The Vikings Part I Professor Kenneth W. Harl
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The Vikings Part I Professor Kenneth W. Harl THE TEACHING COMPANY ® Kenneth W. Harl, Ph.D. Professor of Classical and Byzantine History, Tulane University Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he has been teaching since 1978. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and went on to earn his Master’s and Ph.D. from Yale University. Dr. Harl specializes in the Mediterranean civilizations of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium and in the ancient Near East. He has published numerous articles and is the author of Civic Coins and Civic Politics of the Roman East, A.D. 180–275 and Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to 700 A.D. He is a scholar on ancient coins and the archaeology of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He has served on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Archaeology and is currently is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Numismatics. Professor Harl’s skill and dedication as an instructor are attested by his many teaching awards. He has earned Tulane’s annual Student Award in Excellence nine times. He is also the recipient of Baylor University’s nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers. ©2005 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership i Table of Contents The Vikings Part I Professor Biography............................................................................................i Course Scope.......................................................................................................1 Lecture One The Vikings in Medieval History ..............................2 Lecture Two Land and People of Medieval Scandinavia................5 Lecture Three Scandinavian Society in the Bronze Age...................8 Lecture Four Scandinavia in the Celtic and Roman Ages.............11 Lecture Five The Age of Migrations ............................................14 Lecture Six The Norse Gods.......................................................17 Lecture Seven Runes, Poetry, and Visual Arts................................20 Lecture Eight Legendary Kings and Heroes ..................................23 Lecture Nine A Revolution in Shipbuilding..................................26 Lecture Ten Warfare and Society in the Viking Age...................29 Lecture Eleven Merchants and Commerce in the Viking Age..........32 Lecture Twelve Christendom on the Eve of the Viking Age.............35 Timeline.............................................................................................................38 Maps ..............................................................................................................49 Glossary..................................................................................................... Part III Biographical Notes......................................................................................Part II Bibliography.............................................................................................. Part III ii ©2005 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership The Vikings Scope: The Vikings have long conjured up images either of ruthless pirates ravaging the coasts of Europe or of heroic pagan warriors dedicated to Odin, god of ecstasy, poetry, and battle. These images, well attested in the medieval sources, are only part of the story of the impact of the Scandinavians on early medieval civilization. The first 12 lectures of this course deal with the evolution of a distinct civilization in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) on the eve of the Viking Age (790–1100). In 790, Scandinavians still worshiped the ancient Germanic gods and, thus, were divided from their kin in Germany or the former Roman provinces of Gaul and Britain who had adopted Christianity and Roman institutions. Breakthroughs in shipbuilding and the emergence of a warrior ethos celebrated in Eddaic and later skaldic verse turned Scandinavians from merchants into Vikings at the end of the 8th century. The second set of 12 lectures deals with the course and impact of the Viking raids between the late 8th through the early 11th centuries. Danish and Norwegian raiders profoundly altered the political balance of Western Europe. Danes conquered and settled eastern and northern England, a region known as the Danelaw. They compelled King Alfred the Great of Wessex (r. 870–899) and his successors to forge an effective monarchy. In France, Vikings under Rollo embraced Christianity and settled the fief of Normandy in 911, thereby founding one of the most formidable feudal states of Europe. Norwegian Vikings settled in the main towns of Ireland and braved the North Atlantic, settling the Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland, as well as an ephemeral colony at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. In Eastern Europe, Swedes developed a major trade route from the Baltic to the Caspian, laying the foundations for the Russian principalities. The last 12 lectures explain the passing of the Viking Age. Over two centuries of overseas raids, trade, and settlement altered Scandinavian civilization. Scandinavians accepted Christianity and gained the high culture of Latin Christendom. Christian Danish and Norwegian kings in the 10th century first harnessed the Viking spirit to establish monarchies. Cnut the Great (r. 1014–1035), king of Denmark, England, and Norway, briefly turned the North Sea into a Scandinavian lake. His institutions and example inspired the formation of Christian kingdoms in Scandinavia and turned Vikings into Crusaders. Yet perhaps the most enduring of achievements of the Viking Age were the sagas and verse of Iceland that immortalized pagan heroes and Christian kings, Norse gods and indomitable settlers of the remote island. ©2005 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1 Lecture One The Vikings in Medieval History Scope: The term Viking, originally used for a pirate who lurked in a cove (vik), came to designate the Scandinavians overseas engaged in war, commerce, and settlement in 790–1100. In popular imagination, the Vikings are cast as tall Nordic warriors, sporting horned helmets and wielding axes, who descended in longships to wreck havoc upon the civilized peoples of Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic world. Such perceptions are based on the hostile reports of monks, so often the victims of Viking raids, who penned the medieval chronicles. Since the Reformation, Vikings have been idealized as noble Germanic savages untouched by corrupt civilization—an image based on stereotypes created by Roman authors. In recent decades, revisionist scholars have minimized the destructiveness and, thus, the importance of the Vikings. Yet for more than 300 years, Scandinavians excelled in shipbuilding and dominated the sea and river lanes of Europe with their longships and commercial vessels (knarr). Their attacks on Western Europe dictated the future of feudal Europe. They braved the Atlantic Ocean to plant settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. In Eastern Europe, Scandinavians, known as Rus, extended the range of their commerce and created Orthodox Russia in the 11th century. Without the Vikings, the course of medieval European civilization would have been far different. Outline I. The Vikings had a far-ranging impact on medieval history, but before we begin to look at that history, it may be useful to look at some of the stereotypes about Vikings with which most of us are familiar. A. The term Viking conjures up one’s worst nightmare of a Nordic warrior, sporting a horned helmet, slashing with a two-headed axe, and descending upon monks and peasants from longships. B. The word Viking comes from Norse vik, meaning a cove or a small fjord, a place where pirates could lurk and prey upon merchant ships. The term was extended to apply to any Scandinavians living between roughly 790 and 1100 who were engaged in raiding or conquering overseas kingdoms or in establishing settlements, such as in Iceland. C. But, the term should be used only to designate Scandinavians overseas, especially as raiders or attackers of Christian kingdoms; later, as merchants and colonizers; and eventually, as kings. D. Viking was just one of several names by which Scandinavian raiders were known overseas. 1. Frankish chronicles often referred to these raiders as Northmen, from which derives the name Normans. A common prayer in the 9th century was “Oh Lord, deliver us from the fury of the Northmen.” 2. In England, where Danes were prominent, the Vikings were usually referred to as Danes. 3. The term Norman was used for those Scandinavians who settled in Normandy in northern France. 4. The Scandinavians from Russia were known as the Rus or Varangians, meaning “men of the pledge.” This term designated Swedes and other Scandinavians who came to serve in the Byzantine armies. II. We have an enormous amount of information about the Vikings; unfortunately, most of it comes, at least in the early period, from their opponents. A. We must balance the monastic chronicles and hostile reports of the Vikings’ victims against archaeology and the chronicles of the Scandinavians themselves in later generations, when they converted to Christianity. B. This course, then, looks at three very different sets of evidence: the contemporary literary records, written by Christians and some Muslims, who see the Vikings as foes; the work that has been done in archaeology, including the recovery of Viking ships and fortifications; and the sagas and poetry written in Norse in the 13th–15th centuries but reporting events that took place in the