Who and what was a Viking? And what does the word ‘Viking’ mean? These three important questions are a great debate within the scholarship. A full discussion is beyond this essay’s scope. Suffice it to say that Viking is used firstly to mean raiding or trading man from Scandinavia of the period loosely defined as 793 A.D. to 1066 A.D., but is not the normal term of that time, but one with a popularised image today.
[1] ‘Viking’ is a term almost synonymous with ‘pirate’.
[2] This usage has almost always inferred a meaning of exploration and raiding but, in doing so, excludes those who settled in unknown lands without a defensive population. It ignores people who travelled and explored but did not settle or raid. In this regard, Clare Downham is correct:
“The noun [Viking] denoted the activities of a minority of men and it was not an ethnic label.”
[3]
The second broad-stroke meaning:
“…peaceful, industrious, trading Viking… Viking-age Scandinavians, no doubt, spent time on both [peaceful and raiding] activities.”
[4]
This second scholarly-focused meaning is seemingly opposed to the
other kind. Even if raiders engaged in peaceful trading sometimes. We could legitimately disregard the term Viking altogether and focus instead on broader terms such as Norse or
Northmen.
[5] Disposing of the term ‘Viking’ frees us from preconceived notions of who and what these Northmen were, giving us the ability to talk about the society and the raiders as not entirely homogenous but as an eclectic society sharing a broader identity.
A more appropriate question is: ‘where did they come from?’ in Answering that question, we may assess the
who more easily. People from places we now call Denmark, Norway and Sweden are often called ‘Viking’.
[6] Additional inclusion of, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and
Vínland is warranted.
[7] We could not include, Orkney, Shetland and parts of Ireland, because although they remained politically ‘Scandinavian’ until recently, they were not homogeneously so – there were pre-existing peoples like the Anglo-Saxons who were around past 1066’s Norman Conquest.
[8] We have also not included the
Rus Vikings, as they are often separate and beyond our scope.
[9] This essay has therefore replaced ‘Vikings’ with Northmen’ (regardless of gender) as a people group with origins in what is now modern-day Scandinavian, and its ancillary locations – Iceland, Greenland etc.
Travellers
Travelling was not easy; the journeys were uncomfortable,
[10] yet the relayed below individuals travelled thousands of miles in search of new homes and new adventures. Gudrid and Auðun travelled to Rome on pilgrimage.
[11] Adomnán’s
Lex Innocentium (‘Law of the Innocents’)
[12] or
Cáin Adomnáin (Adomnán’s law) existed, in part, to protect “was designed to protect clergy, women and children from violence.”
[13] Specifically to “limit the effects of war by protecting those who were not combatants, who did not bear arms: women and clergy, and children who had not yet taken up weapons for the first time.”
[14] Whilst this is a Scottish-Gaelic law written in the 7
th Century, and largely irrelevant to our travellers, it is evidence that war did not make allowance for non-combatants. Denmark’s King arranged for Auðun to travel with other pilgrims
[15] because it was dangerous to travel alone, and pilgrims were legally protected:
“The Carolingian period witnessed several legal enactments pertaining to pilgrimage; these enactments grouped pilgrims with certain other types of people who enjoyed special protections, stressed the obligation of bishops and priests to care for pilgrims, and granted economic protections to pilgrims in the form of exempting them from tolls.”
[16]
Travel was both dangerous and slow; the journeys above were not direct, as we have initially imagined and detailed below. Sea journeys were coastal where possible, and only going out to open sea when necessary.
[17] Even travel in a longship was not entirely safe, as Eirík the Red’s story of taking 25 ships but only arriving with 14 in Greenland shows.
[18]There are a number of limitations to the research conducted here. The reliability of place names is the main limitation. Difficulty knowing precisely where people departed and arrived at, especially regarding Greenland and Vínland. Where possible, places were chosen where documentary evidence existed. Vardetangeen has been chosen as a ‘general’ departure/arrival point for Norway where the primary sources simply stated Norway. It was chosen as it is central and costal, though not on strict scientific or historical reasons. Distances have been totalled in miles and are not reliable because we do not know the exact routes. Savvy-Navvy.com allowed us to plot journeys based on vessel ‘design’ (taking the general measurements of a Viking Longship). The app allowed the boat’s speed to be set on polar positioning. This essay has not accounted for travel time; otherwise, setting the polar positioning to allow 6.9 knots (Figure 1), as the average speed of a longship is believed to have been 7 knots.
[19] The beat angle is set at the international standard. A further methodological issue with this essay is that it takes the primary sources at face value’ – trusting them to be correct whilst not detailed. This is not a rigorous critical evaluation of the texts, which is valuable, but beyond the scope of this survey essay.