Did Sex Kill the Vikings?
Summary
TLDRThe script delves into the brutal yet fascinating Viking Age, exploring its rise and fall from 790 to 1100 CE. It discusses the Vikings' origins, their fearsome raids across Europe, and the factors contributing to their decline, including societal changes, integration through marriage, and the spread of Christianity. The narrative also touches on the Vikings' legacy, highlighting their enduring impact on European culture and history.
Takeaways
- 🔍 The Viking Age, characterized by raids and explorations, lasted from approximately 790 CE to 1100 CE.
- ⚔️ Viking raids were initially brutal and widespread, targeting various regions in Europe and beyond, including Lindisfarne in England and Paris in France.
- 🌐 The term 'Viking' may have originated from the Old Norse word 'víkingr', meaning 'pirate' or 'raider', and was used to describe a subset of Scandinavian raiders.
- 🏰 The Viking raids led to the establishment of settlements, such as Dublin in Ireland and Wessex in England, where they integrated into local societies.
- 🛡️ Fortifications and military resistance, like Charles the Bald's campaigns, made Viking raids increasingly difficult and costly over time.
- 🤝 The gradual integration of Vikings into local populations through marriage and procreation led to a loss of distinct Viking identity.
- 📜 Historical accounts of Vikings are often biased, as they primarily come from the perspective of their victims.
- 🕊️ The spread of Christianity played a significant role in the decline of the Viking Age, as it infiltrated Scandinavia and influenced societal values.
- 🏛️ The Viking's disregard for Christian sanctity during their raids contributed to the terror they instilled, but also led to their eventual conversion to Christianity.
- 🌍 Leif Erikson's voyage to North America marked the Vikings as the first Europeans to reach the continent, predating Columbus by almost 500 years.
- 🏹 The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, resulting in the defeat of Harald Hardrada, is considered the end of the Viking Age, signifying the decline of their raiding lifestyle.
Q & A
What factors contributed to the end of the Viking Age?
-The end of the Viking Age was influenced by several factors including increasing inequality, the integration of communities through intermarriage, and the spread of Christianity which eventually replaced the Norse pagan beliefs.
Why did the Vikings initially raid St. Cuthbert church at Lindisfarne in 793?
-The Vikings raided St. Cuthbert church at Lindisfarne because they cared little about the Christian God or the institutions set up to worship him, and their primary goal was to raid for loot and slaves.
How did Charlemagne's attempts to spread Christianity to Scandinavia affect Viking activity?
-Charlemagne's aggressive campaigns to spread Christianity to Scandinavia enraged the Norsemen and seemed to increase Viking activity rather than decrease it, as they retaliated with more brutal raids.
What was the significance of the Viking attack on Clonmore, Ireland in 836?
-The attack on Clonmore, Ireland marked the first deep territorial expedition by the Vikings, during which they took a large number of prisoners to be sold into slavery, indicating a shift in their raiding tactics.
What was the outcome of the Viking siege of Paris in 845?
-The Viking siege of Paris resulted in the city being occupied and held for ransom. King Charles the Bald was forced to pay a large sum in gold and silver to persuade the Vikings to leave.
Why did the Viking raids around Europe intensify in 850?
-The intensification of Viking raids in 850 was due to the establishment of more Viking settlements in Ireland and the expansion of their activities to new territories, including Wiskiauten in what would become Germany.
How did the Viking attack on Constantinople in 860 foreshadow a problem for the Viking way of life?
-The Viking attack on Constantinople showed that fortified cities were becoming more difficult to penetrate, signaling a shift where the Viking way of life based on successful raids was becoming less viable due to stronger defenses.
What led to the integration of Vikings into other cultures as seen in Danelaw?
-The integration of Vikings into other cultures in Danelaw occurred as a result of them giving up their raiding ways to become farmers and traders, intermarrying and forming family ties with the local populations.
Why did King Charles the Simple grant land to Viking chief Rollo, which later became Normandy?
-King Charles the Simple granted land to Rollo to prevent further Viking raids down the Seine and to establish a buffer against other raiders, thus solving France’s Viking problem temporarily.
How did the establishment of permanent Viking settlements outside Scandinavia contribute to the decline of the Viking way of life?
-The establishment of permanent settlements outside Scandinavia led to the integration of Vikings into local populations through marriage and procreation, causing a loss of Viking identity and a shift away from the traditional raiding lifestyle.
What event in 1066 is considered the official end of the Viking Age?
-The Battle of Stamford Bridge, where King Harold Godwinson of England defeated the invading Viking forces led by Harald Hardrada, is considered the official end of the Viking Age.
Outlines
🛡️ The End of the Viking Age: Inequality and Cultural Shifts
This paragraph delves into the reasons behind the decline of the Viking era, highlighting the impact of inequality, cultural integration through intermarriage, and the spread of Christianity. It sets the stage for understanding the Viking's societal structure and the external and internal factors that led to their eventual extinction. The paragraph also addresses the bias in historical accounts due to the perspective of their victims and the archaeological evidence that provides a more balanced view of the Vikings' history.
🏛️ The Viking Raids and the Spread of Christianity
This section discusses the initial lack of desire by Vikings to conquer land, focusing instead on quick, profitable raids. It outlines Charlemagne's failed attempts to spread Christianity and reduce Viking raids through military campaigns and ransom, which only intensified Viking activity. The narrative then moves to the Vikings' significant raids in Ireland, the establishment of Dublin, and the attack on Paris, illustrating the Vikings' relentless pursuit of wealth and the gradual introduction of Christianity into Scandinavia.
🌐 Viking Expansion and the Challenges of Fortifications
The paragraph details the Vikings' expansion across Europe, including their raids in England, Ireland, and even as far as Seville in Spain and the Mediterranean. It describes the Vikings' initial success and the subsequent challenges they faced as cities built stronger fortifications, making raids more difficult and costly. The Viking attack on Constantinople is highlighted as a precursor to the decline of their way of life due to increasingly formidable defenses.
🏡 The Transformation of Vikings into Settlers and Traders
This section explores the transformation of the Vikings from raiders to settlers and traders, particularly in England and Ireland. It discusses the establishment of Danelaw and the integration of Vikings into local populations through marriage and procreation. The narrative also touches on the granting of land to Viking chief Rollo, leading to the formation of Normandy, and the decline of the Viking way of life as power in Scandinavia became more consolidated and Christianity began to replace the pagan religion.
⚔️ The Final Battles and the End of the Viking Age
The final paragraph outlines the end of the Viking Age, marked by the death of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. It describes the final major Viking invasion attempt, the battle's brutal outcome, and the subsequent decline of Viking raids. The paragraph also reflects on the legacy of the Vikings, their cultural impact on Europe, and the enduring influence of Scandinavian culture despite the disappearance of the Viking way of life.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Vikings
💡Raiding
💡Christianity
💡Inequality
💡Integration
💡Norse Mythology
💡Viking Longboats
💡Danelaw
💡Charlemagne
💡Stamford Bridge
💡Scandinavia
Highlights
The Viking Age, characterized by brutal raids and warrior culture, ultimately disappeared due to a combination of factors including inequality, integration through sex, and the influence of Christianity.
Historical accounts of Vikings are biased, often written by their victims, necessitating a balanced view from various sources including archaeological evidence.
The term 'Viking' may have originated from the Old Norse word 'víkingr', meaning 'pirate' or 'raider', and only came into use between the 12th and 14th centuries.
The Viking Age spanned from approximately 790 CE to 1100 CE, with Vikings being a subset of Scandinavian people known for raiding and pillaging.
The invention of ships like the Nydam Boat was a pivotal development that enabled long-distance sea travel and the beginning of the Viking raids.
The first recorded Viking raid occurred in 793 CE at St. Cuthbert's church in Lindisfarne, marking a significant shift in the perception of sacred immunity during wartime.
Charlemagne's aggressive campaigns to spread Christianity in Scandinavia backfired, intensifying Viking activity rather than curbing it.
The Vikings' establishment of Dublin in 841 marked one of their first major permanent settlements outside Scandinavia, indicating a shift in their raiding tactics.
The Viking siege of Paris in 845 demonstrated their ability to extract substantial ransoms, showcasing their power and influence over European territories.
Viking raids extended as far as Seville in modern-day Spain, highlighting the vast geographical reach of their activities.
The Viking attack on Constantinople in 860 was a surprise to the Byzantines and marked an early sign of the challenges faced by the Viking way of life.
The Great Heathen Army's invasion of England in 865 signified a large-scale organized effort by the Vikings, changing the dynamics of their raids.
The Viking settlement in Normandy, established after 911, was a strategic move to prevent further raids and marked a significant shift in Viking society.
The decline of Viking trading centers like Birka around 950 indicated an internal shift in Scandinavian society and economy.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 and the death of Harald Hardrada are considered the end of the Viking Age, marking a significant historical turning point.
The integration of Vikings into local populations through marriage and procreation led to a loss of their distinct identity and contributed to their cultural disappearance.
The spread of Christianity and its adoption by the Scandinavian elite and central powers replaced the pagan beliefs that had driven the Vikings for centuries.
The Viking legacy, including architecture, language, and culture, persists despite the end of the Viking Age, demonstrating their enduring impact on Europe.
Transcripts
Why did the Age of the Vikings end? Inequality, sex… and Jesus.
Let’s go back in time to one of the most bloody and brutal sagas in Europe and beyond. It was a
time when Viking longboats carved with dragons would emerge from the fog, and savage fighters
would pillage entire cities. No one was safe from Viking raids, but eventually, this warrior culture
disappeared. Where did they go? What actually happened to the Vikings? Let’s find out.
Before we dive deep into the Viking past to uncover what happened, it is important to note
that many of the accounts we have on the Vikings and their raids come from people who were on the
receiving end of their brutality. This obviously means that these histories were written with a
clear bias. To try and paint a complete picture of the Vikings and what led to their downfall,
we will draw from historical sources from both the Vikings themselves and their victims,
along with archaeological evidence. By looking at the past through the lens of various sources,
we can pinpoint what actually caused the extinction of the Vikings.
Unfortunately, this analysis runs into a major problem right from the beginning. Before going
any further, we must discuss who the Vikings were. When we use the term Viking, we are talking about
a specific subset of people from Scandinavia, or present-day Sweden, Denmark, Finland,
and Norway. But not everyone in this region was a Viking. The origin of the word Viking is unknown.
It is believed that it may have originated from the Old Norse word víkingr, which meant “pirate”
or “raider.” Yet, the name Viking seemed only to come into existence sometime between the
12th and 14th centuries. Many scholars believe that the term víkingr may have derived from an
even earlier Old Scandinavian word predating or contemporary during the time of the Vikings.
Regardless, what we do know is that the Vikings were a specific subset of Scandinavian people
who thrived from approximately 790 CE to 1100 CE. Vikings were both men and women
who left their homelands to raid and pillage towns and cities across Europe. Regardless
of where the term Viking actually came from, it is essential to understand that not everyone in
Scandinavia was a Viking. Instead, only the warriors and raiders who left the Peninsula
to ravage communities along the coast and riverways of Europe and as far away as Russia
and Constantinople were considered Vikings. Most Scandinavians were farmers, carpenters,
or anything else that contributed to society. The Viking Age lasted from
approximately 790 CE to 1100 CE, so this will be the timeframe we will focus on. Knowing this,
let's now delve into the history of the Vikings and examine some of their most deadly raids. We
will gather evidence along the way to discover how inequality, the integration of communities through
the mixing of people, a.k.a sex, and Christianity, led to the eventual extinction of the Vikings.
There is evidence that sometime around 4000 and 2300 BCE, a thriving culture had developed in
Scandinavia. Archaeologists have uncovered depictions of ships in stone, burials, and
metal tools and weapons. However, it would still be thousands of years before the raiders known
as Vikings would come to be. The first major step towards the Viking Age was the invention of ships
in the style of the Nydam Boat, named after the Nydam bog, where it was located by archaeologists.
These vessels allowed the Scandinavian people to travel long distances over rough seas.
It is generally agreed that the Viking Age began around 790 CE. This is because at this point,
we have written documents and historical evidence that Scandinavian warriors, also known as Norsemen
and who would later be known as Vikings, sailed across the North Sea and landed in Wessex. These
rugged-looking men were greeted by a messenger whom they killed. The Norsemen had no desire to
exchange ideas and culture; they were in England for one reason and one reason only: to raid.
On June 8, 793, the Vikings attacked St. Cuthbert church at Lindisfarne in Northumbria,
England. Ever since Christianity spread across Europe, it was generally accepted by warring
armies that Churches and religious institutions were to be left unmolested. This was because
regardless of the holy buildings' territory, they all belonged to the same God. Obviously,
the pillaging of church-held land and structures happened occasionally, but it would almost
certainly condemn the souls of those who did so to hell, which was a major deterrent for many.
On the other hand, the Vikings cared little about the Christian God or the institutions set up to
worship him. This was why when St. Cuthbert church was raided, and the people inside slaughtered or
taken as slaves, terror swept across the realm. The survivors of this Viking raid recorded the
event in the Domesday Stone, which became one of the first accounts of a Viking raid
in history. However, as time progressed, Christianity would infiltrate Scandinavia,
and one of the major factors that led to the end of the Vikings would take hold.
In the beginning, the Vikings had no desire to conquer land and claim it as their own. The
only goal was to hit a location hard and fast and to return home with ships full of loot and
slaves. In the coming years and decades, the Vikings would continue targeting the British
Isles before focusing on the continent. Frankia, or modern-day France and Germany,
was ripe for pillaging as the kingdom was experiencing internal turmoil. After paying ransom
to the Vikings for the release of prisoners and entire towns, Charlemagne launched an aggressive
campaign to try and spread Christianity to the Scandinavians in hopes of minimizing the
constant threat of raids. He organized military campaigns to destroy sacred Norse sites and subdue
the heathens who terrorized his lands. Unfortunately, this aggression and forced
spreading of Christianity only seemed to enrage the Norsemen and increase Viking
activity. Whether these new sets of brutal raids were out of retribution or to take advantage of
Frank’s misplaced military forces is unclear. Charlemagne’s foray into the lands of the Vikings
did not have the desired outcome, and very few Scandinavians converted to Christianity during
this time. However, it is worth noting that this was the first time the religion had been
introduced into Scandinavia in a meaningful way. Even though very few Norsemen were Christianized,
some were, and this would set the foundation for a change in ideology
when power in the region was consolidated. In 836, the Vikings launched an enormous raid
across the North Sea, past England, and into Ireland. The Vikings' attack on Clonmore,
Ireland, was the first deep territorial expedition during which the Vikings took a huge number of
prisoners solely to be sold into slavery. Untold numbers of Irish people were captured and brought
back to Viking trade ports, where they were sold across Scandinavia. In 841, the Vikings founded
Dublin, one of their first major permanent settlements outside of their own realm.
While Ireland was being ravished by the Vikings, a Chieftain by the name of Ragnar Lothbrok set his
sights on Paris. If he could take the city, his raiding party would secure untold wealth. Ragnar
recruited thousands of men and launched 120 ships that would sail up the Seine. The Frankish king,
Charles the Bald, tried to gather an army to fend off the onslaught of
Vikings careening towards the city. When the Frankish soldiers met the Vikings in battle,
half of their army was immediately slaughtered, and the remaining soldiers hastily retreated. By
Easter of 845, the Vikings had entered the city. They took anything and everything they wanted,
as there was no one to stop them. The Vikings occupied the city and held it for ransom.
Charles was forced to pay 7,000 French livres or about 2,570 kg of gold and silver to get
the Vikings to leave Paris and return home. In 850, the Viking raids around Europe began to
pick up in intensity. More Viking settlements were also being established in Ireland. For the
first time, a major Viking force remained in England through the winter. The Vikings even
began to establish footholds further south and east at Wiskiauten in what would become Germany,
where over 500 Viking burial mounds would be constructed. The following year, practically every
kingdom in England, minus Wessex, was raided by Vikings. During this time, the Norsemen conquered
East Anglia, Northumberland, and Mercia. By 844, the Vikings had extended their raids
of terror as far as Seville in what would become Spain. At that point,
this part of Europe was under Arab control. The Vikings proceeded into the Mediterranean,
where new lands were ripe for raiding. However, being so far from home meant that the voyages
were long and treacherous. In 859, while Viking raiding parties scoured the Mediterranean coast,
an Arab fleet descended upon them, decimating many of their ships. The Vikings were pushed out
of the region and would never return, as their way of life was under siege from both external
and internal forces that would cause their culture to collapse in the coming centuries.
While some Vikings traveled along the western coast of Europe to reach the Mediterranean,
other groups sailed along the rivers and inlets in eastern Europe and what would later become Russia.
The Viking Rurik and his band of raiders began plundering towns and villages in Ukraine as early
as 859. In 860, a band of Vikings known as the Rus’ tried to sack Constantinople. On June 18th,
a fleet of approximately 200 Rus’ Vikings sailed into the Bosporus Strait and began raiding the
villages around Constantinople. They set entire towns on fire and stole whatever they could get
their hands on. It was recorded by Patriarch Photius that the attack on the Byzantines was
a surprise, and the coming of the Vikings was "like a thunderbolt from heaven."
Unfortunately for Constantinople, both its army and navy were battling with the Arab empires in
Asia Minor. The siege of the city by the Vikings lasted for just under two months when they gave
up. This was likely due to the fact that the city walls were formidable, and the raiding parties had
already secured a vast amount of wealth from the areas around Constantinople. It is worth
noting that the Viking attack on Constantinople was an early precursor to one of the factors
that led to the Vikings' collapse. More and more cities were building fortresses and barricades,
which made the once highly successful raids more difficult and costly. As fortifications
became harder to penetrate, the Viking way of life became less and less viable.
In 865, Ivar the Boneless and his brother Halfdan amassed an enormous Viking force, which came to
be called the Great Heathen Army. They landed in East Anglia in 865 and launched an invasion across
the region. In November of 866, the Vikings seized York, where Ivar sought revenge for the death of
his father, Ragnar Lodbrok. Once York was under their control, the Vikings put a puppet king
in place who was quickly overthrown. By 871, King Alfred the Great of Wessex had defeated
the Vikings. They were pushed north to what was called Danelaw, where many Norsemen gave up their
marauding ways to become farmers and traders. In situations like this, the once fearsome Vikings
integrated into other cultural landscapes. This is also where the sex that led to the
disappearance of the Vikings comes into play. More and more Vikings gave up their life of raiding
and pillaging to settle down for a different lifestyle. Instead of forming raiding parties,
sedentary communities were formed, and the former Vikings started marrying, procreating,
and being integrated into local populations around England and the rest of Europe. However,
not every Scandinavian longed for this quiet lifestyle, which is why the Vikings continued
to thrive until the mid-11th century. By 911, Viking raids had caused so much loss
and destruction in France that the King of West Frankia, named Charles the Simple, gave the great
Viking chief Rollo the land that would later become Normandy or the Land of the Northmen.
In exchange, Rollo was to prevent Viking raiders from sailing down the Seine and attacking Frankish
towns and cities. This would solve France’s Viking problem for the time being and allow them to build
stronger fortifications and more formidable obstacles for invaders in the future.
Around 950, the Viking way of life started to stall. Important trading centers such as Birka
in present-day Sweden began to decline. This wasn’t to say that the Scandinavian people
were in trouble; on the contrary. Scandinavia itself was just changing. Power was becoming more
consolidated, especially in the southern regions. Christianity had begun to infiltrate and replace
the pagan religion that had reigned supreme for so long. Change was coming, and these changes would
eliminate the Vikings in just over a century. In 981, Eric the Red led an expedition past
Iceland and scouted the east coast of Greenland. Eric was not impressed by the harsh coast of the
large island but was nonetheless determined to establish a settlement there. He determined that
a larger exploratory force was needed to assess this new land, especially the western coast. He
returned to Iceland, where he recruited more men and settlers. Eric the Red set off once
again in 985, this time with 25 ships, of which only 14 reached the promise of Greenland. The
Norsemen established an eastern and western settlement. These lands were uninhabited,
but the island was home to other people. The Inuit had inhabited the northern regions of Greenland,
where they had thrived for centuries. As far as we know, there was no contact between the indigenous
populations and the Vikings in Greenland. The Viking settlements would eventually collapse
over the course of the next few centuries. Even though King Alfred had forced the Vikings
out of Wessex and the Norsemen had settled in Danelaw, England was still not safe from raiding
parties. In 991, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark recruited a massive army that sailed across the
North Sea and landed in Kent. The first major battle of this campaign was the Battle of Maldon.
Forkbeard decimated the English resistance and began a bloody campaign across the island. His
military conquest was so successful that Sweyn Forkbeard eventually became King of England in
1013, albeit only for about five weeks. However, during this time, he would be baptized Christian,
another step towards the once-great Vikings moving towards a religion that would eventually lead
to the extinction of their way of life. Around the year 1000, Leif Erikson led his
Viking explorers to the coast of North America. They landed in what is today Newfoundland and
declared the newly discovered land as Vinland, or the land of wine. This Viking colony would
last about ten years before it collapsed, likely due to confrontation with indigenous
peoples who already inhabited this part of the world. Regardless, Leif Erikson’s voyage made
the Vikings, and not Christopher Columbus’s expedition approximately 492 years later,
the first Europeans to reach North America. When King Swein Forkbeard died in 1016, his
son Cnut took over his rule. By this point, Cnut was king of England, Denmark, and Norway. Within
Scandinavia, power had become more consolidated. When the Viking way of life first emerged,
Scandinavian society was more or less egalitarian. People owned the land they lived on, and although
there were chiefs and leaders, most Vikings had the ability to go raiding whenever they wanted.
This was no longer the case. The kings would spend more time planning conquests for land
or creating alliances than leading raids. 1066 is regarded as the official end of the
Viking Age. It was this year that the major Viking trading center of Hedeby was sacked
by the Polabian Slavs, from which it never recovered. However, the event that most
scholars agree with is the final nail in the Viking coffin, which is the death of Harald
Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harald Hardrada launched an invasion force from Norway.
It is estimated that Hardrada brought between ten and fifteen thousand men on 240 to 300 longships.
This force met up with Tostig, the renegade brother of the King of England, Harold Godwinson,
and marched south. The combined Norwegian and rebel forces defeated the English at the Battle
of Fulford Gate on the 20th of September. Harold Hardrada’s campaign seemed unstoppable,
so he ordered his forces further south. Unfortunately, King Harold Godwinson of England
had received word of the Viking forces raiding their way down the countryside and immediately
ordered his army and 3,000 elite troops to march north to meet them. As the two armies drew closer,
Hardrada took York on September 24th. However, this meant that his men had been
traveling dozens of miles a day and fighting in battles when English forces reached them.
The invading forces of Hardrada were caught by surprise when the English troops appeared
in an open field near Stamford Bridge. The two armies clashed on September 25, 1066,
but the exhausted Vikings and their allies were worn down while the English troops were still
fresh. King Harold Godwinson and his forces decimated the Viking army, and both Hardrada
and Tostig were killed. A chronicler noted that the fighting at the Battle of Stamford Bridge had
been so brutal that the river was filled with the bodies of dead soldiers and that the carnage "dyed
the ocean waves for miles around with Viking gore." The defeat of the Norwegian forces and
Hardrada marked the end of the Viking Age. That being said, there were still smaller Viking
raids occasionally. So, what happened to those Scandinavians who wanted to
continue the Viking way of life? Where did they go? Are the Vikings really extinct,
or are they still around today? Throughout the history provided for the
Vikings, we’ve discussed the raiders who left Scandinavia and all of the farmers, weavers,
bakers, blacksmiths, etc., who lived there to sail around Europe, Britain, Iceland, Greenland,
Newfoundland, and parts of the Mediterranean to plunder and pillage precious metals,
livestock, and people. We have also mentioned the influences outside forces, such as Christianity,
and internal forces, such as less egalitarianism, had on the Scandinavian people. We now need to
analyze these various factors to understand how the Viking culture itself went extinct.
The changing of Scandinavian society from egalitarianism to a more central authority
meant that the Vikings went from owning their own land and keeping much of what they pillaged
to owing the King more and more tribute. With an increasing population, Scandinavians found
themselves spending more time farming or engaging in activities to appease the central authority of
the region than joining a raid on faraway lands. As the population grew and power was consolidated,
there was a real risk that if a Viking left to go raiding, there was no guarantee that their home
would still be theirs when they returned. Unless a Viking was joining the King’s conquest of new
land, the days of just joining a raiding party were quickly coming to an end.
The raids that did happen were much more organized than a band of like-minded individuals setting out
to steal and plunder loot. With Kings gaining more power and encompassing more land, alliances needed
to be taken into consideration. The Vikings could no longer go and raid wherever they chose. If they
happened to attack a town that belonged to their King’s ally, there would be severe consequences.
As time progressed, lucrative raids became all but impossible unless the Vikings were willing
to travel vast distances. On top of this, fortifications were becoming more formidable,
meaning that the Vikings were having a harder time making a profit and securing goods during
their raids. As Scandinavian society shifted, the Viking way of life became less viable, and
the number of individuals engaging in raids, which in turn is what made them Vikings, dwindled.
A second factor that led to the extinction of the Vikings was sex, or more specifically, marrying,
having children, and creating family ties amongst the people who originally inhabited the lands
where Vikings were permanently settling. Outposts in Ireland and England slowly began to lose their
Viking identity and either saw themselves as descendants of the once fearsome warrior
culture or just became fully enmeshed in the already existing cultures of the region.
Eventually, each permanent settlement the Vikings established outside of Scandinavia
became independent of the Viking way of life. The number of people in Scandinavia grew,
but the Vikings never tried or wanted to create an empire to spread their ideologies. This wasn’t
the goal. Instead, the Vikings solely focused on raiding and bringing their loot back home to live
a comfortable life in Scandinavia. The permanent settlements elsewhere were never established to
spread Viking culture; they were built to act as trade centers or as a way to move further
from the constant fighting and raiding and live a simpler, more sedentary life. All of these
populations would eventually mix with others. Perhaps the most significant contributing factor
to the decline and eventual disappearance of the Vikings was Christianity. Norse mythology was one
of the last major pagan religions to withstand the spread of Christianity across Europe. Much
of the continent had already been converted, and with every decade that passed in the Viking Age,
attempts were made to bring Christianity to the Scandinavians in order to save their mortal
souls. The main problem with Christianity for the Vikings was that the moral values didn’t quite
align with looting and pillaging to gain wealth when followers of the religion were supposed
to “love thy neighbor as they self.” Therefore, the Vikings had very little use for Christianity
except to plunder whatever valuable objects were held within their churches and monasteries.
However, in the 10th and 11th centuries, more and more missionaries ventured into the Viking
homeland. They had mild success converting people initially, but eventually, the newly
forming Scandinavian elite and central powers were convinced that Christianity was the way of the
future. As power in Scandinavia was consolidated, the rulers forced their subjects to follow the
Christian religion and belief systems. Therefore, Christianity was no longer being introduced from
outside the Viking homeland but from within, which meant it replaced the Norse gods and beliefs that
drove the Vikings for hundreds of years. At the same time, Vikings were coming into
contact with Christians throughout their travels. Sometimes, this was to pillage
and sell them into slavery, but other times, it could be through trade or even in defeat.
As raiding became more difficult, it is not hard to imagine Vikings taking notice of the
strength and resources Christians had obtained to combat raiding parties. When Vikings went to sell
their hard-earned loot at major trading ports, Christians were there to purchase their plunder.
By the end of the Viking Age, Christians were everywhere, and the Viking culture and religion
were becoming obsolete because of it. Eventually, Christianity enveloped much of
Scandinavia. The kings were Christian, their subjects were Christian, and everyone else
around Europe was Christian. The pagan beliefs of the Vikings were being snuffed out like a candle
reaching the end of its wick. Christian values did not coincide with the Viking way of life and,
therefore, could not co-exist as more Scandinavians identified as Christians
less saw themselves as Vikings until the entire Viking lifestyle vanished.
This is not to say that the Scandinavian identity disappeared; on the contrary,
Scandinavian kingdoms continued to grow and flourish. The Scandinavians who settled abroad
integrated their own cultures into others, and at home, beliefs shifted. The Vikings had spread
Scandinavian architecture, language, military practices, food, clothing, and shipbuilding across
Europe during their raids and trade ventures. The Viking Age ended in 1066, and the Viking way of
life likely ended soon after, but the legacy of the Vikings and the spread of Scandinavian culture
across Europe endures to the present day. Now watch “What Caused the Roman Empire
to Collapse.” Or check out “How Richest City in History Collapsed.”
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