When you buy through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
Vikings are often draw as brutal , bloodthirsty warriors with struggle axis andhorned helmet . In popular cultivation , Vikingsare shown foray into , pillaging and murdering anyone in their path and perform grisly carrying out , like the infamous " blood eagle . "
But is the Vikings ' ruthless reputation warranted ?
A colorized 19th-century print depicting the 885-886 Viking attack on Paris.
" The interrogation is n’t , ' Were Viking violent ? ' " saidDaniel Melleno , an associate professor of mediaeval and pre - modern history at the University of Denver . " They were utterly violent . It ’s just a question of , are they doing something that is out of the norm ? "
The Viking Age lasted from aboutA.D. 793 to 1066 , coinciding with Europe ’s Middle Ages — an already - violent sentence , Melleno suppose . In this era , wars , slavery and raids were commonplace , and the Vikings were no exception . With fast and mobile longships , the Vikings were experts at launching surprise fire from the ocean .
relate : Why did n’t the Vikings colonise North America ?
A colorized 19th-century print depicting the 885-886 Viking attack on Paris.
One of the Vikings ' first raids was on a moneyed monastery in the British island ofLindisfarnein A.D. 793 . The Vikings frequently attacked monasteries , which were poorly guarded and fulfill with rich . Because the Vikings were ab initio pagan and their victim were Christian , their attacks were describe as particularly abhorrent and ungodly .
" These are Christians write , and they talk about these ' heathen ' or ' pagans ' attacking,“Caitlin Ellis , an associate prof of knightly account at the University of Oslo , separate Live Science . " Sometimes they even say it ’s a penalization from God that their own multitude have sinned or not been expert enough . "
Unlike their southern neighbor , the Vikings were for the most part preliterate ; theyleft only a few runesof their body process . Some of the only written evidence of their action comes directly from their victims or from saga indite C of years later by the Vikings ' posterity . Although the Vikings were also merchants , farmers and fishers , their victims were , justifiably , more focussed on the ferocity pull against them , Melleno say . Over the long time , stories of Viking brutality were also in all likelihood decorate .
" Some of the sources that are most negative in the elbow room they draw the Vikings as being peculiarly furious or barbaric are actually from a bit afterward , " Ellis said , " from the twelfth 100 , so a few hundred years after the raiding had begun . So maybe there ’s a act more exaggeration with time that plays into the image that we still have today . "
In plus , variance in some sources ' writing cast incertitude on their legitimacy , Melleno say . For example , an explanation from the chronicler Prudentius in A.D. 834describes the Vikings destroying everything in the town of Dorestad , in what is now the Netherlands . But the next class , the hamlet was still brook for the Vikings to " lay waste " to it , Prudentius write . The Vikings yield in 836 to demolish the townsfolk again , and then again in 837 , he report .
" If we reckon at the archaeologic record , one of the things we do n’t often see is bulk graves or burn level — the signs of that end that we would have a bun in the oven to see if we read the generator and took them at face value , " Melleno told Live Science .
— What ’s the furthermost place the Vikings reached ?
— Did the Amazon distaff warrior from Greek mythology really be ?
— What was it like to be an executioner in the Middle Ages ?
The Vikings were not the only group raiding and conquering towns in medieval Europe . Moslem raiders called " Saracen " frequently attacked parts of what are nowFrance , Switzerland and Italy . The Magyars , a group from Hungary , attack what ’s now Bavaria . AndCharlemagne , king of the Franks , waged a decades - long war against the Saxons that result in mass killings , surety pickings and pillaging in what ’s now Germany .
" What ’s the difference between Viking raiding and Frankish wars of conquest ? Really , not that much , " Melleno say , adding that it comes down to state violence versus stateless people place number of violence . It ’s likely that because the Vikings were n’t part of a schematic realm , their dupe saw them as more unpredictable and barbaric .
" The Vikings come off as big because they ’re not a state waging warfare , " he explain . " The Vikings do n’t have a body politic , and they hardly have a king … so it ’s just a bunch of pirate . "
