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Referencing and citation: criterion met
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viking settlement and sea level rise
sea level rise through the holocene seems rarely factored in to human settlement change
Viking decline in greenland may be in part linked to sea level rise.
see The Norse in Greenland and late Holocene sea-level change Naja Mikkelsena1, Antoon Kuijpersa1 and Jette Arneborga2 Polar Record (2008), 44 : 45-50 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0032247407006948 see abstract http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1439260
Suggests flooding of fertile grassland caused by late Holocene sea-level changes as one factor that affected the Norse community.
further discussion of some relevance here http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=113807 (see last blog and references therein
Drrtwills (talk) 11:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Genetic legacy
It seems to me that the genetic legacy of the Vikings is given pretty short shrift here: e.g., the haplogroup R1a1 isn't even mentioned, although it accounts, for instance, for roughly a quarter of all male Y-DNA in Iceland. The R1a haplogroup has also been determined to be one of two major royal lines in Russian society, likely from descendants of the Scandinavian Varangian guard. The issue needs to be addressed in more depth than is currently the case. Just my two cents. MarmadukePercy (talk) 13:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- The genetic legacy portion of this entry is misleading. It never mentions R1a1, and yet goes on to cite the definitive (so far) Capelli study of the distribution of Viking genes across Britain, a study which focused on the R1a1 haplogroup. The entry needs more extensive correction and rewriting, which I will get to when time permits. In the meantime, I have inserted R1a1. MarmadukePercy (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
- Just noticed that the map for I1a is only going to an advert .--Celtus (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- I'll try to insert an appropriate map when I have a chance. Thanks for pointing that out. MarmadukePercy (talk) 10:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Just noticed that the map for I1a is only going to an advert .--Celtus (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
this is frankly PREPOSTEROUS.. this genetic Y-dna info is being foisted by those who had their own DNA tested and are now intent on writing their own article to scientifically validate that they are VIKINGS..
ALL that the R1a/I1a shows in the british isles WITH DEFINITIVE PROOF is that the HG/HT is in common with MODERN POPULATIONS or regions of scandinavia TODAY..
It is not proof of what these populations were 900 years ago, and it is far from proof of viking ancestry.. In modern day DENMARK, which would account for the vast Percentage of 'VIKINGS' to arrive in ENGLAND during the viking period, the largest Pct. of the population is R1b,.. R1a/I1a are small minority of the modern Denmark male population.
UNTIL you can show DNA results from ancient dna in a historical context recovered from VIKING sites in england, (which it seems is what the hackers who are trying to mold this article to suit there own Y-dna results are concerned with) you cannot proclaim sommerled or anyone else as a viking based on DNA as the primary two Hg's (r1a/I1a) this article asserts are 'viking' and are found in england as a legacy of 'vikings' are a minority pct of modern danish genetics.. most of whom are R1b like most of the english are... this article SHOULD be locked as it is.. but to allow blatant molding of this article to suit the viking ancestor fantasy of a guy who got a dna test result back of r1a/i1a with ancestors in the british isles, is total fantasy and does not withstand even a momentary review for legitimacy.. remove the DNA garbage-science unless you can show ancient dna studies recovered from 'viking' era sites in the british isles to corrolate this to.. until then its wishful garbage passed of as scientific fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.7.2.254 (talk) 01:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Please refer to the Vikings as a North Germanic tribe, only this is scientifically correct. Thank you! 91.65.18.109 (talk) 19:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
That's not true. North Germanic has no clear value in strictly biological terms: it is a philological term which defines a particular family group of languages. Some of those who spoke 'North Germanic', and adopted the cultural norms that we tend to associate with the speakers of North Germanic languages and dialects in the early medieval Scandinavian world may not have descended from 'original' speakers of these languages (if we could *ever* define such a group meaningfully, given the complex nature of human interactions in the real world): we might think of people from the eastern and southern shores of the Baltic who took on what we might call 'Viking' identity and language, people whose parents were taken as slaves and absorbed into Scandinavian societies, or people who were genetically connected with the Sami (itself probably another rather fuzzy-edged group in genetic terms). The use of the term 'tribe' is also confusing here. There is no evidence whatsoever that all the people whom we habitually refer to as Vikings belonged to a single identifiable 'tribe'. Indeed, it is unclear how useful that term is in Scandinavian contexts. How would you define it in relation to tangible evidence of Scandinavian social organisation at any particular moment in time or in any particular place? The closest we can get perhaps is when we find references in C11th skaldic poetry to those who spoke the 'Danish tongue' (apparently including all speakers of Old West and Old East Norse dialects, and not just Danes). But what does that mean in 'scientific' terms? CubeDigit (talk) 15:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
British Isles
In the opening paragraph I think that instead of saying British isles, i think we should say ireland and britain as to not make it offensive to Irish people who do not use this term —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ireland rules (talk • contribs) 23:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
To do so would concede a modern political bias in the article. The British Isles is the correct term for the area concerned the same as 'North America' or Scandanavia. The word comes from the name the Romans gave the islands, so is totally correct and should stay. Guthroth (talk) 06:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed. And in any case, we are not simply talking about the two islands of Ireland and Britain. Dougweller (talk) 06:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- This doesn't make sense. The archipelago consists of two main islands, one called Ireland and one called Britain (which incidentally were referred to by the Romans as Hibernia and Britannia respectively: the name Britannia was *not* applied to both). The customary name for these islands in the United Kingdom is the British Isles, but this is a non-neutral term, which is highly politically charged. I say this as someone who has no axe to grind, and no political interest in the issue, but who is trying to speak as neutrally as possible. The term 'Britain and Ireland' is just as geographically correct as the British Isles, has the distinct advantage of being neutral politically, and need not be troublesome to anyone except a person with an unbending political allegiance to the other term. By referring to Britain or Ireland, one also naturally refers to the associated smaller islands--just as you would when referring to Denmark or Norway or Greece, the settled parts of which include numerous (in the case of Norway and Greece, innumerable) islands, big and small. Recent scholarly books dealing with the Vikings -- by scholars who are simply trying to be correct, rather than politically correct -- have tended to use the uncontroversial geographical terms to avoid difficulty. A case in point is the medieval historian Wendy Davies, in the introduction to From the Vikings to the Normans (2003) ISBN 0198700512 who writes 'The period covered by this book, from AD 800 to 1100, or thereabout, is defined by two phases of attack from beyond the islands of Britain and Ireland' (p. 1)--her words offer a deliberate corrective to the title of the series Short Oxford History to the British Isles. The general editor defends the use of the term 'British Isles' in his own series preface (p. vi), but has clearly not thought of using the term Britain and Ireland when he writes 'there is no other formulation that can encapsulate the shared experience of 'these islands. Wendy Davies obviously disagrees--and so do I. Britain and Ireland is sensible, and elegant, and should be used here, because there's no good reason not to and it's immediately clear what is meant.Dala-Freyr (talk) 08:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
- Wendy Davies had very good reason to separate the islands of Britain and Ireland, I have no doubt. While the history of both islands is closely linked, each of them also has its separate history; so, speaking of them individually, for example in a book entitled From the Vikings to the Normans, makes perfect sense. However, the term "British Isles" is equally valid in a purely geographical sense, and it also has the advantage of being convenient. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think any political loading in "British Isles" is in the mind of the reader - so, I can well understand how reading "British Isles" when sat in Dublin or Cork might seem odd to the point of causing offence - but, how do you know that Wendy Davies was offering a "deliberate corrective" to the use of "British Isles", rather than being specific in introducing her subject? Does she actually say so? If not, have you asked her? By logical extension of the political argument, one might prefer "the island that currently comprises the Republic of Ireland and the Irish part of the United Kingdom, and the island that currently comprises England, Scotland and Wales". Obviously that wouldn't work, and no surprise: imagine the turmoil if all such expressions as "British Isles" were constantly being unpicked to suit contemporary sensibilities! The Malay Peninsula, the Antipodes, the Indian Ocean... I don't see why "British Isles" shouldn't be used as a geographical term, and "Ireland and Britain" (or "Britain and Ireland") likewise. I did once read an excellent collection of essays concerning the history of "these islands" (another possible term!) in the context of European history, which spoke of them as the "Northern Archipelago". I rather liked that, it certainly gives a whole new slant on how one thinks of these islands, and maybe it'll catch on one day, but I think that's the main problem: people will want to write of the islands collectively, and until a better term is coined and generally accepted to replace "British Isles", it's probably going to be used. Nortonius (talk) 10:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
- I hear what you're saying. But I still don't see what's wrong with using the term Britain and Ireland where it will do. It's not an artificial term, and it makes sense. The Misplaced Pages article on the British Isles needs to have that title because it's the term that most people commonly use. But in some cases -- as here, where there's no obvious gain in referring to the entire archipelago as a single entity -- there really doesn't seem to be a good reason for not breaking it down into smaller units and thus discreetly sidestepping issues that are genuinely problematic for some people interested in the more general subject under discussion. Just as you might sometimes refer to the USA and Canada rather than automatically referring to North America simply because it's the maximal term. The parallel's not perfect of course, but it'll do. No, I haven't asked Davies directly about her usage--but I'd stake good money that a careful regional historian like her, of Welsh extraction, who has written extensively about Wales, knows exactly what she's doing when she refers to Britain and Ireland in the very first paragraph of a book in a series published in England on the British Isles. I'm pretty sure she *never* uses the phrase British Isles here (although I stand to be corrected). Terms like these are not used unselfconsciously by medieval historians: especially not this one. Wendy Davies is just a single example, by the way. A bit of a pattern emerges as you cast the net more widely.Dala-Freyr (talk) 13:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm quite convinced by what you say about Wendy Davies and her careful use of language - I once had the honour of introducing her at a small seminar, though it was many years ago, there's no reason why she should remember, and I in turn can't remember what she was speaking about, though I may have some notes somewhere... And of course you're right to emphasise that historians are extremely careful in their choice of words: though 'History' is generally thought of as being among the 'Arts', personally I see it also as a forensic science. I think the key thing is, as you say, "using the term Britain and Ireland where it will do." I don't actually agree that speaking of just those two islands automatically includes the Isle of Man, the Shetlands, Orkneys, Hebrides, etc. - maybe we should seek the opinion of those islanders too! Not being snide, by the way, just throwing it in. In that sense, I think "Britain and Ireland" risks being exclusive, and begs many questions, so my vote would be to use whichever term is appropriate for a given context, so long as it works! Nortonius (talk) 14:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well, I'm pretty much in agreement with you. If ever you find a place where I've written 'Britain and Ireland' and you think it sounds unnatural or incorrect, do please change it! Hope to do some serious expansion of this article in the near future, as it's pretty woeful at present.86.7.18.117 (talk) 15:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Viking archaeology split
I would like to second the request for the split.
The study of Viking archaeology would be aided by a unified separate article. fogus (talk) 03:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- What request? Dougweller (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- It appears this is a response to this split tag that was added to the article back in September. — CactusWriter | 11:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to know Dab's reasoning. As this article says, "With a distinct lack of totally reliable written sources on the topic, much of the historical investigation of the Viking period relies on archaeology". I'll ask him. Dougweller (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- It appears this is a response to this split tag that was added to the article back in September. — CactusWriter | 11:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
My reasoning is plain WP:SS. I would like to take weight off the main "Viking" article, which tends to be a troll-magnet. I am still not sure, however, as to the precise distribution of article scopes among Viking Age, Viking expansion and Viking Age archaeology. Care must be taken to avoid {{duplication}}. --dab (��) 12:10, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
- Viking Age archaeology redirects back here but might make a good article, although there isn't enough in this article to do that. Viking expansion has copyvio from A History of the Vikings By T. D. Kendrick which I've just discovered, will go deal with that now. Dougweller (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Repetition in the "Nazi and fascist imagery" section
The first paragraph of the nazi and fascist imagery section is partially repeated in the second paragraph:
"Political organizations of the same tradition, such as the former Norwegian nationalist/fascist party, Nasjonal Samling, used an amount of Viking symbolism combined with Roman symbolism and imagery widely in their propaganda and aesthetical approach.
Similar to Wagnerian mythology, the romanticism of the heroic Viking ideal appealed to the Germanic supremacist thinkers of Nazi Germany. Political organizations of the same tradition, such as the former Norwegian nationalist/fascist party, Nasjonal Samling, used Viking symbolism and imagery widely in its propaganda."
The whole opening of this section is a bit unclear, I only just signed up so I cant edit this article, maybe someone could delete the repetition and tidy it up a bit?
Dark Blue Square (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
IRONISED?
"A romanticized picture of Vikings as Germanic noble savages emerged in the 17th century, and especially during the Victorian era Viking revival. In Britain it took the form of Septentrionalism...In contemporary popular culture these clichéd depictions are often ironised with the effect of presenting Vikings as cartoonish characters."
Who wrote this bilge? Some of it belongs in an entry on 19th century Romanticism, I don't know where the 'ironised' part belongs. Surely none of it belongs in the second paragraph of an encyclopedic entry on the Vikings. Shirokuma1 (talk) 19:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- as this talkpage amply illustrates, the 19th century clichés still attract rather more attention than the historical Vikings themselves. This is an integral part of any discussion of "Vikings". --dab (��) 19:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
- Have done my best to do the gardening. Have also rejigged the related material on reception so that it's in the right order--but it still needs to be rewritten for greater clarity and sense. The material on medieval historiography also needs considerable expansion, and *much* more is needed in the main sections on the Viking Age proper. The whole thing is pretty simplistic so far, and there are plenty of basic flaws and gaps.86.7.18.117 (talk) 14:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Swedish, Norwegian and Danish vikings?
According to the article, "Swedish" vikings went eastwards, while "Danish" and "Norwegian" vikings travelled to the west. This is a misconception, even generally speaking. For instance, among the Swedish rune inscriptions who tell of travels abroad, a fairly equal amount relates to raids in the west aswell as in the east. Likewise, according to the Icelandic Sagas and Danish chronicles, many Norwegians and Danes went eastwards. However, due to geografy, the POLITICAL infuence was stronger to the east for Swedens part, while the Danish and Norwegian political influence was stronger to the west. The English people at the time, unable to separate the scandinavians tribes from each other, simply called all -"Danes". It is also difficult to speak of Swedish, Danish or Norwegian vikings respectively, since the Scandinavian nations had not yet been consolidated and thus were not distinct from each other. --Joar Birgersson (talk) 15:05, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- You are partly right, that it is "difficult to speak of Swedish, Danish or Norwegian vikings respectively", because, at that time, there were no countries called either Norway or Sweden. BUT, the ealiest occurrences of Denmark, however, goes as far back as the 8th century(the biginning of the viking-age). So actually, this page should only state that the vikings were Danish(nationality) and/or Scandinavian(geographically), and never ever mention Sweden, Norway, Finland etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.199.177.197 (talk) 23:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
There were indeed countries called Sweden and Norway at that time. The name of Sweden occurs for instance already in the "Lay Of Beowulf" and also on Swedish rune-stones. Sweden, Norway and Denmark were geografically important defintions, but had very little political power and held no sway over the Scandinavian peoples self definitions. However that is not the point. I am simply saying that "Swedish" vikings just as often went westwards as to the east. It is therefore wrong to generally conclude that the "Swedes" went east, whilest the "Danes" went to the south and the "Norwegians" to the west. At least for the Swedes part, they went in all directions, fairly just a often. The first one to discover Iceland was for example a Swedish viking called Gardar Svávarsson. But since the Swedes of the time (opposite the Danes and Norwegians) did not have literate people who could tell their story, little is known of them, and very few names and historical events have survived. (Joar) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.233.0.124 (talk) 15:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Errors in the map of Viking settlements concerning Finland
The map is almost certainly wrong concerning the settlements of the coastal areas of Finland, including the Aland areas, see e.g. http://www.aland-museum.aland.fi/museum/arkeologi_viking.pbs
Perhaps the main reason is the geographical areas the vikings inhabited did not follow the country boundaries of today. Aaland islands were likely to have been inhabited long before the viking times by pre-nordic settlements and, thus, are more to be seen as parts the areas natively inhabited by Svean vikings than settlements.
Schatz87 (talk) 14:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Errors in the map of Viking settlements concerning Poland
There were, as far as I am know, no permament confirmed viking settlements in northern Poland. One "exception" is mythical Jomsborg. 150.254.130.179 (talk) 10:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Citations needed for common misconceptions: Uncleanliness
I believe that the section mentioned above lacks references. Ideas such as, "blonde hair was ideal in the Viking culture" as well as all the tools mentioned in addition to the uses for these tools(soap was used to bleach the hair) ought to refer back to research, somehow. Also, it might be nice if there were sources backing up the presence of the particular grooming items mentioned.
Neuroticrobotic (talk) 17:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed in the misconceptions section under "Uncleanliness" it mentions the discust shown by Ibn Fadlan at their uncleanliness. Ibn Fadlan is a fictional character in a Michael Crichton novel called "Eaters of the Dead".please remove this information as it is false.
9:40 p.m. central, 3 September 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.188.250.174 (talk) 02:43, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Have a look at our article on Ahmad ibn Fadlan. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Editprotected tag
Would like to correct a spelling error in the opening paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clhscott (talk • contribs) 14:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
- You'll need to point out the error which requires correcting. — CactusWriter | 14:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
80.165.180.33 (talk) 07:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)Has this article by Bertil Daggfeldt ever been considered? Se http://fornvannen.se/pdf/1980talet/1983_092.pdf or http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/vik-oar.htm for an English translation! The idea of the vikings as "shiftworkers" gives a good understanding of the (older) fem. Old Norse word "viking" and "vikingr" (the man who performed the "viking" activity! A lot of modern philologist, Tette Hofstra, Eldar Heide, and e. g. Christoph Masur (Erlangen-Nürnberg) now supports Daggfeldts idea! John Larsson, Birkerød, Denmark 80.165.180.33 (talk) 07:28, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Wrong Link
A link under the section "Burials" on Tuna, Sweden links to the article on the fish tuna not the town of Tuna. Can anyone change this to: Tuna, Vimmerby —Preceding unsigned comment added by Esw12345 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for pointing out that incorrect link. On the other hand, Tuna, Vimmerby is not the burial mound location. I switched the link to the more common Valsgärde site. — CactusWriter | 20:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Christianity and the decline of the Viking age
The section of the article on the decline of the Vikings asserts that "The Church took a position that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, so chattel slavery diminished as a practice throughout Northern Europe..." and suggests that this made Norse piracy less profitable. Yet this section cites no sources, and this is not a view that I can find confirmed in any book on the Vikings. The Christian Church wasn't universally opposed to slavery and indeed (though much later) Christians were responsible for a vast expansion of slavery in colonial America. RicardoJuanCarlos (talk) 14:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
Then you are reading the wrong books. There were several Papal bulls condemning slavery. Remember, European Christianity largely began as a religion of slaves in Rome. As Vikings and others Christianized, organized use and ownership of human chattel was frowned on, and then prohibited. Viking slave raids declined both as a result of there being fewer Vikings (of the raiding sort), and fewer markets for slaves except in the East. As far as slavery in North America; what exactly does that have to do with the Vikings 600 or 700 years earlier? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.130.104 (talk) 12:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
This whole section needs heavy expansion, correction, and rewriting: it does not at present seem to give a clear account of the transformations that took place in Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the ways in which these effected viking activity as it was experienced overseas. The suggestion that Christianity produced a 'decline' in viking activity is not completely adequate--after all, the Scandinavian attacks on England in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries--which *followed* a period of energetic christianisation that is very clearly marked in the material culture of the Scandinavian homelands--seem to have extensive, large-scale, and highly successful, leading to the subjection of the kingdom to a Danish dynasty.Dala-Freyr (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Vikings and Denmark
This piece states that the Vikings were descended from the Danes, implying that all Vikings were Danish. While the Danes were unquestionably in the majority, the piece overlooks the well-documented Norwegian and Hiberno-Norse settlements in the Cotentin peninsula. MarmadukePercy (talk) 05:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
- But there was no such thing as "Norway" at that time (the viking-age). Actually, this site shouldn't even state that there were Norwegian and Swedish vikings. Because the only country that existed at that time, was Denmark. Quite weird actually... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.199.177.197 (talk) 23:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
- Harald I of Norway was the first King of Norway from 872 to 930. MarmadukePercy (talk) 11:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Wrong Date
Someone needs to fix a date on this page. Normandy wasn't created in the 8th century, but in the early 10th. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgarbarino (talk • contribs) 14:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
- You are exactly right. The date is now fixed. MarmadukePercy (talk) 14:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Are Finns Finnish People Suomi considred Vikings?
Wondering if the Finns(Suomi) were considered Vikings too? Thought there heritage was from Magyar Hungaraian stock.VIKINGSWORD (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Essentially no. although there may possibly have been some who were "Vikingised" or "Norsisised" (ie some vikings may have been of non Norse origine, an example being "Ketil Flatnose" whose name possibly indicated a Sami origine as he was a Norwegian viking) but whether a Finn who became a viking was still considered part of early Finnish culture is a tricky one. Seamusalba (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'd say that they probably could. Snorri uses the word "vikings" for what is most likely muslim pirates in the Mediterraean. "Viking" was not an ethnic denomination.
- Andejons (talk) 07:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
that demonstrates the problems with definition and context. Viking didnt mean Norse until much later. It was more of a verbal noun during what we call the viking age. but if someone was a Norseman, they would be part of the Norse cultural/linguistic group by necessity, even if their original language was Finnish. (Incedentally, there was at least one Dutch Barbary pirate based in North Africa during the days of the Barbary pirates, he was a renegade from Breda according to a documentary I once saw on the attacks on Ireland and South west England. He would have had to speak Arabic and probably converted to Islam to fit in with the social norms of the new barbary society hed adopted. If Snorri was using the verbal noun to mean "rader", then that would necessitate defining all pirates (even the Somalian ones nowadays) as "vikings" from our own perspective surely? Seamusalba (talk)
- But to answer the original question, no Finn is ever called a Viking in the written sources. Let's not speculate about flat noses. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Well I would never refer to a Sami or a boxer or anyone else as a "flatnose" but the speculation is whether the Norse were as politically correct as wikipedians in the 21st century are expected quite rightly to be (the chances are they werent). Seamusalba (talk) 19:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Didn't the Finns hire themselves out as mercenaries and bodyguards as the Varangians? Or the Varangian Guard? They supposedly reached the black sea and were employed by Russian kingdoms to bulk up their armies and as elite guard-forces. As far as I know, they too sailed down the rivers of Eastonia, Russia and Eastern Europe in a similar fashion to Vikings. So if you were looking for something to call Finnish raiders or pirates, Varangian's would be not-too-inappropriate. 92.28.162.225 (talk)
The trouble is that the term Varangian has never been used with this sort of modern notion of ethnic/national specificity--not by anyone, ever. Some people from the region now identified as Finland may have served in the Varangian guard in Byzantium, and some of them may have been referred to as Varangians in early medieval Russia, but there's no actual evidence that this was the case. And more importantly you need to remember that people from almost /all/ other parts of Scandinavia were connected with the eastern trade and communication routes at different times in the Scandinavian Iron Age and Viking Age and into the medieval period. They weren't just eastern Scandinavians. Some of the best-known individuals who spent time in Russia and further east were Norwegians (e.g. Magnus the Good and his uncle Haraldr Hardradi in the C11th). What we do know is that people, ideas, language and artifacts moved quite freely around the Baltic in the Viking period, and there was evidently mixing and communication beyond the limits of modern national boundaries and language groups. There's no point in limiting the term Varangian in the way you propose, or indeed in using it as if it helps us distinguish a coherent ethnic group. The term Viking is pretty unhelpful too of course, and a good deal of stupidity could be avoided if we refrained from using it whenever we could. Terms like these often provide us with a way of *not* saying what we mean rather than being precise. it would be much less misleading if we talked about Scandinavians and people of Scandinavian origin, or indeed the Norse-speaking peoples, during the VIking Age, accepting that some of them may have been referred to as Vikings or Varangians in some places, among other terms. Calling them Vikings is arguably a little bit like deciding to refer to all modern people of US origin as Military Contractors, or Marines (note the use of the upper case). The popular currency of the term Viking means that we're pretty much stuck with that word now, even though it would arguably make much more sense only to use it with the lower-case spelling (viking), as some historians do, to designate people of Scandinavian origin who engaged in activities of a certain sort. So lets not start using another equally problematic term too: above all if it's going to involve misapplying it to one group among many. As for the Sami in central and northern Scandinavia, there is plenty of evidence of different complex sorts of interaction with Norse-speakers, to whom we are customarily referring when we use the term Vikings: but the maintenance of separate languages, belief systems and economies means we must be right to distinguish them even though the distinctions of ethnicity and identity must sometimes have been fuzzy, and even though some people of Sami origin mixed with their Norse-speaking brethren, went on viking-type expeditions, and took part in the settlement of Iceland. By which I mean, the Sami may sometimes have been *v*ikings, but as a distinct group they weren't what people usually mean when they talk about *V*ikings. Dala-Freyr (talk) 11:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
- Good points, and well put. MarmadukePercy (talk) 11:42, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Small small thing that bugs me.
Not that this is relevant to the article in any way and it does handle a pretty silly subgenre of heavy metal music but when bringing up Viking Metal one should atleast mention its pioneer Bathory. A band which in many respects pioneered black metal itself. Also the notion that vikings were relatively clean by european standards is one I find highly probable. Wasnt it considered unchristian to bathe?(I could be wrong on this one) And with Vikings being good sailors and seamen it would only be advantageous to be able to swim and feel comfortable in water. One question that this article doesnt cover is what they ate. Could their famed tall stature be attributed to them having a more varied diet? Or is that wrong altogether? Oops just noticed that this is not supposed to be seen as a forum about the article subject! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adrasl300 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Missing image
I've removed code for an image that's been missing for a while now. It was this one of a Viking ship's figurehead, with the caption "Viking ship head of dragon, has a dog's nostrils, canines, and rounded ears." While the caption needed some work, in any case a message written in German on the image's talk page states quite vehemently that the item pictured was not as described. Doesn't say what it actually was, though, just "function unknown". Nortonius (talk) 15:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Raping of women
I'm aware this is probably an innapropriate place to ask this and that it isn't even mentioned in the article, but is there any actual evidence that Vikings did rape women durings raids etc.?
It seems to me that this would be the sort of thing people came up with to demonise a pagan peoples. From my primitive-psychological understanding, rape is about control: now why would Vikings need to control anyone when they were only there for about an hour before sailing off again and killed anyone who got in their way, anyway? Additionally if they could already plunder a village or town of it's gold, valuables, livestock etc. why assault the women? They had female warriors and probably held a lot of respect for women... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.208.115 (talk) 22:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps this is helpful. As a rule, I guess a raid was just a raid, with emphasis on efficient lightning raids, land and get out with the spoil as quickly as possible. Women were not so much raped on the spot as abducted as slaves (for which see here). --dab (𒁳) 22:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. I know they did indeed steal anyone they could for slaves, or Thralls. The information on that link there is a little...unfounded, men needed to know how to sew to make sails so they did do some domestic work, women carried knives on them even if they were only for self-defense and domestic use and they also took up arms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.66.37 (talk) 21:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
- I think it's safe to assume that young men who employ themselves in slaving, and certain aspects of the slave trade, sometimes take advantage of those slaves. That's just the way it is. I doubt it'd be very pleasant between the time a slave is captured and the time when she/he was sold; and I suspect the slave would not have such a great life afterwards either.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 11:32, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
I completely agree with the previous comment. It's also worth pointing out that 'lightning raids' by small groups were arguably a comparatively limited part of Scandinavian activity overseas during the Viking age. If the viking age had been typified by the sort of small-scale raiding characteristic of the late C8th and early C9th expeditions, its unlikely that the vikings would occupy the kind of place in the modern imagination that they do. It's actually the far more extensive warfare of the mid- and late-C9th, and indeed (in very different circumstances) the late C10th-early C11th that really fused the reputation of Scandinavian vikings, leading medieval annalists and other writers to look back to the early accounts of the raid on Lindisfarne etc, and see in them the root of later and far more extensive trouble. Scandinavians in the later C9th and in the 'second viking age' meant business, and had great ambition. And unlike their predecessors, they often chose to hang around in the places they visited... I'd really like to know why we should imagine that the aggressive hosts of young men that made up forces like the 'Great Army' that fought its way round the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England in the C9th (accustomed to hardship and hostility, armed to the teeth, successful and confident wagers of war in foreign lands far from the social constraints and limitations of home) went about their business with restraint and propriety, and what evidence there might be for this. Because it would be pretty well unprecedented. Historical experience really doesn't indicate that it's what we should expect. These were not pretty times: there's certainly no evidence that Scandinavians behaved any less reprehensibly than anyone else when they got the opportunity. What's remarkable is that we *do* have some accounts of violence and unpleasantness visited upon their victims, of sorts that were probably considered normal in plenty of other contexts too, Christian and pagan alike, and whether or not vikings were implicated. Personally I wouldn't have wanted to be a young man or woman in any settlement that an early medieval army or raiding party had just taken by force, whatever its ethnic origins or religious predilections.Dala-Freyr (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
- There's what looks to be a good book on GoogleBooks, which has a limited preview; it's called Slaves and warriors in medieval Britain and Ireland, 800-1200, published in 2009. It shows how deeply engrained slavery was within the societies of Britain and Ireland, during the years spanning the Viking Age. The slaving by the Vikings is really just one piece of the whole puzzle. Here's one review of the book if anyone is interested , here's the publisher's page with a brief blurb .--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 07:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Famous vikings
The list of famous vikings seems to list persons who was not documented vikings. Like Harald I of Norway At last, Harald was forced to make an expedition to the West, to clear the islands and the Scottish mainland of some Vikings who tried to hide there.. (the original text says in english translation:
- King Harald heard that the vikings, who were in the West sea in winter, plundered far and wide in the middle part of Norway; and therefore every summer he made an expedition to search the isles and out-skerries (1) on the coast. Wheresoever the vikings heard of him they all took to flight, and most of them out into the open ocean. At last the king grew weary of this work, and therefore one summer he sailed with his fleet right out into the West sea. First he came to Hjaltland (Shetland), and he slew all the vikings who could not save themselves by flight. Then King Harald sailed southwards, to the Orkney Islands, and cleared them all of vikings. Thereafter he proceeded to the Sudreys (Hebrides), plundered there, and slew many vikings who formerly had had men-at-arms under them.
Furthermore, real, documented vikings are missing, like Bjørn Farmann who obviously was a viking now and then: Egil Skallagrimsson tells this of Bjørn: Bjørn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; translated into English: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman. (http://en.wikipedia.org/Bj%C3%B8rn_Farmann#Egil_Skallagrimsson)
Dan Koehl (talk) 23:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree it is somewhat misleading to list a king as a "viking". Of course a king may organise expeditions and raids, but these are usually on a larger scale than your typical viking enterprise. --dab (𒁳) 14:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
It's not as easy as that though. And I'm not really sure what the last contributor means by the comment 'a king may organise expeditions and raids, but these are usually on a larger scale than your typical viking enterprise'. Well, contemporary sources make it pretty clear that King Horik of Denmark was involved in the attacks on Hamburg and Paris in 845; Viking kings ruled and raided all sorts of different parts of Britain and Ireland in the 9th and 10th centuries (see Clare Downham's book Viking Kings in Britain and Ireland), sometimes on a large scale. Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Haraldsson of Norway were both celebrated vikings, and both seem to have claimed descent from royal lines in Norway, and established themselves as kings there. Sveinn Forkbeard and Cnut the Great, who were surely the two most powerful kings in Scandinavia during the Viking Age are usually remembered in popular and scholarly works as Vikings. If the attacks on England in the early 11th century weren't viking raids, then somebody better tell Ethelred and the writers of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. And what about Harald Harðráði, who really founded the medieval kingdom of Norway, and has often (rather inanely) been referred to as 'the last of the Vikings'. It sounds like your definition of viking raids really only relates to the period from the 790s to 830s, before things got really bad. Ever heard of the Great Army, which ransacked England in the 870s? Led by the future king of East Anglia, Guthrum? Unless you want to limit viking activities to a bunch of small-scale raids on monasteries for a few decades in the earlier ninth century, you're going to need to broaden your perspective bit. There are very good scholarly grounds for limiting the use of the term viking (with no confusing capitalisation) to people who actually engaged in viking activity, and it would be great if the term was abandoned in all other cases, but the trouble is that this is not the way it is now generally used. And that is a problem which the article (as it currently stands) does /not/ take into account. The commonplace attributive use of the term Viking in formulations like Viking art, Viking ships, Viking swords, Viking religion, Viking society, Viking culture, Viking runes, Viking towns etc, etc, etc to refer to aspects of Scandinavian culture that are really expressions of life in the homelands should offer an important reminder that most people really use the term Viking as a shorthand for 'Norse-speaking Scandinavian of the 8th to 11th centuries'. Scandinavian archaeologists have long referred to this period at the end of 'Scandinavian Iron Age' in the history of the Denmark, Norway and Sweden as the Scandinavian Viking Age. Like it or not, 'Viking' is used by scholars and normal folk alike to designate far more than a few raiders, traders and settlers who happened to be look overseas rather than close to home for ways of enhancing their power, wealth and status. A positive outcome of this should be that we are forced to reconnect the doings of Scandinavians overseas with what was going on at home in Scandinavia to understand their place in history. On these terms it would be absurd to say that someone like Harald I of Norway is not the same as, say, Guthrum of East Anglia, because one probably limited his aspirations to overlordship to Norway while the other looked across the North Sea. This would suggest a cultural historical distinction which only exists in the minds of the modern observer. The use of the term víkingr in saga sources written in the 13th century can't be used as a basis for defining what a viking was, even in the narrow sense of the word, because the medieval writers are not contemporary observers, and had their own ideas about what vikings were (see Judith Jesch's book Ships and Men for an account of how the sense of the term changes over time). This brings us to the other problem: the medieval sources. The medieval saga sources from which you derive your reference to 'real' vikings like Bjørn Farmann are not contemporary documentary records, they are medieval stories. Some of these may be based on traditions that had not been fabricated or entirely distorted, but we have no way of ascertaining whether many of these people existed, or whether the stories about them are even vaguely correct. We certainly can't trust the story about Harald's visit to the Orkney vikings in the kings' sagas, as quite a few scholars have noted. But at least we *do* have some skaldic court poetry (Þórbjǫrn hornklofi's Glymdrápa) connected with Harald fairhair, which remembers him putting a host of Scots to flight, suggesting that at the very least he expected to be praised like a good viking. Hákon Jarl of Norway, the late C10th ruler of central Norway, is similarly praised like a viking in the poems composed for him, although he's best known for his dominance in Norway in the medieval prose stories. My vote is for keeping the famous Scandinavians of the Viking Age as Vikings, but explaining the terminological problem /properly/ elsewhereDala-Freyr (talk) 16:36, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Well yes, I am aware of these problems. You definitely have a point (although it could have been put a little more briefly). Perhaps the answer is that a "list of famous Vikings" is typical Wikipedian listcruft of little encyclopedic value. I have always had ambiguous feelings about this list.
Sure, a king could be a 'good viking'. The point is probably that going viking was an occupation, not an 'identity', and an occupation that held some prestige in the warrior society of the time. So you can say a king was a good viking just as you could say that he was a good rider, a good fencer, a good falconer, a good singer, etc. --dab (𒁳) 08:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
- How strange then, that in alla the sagas and legends, noone wrote: King X was a good wiking. While, on the other hand, you can find on numerous places phrases like, they were bothered by wikings, and king X chased all the wikings away, during those years X kingdom was attacked by wikings, etc.
- The only place where I have read a about a wiking havings kings name, was as sea-king, which by all means, was absolutely not the same as being a king.
So if you mean one can say that a king was a good wiking, could you please be so kind and mention where, in which source, where such a phrase ever, ever, used?
Dan Koehl (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
There are two problems in your question. First, the content of the sagas and legends need to be treated carefully, since they were composed several centuries after the Viking age. This is not a radical position: since the early C20th, serious historians have not been happy to use the sagas uncritically. C13th and C14th Scandinavian applications of the earlier term 'viking' can't be used as a baseline for saying who vikings were, what they did, and how they were perceived in earlier centuries. Secondly, when we use the term 'viking' nowadays, we are not necessarily using it to define people who would naturally have called themselves vikings or been identified as such at the time (and the specific term is one of many available for the general category of Scandinavian sea-borne 'profit-seeker'). It now has a broader meaning, for better or worse, but in any case the sense of the term changed several times through the middle ages. This should be apparent from the basic content of *any* of the innumerable modern studies with the term 'Viking' in the title. In the case of Norway, success in foreign expeditions overseas (including protracted mercenary service) was a prerequisite for the assertions of royal authority by Olaf Tryggvason, Olafr Haraldsson and Harald Hardruler, providing prestige, experience, silver, and knowledge of the model of Christian kingship which they all sought to impose at home. The Norwegian historian Sverre Bagge has made this observation on several occasions. The various surviving skaldic praise poems composed for these men (the only native contemporary textual sources referring to them) focus on their status as successful military leaders on expeditions in the west (in the case of the two Olafs) and in the east (in the case of Harald). See for instance the 'Víkingarvísur' attributed to Sigvatr Þórðarson, and the Head-ransom (Höfuðlausn) attributed to his contemporary Óttarr svarti, both composed for Olaf Haraldsson. The title Víkingarvísur (Viking verses) is editorial, but it is entirely appropriate given the description of Olaf's deeds in the Baltic, Denmark, the Low Countries, England, Francia, and Spain. The same tendency to edify Christian rulers for their victories overseas (in campaigns customarily identified by modern historians of early medieval Britain and Ireland as symptoms of the renewed viking activities in the late C10th and early C11th) is evident in poetry composed for a number of other Norwegian and Danish magnates and kings, notably Cnut, whose skalds happily compared his conquest of England to the deeds of his C9th Danish predecessors. Following the silver crisis of the late C10th, viking-style predation was evidently a vital means of securing the wealth and prestige upon which successful kingship in Scandinavia depended. As late as c. 1100, even Magnus Barelegs had something to gain from maintaining viking habits, as his poets and numerous contemporary chroniclers tell us. 131.111.224.92 (talk) 15:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Niels Lund talks about the direct involvement of a Danish king in the explosion of Viking attacks in Europe in 840s in his article 'Horik den Førstes udenrigspolitik', in Historisk Tidsskrift 102 (2002), pp. 1- 22 . Lund uses contemporary Frankish sources to show that Horik sponsored viking activity in 845, possibly including the major raid on Paris (anticipating the campaigns of the late Viking Age made by Svend Forkbeard and his son Knud, and picking up from where his predecessor Godfred left off in 810 when he had attacked Frisia with 200 ships ). Ninth-century annals from Ireland indicate that the Norse viking leaders who established themselves as kings in Dublin and other such colonies in the ninth and tenth centuries led repeated large scale campaigns throughout Britain and Ireland. The trouble here is that everybody has a strong picture in their heads of the Vikings, but few people have read any of the ground-breaking recent scholarship on early medieval annals and Scandinavian archaeology from the last 20 years. Have a look at the contributions in Stefan Brink's encyclopedia The Viking World (Routledge, 2008) to see what the state of the art looks like.CubeDigit (talk) 17:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks. I can not find any named source, where a viking was mantoned as king. Or, a king mentioned as viking.
- As far as I can understand, history doesnt know one single king who could be "a good viking", as mentioned above. This is once again, a fabricated mix of the two terms, which has no relevant medevial source.
- Dan Koehl (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
easy. "Harald Hardrada of Norway - the last great Viking king" You are welcome. Note how we use Viking is a word of the modern English language, seeing as this is en-wiki, written in English, not Old Norse. --dab (𒁳) 14:20, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
With the best will in the world, do please read some modern peer-reviewed scholarship on Óláfr Tryggvason or Óláfr Haraldsson, just as obvious examples. There is a large scholarly literature on these particular rulers (and their legacy in medieval sources), whose claims to kingship were dependent on their success as vikings. There is too much to list here: it would take a book (try following some leads in Martin Syrett's Scandinavian History in the Viking Age, A Select Bibliography, Cambridge 2001 ), or articles in Stefan Brink's The Viking World. Almost anything by Sverre Bagge on Norway in the Viking Age would help (including his recent book From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom86.7.18.117 (talk) 14:22, 29 September 2010 (UTC)). But a good starting point if this is all news to you might be T.M. Andersson's 'The Viking policy of Ethelred the Unready' in Scandinavian Studies 59 (1987), 284-95. The title alone of Clare Downham's book Viking Kings in Britain and Ireland should also be rather suggestive, don't you think? As earlier comments should have made clear, this is not some strange new theory. There *is* an ongoing debate about the role of kings who ruled in Denmark in relation to C9th viking activities--but there's already a reference to Lund's work on this in an earlier comment. As you should know, Google does not necessarily get you access to current scholarship. Try a good academic library, or subscribe to a journal like Saga-Book, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Fornvännen, or some-such. Or buy some survey textbooks of early Scandinavian history. If you really cannot access this stuff, you should seriously consider the basis of your authority for writing about vikings on a site like this. At risk of repeating earlier comments, please also refer to the Víkingarvísur of Sigvatr Þorðarson, edited by Christine Fell in Speculum Norroenum. Norse Studies in Memory of Gabriel Turville Petre, ed. U. Dronke (Odense, 1981). You might also read the Royal Frankish Annals on Godfred of Denmark, and then try to define *exactly* what makes one boatload of armed Scandinavians 'vikings' and another a Danish army. Definitions get pretty difficult when they depend on modern presuppositions about what a viking should or should not be like. If the definition is too narrow, it will embrace only a few piratical raids of the late C8th and early C9th, and miss out the main elements of what constituted the viking phenomenon in medieval history, which are the great expeditions of the second half of the C9th and the period around 1000. And the sources indicate no shortage of Scandinavians who referred to themselves as kings -- and who later ruled as kings -- connected with these. Please bear in mind that no properly critical historian would now treat prose material in the sagas as evidence for the Viking age without very serious circumspection: we need to accept that they are in the first place documents of the C13th and C14th, and not the C9th-11th. Using them as sources for the vikings is as tricky as using William of Malmesbury or Henry of Huntingdon as a source for Anglo-Saxon history. Not for over 100 years have scholars been able to refer to 'oral tradition' as if it is a mechanism for assuring that everything in the written sagas is historically accurate. We *need* to look at this stuff, but it is not gospel.
Also helpful: Sverre Bagge, 'Warrior, King, and Saint: The Medieval Histories about St. Óláfr Haraldsson', Journal of English and Germanic Philology 109 (2010), 281-321. I quote: "Having grown up—according to Legendary Saga and Snorri already at the age of twelve—Óláfr departs on a series of viking expeditions. These are celebrated in Sigvatr’s Vikingavísur which seems to have been the main source for the later prose narratives, despite considerable differences concerning the details and the sequence of the events." So Óláfr Haraldsson was remembered in the sagas as a king, a saint, and a viking: and we have what seems to be a contemporary poetic source which identifies him clearly as viking. We know from other contemporary sources that he was certainly a king, and that by 1050 he was recognised as a saint throughout the north. So doesn't that make him a 'good' viking (to continue this really _weird_ way of talking about this stuff)? God knows what a 'good' viking must have looked like from the wrong end of a sword-blade.CubeDigit (talk) 14:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
See also Sverre Bagge, 'CHRISTIANIZATION AND STATE FORMATION IN EARLY MEDIEVAL NORWAY', Scandinavian Journal of History 30 (2005), 107-134. To quote the abstract (with my emphasis): ""The article deals with problems and directions of research in the study of the Christianization of Norway. While scholars from the 19th century onwards largely accepted the sagas' account of the Christianization as the work of two missionary kings in the late tenth and early 11th century, the recent trend has been in the direction of a long and gradual process of Christianization, starting in the late ninth or early tenth century. This interpretation seems to regard the Christianization as the direct consequence of increasing contact with the new religion, thus neglecting the question of why the conversion took place. The present contribution directly addresses this question. It emphasizes the political aspect of the conversion and the importance of the Viking kings coming from abroad for giving Christianity the religious monopoly. Further, it suggests three lines of investigation for future research: (i) a thorough examination of the rich archaeological material, (ii) a comparison with the whole area of Northern and East Central Europe that was included in Western Christendom in the tenth and 11th centuries, and (iii) a focus not only on the conversion period, but on the gradual penetration of Christianity in the following period and its consequences for state formation, the development of society, and cultural and ideological transformation.CubeDigit (talk) 14:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
What about Svein Forkbeard and his son Cnut the Great? The raids and invasions of the years 991-1013 are usually referred to as viking raids. These are some of the most successful viking leaders of the lot, and rather renowned as kings, both in Denmark and England! Svein did what no other Viking ever managed, and conquered England with his pan-Scandinavian viking army. Cnut his son managed to keep the army in play long enough after the return of the West Saxon kings that he had the kingdom given to him by the English after first Ethelred and then Edmund Ironside died. By that time the commander of the vikings was the only person who could ensure peace. For (plenty) more secondary stuff, try googling "Viking kings" (in inverted commas) on Google scholar86.7.18.117 (talk) 16:43, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Return to a perennial question
I find it hard to see how the parameters of this article are really distinct -- or can be distinct -- from the parallel articles on the Viking expansion and the Viking Age. Perhaps the difference should be that the Viking Expansion article discusses Scandinavian activities outside their homelands during the Viking Age, while the Viking Age article talks about the situation within Scandinavia itself. If so, the title of the latter needs to be changed to Viking Age Scandinavia, and the entire thing needs to be rewritten. At the same time, it is not clear why there should be a separate article that talks about the Vikings. There's a conceptual circularity here. It's the activities of Vikings that defines the notion of a Viking Age, whether in Scandinavia, or outside it. Yet the popularisation of the terms Viking and Viking Age, means that the noun Viking is now regularly applied to all Norse-speaking people who originated in Scandinavia in the whole period 700/750-1050/1100, and the related adjective is equally applied to all aspects of the culture connected with these people in the same period. The problem is then compounded by the additional presence of an article on Norsemen. In general a consensus seems to have emerged that it's a good thing to have separate entries for the people and the history of their activities. But I would note that there is no similar distinction made on Misplaced Pages between 'Romans' and the history of their activities and cultural institutions in the articles on ancient Roman civilization and the Roman Empire. Personally, I think a great deal of muddle would be avoided by having a single article, so that the difficulties inherent in the use of noun and adjective Viking can be made absolutely clear, and an appropriate historical perspective developed in identifying who these people were. Otherwise the alternative articles (all of which are still marred by partisan, incomplete, or non-authoritative contributions) will continue to overlap and repeat one another, as new contributors add information to one without seeing that the others exist. The present articles either need to be massively re-edited, or else merged. This comment is cross-posted on all three of the most relevant pages.Dala-Freyr (talk) 10:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
- I think an obstacle to a merge may be length, though I understand your concerns, and haven't assessed the details. The article "Norsemen" seems reasonable on its own, though, as it seems to do no more than explain what is meant by the term, without being a "dictionary" entry. Just my thoughts, as I'm afraid I have no intention of contributing to any mass re-edit - sorry! Also I took the liberty of changing "Viking Expansion" to "Viking expansion" in your comment. Nortonius (talk) 11:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The best solution here might be to merge Viking Age and Viking expansion, since they are practically identical. The Viking article could then refer to these briefly (as it already does) but be developed by concentrating more on cultural matters than the strictly historical. So one could have more on social structure (law, the role of women, and slavery), houses and settlement types, production and exchange, weapons and warfare, religious belief and practice in the pagan period and early Christian era, language, art (including skaldic poetry). This would mean the merged Viking Age / Viking expansion article could concentrate more on historical processes and events, from the causes of the Viking Age to the reasons for the cessation of these activities, and the two resulting articles would be mutually supportive rather than repetitive. But the pages on the ] and Viking expansion should definitely be merged. CubeDigit (talk) 15:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
you may have a point. I originally created Viking expansion in 2008 as a dump for list-like text, and immediately tagged it for merging. Over the two years since, the main progress seems to have been that somebody blanked the merge tag. --dab (𒁳) 14:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
systematic bias
There seems to be a systematic bias in this article. The general point of view is in removing the claimed wrong image of vikings. The article seems to be completely one-sided. 128.100.3.43 (talk) 17:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
- You need to be a lot more specific about the sort of changes you'd like to see. Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't think there is any 'systematic bias' here, but I do think it's true that if you came to this article without any previous knowledge of the vikings, you wouldn't really get a grip on just how much trouble they caused... However much bias there is in the ecclesiastical sources, things in many parts of Western Europe weren't quite the same shape when the first main wave of C9th raids slackened off. The tone of the article may be the result of contributors depending for their knowledge on books which emphasise the culture of the Norsemen as well as the complex realities of raids in England and France, in particular in the later ninth century. On the other hand, it's not entirely clear that vikings were always worse than anyone else. Charlemagne's execution of 4500 Saxons in one day surpasses any single act of violence for which the vikings are renowned. And one might think of the poor French commoners who organised a successful resistance against the vikings in 859, when the king and magnates had utterly failed to protect them, only to find themselves crushed by their own local magnates, who liked their peasants to be passive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.7.18.117 (talk) 17:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
- I agree. As a concequence, noone can read about true vikings, only the english misinterpretation of the term. It will probably take a long time for this to be corrected. Meanwhile, I reccomend to read the german version viking, which clearly define the object of the article. Dan Koehl (talk) 21:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
The Vikings knew our Spherical Earth
If specialists like R.Simek, François Xavier Dillmann, Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad explain that Vikings knew our Spherical Earth, it’s because they think that it isn’t a peripheral info, they specify that fact because it’s important to understand the Viking culture. The earth was believed to be flat is not a myth, it’s historical. In Middle Age, when someone tells that the earth is spherical, he was heretic. The theologians of Rome opposed philosophy and science observation advances, they burned Giordano Bruno, persecuted Galileo Galilei, destroyed the Academy del Cimento, used fear to Descartes, Tycho… Finally, Newton, Kepler, and Huygens discoveries had pushed close in the absurd theologian’s ideas.
If someone thinks it’s necessary to write this info into the article, I join here the text and the specialists sources. Sorry for my “poor English”.
The Vikings knew our Spherical Earth before theologians of Rome imposed their Bible's vision of a “flat earth” as a disk shape: orbis terrarum in latin or Heimskringla in old Norse. There is still a document dating from the 12th century which attests this fact: Elucidarium. It allowed Vikings to sail far without fear of "falling into the abyss" describe in the Bible.(cf.éd.Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad Elucidarius in Old Norse Translation, Reykjavik, 1989, p40) ( Rudolf Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie, Berlin, 1990, pp 102 sq.) (History of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson, François Xavier Dillmann “L’Aube des peuples” Gallimard p 367 ISBN 2-07-073211-8).
Thorgis (talk) 13:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but Simek is wrong. See for instance Flat Earth. Bruno and Galilei are irrelevant, the church's dispute with them had nothing to do with a flat earth. The universities, all church run, did not teach that the earth was flat. You'd expect sailors to know the earth wasn't flat anyway. Dougweller (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hi
- I'm sorry, but I don't think that Rudolf Simek, François Xavier Dillmann, Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad, are wrong.
- Theologians of Rome teached during a long time that the earth was flat. At the beginning of the Viking age, Charlemagne had three tables: Rome’s plan, Constantinople one, and the third was Earth in the form of flat disk. Catholic bishops still believed that earth was flat in 16th century: they warned Columbus that he would fall off the edge of the earth for his lack of faith.
- The Church had always crushed the "heretical" view, often through censorship and persecution of the scientists because they are not according with the Bible:
- Ésaie 40:22 ; Isaïe 24:1 ; ezechiel 7 :3 ; marc 13 :27 ; job 9. 6 ; Daniel 4:10-11 ; Job 38:12-13 ; jérémy 16 :19; Jérémie 49:36 ; josué 10.12 ; genese 1.17 ; 1 Chroniques 16:30; Job 38:4-6; Josué 10:12-13...
- I thought it was interesting to know the Viking knowledge about this, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want this info in the article.
- Thorgis (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- No one knows what Charlemagne's 3rd silver table looked like, and some academics think it was a celestial map. You can't use it as evidence Charlemagne thought the earth was flat. As for Columbus, writing about A. D. white's immense study, A History of we Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (in two volumes), Rodney Stark wrote "Trouble is that almost every word of White's account of the Columbus story is a lie. Every educated person of the time, including Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round.5 The Venerable Bede (ca. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg {ca. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingcn {1098-11791 and Thomas Aquinas {ca. 1224-1274), and all four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy. Written by the English Scholastic John of Sacrobosco {ca. 1200-1256), it transmitted the standard view that all heavenly bodies including Earth were spherical. In the same century as Columbus's voyage, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly {1350-1420), chancellor of the University of Paris, noted that "although there are mountains and valleys on the earth, for which it is not perfectly round, it approximates very nearly to roundness."4
As for the "sundry wise men of Spain" who challenged Columbus and advised against funding him, they not only knew the earth was round; they also knew it was far larger than Columbus thought it was. They opposed his plan only on the grounds that he had badly underestimated the circumference of the earth and was counting on much too short a voyage."
- I can find many more quote to this effect. The fact that you think Bishops told Columbus that the earth is flat is an indictment of our educational system. It's a 19th century myth still around in the 21st century. Dougweller (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'm sorry again but, if Snorri Sturlusson, Saxo Grammaticus and all the other writers of Old Norse Literature, believed in our spherical Earth, and if theChurch did not impose its Bible’s vision, how can we explain that all this literature speaks about a flat Earth. The explanation is because the writers of these texts ought to respect the writings of the Bible, because it is God’s Holy Book and God cannot be mistaken on his own creation.
Thorgis (talk) 09:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC) come on you have to idmit that boy are better than gils — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaco1234567 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
If Simek voiced the opinion that the Vikings knew the earth was spherical, we can certainly cite this as Simek's opinion. Just bring the reference. What does exactly does it say on p. 102 of Altnordische Kosmographie? Cite Simek, don't just quote something you read on the internet and throw in a selection of "references" for good measure. You mentioned p. 102 of Simek's book, so now let us know what it says there. --dab (𒁳) 20:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
After a brief websearch, I can tell you what Simek says on the page mentioned. He says that knowledge of the spherical Earth was introduced to Scandinavia in the form of a 12-th century translation of Elucidarius. So we can assume that from the 12th century (note that this is the end of the Viking Age), the Scandinavians knew the earth is spherical. This is the opposite of what you claimed, of course. You said that the Vikings thought the Earth was round, and Roman influence imposed the image of the flat earth. In reality, the Vikings thought the earth was flat, and Roman influence spread the image of the spherical earth. --dab (𒁳) 20:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
- Anyone who has lived on the coast has noticed that when a ship sails within sight it rises above the horizon. The top of the mast appears first, then the sails, then the hull. When it sails out of sight, it slowly sinks below the horizon. Give the old mariners some credit, they weren't complete idiots. They'd notice this phenomenon every day of their lives, no matter where they sailed.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
- Conc. the Holy Bible, and the Creation of the Earth - the text og Genesis 1:st chapter doesn't state anything of how the Earth looks, or it's form. Nore does it state that the Earth is the center of anything. People just assumed
that the Earth was flat and that the sun appears to circle around the Earth. And by the way, if God could create the Earth, He of course also could create it to appear to be of any age He desires - not ? It's thereby pointless to argue against Christianity by scientific facts arguments. /Viking of Christianity —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.43.198 (talk) 01:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
- Please stick to sources for this, the page isn't a forum for our own opinions. Dougweller (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
as Explorers
I would strongly suggest that to the main article add the fact that it is usually through history a higher culture (with perhaps smarter people) that are able to make contact with new cultures far away, and then find their way home again. And it was the vikings that were the first real sailors and explorers of the world, at least as far as europeans concidered. I would like th introduce an cronological table of the leading explorers.
- the Vikings 700-1050 AD
- German states - the Hansa 1200-1490 AD
- Spanish/Portugueese(/italians) 1490-1650 AD
- the Dutch 1650-1740 AD
- Britannia 1740-1941 AD (1941 - lost of HMS Hood)
- Japan 1941-1942 AD
- USA 1942 - ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.43.214 (talk) 07:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Litterature
I believe that section 2.1 should be entitled "Literature" rather than "Litterature" (no double 't') Konrad markus (talk) 07:16, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
- I believe you are correct;
Y Done Alphathon /'æl.f'æ.θɒn/ 14:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Lindholm Høje
I think Lindholm Høje should be added among the Viking burial sites. --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 04:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
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