Does the reputation of the Vikings need reassessing (again)?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Back in my childhood, things were simple. Vikings were big, hairy Norse types who waved axes around and pillaged. I wasn't entirely sure what pillaging was, but was fairly certain that it was preferable to be on the giving end, rather than the receiving end.

The Vikings were raiders and invaders. A flaming peril to isolated communities, and the conquerers of Northern England.

It seems that these days there's been a massive reappraisal, with great pains taken to stress the place of the Danes/Norse as peaceful traders and farmers, happily interbreeding and co-existing with the locals. To be perfectly honest, they're starting to sound a bit dull, and I have trouble reconciling this image with what I've read about Erik Bloodaxe, Olaf Gothfrithson and the other great invaders. Is it time to re-masculate the Vikings?

[Arrian]

Heh. My college days coincided, I think, with the "pacification" of the Vikings. It's part of the more general move to deliberately try to look more at the "common man" part of history, rather than the "great man" part (which is usually fully of big hairy men wielding axes and such).

There should be room for both. When we talk of Rome, we talk of both their ability to destroy and to build. The Vikings, for a long time, were just seen as destroyers. Well, they weren't the builders the Romans were, but that goes for lots of peoples. The Romans were... thorough.

So, to bring this ramble to an end, I think it's good to recognize that there was more to being Viking than going beserk on some poor (godforsaken?) monastery.

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

with great pains taken to stress the place of the Danes/Norse as peaceful traders and farmers, happily interbreeding and co-existing with the locals.

Honestly once you have burned the place to the ground and killed all the men what else is there to do?

I'd imagine "assimilating" a nations worth of recently widowed women would take alot of fire out of you.

[St Leo]

Russians date back the founding of Rus to the Viking chieftain Rurik, who came with the other Varangians founded trading bases in the area.

Incidentally, the Byzantine emperor had a Varangian Guard of Vikings.:P

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by St Leo
Incidentally, the Byzantine emperor had a Varangian Guard of Vikings.:P

See the article on Harold Hardrada currently on the front page of threads.

[BeBMan]

Weren't they mainly trading "peacefully" stuff that they had taken by force from someone else before?

[Cort Haus]

I'm reading Simon Schama's 'History of Britain', and he reckons that the Viking revisionism is bullcrap, and they were a bunch of murdering bastards. So they might have done some nice trading as well, but they were pillage-and-slaughter merchants, and the archeology backs this up.

[Blake]

Speaking of big hairy norsemen, I have some Norse ancestry (definitely of the church burning variety) and although I am big, I am not at all hairy. Who shall I blame for my lack of hairiness? English or German ancestry?

[Cort Haus]

Is your name Wodenthorpe?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by BeBro
Weren't they mainly trading "peacefully" stuff that they had taken by force from someone else before?

Maybe, but trading and piracy have been interwoven for many peoples, not excluding early modern english, dutch, and Portugese. What do you do when the locals know they have market power, and really are taking advantage of you? even though you have cannon, and they have not? Why NOT give them a little hot iron, to make them offer a more reasonable price? And is it only piracy if you give them less than the "right" price? And who really knows what the correct, fully competitive price would really be, in markets with so many complexities, cross cutting market power, etc.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I'm reading Simon Schama's 'History of Britain', and he reckons that the Viking revisionism is bullcrap, and they were a bunch of murdering bastards. So they might have done some nice trading as well, but they were pillage-and-slaughter merchants, and the archeology backs this up.

Ive only read his "Citizens" and his own "revisionism" or "counter-revisionism" or whatever you call it, sometimes goes a bit overboard.

[lord of the mark]

doesnt it all depend on where and when? In the Danelaw, they did settle down, didnt they? and in Normandy as well.

[Cort Haus]

There were periods of stability, when a level of domination had been attained, but the early raids were pure piracy. Eventually the conquest moved from freelance opportunism to imperialist policy.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
doesnt it all depend on where and when? In the Danelaw, they did settle down, didnt they?

It took about 300 years, involving several major wars, many invasions and counter-invasions, and a number of atrocities such as the St Brice's Day Massacre. Danelaw can't really be held up as an example of cuddly co-existance.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Maybe, but trading and piracy have been interwoven for many peoples, not excluding early modern english, dutch, and Portugese. What do you do when the locals know they have market power, and really are taking advantage of you? even though you have cannon, and they have not? Why NOT give them a little hot iron, to make them offer a more reasonable price? And is it only piracy if you give them less than the "right" price? And who really knows what the correct, fully competitive price would really be, in markets with so many complexities, cross cutting market power, etc.

I have no problem saying others did similar things throughout history. I also find the "murderous bastards" thing from CH a bit misleading, I mean they certainly didn't live in a totally pacified world in which evil Vikings alone resorted to violence against all those other peace-loving hippies....