Viking Expansions Into The British Isles

Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries. To the west, Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. Longer lasting and more established Norse settlements were formed in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Russia, Great Britain, Ireland and Normandy.

It is debated whether the term "Viking" empire represents all Norse settlers or just those who raided. Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998. p. 3.

Motivation for expansion

There is much debate among historians about what drove the Viking expansion.

Researchers have suggested that Vikings may have originally started sailing and raiding due to a need to seek out women from foreign lands. The concept was expressed in the 11th century by historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his semi-imaginary ''History of The Normans''. Rich and powerful Viking men tended to have many wives and concubines, and these polygynous relationships may have led to a shortage of eligible women for the average Viking male. Due to this, the average Viking man could have been forced to perform riskier actions to gain wealth and power to be able to find suitable women. Viking men would often buy or capture women and make them into their wives or concubines. Polygynous marriage increases male-male competition in society because it creates a pool of unmarried men who are willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors. The ''Annals of Ulster'' states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and "carried off a great number of women into captivity".

Another theory is that it was a quest for revenge against continental Europeans for past aggressions against the Vikings and related groups, Charlemagne's campaign to force Saxon pagans to convert to Christianity by killing any who refused to become baptized in particular."Franques Royal Annals" cited in Peter Sawyer, ''The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings'', 2001, p. 20. Those who favor this explanation point out that the penetration of Christianity into Scandinavia caused serious conflict and divided Norway for almost a century. However, the first target of Viking raids was not the Frankish Kingdom, but Christian monasteries in England. According to the historian Peter Sawyer, these were raided because they were centers of wealth and their farms well-stocked, not because of any religious reasons.

A different idea is that the Viking population had exceeded the agricultural potential of their homeland. This may have been true of western Norway, where there were few reserves of land, but it is unlikely that the rest of Scandinavia was experiencing famine.

Alternatively, some scholars propose that the Viking expansion was driven by a youth bulge effect: Because the eldest son of a family customarily inherited the family's entire estate, younger sons had to seek their fortune by emigrating or engaging in raids. Peter Sawyer suggests that most Vikings emigrated due to the attractiveness of owning more land rather than the necessity of having it.

However, no rise in population, youth bulge, or decline in agricultural production during this period has been definitively demonstrated. Nor is it clear why such pressures would have prompted expansion overseas rather than into the vast, uncultivated forest areas in the interior of the Scandinavian Peninsula, although perhaps emigration or sea raids may have been easier or more profitable than clearing large areas of forest for farm and pasture in a region with a limited growing season.

It is also possible that a decline in the profitability of old trade routes drove the Vikings to seek out new, more profitable ones. Trade between western Europe and the rest of Eurasia may have suffered after the Roman Empire lost its western provinces in the 5th century, and the expansion of Islam in the 7th century may have reduced trade opportunities within western Europe by redirecting resources along the Silk Road. Trade in the Mediterranean was at its lowest level in history when the Vikings began their expansion. The Viking expansion opened new trade routes in Arab and Frankish lands, and took control of trade markets previously dominated by the Frisians after the Franks destroyed the Frisian fleet.

One of the main aims of the Viking expansion throughout Europe was to acquire and trade silver. Bergen and Dublin are still important centres of silver making. An example of a collection of Viking-age silver for trading purposes is the Galloway Hoard.

Settlement demographics

Viking settlements in Ireland and Great Britain are thought to have been primarily male enterprises; however, some graves show nearly equal male/female distribution. Disagreement is partly due to method of classification; previous archaeology often guessed biological sex from burial artifacts, whereas modern archaeology may use osteology to find biological sex, and isotope analysis to find origin (DNA sampling is usually not possible). The males buried during that period in a cemetery on the Isle of Man had mainly names of Norse origin, while the females there had names of indigenous origin. Irish and British women are mentioned in old texts on the founding of Iceland, indicating that the Viking explorers were accompanied there by women from the British Isles who either came along voluntarily or were taken along by force. Genetic studies of the population in the Western Isles and Isle of Skye also show that Viking settlements were established mainly by male Vikings who mated with women from the local populations of those places.

However, not all Viking settlements were primarily male. Genetic studies of the Shetland population suggest that family units consisting of Viking women as well as men were the norm among the migrants to these areas.

This may be because areas like the Shetland Islands, being closer to Scandinavia, were more suitable targets for family migrations, while frontier settlements further north and west were more suitable for groups of unattached male colonizers.

British Isles

England

During the reign of King Beorhtric of Wessex (786–802) three ships of "Northmen" landed at Portland Bay in Dorset. The local reeve mistook the Vikings for merchants and directed them to the nearby royal estate, but the visitors killed him and his men. On 8 June 793 "the ravages of heathen men miserably desecrated God's church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter". According to the 12th-century Anglo-Norman chronicler Symeon of Durham, the raiders killed the resident monks or threw them into the sea to drown or carried them away as slavesalong with some of the church treasures. In 875, after enduring eight decades of repeated Viking raids, the monks fled Lindisfarne, carrying the relics of Saint Cuthbert with them.

In 794, according to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', a small Viking fleet attacked a rich monastery at Jarrow. The Vikings met with stronger resistance than they had expected: their leaders were killed. The raiders escaped, only to have their ships beached at Tynemouth and the crews killed by locals. This represented one of the last raids on England for about 40 years. The Vikings focused instead on Ireland and Scotland.

In 865, a group of hitherto uncoordinated bands of predominantly Danish Vikings joined to form a large army and landed in East Anglia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described this force as the ''mycel hæþen here'' (Great Heathen Army) and went on to say that it was led by Ivar the Boneless and Halfdan Ragnarsson.
Compare:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Manuscript B: Cotton Tiberius A.vi
Retrieved 12 September 2013. The entry for 867 refers to the Great Heathen Army: ''mycel hæþen here''

pp. 9–11, 53–54
The army crossed the Midlands into Northumbria and captured York (Jorvik). In 871, the Great Heathen Army was reinforced by another Danish force known as the Great Summer Army led by Guthrum. In 875, the Great Heathen Army split into two bands, with Guthrum leading one back to Wessex, and Halfdan taking his followers north. Then in 876, Halfdan shared out Northumbrian land south of the Tees amongst his men, who "ploughed the land and supported themselves", founding the territory later known as the Danelaw.

Most of the English kingdoms, being in turmoil, could not stand against the Vikings, but King Alfred of Wessex defeated Guthrum's army at the Battle of Edington in 878. There followed the Treaty of Wedmore the same year and the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum in 886. These treaties formalised the boundaries of the English kingdoms and the Viking Danelaw territory, with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings. Despite these treaties, conflict continued on and off. However, Alfred and his successors eventually drove back the Viking frontier and retook York.

A new wave of Vikings appeared in England in 947, when Erik Bloodaxe captured York. The Viking presence continued through the reign of the Danish prince Cnut the Great (reigned as King of England: 1016–1035), after which a series of inheritance arguments weakened the hold on power of Cnut's heirs.

When King Edward the Confessor died in 1066, the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada challenged his successor as King of England, Harold Godwinson. Hardrada was killed, and his Norwegian army defeated, by Harold Godwinson on 25 September 1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold Godwinson himself died when the Norman William the Conqueror defeated the English army at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. William was crowned king of England on 25 December 1066; however, it was several years before he was able to bring the kingdom under his complete control. In 1070 the Danish king Sweyn Estridsson sailed up the Humber with an army in support of Edgar the Ætheling, the last surviving male member of the English royal family. However, after capturing York, Sweyn accepted a payment from William to desert Edgar. Five years later one of Sweyn's sons set sail for England to support another English rebellion, but it had been crushed before the expedition arrived, so they settled for plundering the city of York and the surrounding area before returning home.

In 1085 Sweyn's son, now Canute IV of Denmark, planned a major invasion of England but the assembled fleet never sailed. No further serious Danish invasions of England occurred after this. Although, some raiding occurred during the troubles of Stephen's reign, when King Eystein II of Norway took advantage of the civil war to plunder the east coast of England, sacking Hartlepool and Whitby in 1152, as well as raiding the Yorkshire coast. However, the intention was raids not conquest, and their conclusion marked the end of the Viking Age in England.

Scotland

The monastery at Iona on the west coast was first raided in 794, and had to be abandoned some fifty years later after several devastating attacks. While there are few records from the earliest period, it is believed that Scandinavian presence in Scotland increased in the 830s.

The isles to the north and west of Scotland were heavily colonised by Norwegian Vikings. Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides came under Norse control, sometimes as fiefs under the King of Norway, and at other times as separate entities under variously the Kings of the Isles, the Earldom of Orkney and the later Kings of Mann and the Isles. Shetland and Orkney were the last of these to be incorporated into Scotland in as late as 1468.

Wales

Viking colonies were not a feature of Wales as much as the other nations of the British Isles. This has traditionally been attributed to the powerful unified forces of the contemporary kings, particularly Rhodri the Great. Thus, the Vikings were unable to establish any states or areas of control in Wales and were largely limited to raids and trading.

The Danish are recorded raiding Anglesey in 854. However, Welsh record state that two years later, Rhodri the Great would win a notable victory, killing the Danish leader, King Gorm. Two further victories by Rhodri are recorded in the '' Brut y Tywysogion'' for 872. The first battle was at a place named as ''Bangolau'' or ''Bann Guolou'' or ''Bannoleu'',''Archæologia Cambrensis'': "Chronicle of the Princes"
p. 15
Accessed 27 Feb 2013. Harleian MS. 3859. Op. cit. Phillimore, Egerton. ''Y Cymmrodor'' 9 (1888), pp. 141–83. The Annals of Wales (B text), p. 10. where the Vikings in Anglesey were again defeated "in a hard battle". In the second battle at ''Manegid'' or ''Enegyd'', the records state that the remaining Vikings "were destroyed".

The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' of 893, records Viking armies being pursued by a combined force of West Saxons and north Welsh along the River Severn. This combined army eventually overtook the Vikings before defeating them at the Battle of Buttington.Horspool. Why Alfred Burnt the Cakes. pp. 104–10

Impact on English toponymy in Wales

The Normans in Wales shared both the language and history of the Vikings in Wales. As such, it was often the Viking names that were favoured by the Cambro-Normans, and passed into Middle English. This impact can be seen today where many coastal names in Wales have an English name derived from the Vikings and unrelated to the original Welsh name.

The modern English name Anglesey ( cy, Ynys Môn) is of Scandinavian origin, as are a number of the island's most prominent coastal features. The English names for Caldey Island ( cy, Ynys Bŷr), Flat Holm ( cy, Ynys Echni) and Grassholm ( cy, Ynys Gwales) are also those of the Viking raiders. Wales' second largest city, Swansea ( cy, Abertawe) takes its English name from a Viking trading post founded by Sweyn Forkbeard. The original name, non, Sveinsey} translates as Sweyn's island or Sweyn's inlet. Worm's Head ( cy, Ynys Weryn) is derived from non, ormr}, the word for snake or dragon, from the Vikings' tradition that the serpent-shaped island was a sleeping dragon.

Cornwall

The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' reported that ''heathen men'' (the Danes) raided Charmouth, Dorset in 833 AD, then in 997 AD they destroyed the Dartmoor town of Lydford, and from 1001 AD to 1003 AD they occupied the old Roman city of Exeter.

The Cornish were subjugated by King Æthelstan, of England, in 936 and the border finally set at the River Tamar. However, the Cornish remained semi-autonomous until their annexation into England after the Norman Conquest.

Ireland

In 795, small bands of Vikings began plundering monastic settlements along the coast of Gaelic Ireland. The Annals of Ulster state that in 821 the Vikings plundered Howth and "carried off a great number of women into captivity". From 840 the Vikings began building fortified encampments, ''longphorts'', on the coast and overwintering in Ireland. The first were at Dublin and Linn Duachaill. Their attacks became bigger and reached further inland, striking larger monastic settlements such as Armagh, Clonmacnoise, Glendalough, Kells and Kildare, and also plundering the ancient tombs of Brú na Bóinne. Viking chief Thorgest is said to have raided the whole midlands of Ireland until he was killed by Máel Sechnaill I in 845.

In 853, Viking leader Amlaíb (Olaf) became the first king of Dublin. He ruled along with his brothers Ímar (possibly Ivar the Boneless) and Auisle. Over the following decades, there was regular warfare between the Vikings and the Irish, and between two groups of Vikings: the Dubgaill and Finngaill (dark and fair foreigners). The Vikings also briefly allied with various Irish kings against their rivals. In 866, Áed Findliath burnt all Viking longphorts in the north, and they never managed to establish permanent settlements in that region. The Vikings were driven from Dublin in 902.

They returned in 914, led by the Uí Ímair (House of Ivar). During the next eight years, the Vikings won decisive battles against the Irish, regained control of Dublin, and founded settlements at Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick, which became Ireland's first large towns. They were important trading hubs, and Viking Dublin was the biggest slave port in western Europe.

These Viking territories became part of the patchwork of kingdoms in Ireland. Vikings intermarried with the Irish and adopted elements of Irish culture, becoming the Norse-Gaels. Some Viking kings of Dublin also ruled the kingdom of the Isles and York; such as Sitric Cáech, Gofraid ua Ímair, Olaf Guthfrithson and Olaf Cuaran. Sitric Silkbeard was "a patron of the arts, a benefactor of the church, and an economic innovator" who established Ireland's first mint, in Dublin.

In 980, Máel Sechnaill Mór defeated the Dublin Vikings and forced them into submission. Over the following thirty years, Brian Boru subdued the Viking territories and made himself High King of Ireland. The Dublin Vikings, together with Leinster, twice rebelled against him, but they were defeated in the battles of Glenmama (999) and Clontarf (1014). After the battle of Clontarf, the Dublin Vikings could no longer "single-handedly threaten the power of the most powerful kings of Ireland". Brian's rise to power and conflict with the Vikings is chronicled in '' Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib'' ("The War of the Irish with the Foreigners").

European mainland

Normandy

The name of Normandy itself denotes its Viking origin, from "Northmannia" or Land of The Norsemen.

The Viking presence in Normandy began with raids into the territory of the Frankish Empire, from the middle of 9th century. Viking raids extended deep into the Frankish territory, and included the sacking of many prominent towns such as Rouen, Paris and the abbey at Jumièges. The inability of the Frankish king Charles the Bald, and later Charles the Simple, to prevent these Viking incursions forced them to offer vast payments of silver and gold to prevent any further pillage. These pay-offs were short lived and the Danish raiders would always return for more.

The Duchy of Normandy was created for the Viking leader Rollo after he had besieged Paris. In 911, Rollo entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks Charles the Simple through the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. This treaty made of Rollo the first Norman Count of Rouen. In addition, Rollo was to be baptized and marry Gisele, the illegitimate daughter of Charles. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory which he and his Viking allies had previously conquered.

The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance languages and intermarried with the area's original inhabitants. They became the Normans – a Norman French-speaking mixture of Scandinavians and indigenous Franks and Gauls. The language of Normandy heavily reflected the Danish influence, as many words (especially ones pertaining to seafaring) were borrowed from Old Norse or Old Danish. More than the language itself, the Norman toponymy retains a strong Nordic influence. Nevertheless, only a few archaeological traces have been found: swords dredged out of the Seine river between its estuary and Rouen, the tomb of a female Viking at Pîtres, the two Thor's hammers at Saint-Pierre-de-Varengeville and Sahurs and more recently the hoard of Viking coins at Saint-Pierre-des-Fleurs.

Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy (the ''Conqueror'') became King of England after he defeated Harold Godwinson and his army at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066. As king of England, he retained the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants. The kings of England made claim to Normandy, as well as their other possessions in France, which led to various disputes with the French. This culminated in the French confiscation of Gascony that precipitated what became known as the Hundred Years' War, in 1337.

West Francia and Middle Francia

West Francia and Middle Francia suffered more severely than East Francia during the Viking raids of the 9th century. The reign of Charles the Bald coincided with some of the worst of these raids, though he did take action by the Edict of Pistres of 864 to secure a standing army of cavalry under royal control to be called upon at all times when necessary to fend off the invaders. He also ordered the building of fortified bridges to prevent inland raids.

Nonetheless, the Bretons allied with the Vikings and Robert, the margrave of Neustria, (a march created for defence against the Vikings sailing up the Loire), and Ranulf of Aquitaine died in the Battle of Brissarthe in 865. The Vikings also took advantage of the civil wars which ravaged the Duchy of Aquitaine in the early years of Charles' reign. In the 840s, Pepin II called in the Vikings to aid him against Charles and they settled at the mouth of the Garonne as they did by the Loire. Two dukes of Gascony, Seguin II and William I, died defending Bordeaux from Viking assaults. A later duke, Sancho Mitarra, even settled some at the mouth of the Adour near Bayonne in an act presaging that of Charles the Simple and the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte by which the Vikings were settled in Rouen, creating Normandy as a bulwark against other Vikings.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Vikings raided the largely defenceless Frisian and Frankish towns lying on the coast and along the rivers of the Low Countries. Although Vikings never settled in large numbers in those areas, they did set up long-term bases and were even acknowledged as lords in a few cases. They set up bases in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil

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