed Norwegian or Danish origins.^[34] Charles gave Rollo the title of duke and granted him and his followers possession of Normandy. In return, Rollo swore fealty to Charles, converted to Christianity, and undertook to defend the northern region of France against the incursions of other Viking groups. Several generations later, the Norman descendants of these Viking settlers not only identified themselves as Norman but carried the Norman language (a Romance language with Germanic influence), and their Norman culture, into England in 1066. With the Norman Conquest, they became the ruling aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon England.

Geography

There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions. For people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, which were divided into many different warring kingdoms, were in internal disarray and became easy prey. The Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor. A reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population^[35][36] caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide.^[37] Although another cause could well have been pressure caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia and their subsequent attacks upon the Viking peoples. Another possible contributing factor is that Harald I of Norway ("Harald Fairhair") had united Norway around this time, and the bulk of the Vikings were displaced warriors who had been driven out of his kingdom and who had nowhere to go. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence and bases to launch counter-raids against Harald. One theory that has been suggested is that the Vikings would plant crops after the winter and go raiding as soon as the ice melted on the sea, then returned home with their loot, in time to harvest the crops.

One important centre of trade was at Hedeby. Close to the border with the Franks, it was effectively a crossroads between the cultures, until its eventual destruction by the Norwegians in an internecine dispute around 1050. York was the centre of the kingdom of Jórvík from 866, and discoveries there (e.g. a silk cap, a counterfeit of a coin from Samarkand and a cowry shell from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf) suggest that Scandinavian trade connections in the 10th century reached beyond Byzantium. However, those items could also have been Byzantine imports, and there is no reason to assume that the Varangians travelled significantly beyond Byzantium and the Caspian Sea.

Northwestern Europe

England

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Viking raiders struck England in 793 and raided Lindisfarne, the monastery that held Saint Cuthbert’s relics. The raiders killed the monks and captured the valuables. This raid marks the beginning of the "Viking Age of Invasion", made possible by the Viking longship. There was great but sporadic violence from the last decade of the 8th century on England’s northern and eastern shores: Viking raids continued on a small scale across coastal England. While the initial raiding groups were small, it is believed that a great amount of planning was involved. The Norwegians raided during the winter between 840 and 841, rather than the usual summer, having waited on an island off Ireland. In 850 Vikings overwintered for the first time in England, on the island of Thanet, Kent. In 854 a raiding party overwintered a second time, at the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames estuary. In 864 they reverted to Thanet for their winter encampment.^[38]

[[File:England diocese map pre-925.svg|thumb|The Anglo-Saxon dioceses before 925. Normal diocesan life was greatly disrupted in England during the Viking Age.]] The following year the Great Heathen Army led by the Brothers Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan and Ubba, and also by another Viking Guthrum, arrived in East Anglia. They proceeded to cross England into Northumbria and captured York, establishing the Viking community of Jorvik, where some settled as farmers and craftsmen. Most of the English kingdoms, being in turmoil, could not stand against the Vikings. In 867 Northumbria became the northern kingdom of the coalescing Danelaw, after its conquest by the brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless, who installed an Englishman, Ecgberht, as a puppet king. By 870 the "Great Summer Army" arrived in England, led by a Viking leader called Bagsecg and his Five Earls. Aided by the Great Heathen Army (which had already overrun much of England from its base in Jorvik), Bagsecg's forces, and Halfdan's forces (through an alliance), the combined Viking forces raided much of England until 871, when they planned an invasion of Wessex. On 8 January 871, Bagsecg was killed at the Battle of Ashdown along with his Earls. As a result, many of the Vikings returned to northern England, where Jorvic had become the centre of the Viking kingdom but Alfred of Wessex managed to keep them out of his country. Alfred and his successors continued to drive back the Viking frontier and take York. A new wave of Norwegian Vikings appeared in England in 947 when Erik Bloodaxe captured York.

In 1003 the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard started a series of raids against England. This culminated in a full-scale invasion that led to Sweyn being crowned king of England in 1013.^[39][40] Sweyn was also king of Denmark and parts of Norway at this time.^[41] The throne of England passed to Edmund Ironside of Wessex after Sweyn's death in 1014. Sweyn's son, Cnut the Great, won the throne of England in 1016 through conquest. When Cnut the Great died in 1035 he was a king of Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden.^[42][43] Harold Harefoot became king of England after Cnut's death and Viking rule of England ceased.

The Viking presence dwindled until 1066, when the invading Norsemen lost their final battle with the English at Stamford Bridge. Nineteen days later the Normans, themselves descended from Norsemen, invaded England and defeated the weakened English army at the Battle of Hastings.

In 1152, Eystein II of Norway led a plundering raid down the east coast of Britain.

Ireland

Longphort phase

Norwegian Vikings and other Scandinavians conducted extensive raids in Ireland. They founded Limerick in 812, then established a settlement near Waterford in 853, invaded Dublin and maintained control until 1169, and founded trading ports in Cork in the 9th century. Predominantly Norwegians, and to a smaller extent other Scandinavians, settled down and intermixed with the Irish. Literature, crafts, and decorative styles in Ireland and Britain reflected West Norse culture. Vikings traded at Irish markets in Dublin and solidified Dublin as an important city. Excavations found imported fabrics from England, Byzantium, Persia and central Asia. Dublin became so crowded by the 11th century that houses were constructed outside the town walls.

The Vikings pillaged monasteries on Ireland's west coast in 795 and then spread out to cover the rest of the coastline. The north and east of the island were most affected. During the first 40 years, the raids were conducted by small, mobile Viking groups. By 830, the groups consisted of large fleets of Viking ships. From 840, the Vikings began establishing permanent bases at the coasts. Dublin was the most significant settlement in the long term. The Irish became accustomed to the Viking presence. In some cases they became allies and married each other.

In 832, a Viking fleet of about 120 invaded kingdoms on Ireland’s northern and eastern coasts. Some believe that the increased number of invaders coincided with Scandinavian leaders' desires to control the profitable raids on the western shores of Ireland. During the mid-830s, raids began to push deeper into Ireland, as opposed to just touching the coasts. Navigable waterways made this deeper penetration possible. After 840, the Vikings had several bases in strategic locations dispersed throughout Ireland.

In 838, a small Viking fleet entered the River Liffey in eastern Ireland. The Vikings set up a base, which the Irish called a longphort. This longphort eventually became Dublin. After this interaction, the Irish experienced Viking forces for about 40 years. The Vikings also established longphorts in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Wexford. The Vikings could sail through on the main river and branch off into different areas of the country.

Battle of Clontarf

One of the last major battles involving Vikings was the Battle of Clontarf on 23 April 1014, in which Vikings fought both for the Irish over-king Brian Boru's army and for the Viking-led army opposing him. Irish and Viking literature depict the Battle of Clontarf as a gathering of this world and the supernatural. For example, witches, goblins, and demons were present. A Viking poem portrays the environment as strongly pagan. Valkyries chanted and decided who would live and die.

Kvenland

Kvenland, known as Cwenland, Kænland and similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Scandinavia and Fennoscandia. A contemporary reference to Kvenland is provided in an Old English account written in the 9th century. It utilized the information provided by the Norwegian adventurer and traveler named Ohthere. Kvenland, in that or close to that spelling, is also known from Nordic sources, primarily Icelandic, but also one that was possibly written in the modern-day area of Norway.

All the remaining Nordic sources discussing Kvenland, using that or close to that spelling, date to the 12th and 13th centuries, but some of them – in part at least – are believed to be rewrites of older texts. Other references and possible references to Kvenland by other names and/or spellings are discussed in the main article of Kvenland.

Scotland

While there are few records, the Vikings are thought to have led their first raids in Scotland on the holy island of Iona in 794, the year following the raid on the other holy island of Lindisfarne, Northumbria.

In 839, a large Norse fleet invaded via the River Tay and River Earn, both of which were highly navigable, and reached into the heart of the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu. They defeated Eogán mac Óengusa, king of the Picts, his brother Bran and the king of the Scots of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, along with many members of the Pictish aristocracy in battle. The sophisticated kingdom that had been built fell apart, as did the Pictish leadership, which had been stable for more than a hundred years since the time of Óengus mac Fergusa (The accession of Kenneth I of Scotland|Cináed mac Ailpín as king of both Picts and Scots can be attributed to the aftermath of this event).

Earldom of Orkney

By the mid-9th century the Norsemen had settled in Shetland, Orkney (the Nordreys- Norðreyjar), the Hebrides and Man, (the Sudreys- Súðreyjar – this survives in the Diocese of Sodor and Man) and parts of mainland Scotland. The Norse settlers were to some extent integrating with the local Gaelic population (see-Gall Gaidheal) in the Hebrides and Man. These areas were ruled over by local Jarls, originally captains of ships or Hersirs. The Jarl of Orkney and Shetland however, claimed supremacy.

In 875, King Harald Fairhair led a fleet from Norway to Scotland. In his attempt to unite Norway, he found that many of those opposed to his rise to power had taken refuge in the Isles. From here, they were raiding not only foreign lands but were also attacking Norway itself. He organised a fleet and was able to subdue the rebels, and in doing so brought the independent Jarls under his control, many of the rebels having fled to Iceland. He found himself ruling not only Norway, but the Isles, Man and parts of Scotland.

Kings of the Isles

In 876 the Gall-Gaidheal of Man and the Hebrides rebelled against Harald. A fleet was sent against them led by Ketil Flatnose to regain control. On his success, Ketil was to rule the Sudreys as a vassal of King Harald. His grandson Thorstein the Red and Sigurd the Mighty, Jarl of Orkney invaded Scotland were able to exact tribute from nearly half the kingdom until their deaths in battle. Ketil declared himself King of the Isles. Ketil was eventually outlawed and fearing the bounty on his head fled to Iceland.

The Gall-Gaidheal Kings of the Isles continued to act semi independently, in 973 forming a defensive pact with the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde. In 1095, the King of Mann and the Isles Godred Crovan was killed by Magnus Barelegs, King of Norway. Magnus and King Edgar of Scotland agreed a treaty. The islands would be controlled by Norway, but mainland territories would go to Scotland. The King of Norway nominally continued to be king of the Isles and Man. However, in 1156, The kingdom was split into two. The Western Isles and Man continued as to be called the "Kingdom of Man and the Isles", but the Inner Hebrides came under the influence of Somerled, a Gaelic speaker, who was styled 'King of the Hebrides'. His kingdom was to develop latterly into the Lordship of the Isles.

In eastern Aberdeenshire the Danes invaded at least as far north as the area near Cruden Bay.^[44]

The Jarls of Orkney continued to rule much of Northern Scotland until 1196, when Harald Maddadsson agreed to pay tribute to William the Lion, King of Scots for his territories on the Mainland.

The end of the Viking age proper in Scotland is generally considered to be in 1266. In 1263, King Haakon IV of Norway, in retaliation for a Scots expedition to Skye, arrived on the west coast with a fleet from Norway and Orkney. His fleet linked up with those of King Magnus of Man and King Dougal of the Hebrides. After peace talks failed, his forces met with the Scots at Largs, in Ayrshire. The battle proved indecisive, but it did ensure that the Norse were not able to mount a further attack that year. Haakon died overwintering in Orkney, and by 1266, his son Magnus the Law-mender ceded the Kingdom of Man and the Isles, with all territories on mainland Scotland to Alexander III, through the Treaty of Perth.

Orkney and Shetland continued to be ruled as autonomous Jarldoms under Norway until 1468, when King Christian I pledged them as security on the dowry of his daughter, who was betrothed to James III of Scotland. Although attempts were made during the 17th and 18th centuries to redeem Shetland, without success,^[45] and Charles II ratifying the pawning in the 1669 Act for annexation of Orkney and Shetland to the Crown, explicitly exempting them from any "dissolution of His Majesty’s lands",^[46] they are currently considered as being officially part of the United Kingdom.^[47][48]

Wales

Wales was not colonised by the Vikings as heavily as eastern England. The Vikings did, however, settle in the south around St. David's, Haverfordwest, and Gower, among other places. Place names such as Skokholm, Skomer, and Swansea remain as evidence of the Norse settlement.^[49] The Vikings, however, did not subdue the Welsh mountain kingdoms.

Iceland

According to Sagas, Iceland was discovered by Naddodd, a Viking from the Faroe Islands, after which it was settled by mostly Norwegians fleeing the oppressive rule of Harald Fairhair (late 9th century). While harsh, the land allowed for a pastoral farming life familiar to the Norse. According to the saga of Erik the Red, when Erik was exiled from Iceland he sailed west and pioneered Greenland.

Greenland

The Viking Age settlements in Greenland were established in the sheltered fjords of the southern and western coast. They settled in three separate areas along approximately (convert|650|km|nmi smi|abbr=off|lk=out)of the western coast. While harsh, the microclimates along some fjords allowed for a pastoral lifestyle similar to that of Iceland, until the climate changed for the worse with the "Little Ice Age" around 1400.^[50]

• The Eastern Settlement. The remains of about 450 farms have been found here. Erik the Red settled at Brattahlid on Ericsfjord.
• The Middle Settlement, near modern Ivigtut, consisting of about 20 farms.
• The Western Settlement at modern Godthåbsfjord, established before the 12th century. It has been extensively excavated by archaeologists.

Southern and eastern Europe

The Varangians or Varyags (Russian, (lang-uk|Варяги), Varyagi; (lang-be|Варагі), Varahi; Greek: Βάραγγοι, Βαριάγοι, Varangoi) sometimes referred to as Variagians were Scandinavians, often Swedes, who migrated eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries. Engaging in trade, piracy and mercenary activities, they roamed the river systems and portages of Gardariki, reaching the Caspian Sea and Constantinople. Contemporary English publications also use the name "Viking" for early Varangians in some contexts.^[51][52]

The term Varangian remained in usage in the Byzantine Empire until the 13th century, largely disconnected from its Scandinavian roots by then. Having settled Aldeigja (Ladoga) in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists were probably an element in the early ethnogenesis of the Rus' people, and likely played a role in the formation of the Rus' Khaganate.^[53][54] The Varangians (Varyags, in Old East Slavic) are first mentioned by the Primary Chronicle as having exacted tribute from the Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. It was the time of rapid expansion of the Vikings in Northern Europe; England began to pay Danegeld in 859, and the Curonians of Grobin faced an invasion by the Swedes at about the same date.

[[File:Nicholas Roerich, Guests from Overseas.jpg|thumbnail|left|Guests from Overseas, Nicholas Roerich (1899)]] In 862, the Finnic and Slavic tribes rebelled against the Varangian Rus, driving them overseas back to Scandinavia, but soon started to conflict with each other^{[citation needed]}. The disorder prompted the tribes to invite back the Varangian Rus "to come and rule them" and bring peace to the region^{[citation needed]}. This was a somewhat bilateral relation with the Varagians defending the cities that they ruled. Led by Rurik and his brothers Truvor and Sineus, the invited Varangians (called Rus') settled around the town of Novgorod (Holmgard).

In the 9th century, the Rus' operated the Volga trade route, which connected Northern Russia (Gardariki) with the Middle East (Serkland). As the Volga route declined by the end of the century, the Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks rapidly overtook it in popularity. Apart from Ladoga and Novgorod, Gnezdovo and Gotland were major centres for Varangian trade.^[55]

Western historians tend to agree with the Primary Chronicle that these Scandinavians founded Kievan Rus' in the 880s and gave their name to the land.^[56] Many Slavic scholars are opposed to this theory of Germanic(Clarify|date=October 2011|reason=Germanic? Shouldn't that be Scandinavian?) influence on the Rus' (people) and have suggested alternative scenarios for this part of Eastern European history.

In contrast to the intense Scandinavian influence in Normandy and the British Isles, Varangian culture did not survive to a great extent in the East. Instead, the Varangian ruling classes of the two powerful city-states of Novgorod and Kiev were thoroughly Slavicized by the end of the 10th century. Old Norse was spoken in one district of Novgorod, however, until the 13th century.

Central Europe

Viking Age Scandinavian settlements were set up along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, primarily for trade purposes. Their appearance coincides with the settlement and consolidation of the Slavic tribes in the respective areas.^[57] Scandinavians had contacts to the Slavs since their very immigration, these first contacts were soon followed by both the construction of Scandinavian emporia and Slavic burghs in their vicinity.^[58] The Scandinavian settlements were larger than the early Slavic ones, their craftsmen had a considerably higher productivity, and in contrast to the early Slavs, the Scandinavians were capable of seafaring.^[58] Their importance for trade with the Slavic world however was limited to the coastal regions and their hinterlands.^[59]

Scandinavian settlements at the Mecklenburgian coast include Reric (Groß Strömkendorf) on the eastern coast of Wismar Bay,^[60] and Dierkow (near Rostock).^[61] Reric was set up around the year 700,^[60] but following later warfare between Obodrites and Danes, the merchants were resettled to Haithabu.^[61] Dierkow prospered from the late 8th to the early 9th century.^[58]

Scandinavian settlements at the Pomeranian coast include Wolin (on the isle of Wolin), Ralswiek (on the isle of Rügen), Altes Lager Menzlin (at the lower Peene river),^[62] and Bardy-Świelubie near modern Kołobrzeg.^[63] Menzlin was set up in the mid-8th century.^[60] Wolin and Ralswiek began to prosper in the course of the 9th century.^[61] A merchants' settlement has also been suggested near Arkona, but no archeological evidence supports this theory.^[64] Menzlin and Bardy-Świelubie were vacated in the late 9th century,^[65] Ralswiek made it into the new millennium, but at the time when written chronicles reported the site in the 12th century it had lost all its importance.^[61] Wolin, thought to be identical with legendary Vineta and semilegendary Jomsborg, base of the Jomsvikings, was destroyed by the Danes in the 12th century.

Scandinavian arrowheads from the 8th and 9th centuries were found between the coast and the lake chains in the Mecklenburgian and Pomeranian hinterlands, pointing at periods of warfare between the Scandinavians and Slavs.^[61]

Scandinavian settlements existed along the southeastern Baltic coast in Truso and Kaup (Old Prussia), and in Grobin (Courland, Latvia).

(Baltic emporia)

Western Europe

France

The French region of Normandy takes its name from the Viking invaders who were called Normanni, which means ‘men of the North’. Today, nordmann (pron. Norman) in the Norwegian language, denotes a Norwegian person.

The first Viking raids began between 790 and 800 along the coasts of western France. They were carried out primarily in the summer, as the Vikings wintered in Scandinavia. Several coastal areas were lost during the reign of Louis the Pious (814–840). But the Vikings took advantage of the quarrels in the royal family caused after the death of Louis the Pious to settle their first colony in the south-west (Gascony) of the kingdom of Francia, which was more or less abandoned by the Frankish kings after their two defeats at Roncevaux. The incursions in 841 caused severe damage to Rouen and Jumièges. The Viking attackers sought to capture the treasures stored at monasteries, easy prey given the monks' lack of defensive capacity. In 845 an expedition up the Seine reached Paris. The presence of Carolingian deniers of ca 847, found in 1871 among a hoard at Mullaghboden, County Limerick, where coins were neither minted nor normally used in trade, probably represents booty from the raids of 843–6.^[66] After 851, Vikings began to stay in the lower Seine valley for the winter. Twice more in the 860s Vikings rowed to Paris, leaving only when they acquired sufficient loot or bribes from the Carolingian rulers.

The Carolingian kings tended to have contradictory politics, which had severe consequences. In 867, Charles the Bald signed the Treaty of Compiègne, by which he agreed to yield the Cotentin Peninsula to the Breton king Salomon, on the condition that Salomon would take an oath of fidelity and fight as an ally against the Vikings. Nevertheless, in 911 the Norwegian noble Viking leader Rollo from Møre, forced Charles the Simple to sign the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, under which Charles gave Rouen and the area of present-day Upper Normandy to Rollo, establishing the Duchy of Normandy. In exchange, Rollo pledged vassalage to Charles in 940, agreed to be baptised, and vowed to guard the estuaries of the Seine from further Viking attacks, even though the exact opposite was often the case. The Duchy of Normandy also annexed further areas in Northern France, expanding the territory which was originally negotiated.

While many buildings were pillaged, burned, or destroyed by the Viking raids, ecclesiastical sources may have been overly negative as no city was completely destroyed. On the other hand, many monasteries were pillaged and all the abbeys were destroyed. Rollo and his successors brought about rapid recoveries from the raids.

The Scandinavian colonization was principally Norwegian and Danish under Norwegian leadership by Rollo. A few Swedes were present. The merging of the Scandinavian and native elements contributed to the creation of one of the most powerful feudal states of Western Europe. The naval ability of the Normans would allow them to conquer England and southern Italy, and play a key role in the Crusades.

Italy

In 860, according to an account by the Norman monk Dudo of Saint-Quentin, a Viking fleet, probably under Björn Ironside and Hastein, landed at the Ligurian port of Luni and sacked the city. The Vikings then moved another 60 miles down the Tuscan coast to the mouth of the Arno, sacking Pisa and then, following the river upstream, also the hill-town of Fiesole above Florence; and others victory around the Mediterranean (including in Sicily and North Africa).^[67]

Many Anglo-Danish and Varangian mercenaries fought in Southern Italy, including Harald Hardrada and William de Hauteville who conquered parts of Sicily between 1038 and 1040,^[68][69] and Edgar the Ætheling who participated in the Norman conquest of southern Italy.^[70] Runestones were raised in Sweden in memory of warriors who died in Langbarðaland (Land of the Lombards), the Old Norse name for southern Italy.^[71]

Spain

After 842, when the Vikings set up a permanent base at the mouth of the Loire River, they could strike as far as northern Spain.^[72] They attacked Cadiz in AD 844. In some of their raids they were crushed either by Kingdom of Asturias or Emirate armies. These Vikings were Hispanised in all Christian kingdoms, while they kept their ethnic identity and culture in Al-Andalus.^[73]

In 1015, a Viking fleet entered the river Minho and sacked the episcopal city of Tui (Galicia); no new bishop was appointed until 1070.^[74]

Portugal

In 844, many dozens of drakkars appeared in the "Mar da Palha" ("the Sea of Straw", mouth of the Tagus river). After a siege, the Vikings conquered Lisbon (at the time, the city was under Muslim rule and known as Al-Ushbuna). They left after 13 days, following a resistance led by Alah Ibn Hazm and the city's inhabitants. Another raid was attempted in 966, without success.

North America

In about 986, the Norwegian Vikings Bjarni Herjólfsson, Leif Ericson and Þórfinnr Karlsefni from Greenland reached North America and attempted to settle the land they called Vinland. They created a small settlement on the northern peninsula of present-day Newfoundland, near L'Anse aux Meadows. Conflict with indigenous peoples and lack of support from Greenland brought the Vinland colony to an end within a few years. The archaeological remains are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[75]

Settlements outside Scandinavia

British Isles

England

• Danelaw
• Jórvík (York)
• Cumbria

Ireland

• Arklow
• Dyflin (Dublin)
• Hlymrekr (Limerick)
• Veðrafjǫrðr (Waterford)
• Víkingr-ló (Wicklow)^[76]
• Veisafjǫrðr (Wexford)

Isle of Man

• Mann

Scotland

• Caithness
• Galloway
• Kintyre
• Norðreyjar (Orkney and Shetland)
• Ross
• Suðreyjar (Hebrides)
• Sutherland

Western Europe

• Normandy

Eastern Europe

• Garðaríki (Russia)
• Seeburg

Atlantic

• Faroe Islands
• Iceland
• Greenland

North America

• L'Anse aux Meadows (and possibly a larger area called Vinland)

History of the Norwegian Empire

When Harald Fairhair became king of Norway after the battle at Hafrsfjord, he looked west to the isles that had been colonised by Norwegians for a century already and by 875 the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland had been brought under his rule and given to Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Jarl of Møre. This is considered the first year of the Norwegian Empire.

Iceland was more reluctant to give up their independent rule, so the Icelandic saga author Snorri Sturluson was given royal invitation to the court of King Haakon Haakonsson and was there convinced that Iceland was by right Norwegian. So began the Age of the Sturlungs, a time of political strife in Iceland, the Sturlungs worked for bringing Iceland to Norwegian rule and spread propaganda through their position at the Althing and even resorted to violence before, in 1262, the Old Covenant was signed, which brought total Norwegian rule over the island.

In Ranríki Konunghella was built as a royal city alongside Túnsberg and Biorgvin, it remained Norwegian until the 1658 Roskilde treaty. Herjárdalr became Norwegian during the 12th century and remained so for five centuries. Jamtaland started paying taxes to Norway during the 13th century and was later absorbed into a part of the mainland territory the same century. It was occupied by the Swedish during the Nordic Seven Years' War, but later returned to Denmark-Norway as a result of the Stettin treaty of 1570. Idre and Særna, Norwegian since the 12th century, were conquered by Sweden during the Hannibal controversy. Ranríki, Herjárdalr, Jamtaland, Idre and Særna were permanently surrendered to Sweden by the Peace of Brömsebro the 13th of August 1645.

Mainland

(Need a Map of NORWAY)

Administrative divisions

Viken: counties under Borgarþing:

• Ránríki
• Vingulmórk
• Vestfold
• Grenafylki

Oppland: counties under Heiðsævisþing:

• Heinafylki
• Haðafylki
• Raumaríki
• Guðbrandsdalir
• Eystridalir

Vestlandet: counties under Gulaþing:

• Sunnmærafylki
• Firðafylki
• Sygnafylki
• Horðafylki
• Rygjafylki
• Egðafylki
• Valdres
• Haddingjadalr

Trøndelag: counties under Frostaþing:

• Raumsdølafylki
• Norðmørafylki
• Naumdølafylki
• Sparbyggjafylki
• Eynafylki
• Verdølafylki
• Skeynafylki
• Stjórdølafylki
• Strindafylki
• Gauldølafylki
• Orkdølafylki

Háleygjafylki

Tax territory

(see also|Norway–Russia border#History|Bjarmaland)

• Finnmòrk
• Murmansk, modern-day Russia

From the 11th century Olaf III of Norway regarded the borders of Norway as reaching to the White Sea. The first Norwegians started moving to Finnmark in the 13th century. Vardøhus Fortress was erected by Norway in 1306 further east than today's land border, supporting Norwegian land ownership. There were no permanent Norwegian settlements on the Kola Peninsula at that time, except as late as the 1860s (see: Kola Norwegians). In 1326 Norway and the Novgorod Republic (later Grand Duchy of Moscow) signed an agreement regarding taxation of the Kola Peninsula and Finnmark.^[77] No border line was drawn, creating a marchland where both countries held the right to taxation of the Sami people.^[78]

Norwegian expansion

From the 600s Western Norwegian fish farmers began an exodus the nearby islands in the North Sea, Orkney and Shetland, later on to the Western Isles like the Hebrides and Man, and westward to the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. Some of these islands were inhabited when the Norwegians arrived, but the local population was displaced or assimilated by the Norwegian immigrants. Consistently the islands population got a Norwegian ancestry, who kept in touch with the motherland over the North Sea. These Norwegian developed had their own chiefs or kings by Norwegian pattern, which was subject to the Norwegian royal power when it eventually got national authority. Often Norwegian kings had enough to contend with the mainland, so the local power in the villages were often in the hands of local earls who operated on behalf of the king.

Holdings in Sweden were in varying degrees Norwegian. At 800-900s it is reasonable to assume that the population of Båhuslen, Jemtland and Herjedalen had no national affiliation, neither of Norway, Svealand or Götaland. It lay to the increasingly centralized monarchy to create this, which had to consolidate its right in the border areas above the neighboring kingdoms. Norway was then the first to integrate these areas into its kingdom.

Overseas

• Ísland (Iceland)
• Grænland (Greenland)
• Vínland (Newfoundland, present-day Canada)
• Færeyar (Faroe Islands)

Vinland was established ca. A.D. 1000 by the Norwegian Viking Leif Erikson from Iceland, an official hirdman of King Olaf Tryggvason. Vinland and other potential Norwegian colonies in America (See: Maine Penny) failed over time, most likely as a result of conflicts with the Native Americans, although American soil probably remained a source of timber to sustain the West Norse societies of Greenland for several centuries. Iceland, Faroe Islands and Greenland remained under Norwegian administration until 1814.

• Norðimbraland (Northumbria, a kingdom of medieval England)
• Dyflin (Dublin)

The medieval city of York located in Northumbria, came under Norwegian rule when Eric Bloodaxe conquered it in 947. He declared himself King of Northumbria shortly after his victory. Dublin was settled by Norwegian vikings in the 9th century and came under Norwegian rule the same century. Norwegian York fell in 954 and Norwegian Dublin fell in 1036.

• Scottish mainland: Caithness and Sutherland
• Mann (Isle of Mann)
• Hjaltland (Shetland)
• Orkneyar (Orkney Islands)
• Suðreyar (The Hebrides)

The treaty of Perth accepted Norwegian sovereignty over Shetland and Orkney, in turn Norway had to give the Hebrides and Isle of Man to Scotland.

Territories under varying influence of the Kingdom

• Normandy, France
• Anglesey, Wales
• Limerick, Waterford and Cork, Ireland
• Scottish mainland: Ross and Moray

The Norwegian noble Viking Rollo establishes Normandy in 911, with a sworn duty as a vassal of the King of France to protect the area against Vikings. Rollo formally served as a vassal, while he continued to expand his power locally in Northern France, to some degree making it a safe port for opportunist Vikings from Norway and Denmark. Anglesey periodically falls under Norwegian influence, as an important geopolitical location in the Irish Sea. The Norwegian Empire's ambitions in Wales followed centuries of gaining control of the Irish Sea, to secure a strong Norwegian element in the medieval international slave trade routes.

Monarchs of the Norwegian Empire

Yngling / Fairhair dynasty

• Harald I Halfdansson
• Eric I Haraldsson
• Haakon I Haraldsson
• Harald II Ericsson

Lade dynasty

• Haakon Sigurdsson

Trygvason dynasty

• Olaf Tryggvason

Lade dynasty (restored)

• Eric Haakonsson and Sweyn Haakonsson

Saint Olaf dynasty

• Saint Olaf|Olaf II Haraldsson

Lade dynasty (restored, second time)

• Haakon Ericsson

Saint Olaf dynasty (restored)

• Magnus I Olafsson

Hardrada/Hårfagreætta dynasty

• Harald Sigurdsson
• Magnus II of Norway|Magnus II Haraldsson
• Olaf III Haraldsson
• Haakon Magnusson of Norway|Haakon Magnusson
• Magnus Barefoot|Magnus III Olafsson
• Olaf Magnusson|Olaf IV Magnusson
• Eystein I|Eystein I Magnusson
• Sigurd I|Sigurd I Magnusson
• Magnus Sigurdsson|Magnus IV Sigurdsson

Gille dynasty

• Harald IV|Harald IV Magnusson
• Sigurd II|Sigurd II Haraldsson
• Inge I of Norway|Inge I Haraldsson
• Eystein II|Eystein II Haraldsson
• Magnus Haraldsson
• Haakon II|Haakon II Sigurdsson

Hardrada/Hårfagreætta dynasty (restored)

• Magnus V| Magnus V Erlingsson

Sverre dynasty

• Sverre I| Sverre I Sigurdsson
• Haakon III|Haakon III Sverresson
• Guttorm I|Guttorm I Sigurdsson

Gille dynasty (restored)

• Inge II of Norway|Inge II Bårdsson

Sverre dynasty (restored)

• Haakon IV|Haakon IV Haakonsson
• Haakon the Young|Haakon Haakonsson
• Magnus VI|Magnus VI Haakonsson
• Eric II of Norway|Eric II Magnusson
• Haakon V| Haakon V Magnusson

Background

Orkney and Shetland

From the 600s Norwegian farmers began to exodus from Rogaland and Agder to the nearby islands in the North Sea, Orkney and Shetland. These islands had long been undeveloped when the Norwegians arrived, the Picts, a possibly Celtic people who also stayed at the mainland Scotland. The Norwegian the settlement resulted in the elderly population was gone, either because they were few and went back to relatives in Scotland, or because they were made slaves (thralls). Most place names on the islands are today of old Norwegian ancestry.

Old legends says that when Harald Fairhair had implemented their piratical expeditions for the national collection, these islands haunt for Vikings ravaged Norway. King Harald awaking West sea and let themselves under Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides, and got to the Man and harried there. Sagas recounts further that Harald founded Earldom Orkneys, which encompassed all these islands, and he is considered to be the first Norwegian king who reigned over Kingdom of Norway.

However, it is likely that these stories are tge saga authors works, to corroborate later Norwegian kings claims over these islands. Some sources find it unlikely that the Norwegian kings had sovereignty in the Hebrides, Man, Orkney and Shetland back to the early 800s.

Sigurd Eysteinsson the first Earl of Orkney, was the brother of Rognvald Eysteinsson Earl of Møre, and the Earldom was in this dinasty to 1231. From the first moment the earl had tasks to protect the land and take care of land peace. He had a small lething raft and took a feast of the people.

The islands were Christianized by King Olav Tryggvason in 995. They got themselves a bishop in the 1000s, and from 1152 he heard the Archbishop of Nidaros. The diocese of Orkney was moved to Kirkjuvåg (Kirkwall) and there it were built a cathedral church that stands today. It was the largest cathedral in the archdiocese's second after Nidaros Cathedral, and was consecrated to the Holy Magnus Erlendsson, who was killed in 1115.

When the islanders had to put up against the King Sverre Sigurdsson at the Battle of Florvåg outside Bergen in 1194, the king took Shetland from the earl of Orkney and let it directly under the king.

Hebrides

History of the Outer Hebrides On the Hebrides there were also Norwegian settlement and Norwegian government. It is estimated that the settlement here took to about 800. Harald Fairhair should have inserted a Earl here too. But supremacy in these Viking islands was unstable. Here was the elderly population not taken out. Place names show that the Norwegians lived closest to the islands Lewis (Ljodhus) and Skye. The Celts had a well known monastery on their sacred island of Iona, and settlers from Norway soon became Christianized.

Ireland

It was also created Norwegian Viking kingdoms in Ireland. The most important of them was the realm in Dublin. A Viking king called Torgjest, built the castle in Dublin in the year 841 and took head tax of the Irish people. The king of the Dublin Empire from 852 to 871 was Olaf the White or Olaf Haraldsson Geirstadalf, half brother of Halfdan the Black. From Dublin Olav came home to Vestfold and became king there after his father. They think that it is Olav who was buried in the Gokstad ship.

These viking kingdoms were city-states, where citizens did business and each kingdom also heard something land inhabited farmers. In Ireland, which was haunted first attacked hardest by the Vikings, did not experience Vikings as a threat after the year 850. Vikings had acquired land and several traded.

In the great Battle of Clontarf in Dublin in 1014, a loss of an army led by among others the Orkney Earl Sigurd against an army led by the Irish High King Brian Boru. Sigurd was about looking to add Ireland under him, and if he participated in an internal Irish power struggle is controversial. Whatever had the Norse settlements accept Irish kings of kings after Clontarf. This was right enought often only a dominion in the name.

The English king Henry II had plans to subdue Ireland, and received a papal letter of Pope Adrian IV which gave him the right to Ireland. From 1169 to 1175 English knight armies took the Norwegian communes Dublin, Wexford, Waterford and Limerick. The Norwegians did stay outside every city in an area called Ostmantown (Oxmantown), but the Norwegians in Dublin continued to have their own thing, in 1258 called tingmot (thing meeting).

Isle of Man

The Vikings came to the Isle of Man in the year 798, and eventually became a Norwegian settlement there. The Norwegians lived most of the northern and western edge of the island, while the Celts continued to live on the southern and eastern edge of the island. Many place names reminiscent yet about the Norwegian population.

Man stood sometimes under their own Viking kings or under the Norwegian king of Dublin and was long a kingdom with the Hebrides. Harald Fairhair process hit previously mentioned. Magnus Barefoots time (1102-1103) heard the kingdom Hebrides and Man to the Kingdom of Norway. From 1153 every new king paid of the Hebrides and Man a bilge fee of 10 gold mark to every new king of Norway.

In 1266 the Hebrides and Man came under Scotland and since came the Isle of Man under England. The Norwegian language of Man died out in the 1400s.

Faroe Islands

An Irishman wrote year 825 that it had lived Irish hermits in the Faroe Islands in a hundred years, but they were lost because of the Norwegian Vikings. Otherwise, there were no population on these islands when Norwegian settlers settled there. The first settler named Grímur Kamban, and the settlement should have been done something before the year 825. Faroe Islands became subject to the Norwegian kingdom in 1035 or something before.

Iceland

Also here lived a few Irish hermits there when the Vikings arrived, and solitaries went his way, as the settlement was made in unpopulated land. Settlement period began with the Ingolv Ørnsson from Sunnfjord took the land in Reykjavik year 874 and lasted until 930. Most settlers came in time 890-910. It was mostly people who would not stand under Harald Fairhair.

In 1262 - 1264 Iceland went under the King of Norway and Icelanders should provide his tax. Terms were set out in an agreement in 1262, as the Icelanders called Gissur conciliation, after the Earl Gissur Þorvaldsson. Here it says that the King will leave the peace and Icelandic laws, and basically it was so.

Greenland

It is no more than about 300 km from Iceland to Greenland, and that there was a world here, was known long before Eirik Raude went there. Eirik Raude stayed at Jæren, but he and his father went from Norway due murder, and setled in Iceland. Eirik came up in murder cases there too, and was convicted outlaw. Then he proceeded to Greenland and found West Greenland and made himself familiar with the country.

He came back to the Island, fighting with his old opponent, and lost. They were reconciled that Eirik had to leave Iceland. That same year, 986, came Eirik with a fleet of settlers to Greenland, 14 ships arrived. They took their settlements south of West Greenland, in the two villages called eastern parish and Western Settlement.

About this there is information in the writings of the Middle Ages, and from excavations done in our time. When the settlement was at its largest, was there 16 churches, 2 monastery and 280 farms in Greenland. The biggest farm was bispgården Gardar, where the big room was 36 m² and a banquet hall was 130 m² and where they had 100 caliper bound cattle.

The country became Christian in the year 1000, the Leiv Eiriksson, commissioned by Olav Tryggvason, and was later a separate diocese. After Eric's legal position is clear that newly constructed in Greenland was an independent free state. In the sagas there is also Greenland considered as a separate country.

In 1247 came a newly appointed bishop from Norway to Greenland, with orders from King Haakon IV Håkonsson that Greenlanders should not go to the king. In 1261 there were some farmenn back from Greenland with the message that Greenlanders had committed itself to paying tax to the king.

Jamtland

Snorre Sturlasson writes in Heimskringla about, Ketil Jamt the son of Onund Earl of Sparbu in Trøndelag, he moved east over the ridge to people and livestock, and cleaned up Jemtland. In the saga of Egill Skallagrímsson he writes that the plundering of Harald Fairhair ascended many people including Jemtland.

After Snorre had Jemtland on Harald Fairhair time an independent position, but under Haakon the Good gave Jamts in Norway under the King and he promised tax and Hakon put law and land rights for them. This joystick at the front in the 1000's. On Eric Haakonsson Earl of Lade time Jemtland was a part of lens division after the settlement of the great naval Battle of Svolder and Jemtland, Herjedalen, Rana, Båhuslen and Romsdal had fallen on Erik's brother Svein after agreement with the Swedish king, Olof Skötkonung. When Olav demanded tax of Jamtland, he didn't got it.

Jemtland received Christianity from east like Trondelag. After an inscription in Norwegian from the mid-1000s the country was Christianized by a named Austmann Gudfastsson. Ecclesiastical heard country under the Archbishop of Uppsala some time before 1571. Also King Øystein Magnusson (1103-1122) made a claim against Jamts that they should go under the king o Norway.

Herjedalen

(See also|Härjedalen#History) What about Herjedalen are told that the first settled there, was Herjulv Hornbrjot. He was noticed husband (standard bearer) with King Halfdan the Black, but came in disgrace and went to Svearike. There he became an outlaw and then he settled in Herjedalen, which then layd in Norway. This must have been around the year 850. Herjedalen became Christian in the years 1030 to 1060, and belonged to the diocese of Nidaros.

End of the self-rule

After the extinction of the male lines of the perceived Fairhair dynasty in 1319, the throne of Norway passed through matrilineal descent to Magnus VII, who in the same year became elected as king of Sweden too. In 1343 Magnus had to abdicate as King of Norway in favour of his younger son, Haakon VI of Norway. The oldest son, Eric, was explicitly removed from the future line of succession of Norway. Traditionally Norwegian historians have interpreted this clear break with previous successions as stemming from dissatisfaction among the Norwegian nobility with Norway's junior position in the union. However it may also be the result of Magnus' dynastic policies. He had two sons and two kingdoms and might have wished they should inherit one each, rather than start battling over the inheritance. Magnus was at the same time attempting to secure Eric's future election as King of Sweden.

The Black Death of 1349–51 was a contributing factor to the decline of the Norwegian monarchy as the noble families and population in general were gravely affected. But the most devastating factor for the nobility and the monarchy in Norway was the steep decline in income from their holdings. Many farms were deserted and rents and taxes suffered. This left the Norwegian monarchy weakened in terms of manpower, noble support, defence ability and economic power.^[79]

After the death of Haakon VI of Norway in 1380, his son Olav IV of Norway succeeded to both the thrones of Norway and Denmark and also claimed the Kingdom of Sweden (holding its westernmost provinces already). Only after his death at the age of 17 his mother Margaret managed to oust their rival, king Albert, from Sweden, and thus united the three Scandinavian kingdoms in personal union under one crown, in the Kalmar Union. Olav's death extinguished yet one Norwegian male royal line; he was also the last Norwegian king to be born on Norwegian soil for the next 567 years.^[79]

After the death of Olav IV of Norway in 1387, the closest in line to the succession was the Swedish king Albert of Mecklenburg. However, his succession was politically unacceptable to the Norwegians and Danes. Next in line were the descendants of the Sudreim lineage, legitimate descendants of Haakon V of Norway's illegitimate, but recognized daughter Agnes Haakonsdatter, Dame of Borgarsyssel. However, the candidate from this lineage renounced his claim to the throne in favour of Eric of Pomerania, Queen Margaret's favoured candidate. The succession right of this lineage resurfaced in 1448 after the death of King Christopher, but the potential candidate, Sigurd Jonsson, again renounced his candidature - see Sudreim claim. Eric's succession was one in a line of successions which did not precisely follow the laws of inheritance, but excluded one or a few undesirable heirs, leading to Norway formally becoming an elective kingdom in 1450.^[80]

Starting with Margaret I of Denmark, the throne of Norway was held by a series of non-Norwegian kings (usually perceived as Danish) who variously held the throne to more than one Scandinavian countries, or of all of them.

See also

• Norgesveldet for more detailed information on Norway's former possessions
• Aristocracy of Norway
• Civil war era in Norway
• Norse colonization of the Americas

Notes

Forte, p. 2 ^ Jump up to: a b c Simek, Rudolf (2005) "the emergence of the viking age: circumstances and conditions", "The vikings first Europeans VIII — XI century — the new discoveries of archaeology", other, pp. 24–25 ^ Jump up to: a b Bruno Dumézil, master of Conference at Paris X-Nanterre, Normalien, aggregated history, author of conversion and freedom in the barbarian kingdoms. 5th – 8th centuries (Fayard, 2005) ^ Jump up to: a b "Franques Royal Annals" cited in Sawyer, Peter (2001) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. ISBN 0-19-285434-8. p. 20 ^ Jump up to: a b Decaux, Alain and Castelot, André (1981) Dictionnaire d'histoire de France. Perrin. ISBN 2-7242-3080-9. pp. 184–185 ^ Jump up to: a b Boyer, R. (2008) Les Vikings: histoire, mythes, dictionnaire. R. Laffont. ISBN 978-2-221-10631-0. p. 96 ^ Jump up to: a b Swanton, Michael (1998). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Psychology Press. ISBN 0415921295. p. 57, n. 15. Jump up ^ Albert D'Haenens, Les Invasions Normandes en Belgique au IX Siecle (Louvain 1967) asserts that the phrase cannot be documented. It is asserted that the closest documented phrase is a sentence from an antiphon for churches dedicated to St. Vaast or St. Medard: Summa pia gratia nostra conservando corpora et cutodita, de gente fera Normannica nos libera, quae nostra vastat, Deus, regna, "Our supreme and holy Grace, protecting us and ours, deliver us, God, from the savage race of Northmen which lays waste our realms." Magnus Magnusson, Vikings! (New York: E.P. Dutton 1980), ISBN 0525228926, p.61. Jump up ^ Jones, p. 195. Simeon of Durham recorded the raid in these terms: And they came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers; some they took away with them in fetters; many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults; and some they drowned in the sea." Magnus Magnusson, Vikings!, p. 32. Jump up ^ Palmer, Alan Warwick (2006). Northern Shores: a history of the Baltic Sea and its peoples. London: John Murray. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-719-56299-0. OCLC 63398802. Jump up ^ Sawyer, Peter Hayes. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. ISBN 0-198-20526-0. Jump up ^ Jones, pp. 8–10 Jump up ^ François-Xavier Dillmann (fr), "Viking civilisation and culture. A bibliography of French-language", Caen, Centre for research on the countries of the North and Northwest, University of Caen, 1975, p. 19, and" Les Vikings — the Scandinavian and European 800–1200 ", 22nd exhibition of art from the Council of Europe, 1992, p. 26 Jump up ^ Sturlusson, Snorri (2000) History of the Kings of Norway. Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-073211-8 pp. 15, 16, 18, 24, 33, 34, 38 Jump up ^ "The Vikings 787 AD-1066 AD (Anglo Saxon Britain)". Ports & ships. Jump up ^ "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Part 2". Online Medieval and Classical Library. Retrieved 7 June 2011. Jump up ^ The material suggesting a Norwegian origin identifies him with Hrolf the Ganger, also known as "Rolf the Walker" Jump up ^ "One of the most popular explanations offered for the Viking phenomenon is that overpopulation created a need for more land - especially in mountainous Norway - and thus the Vikings were largely motivated by a desire to colonise. Peter Sawyer, for example, in 1971 said that the first raids on Britain, by the Norwegians, were a by-product of the colonisation of the Orkneys and the Shetlands, and that the Norwegians were more interested in settlement than in plunder. There have emerged more recently, however, a couple of problems with this explanation. For a start, Sawyer in 1982 reneged somewhat by saying that there is now no good evidence for any population pressure in the 8th Century. Patrick Wormald added that what has been taken for overpopulation was just population concentration due to economic expansion and the mining of iron ore. In a further point, Wormald states that there is no clear evidence for any Viking settlement until the mid-9th Century: some 50-60 years after the raids began. Thus, colonisation seems to have been a secondary feature of Viking activity: the success of the raids opened the way for settlement, but were not motivated by it, at least not initially." "The Vikings - Why They Did It, from the edited h2g2, the Unconventional Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything" (3 July 2000). See also P.H. Sawyer, "The Causes of the Viking Age" in The Vikings (R.T. Farrell, ed. 1982), London: Phillimore & Co, pp. 1-7; P.H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings (2nd Ed. 1971), London: Edward Arnold). Jump up ^ "It has been suggested that the expansion of the Viking age was spurred by a population growth outstepping the capacities of domestic resources. Archaeological evidence shows that new farms were cleared in sparsely populated forest areas at the time of the foreign expansion - so the pressure of population growth is surely a contributing factor." Arne Emil Christensen, The Vikings. Jump up ^ Wicker, Nancy (1998). Hallsal, Guy, ed. Selective female infanticide as partial explanation for dearth of women in Viking Age Scandinavia. Woodbridge: Boydell press. pp. 205–221. ISBN 0 85115 713 0. Jump up ^ Hall, p. 13 Jump up ^ Sweyn (r. 1013–1014), The Official Website Of The British Monarchy Jump up ^ Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903025-00-1. Jump up ^ Lund, Niels (2001). "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", pp. 167–181 in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Ed. P. H. Sawyer. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285434-8. Jump up ^ Canute 'The Great' (r. 1016–1035), The Official Website Of The British Monarchy Jump up ^ Lawson, M K (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016–35". The History Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0582059702. Jump up ^ Forte, p. 216 Jump up ^ Hogan, C. Michael (2008) "'Catto Long Barrow fieldnotes". The Modern Antiquarian Jump up ^ "Norsken som døde". Universitas – Kultur onsdag. 9 October 1996 Jump up ^ 1669 Act for annexation of Orkney and Shetland to the Crown. Shetland & Orkney Udal Law group Jump up ^ History and Heritage. Shetland Tourism Jump up ^ "Shetland Islands Council – Ports and Harbours". shetland.gov.uk. Jump up ^ Williams, John Garnons. WALES AT THE TIME OF THE TREATY OF MONTGOMERY IN 1267. MAPPING MEDIEVAL WALES. gwp.enta.net Jump up ^ Little Ice Age#Dating; see also History of Greenland#Norse failure. Jump up ^ "Oleg". Encyclopedia Britannica. Jump up ^ "Rurik". Encyclopedia Britannica. Jump up ^ Land of the Rus – Viking expeditions to the east National Museum of Denmark Jump up ^ Dangerous journeys to Eastern Europe and Russia National Museum of Denmark Jump up ^ A massive majority (40,000) of all Viking-Age Arabian coins found in Scandinavia were found in Gotland. In Skåne, Öland and Uppland together, about 12,000 coins were found. Other Scandinavian areas have only scattered finds: 1,000 from Denmark and some 500 from Norway. Byzantine coins have been found almost exclusively in Gotland, some 400. See Arkeologi i Norden 2. Författarna och Bokförlaget Natur & kultur. Stockholm 1999. See also Gardell, Carl Johan: Gotlands historia i fickformat, 1987. ISBN 91-7810-885-3. Jump up ^ Robin Milner-Gulland, The Russians, Blackwell Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0-631-21849-1, ISBN 978-0-631-21849-4, p. 45 Jump up ^ Harck, p. 17 ^ Jump up to: a b c Harck, p. 15 Jump up ^ Harck, pp. 16–17 ^ Jump up to: a b c Harck, p. 12 ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Harck, p. 18 Jump up ^ Herrmann, Joachim (1985) Die Slawen in Deutschland. Akademie-Verlag Berlin. pp. 237ff, 244ff Jump up ^ Harck, pp. 15–16 Jump up ^ Harck, p. 13 Jump up ^ Harck, p. 16 Jump up ^ Hall, p. 17 Jump up ^ Haywood, John (08 ott 2015). Northmen. Head of Zeus. Check date values in: |date= (help) Jump up ^ Carr, John (30 Apr 2015). Fighting Emperors of Byzantium. Pen and Sword. p. 177. Jump up ^ Hill, Paul (30 giu 2015). The Norman Commanders: Masters of Warfare 911-1135. Pen and Sword. p. 18. Check date values in: |date= (help) Jump up ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, p. 217; Florence of Worcester, p. 145 Jump up ^ 2. Runriket - Täby Kyrka, an online article at Stockholm County Museum, retrieved July 1, 2007. Jump up ^ Forte, p. 60 Jump up ^ "Los vikingos en Al-Andalus (abstract available in English)" (PDF). Jesús Riosalido. 1997. Retrieved 11 May 2010. Jump up ^ Fletcher, Richard A. (1997) The conversion of Europe: from paganism to Christianity 371–1386 AD. HarperCollins. ISBN 0002552035. p. 370 Jump up ^ UNESCO World Heritage Centre. "L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site". unesco.org. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Crystal, David, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, CUP, 2001 edition, ISBN 0-521-59655-6, p25-6. Jump up ^ "The -by ending is almost entirely confined to the area of the Danelaw, supporting a theory of Scandinavian origin, despite the existence of the word by "dwelling" in Old English." Crystal, p 25. Jump up ^ Foote, P. and Wilson, D. M. (1970)The Viking Achievement. Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd. ISBN 0283354992. pp. 282–285. Jump up ^ Did the Vikings make a telescope? BBC. 5 April 2000 Jump up ^ "AFP: Viking 'sunstone' more than a myth". Google. 1 November 2011. Retrieved 15 April 2013. Jump up ^ Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names

References

• Vassdal, Trond O. (3 August 2012). "Historisk sammendrag vedrørende riksgrensen Norge – Russland" (PDF) (in Norwegian). Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority. Archived from the original on 20 August 2012. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
• Johanson (1999): 15 a b History of Norway from the Norwegian government web site Retrieved 21 November 2006
• Hødnebø, Finn (ed.) (1974). Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, bind XVIII. Gyldendal norsk forlag. p. 691

Cited sources

1. ↑ Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971, ISBN 9780198217169, p. 386.
2. ↑ Stenton, pp. 388-93.
3. ↑ Stenton, p. 397.
4. ↑ Stenton, p. 399: "It is with the departure of the Danish fleet and the meeting at Oxford which followed it that Cnut's effective reign begins".
5. ↑ Stenton, p. 401.
6. ↑ Palle Lauring, tr. David Hohnen, A History of the Kingdom of Denmark, Copenhagen: Høst, 1960, (OCLC|5954675), p. 56.
7. ↑ Edward A. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England: Its Causes and its Results, Volume 1 Oxford: Clarendon, 1867, p. 404, note 1.
8. ↑ Stenton, pp. 402-04.
9. ↑ Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, London: Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-22126-9, p. 125.
10. ↑ Philip J. Potter, Gothic Kings of Britain: The Lives of 31 Medieval Rulers, 1016-1399, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7864-4038-2, p. 12.
11. ↑ Stenton, pp. 407-08.
12. ↑ Viggo Starcke, Denmark in World History, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1962, p. 282.
13. ↑ Stenton, pp. 402-03.
14. ↑ Herbert A. Grueber and Charles Francis Keary, A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum: Anglo-Saxon Series, Volume 2, London: Trustees [of the British Museum], 1893, p. lxxvii.
15. ↑ ^{15.0 15.1} Starcke, p. 284.
16. ↑ Stenton, p. 404.
17. ↑ Starcke, p. 289.
18. ↑ Karen Larsen, A History of Norway, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 1948, repr. 1950, (OCLC|221615697), p. 104.
19. ↑ In the probably later heading to a 1027 letter sent to his English subjects: Rex totius Angliæ et Denemarciæ et Norreganorum et partis Suanorum, "King of all England and Denmark and Norway and part of Sweden". Freeman, p. 479, note 2.
20. ↑ Brita Malmer, "The 1954 Rone Hoard and Some Comments on Styles and Inscriptions of Certain Scandinavian Coins from the Early Eleventh Century", in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500-1200: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald, ed. Barrie Cook and Gareth Williams, Leiden: Brill, 2006, ISBN 90-04-14777-2, pp. 435-48, p. 443.
21. ↑ Henry Noel Humphreys, The Coinage of the British Empire: An Outline of the Progress of the Coinage in Great Britain and her Dependencies, From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, London: Bogue, 1855, (OCLC|475661618), p. 54.
22. ↑ "The Hiberno-Norse Coinage of Ireland, ~995 to ~1150", Irish Coinage.
23. ↑ Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation's History, 2nd ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1988, ISBN 0-8093-1489-4, pp. 25-26, listing Cnut's claim.
24. ↑ Starcke, pp. 281-82.
25. ↑ Stenton, p. 419.
26. ↑ M.K. Lawson, Cnut: England's Viking King, Stroud: Tempus, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-2964-7, p. 103: "Cnut's power would seem in some sense to have extended into Wales".
27. ↑ Benjamin T. Hudson, Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in theNorth Atlantic, New York: Oxford University, 2005, ISBN 9780195162370, p. 119.
28. ↑
29. ↑ (Ill|fr|François-Xavier Dillmann), "Viking civilisation and culture. A bibliography of French-language", Caen, Centre for research on the countries of the North and Northwest, University of Caen, 1975, p. 19, and" Les Vikings — the Scandinavian and European 800–1200 ", 22nd exhibition of art from the Council of Europe, 1992, p. 26
30. ↑ Sturlusson, Snorri (2000) History of the Kings of Norway. Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-073211-8 pp. 15, 16, 18, 24, 33, 34, 38
31. ↑ "The Vikings 787 AD-1066 AD (Anglo Saxon Britain)." Portsandships.com. Accessed January 13, 2019. http://www.portsandships.com/index.php?categoryid=117&p2_articleid=120.
32. ↑
33. ↑ "The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Part 2." February 9, 2006. Accessed June 7, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20180224225937/http://omacl.org/Anglo/part2.html.
34. ↑ The material suggesting a Norwegian origin identifies him with Hrolf the Ganger, also known as "Rolf the Walker"
35. ↑ "One of the most popular explanations offered for the Viking phenomenon is that overpopulation created a need for more land - especially in mountainous Norway - and thus the Vikings were largely motivated by a desire to colonise. Peter Sawyer, for example, in 1971 said that the first raids on Britain, by the Norwegians, were a by-product of the colonisation of the Orkneys and the Shetlands, and that the Norwegians were more interested in settlement than in plunder. There have emerged more recently, however, a couple of problems with this explanation. For a start, Sawyer in 1982 reneged somewhat by saying that there is now no good evidence for any population pressure in the 8th Century. Patrick Wormald added that what has been taken for overpopulation was just population concentration due to economic expansion and the mining of iron ore. In a further point, Wormald states that there is no clear evidence for any Viking settlement until the mid-9th Century: some 50-60 years after the raids began. Thus, colonisation seems to have been a secondary feature of Viking activity: the success of the raids opened the way for settlement, but were not motivated by it, at least not initially." "The Vikings - Why They Did It, from the edited h2g2, the Unconventional Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything" (3 July 2000). See also P.H. Sawyer, "The Causes of the Viking Age" in The Vikings (R.T. Farrell, ed. 1982), London: Phillimore & Co, pp. 1-7; P.H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings (2nd Ed. 1971), London: Edward Arnold).
36. ↑ "It has been suggested that the expansion of the Viking age was spurred by a population growth outstepping the capacities of domestic resources. Archaeological evidence shows that new farms were cleared in sparsely populated forest areas at the time of the foreign expansion - so the pressure of population growth is surely a contributing factor." Arne Emil Christensen, The Vikings.
37. ↑ Wicker, Nancy L. ""Selective Female Infanticide as Partial Explanation for the Dearth of Women in Viking Age Scandinavia," Pp. 205-221 in Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West, Edited by Guy Halsall. Woodbridge, United Kingdom: Boydell Press, 1998;." Academia.edu - Share Research. Accessed January 13, 2019. http://www.academia.edu/808691/_Selective_Female_Infanticide_as_Partial_Explanation_for_the_Dearth_of_Women_in_Viking_Age_Scandinavia_pp._205-221_in_Violence_and_Society_in_the_Early_Medieval_West_edited_by_Guy_Halsall._Woodbridge_United_Kingdom_Boydell_Press_1998_paperback_2002.
38. ↑ Hall, p. 13
39. ↑ (citation | url = http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheAnglo-Saxonkings/Sweyn.aspx | publisher = The Official Website Of The British Monarchy | title = Sweyn (r. 1013–1014))
40. ↑ Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903025-00-1.
41. ↑ Lund, Niels (2001). "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", pp. 167–181 in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Ed. P. H. Sawyer. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285434-8.
42. ↑ (citation | url = http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensofEngland/TheAnglo-Saxonkings/CanutetheGreat.aspx | publisher = The Official Website Of The British Monarchy | title = Canute 'The Great' (r. 1016–1035))
43. ↑ Lawson, M K (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016–35". The History Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0582059702.
44. ↑ Hogan, C. Michael (2008) "'Catto Long Barrow fieldnotes". The Modern Antiquarian
45. ↑ "Norsken som døde". Universitas – Kultur onsdag. 9 October 1996
46. ↑ 1669 Act for annexation of Orkney and Shetland to the Crown. Shetland & Orkney Udal Law group
47. ↑ History and Heritage. Shetland Tourism
48. ↑ "Shetland Islands Council – Ports and Harbours". shetland.gov.uk.
49. ↑ Williams, John Garnons. WALES AT THE TIME OF THE TREATY OF MONTGOMERY IN 1267. MAPPING MEDIEVAL WALES. gwp.enta.net
50. ↑ Little Ice Age#Dating; see also History of Greenland#Norse failure.
51. ↑ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Oleg." Encyclopædia Britannica. March 30, 2016. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9057004/Oleg.
52. ↑ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Rurik." Encyclopædia Britannica. March 30, 2016. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9064445/Rurik.
53. ↑ Land of the Rus – Viking expeditions to the east National Museum of Denmark
54. ↑ Dangerous journeys to Eastern Europe and Russia National Museum of Denmark
55. ↑ A massive majority (40,000) of all Viking-Age Arabian coins found in Scandinavia were found in Gotland. In Skåne, Öland and Uppland together, about 12,000 coins were found. Other Scandinavian areas have only scattered finds: 1,000 from Denmark and some 500 from Norway. Byzantine coins have been found almost exclusively in Gotland, some 400. See Arkeologi i Norden 2. Författarna och Bokförlaget Natur & kultur. Stockholm 1999. See also Gardell, Carl Johan: Gotlands historia i fickformat, 1987. ISBN 91-7810-885-3.
56. ↑ Robin Milner-Gulland, The Russians, Blackwell Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0-631-21849-1, ISBN 978-0-631-21849-4, p. 45
57. ↑ Harck, p. 17
58. ↑ ^{58.0 58.1 58.2} Harck, p. 15
59. ↑ Harck, pp. 16–17
60. ↑ ^{60.0 60.1 60.2} Harck, p. 12
61. ↑ ^{61.0 61.1 61.2 61.3 61.4} Harck, p. 18
62. ↑ Herrmann, Joachim (1985) Die Slawen in Deutschland. Akademie-Verlag Berlin. pp. 237ff, 244ff
63. ↑ Harck, pp. 15–16
64. ↑ Harck, p. 13
65. ↑ Harck, p. 16
66. ↑ Hall, p. 17
67. ↑ Haywood, John. Northmen: The Viking Saga, AD 793-1241. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins Press, 2016.
68. ↑ Carr, John. Fighting Emperors of Byzantium. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2015.
69. ↑ Hill, Paul. The Norman Commanders: Masters of Warfare, 911-1135. Barnsley: Pen Et Sword, 2015.
70. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, p. 217; Florence of Worcester, p. 145
71. ↑ 2. Runriket - Täby Kyrka, an online article at Stockholm County Museum, retrieved July 1, 2007.
72. ↑ Forte, p. 60
73. ↑ "Los vikingos en Al-Andalus (abstract available in English)". Jesús Riosalido, 1997. Accessed 11 May 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20150320063152/http://rodin.uca.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10498/7881/18385953.pdf?sequence=1
74. ↑ Fletcher, Richard A. (1997) The conversion of Europe: from paganism to Christianity 371–1386 AD. HarperCollins. ISBN 0002552035. p. 370
75. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Centre. "L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site". unesco.org.
76. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names
77. ↑ Vassdal, Trond O. "Historisk sammendrag vedrørende riksgrensen Norge – Russland", Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority. 3 August 2012. Access Date 20 August 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120824045434/http://www.statkart.no/filestore/Landdivisjonen_ny/Fagomrder/dGrenser/grensefiler/Grensenotat_0821012.pdf
78. ↑ Johanson (1999): 15
79. ↑ ^{79.0 79.1} History of Norway from the Norwegian government web site Retrieved 21 November 2006
80. ↑ Hødnebø, Finn. Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingtid til reformasjonstid. 20 : Vidjer-øre, Oslo : Gyldendal, 1972.

• Forte, Angelo; Oram, Richard; Pedersen, Frederik (2005). Viking Empires. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82992-5.
• Hall, Richard (2010). Viking Age archaeology. Shire Publications. ISBN 0747800634.
• Harck, Ole; Lübke, Christian (2001). Zwischen Reric und Bornhöved: Die Beziehungen zwischen den Dänen und ihren slawischen Nachbarn vom 9. Bis ins 13. International Conference, Leipzig, 4–6 December 1997, Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 3-515-07671-9.
• Jones, Gwyn (1968). A History of the Vikings. Oxford University Press. OCLC 581030305

External links

• Oscar Albert Johnsen (1924). Noregsveldets undergang : Et utsyn og et opgjør : Nedgangstiden. Kristiania: Aschehoug.
• Jørn Sandnes (1971). Ødetid og gjenreisning : Trøndsk busetningshistorie ca. 1200–1600. Universitetsforlaget.
• Per Sveaas Andersen (1977). Samlingen av Norge og kristningen av landet : 800–1130. Universitetsforlaget.
• Aslak Bolt (1997). Aslak Bolts jordebok. Riksarkivet.

Further reading

Background

• Brink, S. with Price, N. (eds) (2008). The Viking World, [Routledge Worlds], Routledge: London and New York, 2008. ISBN 9780415692625
• Graham-Campbell, J. (2001), The Viking World, London, 2001. ISBN 9780711234680

General surveys

• Ahola, Joonas & Frog with Clive Tolley (eds.) (2014). Fibula, Fabula, Fact – The Viking Age in Finland. Studia Fennica Historica 18. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.
• Anker, P. (1970). The Art of Scandinavia, Volume I, London and New York, 1970.
• Fuglesang, S.H. (1996). "Viking Art", in Turner, J. (ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Art, Volume 32, London and New York, 1996, pp. 514–527, 531–532.
• Graham-Campbell, J. (1980). Viking Artefacts: A Select Catalogue, British Museum Publications: London, 1980. ISBN 9780714113548
• Graham-Campbell, James (2013). Viking Art, Thames & Hudson, 2013. ISBN 9780500204191
• Roesdahl, E. and Wilson, D.M. (eds) (1992). From Viking to Crusader: Scandinavia and Europe 800–1200, Copenhagen and New York, 1992. [exhibition catalogue]. ISBN 9780847816255
• Williams, G., Pentz, P. and Wemhoff, M. (eds), Vikings: Life and Legend, British Museum Press: London, 2014. [exhibition catalogue]. ISBN 9780714123363
• Wilson, D.M. & Klindt-Jensen, O. (1980). Viking Art, second edition, George Allen and Unwin, 1980. ISBN 9780047090189
• Carey, Brian Todd. “Technical marvels, Viking longships sailed seas and rivers, or served as floating battlefields”, Military History 19, no. 6 (2003): 70–72.
• Downham, Clare. Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2007
• Hudson, Benjamin. Viking Pirates and Christian Princes: Dynasty, Religion, and Empire in North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-19-516237-4.
• Logan, F. Donald The Vikings in History (London: Hutchison & Co. 1983) ISBN 0-415-08396-6.
• Maier, Bernhard. The Celts: A history from earliest times to the present. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.