Aims
This course aims to:
- understand the geographical and cultural breadth of the Viking world
- explore the achievements of the Vikings in technology, warfare and trade
- distinguish between fact and fiction in popular perceptions of the Vikings
Content
The reputation of the Vikings has tended to focus on their activity as raiders, with little respect for the people and faiths that they encountered. This interpretation is shaped by the fact that the Vikings themselves left few written sources, and much of the surviving written evidence is derived from the victims of their raids. However, both archaeology and some written evidence provide a broader picture, and reveal a society of farmers, traders and craftsmen, in which raiders and warriors were only a small (if important) part.
The period from the 8th to the 10th centuries saw a massive expansion from the Viking homelands in Scandinavia to establish a network of settlements and trade routes that stretched from North America to Central Asia and South-eastern Europe. Some of this expansion was achieved by force, while in other areas they settled more peacefully, or even established homes in previously unoccupied territories. The expansion was underpinned by remarkable technical know-how, and the practical skills of the Vikings in many aspects of society are apparent, as well as their adaptability.
The Viking expansion brought them into contact with a wide variety of peoples, cultures, languages and faiths. Although some elements of a shared cultural identity survived across what has been labelled the ‘Viking diaspora’, settlement and interaction meant that there were also considerable differences in society across the Viking world. They had a significant impact in most of the areas that they settled, leaving a cultural legacy in many areas which can still be traced today. At the same time, the peoples and ideas that they encountered gradually led to the transformation of the Viking homelands, and the Viking world at the end of the Viking Age was a very different place from at the beginning, in many different ways.
Presentation of the course
The classes will include PowerPoint presentation, time for questions and discussion at the end.
Course sessions
Vikings – Sources and problems
The popular image of the Vikings is dominated by fearsome warriors, despite the fact that warfare was only one aspect of Viking society. That image became fixed in the 19th century, when the Icelandic sagas were being rediscovered, but those sagas are works of literature, often written hundreds of years after the events that they describe. The sagas are not without value for our understanding of the Viking Age, but they need to be used together with more contemporary historical sources along with archaeological and numismatic material and place-names, although all of these also pose problems of interpretation of their own.
Ships and the maritime society of the Vikings
The unparalleled expansion of the Vikings was made possible by their skills as shipbuilders and seamen. Surviving ships, together with pictorial evidence and descriptions from the period, show that they had a wide range of different ship types suitable for different purposes, whether that was carrying settlers and livestock across the North Atlantic, or penetrating the river systems of Europe and Central Asia.
The Vikings in Britain and Ireland
The Viking Age is often seen as beginning with a dramatic raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne in 793. From this and other early hit and run attacks, the scale of Viking raids gradually expanded as word spread of the opportunities for plunder. From the 860s, Viking fleets changed from seasonal raiding to campaigning for years on end, moving from one to kingdom to another and eventually conquering and settling much of northern and eastern England by the end of the 870s. Other settlements took place in Scotland and Ireland in the same period. Once settled, the Vikings intermarried with the existing populations, creating new hybrid societies and new kingdoms and establishing trade routes with the wider Viking world, as well as leaving a lasting impact on language and place-names. Ironically, their success also led indirectly to the formation of the larger native kingdoms of England and Scotland, and for a while the Vikings in Britain suffered as these expanded into areas of former Viking control. A new wave of Viking attacks around the end of the first millennium led to the Danish conquest of England, and renewed attempts by Scandinavian kings to dominate in Britain and Ireland continued throughout the 11th century. Although these were ultimately unsuccessful in many areas, parts of what is now Scotland remained under Scandinavian rule for centuries after the Vikings.
The Vikings in the East
Although the story of the Vikings in the west is better known, the Viking expansion to the east was just as important. The Baltic Sea provided a gateway to a network of rivers which connected across eastern Europe and Central Asia, down to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. As in the west, raiding took place alongside trading and settlement, and Viking settlers played a crucial part in the development of what are now Russia and Ukraine. This eastern expansion brought the Vikings into contact with the Islamic Caliphates and with the Byzantine Empire, as well as with semi-nomadic peoples such as the Khazars and the Volga Bulghars. This means that the Vikings also feature in Arabic and Byzantine sources which can be combined with archaeological evidence to deepen our understanding of the Vikings in the East.
Viking treasures
The Viking expansion was driven by the desire for wealth and status. These were particularly expressed in the taste for personal ornaments in precious metals, and this led to a demand for gold and silver which in turn fuelled the development of monetary economies. This lecture introduces different forms of social and economic exchange that existed in the Viking Age, before looking at some of the surviving treasures of the period, many of which reveal exquisite craftsmanship as well as a range of different functions within society.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
- to comprehend the geographical and cultural breadth of the Viking world
- to understand better the complexity of society in the Viking Age
- to appreciate the positive achievements of the Vikings in addition to their warlike reputation
Required reading
There is no single set text for this course, but it is recommended that students read at least one of the general introductory texts in the following section.
