The Vikings and their exploration fundamentals
Those of you, respected fellow readers, who followed my blogs and seen what I have in stock said about the Vikings, clearly know how well of trotters were the Vikings during the period between the 8th and 11th centuries. From pillaging the UK in the beginning, traveling with their quick and narrow boats, on rivers, you thought nobody could pass through, to invading a whole other continent! The Vikings have revitalized entire Europe by their mighty hand of (in)justice, bringing fear to each opponent they faced, foreign warriors with different styles and cultures. That's why modern history doesn't show them as normal people, but a primitive, gruesome flock of animals!
Nobody loved the avenue of their combat, based on quick attacks, hit N run and storming through assets and looting everything they came across to. Multiple theories perceive their triumphs regarding conquering territories on different bases, however, as I said, unless found unbiased of an approach to their victorious feats, I won't apply these theories to my blogs. The first ever recorded invasion was the famous Lindisfarne, were monks where targeted because the Vikings knew that monasteries contained a vast amount of loot. Plus they were easy prey because they haven't ever thought about getting invaded by 20 bandits, getting their limbs cut off and left out to rot. Eventually, they spread to Britain, France, Italy, Russia, North Atlantic, North America, etc. With each nation they stumbled to, their influence was immense, providing their colonies the essential points of their cultures, war strategies, resources from Scandinavia, etc.
Theories, reasons, and motives of the movement
The extreme migration is explained by numerous theoretical reasons: the political turnaround when the Vikings simply had to go for it, then the emperor of Norway, Vestfold dynasty, Harald Harfarg who reigned for years at the end of the 9th century, England and Frankia had conflicts inner-state, making it easy for the Vikings to infiltrate an already weakened system, then it's global things such as overpopulation, climate change and technology development of those days. How does this sound to you? Kind of like a conspiracy theory the more you look into it. Oh yeah, and another thing, a trading route's ending point of the trade line was Svea, a colony at Staraja Ladoga in Russia, so the influence was spreading not always in a bad notion. Even contemporary businesses internationally do influence the cultures of countries! Since Russia was always a cold place to reside, fur items had strong demand in these areas. The Vikings piracy couldn't be stopped, livestock, generating slaves, metals, all of these things were on the bucket list of what to steal.
British colonization
If you take England as an example, the Vikings first set foot on the farthest ends of the island, after taking over treasure from small settlements, they figured that they could go for more, afterward creating settlements of their own on strangers' territories, mixing with them over the years, decades and centuries after initially establishing. Assembling marriages, fixing trade routes and smoothing political relations were the direct reasons for injecting the Viking gene cross-country. The thankfulness mainly needs to be distributed to Olaf Guthfrithsson, the dynasty of Uí Ímair, great-grandson decedent of Imar, the architect of the known family tree. He ruled Dublin and Viking Northumbria in the 10th century. Olaf had intellectuals by his side who helped in Scandinavisation of England, he personally married the Irish, fostered infants, just simply spreading the dynasty, and it's an official thanks to him for England gaining the names of localities with the suffix from the Scandinavian languages.
The Franks and more of the native UK
Those areas which the Vikings totally demolished and brought despair and backwardness to economically grow, just a century later were the most lucrative centers of the Viking-ruled Dublin and Northumbria (York), and Normandy, France. A historical occurrence, may be considered as an anecdote, was when Charles the Simple, in 911, when the Vikings were relentlessly kept raiding his spots, offered the Vikings land in north of France to bands lead by the infamous Rollo, Gaange Rolf who was the first king of Normandy, but in return they had to obey the king of the Franks.
The now-called Normans, have traded with every corner of the planet, had plenty of good reputation, sent soldiers on campaigns such as the Norman Conquest of England, invasion and occupation of England by armies from 4 different regions, all lead by the descendants of what Rollo left behind him, after a variety of triumphs. After numerous of Hastings, rebellions against the Normans and other natural society reactions, the Normans essentially settled and got their king William crowned in London, finalizing the process of gaining control of England and retaining it. Therefore the Vikings would not just stop there, they were thinking about the geographical foot of Europe, Italy and the kicked pebble Sicily.
The strength of Viking Settlements in England is reflected on the impression they made then, which is confirmed by honest and modest historians. Heritage from the Normans include some attributes as new practices both recreationally and professionally, such as hunting and wine-indulging, buildings built as barracks, in purpose of warfare, building built as shrines to deities, the French language, new nomenclature of people, William (the leader, often subscribed to people of royal descent), Robert and Richard, all names rooting from Scandinavia. Tradition and befitting culture, as well as language, most of these things were heavily influenced by the Normans!
Invasion of outer England
Special thanks to the exploration of Greenland goes to the Vikings for being the first Europeans to do so! Except for Greenland, way before Christopher Columbus' blunder of mistakingly naming the land of America as India, the Vikings were also the first ones disembarking in North America, which they called Vinland. Seems like they were wiser explorers than Columbus was! On top of all this, the first sizeable settlements were based by the Vikings themselves on Iceland as well, and numerous of other smaller islands. Truthfully, an array of cultural integrations have the Vikings brought to these islands, which existed and persisted to this day. Nothing could've mitigated their tremendous influence on these, then insignificant territories, which frankly did consist of notable people.
Motives that stood out the most of spreading so far long the planet. Don't think that they had outer-world ideologies doing it for a greater good/cause, altruism was a fancy decoration of character of the oldest nations, not these indefinite Scandinavians who kept crossing with other breeds so that we cannot concretely tribute thanks to a certain nation of being the craftsmen of culture and customs of today.
Sorry for digressing a lot, I'll shoot immediately. The reason was to seek prestige, loot, fame, glory, honor, and desire. So, basically, these are all urges found in animals as instincts, so as you can tell, no bigger picture was there of the Viking epidemy. Imagine, a nation without a government standing behind their quests had done all of this! With my previous exposure of conquering the insignificant territories with sturdy and firm people, unconvertable that is, the Vikings from those areas were driven by politics to obtain the predominance of the people as they were a minority with no actual power.
The Faroe Islands
Way before settling in Iceland, the Vikings sailing ships premier island in the line of sight was the Faroe Islands, which back then was a deserted island, no inhabitants nor natives, just a little of land perks on the horizons of the ocean. The Faroe Islands are halfway from Scotland to Iceland, so it's a logical station serving the Vikings for a bit of a dust-off on the way of glory.
An Irish monk wrote in his scripts in the 9th century, that these islands actually were inhabited by the Irish Monks, however, they exiled as soon as these Norse men came in. The Norse called this island "Sheep island". Since the island's ecology didn't include trees, as a vital resource for producing non-shifty settlements, in spite of them using rock and grass to construct houses. Norse residents in the Faroe Islands depended on livestock, and of course, fish, wailing and hunting birds.
Iceland
Next stop was Iceland, the conquest of Iceland began prior to the ruling of Olaf, in 870, that's when they anchored their first ship. It's also known that the Vikings possibly already heard of the Faroe Islands prior to going for Iceland, because the Irish monks preemptively left the territory in order to protect their holy integrity, not to fall victim to paganic abruption. Ten years before the settlement on Iceland, Floki Vilgerðarson was considered to be the first Norse to tread on Iceland, however not even thinking about colonizing these shores. Iceland was named after him, through their point of view.
The Norse from Norway, Bergen had the privilege to harness in Iceland, since they wanted to escape from the gnarly ruler of Harald Fairhair, then Norse from other parts of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom come right after them. By the end of the 10th century, Iceland had 10.000 inhabitants. Encouraged to live in Iceland, they opened up farms to maintain on this bountiful land.
Whether it's accurate or not, I also read from sources that Celtic tribes lived on Iceland prior to the Viking migration, so they started marriages, reproduction and keeping Celtic slaves alive so that it's a later cause of a good ratio of Christians (since Celtics were religious) to paganic Vikings to be better progressively, due to conversion.
Afterward, when the Viking mania finally reached its end, Iceland was converted to become literally a Scandinavian-populated island, practicing their rules and laws, inherited from native Norwegians.
Greenland
Judging by the legends, the founder of Greenland was Erik the Red, who had scuffles, lawsuits, and problems with the authorities in general in Norway, so he fled to Iceland to get away from punishment because of some cruelties he's done. Since Iceland ascended as one of the dense-Viking concentrated islands, he continued his exile and came across Greenland.
Once the outlaw's legal issues expired, he came back to Iceland to preach to the people about this wonder Green-land he lived for a brief moment. He sold the story that the land is "Green", and not actually covered 95% in ice and snow, so he made 25 ships full of Vikings and their settling utilities to sail to Greenland. According to sources, only 14 made it because of the conditions.
Intuitively, Greenland seemed like a bad idea, an exceptionally bad coast to make a colony, but the island was full of sea animals, that they met up with the winter, cold conditions to create trading posts with other settlements, since the poultry found there is ultimately rare in other parts of the world, manufacturing perfect trading routes amongst everyone.
Oddly enough, their colony in Greenland couldn't be taken for granted, because until the 15th century, the entire population of Greenland has eradicated.
North America
In an attempt to sail to Greenland, Bjarni Herjolfsson and his crew were left stranded by the merciless waters, and they winded up in North America. He never was ashore, turning back to Greenland. His son, Leif, on the other hand, wanted to diversify the resources to the people of Greenland, so he sailed to North America in search of wood.
The first explored land was probably Canada, according to sources, they called the land Helluland since it was deserted, covered in ice and the terrain was mostly mountains and plateaus. The next land was probably Labrador coast, then Newfoundland. Leif and his small count of the crew stayed for the winter, however, they eventually return to Greenland after embracing the winter nicely.
Other tried to redo what Erik has done, going back to the land he's been to, but not longer than a couple of years, being expatriated by natives, possibly Indians. They were settled there for enough time to leave archeological leftovers, as evidence that the Vikings traveled to Americas.
Great Britain, Western Europe, Russia
We've already got this stuff covered, but let's explain briefly. The Norse have mostly conquering smaller settlements of Britain, pillaging and stealing valuable things, then afterward thinking of settling by using force! The one thing that's different with these parts of territories is that everything they gained in Europe in Russia was through terror and warfare.
So it wasn't exploration it was more colonization. And I already told you the story transparently, how they got to France, Normandy. They had to protect the Franks in exchange for obtaining the land from the king, as a gift to Rollo. The thing with France is that the Vikings who lived there got assimilated to Franks over time. So their presence and influence weren't as powerful as it was to other less mature folks.
The Rurikid Dynasty of Russia was the dynasty that reigned in Russia from the 9th to the 16th century, named shortly as "the Rus", that's how Russia got the name in some etymological understandings. Russians today are mostly Slavic, however, the elitists are deemed as descendants of the Vikings and their royal highnesses.
Author's opinion - Conclusion
When I monitored and surfed the internet for answers, I came across reports that it's allegedly not known where the Vikings were in reality, that these regions are just the confirmed and acknowledged places where they surely lived. I'm not sure whether to think about it or not, but in my opinion, the Vikings weren't as widespread than that they could afford to send people everywhere.
And just as you saw, they mostly explored land unintentionally, by coincidence. That supports my way of thinking, so I'll let it pass this time, regarding of their unknown settlements, aside to these ones that grown to history. From my standpoint, it appears that the significant colony was Iceland, where they lasted the longest probably, as an original species.
The subsequent part is maybe England, Scotland and the British Isles. It may not stack right, but if you draw a line between these two people, there are some tangible intersections where you can really say that there are similarities.
Anyhow, the Vikings weren't as animalistic as they sounded, especially after 9th centuries after they had conquerors raising alive and breathing people quite far from their original peninsula. Norsemen were contagious in all of Europe, and I suggest that you read one of my previous articles and blogs, because there's also information about their settlements explained in details.
All this I wrote aren't legends, it's all in compliance with modern history and legends. The Vikings dismayed half of Europe and that's just a fact which Europeans won't presumably condone, because they ramped up immoral ways of warfare and colonization, not within the underlying sets of regulations and rules.
Resources
https://manchesterhistorian.com/2015/the-vikings-raiders-or-settlers/
Leave a comment