The Viking Age Explained
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- What is it about the Viking Age that drives so much interest? A common view is that it was a violent period across Europe, beset by raiding, conquest and plunder, led by people from Scandinavia. But is this really an accurate take on some 300 years of history?
In this video James Carson talks through the Viking Age, bringing in expert opinion from a range of History Hit podcasts and documentaries to explain the more complex reality. What actually is the definition of a Viking? Did they really wear horned helmets? What was the legacy of the Norse on Europe, both in terms of colonisation and trade?
You can find out more about the Vikings in the following links:
The Great Heathen Army with Cat Jarman and Dan Snow - • Retracing The REAL Gre...
Lindisfarne: The First Viking Attack with Matthew Lewis - • The True Story of the ...
Who Were the Real Northmen of Scandinavia with W B Bartlett - • Who Were The Real Nort...
Beserkers with Roderick Dale - play.acast.com/s/gone-medieva...
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Vikings with Cat Jarman - shows.acast.com/gone-medieval...
Vikings in America with Gordon Campbell - play.acast.com/s/dansnowshist...
You can also subscribe to History Hit TV to get ad free access to all of our documentaries and podcasts at historyhit.com/subscribe. Use code 'vikings' and you can get 50% off your first 3 months.
#historyhit #vikings #norse
00:00 Introduction
00:56 Horned Helmets
02:10 The Definition of a Viking
06:17 Viking Longship
12:11 Viking Archaeological Record
15:26 Viking Warfare
23:48 The Rus' Trading Network
28:19 Viking Society
33:05 Viking Religion
35:20 Conclusion
The J in Jarl (cognate with Ebglish Earl) and Jelling is pronounced as in most Germanic languages (English is the odd one out) as y in yes; yarl and yelling (streessed on the first syllable).
Came here to say this.
I always appreciate an informative comment lol Now that you say that, I feel like I’ve noticed it over the years. Good stuff, my friend. Good stuff!
What a fantastic documentary. I think I've learnt more about Vikings on this programme than I have in all of my schooling days!
Significantly they were highly mobile raiders, turned invaders, in a time when early European Kingdoms were poorly set up to deal with raiding. The beginnings of statehood but without the organisation, infrastructure or communications to deal with raiders that could not easily be struck back. The Vikings' success was as much about their unique historical context and geographical positioning as it was about their cultural characteristics.
Every Viking video stirs my soul, reminding me of the fierce explorers who shaped history. Their spirit of adventure and cultural depth transcends time. Who else feels the ancient sagas calling to them?
My wife loved the show "Vikings" so much she named our cats "Floki" and "Ragnar" 😅
shes original
From "Norway to eastern coast England" in under a week... Well, this is quite an understatement. The distance from Bergen (Norway) to Edingburgh is approximately 690 km or 384 nautical miles. With good wind and a speed of 8 knots, a ship needs 48 hours, i.e. two days.
A single ship can do tjat if they have a good crew, an army with a lot of different ship types for carrying provisions and gear? Not so much.
I would love to see a video on historical travel times - I didn't realise Norway-UK could be 3 days by longship... That's a return trip under a week, when I assumed it was much farther. Same with Roman Empire and their roads.
I love this idea and had similar thoughts. I seen how they traveled but not the actual time.
Havent watched it all yet, but already it is more accurate than most videos on this topic. Well done History Hit.
The oldest continuous viking Parliament is the Tynwald in the Isle of Mann.
Really simple to understand, but barely scratched the surface, so many more epic stories to tell. Go deep!
Less than 2 minutes into this and I’m looking forward to the rest. Also, to more of these bring made. Please! 🙏🏻
Guys, seriously. All this research, and you don't know the J in "Jarl" is pronounced as a Y, making it "Yarl"?
Just saw the history hit team in Greece! Excited for the video 👀
So fun to hear him try to say the danish names 🙂
Recently found out I've got some Viking ancestory on my dad's side, we originate from Cork in Ireland. So, it makes sense as it was a Viking settlement and winter base for the majority of the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries.
7th and 8th Centuries? Closer to the 11th
@monsterforge1763 Considering olaf the white creates Cork in the early 800's I don't think so
Really well presented and put together by Mr Carson.
The explanation of types of longship is cool indeed.. There is in fact one Viking who wears a hat wi horns, but he's mythical, Heimdall, guardian of The Rainbow Bridge.. If you want to travel from Midgard to Nifl-Heim, then Heimdall is your man (sorry, god)..
Nice one team! ⭐👍
Great video
I’d love to see a full length video on Ragnar.
BEST & TRUTHFUL & AMAZING documentary about the Vikings 🤘🤗🤗🤗🤗🤘
What were living conditions aboard a Viking longship on extended expeditions like? They do not seem to offer much in the way of any type of comfort.
Open, cold and boring! But most expeditions would have taken place in warmer months and it would be rare (and dangerous) to be out at sea for more than two weeks. Despite travelling vast distances overall, expeditions from Scandinavia could stop in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, as well as Newfoundland - if you travelled direct between these points on a longboat the journey time could be under two weeks.
SHIELD WALL!!!!
HO! 🛡
last stand ignore pain healthstone
Excellent work here
Dead guy gets found with multiple swords, an ornate shield, jewelry, and their own horse= "he must be a great Viking leader/warrior! See the glory heaped in his grave!" Guy later found to have the pelvis of a woman= "hey, whoa. Just because a woman got buried with weapons doesn't mean they were a warrior".
Most great leaders would get set fire on a longship. Which brings the question as too why they would burry this individual, it was probably some merchant, just cause a person is buried with a sword does not mean they were a warrior or soldier, in their belief all people would be laid to rest with a weapon.
@@louditalian1962the ship burning funeral is a Hollywoodism irc.
IKR 🤷🏼♀️
The willful, gigantic idiocy and tiny male ego is absolutely astounding. It’s like finding Scrooge McDuck fossilized in his money silo, dressed in diamonds, with gold plated teeth and denying the idea that he was a wealthy duck. The patriarchy makes everyone less intelligent.
@@louditalian1962 most burials are not burned, we have a few burnings but a lot more that aren't especially in northern and western europe. Eastern europe has more boat burnings but by then they were Kievan Rus and not Scandinavian.
Hey HH. Love your work 👍
Excellent information. I feel that Viking was a rather generic word that meant "some nasty person who came to take my stuff" and became a handy word for multiple diverse groups. Some of these groups appear to be mostly concerned with raiding, some with trade, some with exploring, some with conquest. Although there is no evidence of it, I often wondered if the Scandinavians used lodestones to aid in their navigation.
no back then they were known around the world as Normans (not only those in Freance Normandy got it's name from Normans) Northmans, Danes, Sveir, Rus, Varangians and many other names -Vikingr is an old Norse word that only the Norse used although not about themselves as a group, the first time the word Viking was used about them as a group was in a book written by a historian in the 1900 , and it's just much easier because then everybody know who we are talking about and what time period
Jag älskar den här kanalen så mycket!
Älskar från Sweden! 🇸🇪
I like how we still use the horned helmet to represent them, it’s way more fun
this was AWESOME! being 50
5 Norwegian, I was consumed with all this info!
I love everything Viking or Norse. And I like this channel. I ordered History Hit but just about everything on there is on CZcams.
We only publish our subscriber content on CZcams if it's a year old or more, and there are 2,500+ podcasts ad free on top!
@@HistoryHitI had it before and didn't like it so I ordered it again and 2 weeks later they were looking for another payment and canceled my subscription maybe I'll try it one more time since I love history from 900 to 1500 but most of it is on CZcams and I pay for premium which has no ads. But everything I watch gets interrupted by History Hit ADS
25:25 At the Rijks museum in Amsterdam, they have a pair of " unicorn" horns on display.
Please make more viking videos!
Thanks for a good video. Rollo (21:58) was Norwegian, though..😉
I’d love to see an episode dedicated to female Norse/Vikings. They were quite fascinating compared to most Western women of the safe time period!
Same*
I'm sure that people in Iceland will be embarrassed by the claim that the Althing is one of the oldest parliaments. They all know that because it was abolished in 1800 by the ruling Danes and not reinstated until 1844 that Tynwald on the Isle of Man is the world's longest continuing parliament in the world. That's been a (al)thing for over a thousand years.
Yes I have heard that about the Tynwald as well, although there is no physical or written evidence that proves it.
I have always been of the opinion that the term "Viking" referred to a trade rather than a tribe.
The word 'viking' is heavily disputed, but my favorite explanation is that it derived from the Old Norse word "wyk" meaning a river or creek. So "wyking" was a river going person. Or it could refer to a camp or dwelling place, which would most likely still have been close to a river. I guess we'll never know for sure, or fully understand how it was used by the people at the time, but it's fun to speculate!
These days the Norwegian word “vik” means a bay.
Vik-ing. Person from Viken.
It's amazing to me that just because modern depictions of Vikings do not use horned helmets they then think that anything else goes. For example, I could only get through an episode and a half of the show.
What makes vikings interesting is the historical record. The christianised Anglo-Saxons chronicled the arrival of the pagan norsemen.
The christianised Brittonic 'natives' left much less about the earlier waves of pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes (from Denmark), who if the Sutton Hoo longship is anything to go by, arrived in a very similar fashion.
I know from the place names around where I live in North Lincolnshire that vikings were settlers. 'Settler' and 'invader' really depend on pov, if you think about it.
Vik in Norwegian means ‘bay’ so the Vikings were ‘those from the bay’. It would account for the sea-faring description you give but your terminology is suspect here.
Good video, otherwise.
nice one!! thanks for the clarification, I would’ve never known that!
If you read Snorres sagas, Sigurd Joralsfare he was maybe the last viking king. He was on a crusade to Jerusalem and he was attacked of the West Coast of spain. And in the sagas it say that they was attack bye viking.
Viking in that context was meant to indicate local corsairs as far as I understand.
Why is none of this on the history hit app? Its ln the YT channel but not the dedicated app.
I think it's great that they had a professional historian like Roderick Dale on hand to clear that up, but the people that believe that Vikings took mushrooms in order to fight better, really need to get out a bit more.
Proud to be a Dane with dna from france to norway.❤
Good bacon aswell 😊
My mum's family was from Hederslev. My dad's family, in part, came from France. We now live at the bottom of the world.
Is it possible that C.Columbus heard of the new land to the far West from Vikings that traded and told stories of the New Land? It's highly likely this could have been so!
I found some things fairly interesting although nothing was really new. In some aspect this was kind of lacking. Still enjoyed the video and overall great work.
I didn't know about the Althing though, that was a cool fact.
You could have elaborated upon the etymology of the word Slavic which means "word" and its correlation with the later word 'slave'.
There is little evidence that mushrooms were used in Scandinavia and among vikings at the time. But there is no evidence that it was used to invoke aggression or before combat. It is more likely that alcohol and henbane was used instead of Amanita Muscaria, or even more likely just mentaltransmutation i.e. mental state changes through e.g. meditation. But substances aren't out of the question. It is very hard to find substantial evidence, if any.
Vikingr means 'to raid', 'to adventure' or rather stems from 'vik' *cove, inlet or bay and 'ingr' meaning *belonging to.
Thus a 'vikingr' is someone who comes from the cove or the bay. A vikingr can refer to someone who belongs or travels the fjords.
Evidence for sunstones has also been found. Various calcites were used and have been found some with shipwrecks, physics supports the sunstone navigation theory.
BTW magnetic compasses were already invented in China around 220 BC. In the Han and Tang dynasty. It was used for navigation before the 9th-10th century AD and for maritime navigation is 1111-1117.
Female warriors and shield maidens existed for sure but was fairly rare.
interesting
Is anyone gonna pick up on the pronounciation of 'jarl'?
I've heard some define Viking as a verb, meaning "to raid".
They actually did wear horned-helmets during their berserker initiation rituals. The head shaman would wear the helmet while performing a warrior dance ritual as he acted out the part of Odin, known as “the horned god”
The Medieval Latin words for “Slav” and “slave” are not etymologically related. Further on, the Medieval Latin word for “slave”, and with it, its root as well, predate the first sightings and contact of mainland European civilization with the Slavs. Evolution of the name of Slavs "Sloveni/ Slaveni" comes from PIE *klew (to hear) evolving into proto-Slavic *slovo/ *slava (word/ fame), finally evolving into Sloveni/ Slaveni (those glorious/ those who understand eachother). Meanwhile, the English word for "slave" comes from the Latin word "clavis/ clavus" (a key/ nail), which bore the Latin word "inclavare" (to lock in), ultimately giving rise to the word "sclavus" (slave - "a locked one"), which probably entered the English language, along with a major portion of Romance words, with the Norman invasion. Further on, the cognate with Sloveni/Slaveni, is the word Sclavinii/ Slabini, a Latin denotes for Slavic ethnic group. From a purely historical perspective, Greece and Gaul were Rome’s main reservoir of slaves for centuries, while the Irish were the main reservoir of slaves for their Normano-English oppressors for more than half a millennium, and before them, to Norsemen as well. Dublin was the biggest slave market in Western Europe. Its main sources of supply were the Irish hinterland, Wales and Scotland, while in the Far and the Middle East, the Turkmen tribes would supply the largest portion of Eurasia with innumerable slaves for nearly a millennium. Aside from that, just during the earliest stage of the Slavic invasion of Roman territory south of the Danube (6th century), a quarter of a million Roman citizens were enslaved by the Sclavenes (early South Slavs) in just modern-day Bulgaria, the number of their slaves kept growing as more and more provinces and their capitals fell to the aforementioned Slavs. Granted the Slavs didn't enslave their enemies permanently, but they've enslaved them nonetheless, and in record numbers that are substantially greater than the number of Slavs who were enslaved by non-Slavs during the entirety of the Middle Ages, and it renders the aforementioned non-Slavs as being more fitting to have their ethnonyms made “synonymous” with slavery
I don’t know if this is true or not, but a member of the Seneca/Iroquois National that there are about 200 words that are essentially the same in his language and old Norse. Someone in comparative languages would be the best to verify it or not. If the Iroquois Nation absorbed Norse colonists or not.
@21:22 NOT "...down the river Seine" Should be UP the river Seine
Very detailed coverage, combining multiple elements of wider stand-alone documentaries. However, to suggest that the Anglo-Saxon chronicles 'could have been used as propaganda' is perhaps a little off course. Given that 90+% of the potential target audience were illiterate, it's hard to see how this would have worked. As for the remaining land-owning literati, they hardly needed influencing in the first place.
5:10 the caption says "negativity", should be "activity".
Many captions you see these days are automatically generated by voice recognition software
Good pickup Einar - you're right. We had a few editor and producer reviews and didn't hear this pronunciation.
@@Nicksonian Yes, unfortunately. There are so many mistakes as a result, sometimes directly misleading.
If William of Normandy is another story, can we have that one please?
czcams.com/video/5HpZ05Ss-rg/video.html :-)
A Viking was a pretty mean dude, really.
I agree with the expert re magic mushrooms and vikings.
If they had taken them and were having a good trip they wouldn’t want to fight and even on a bad trip the visuals wouldn’t help to fight others as trails of swords etc (see Led Zeppelin’s the song remains the same) and flashing colours and shapes aren’t going to make them better fighters.
A nice fanciful idea but not really of any use.
I want a wool cap with horns,now..
Sweet beanie ❤
Problems-Norway wasn’t Christianized until King Olaf around 999CE. Leif Erickson voyaged to Newfoundland in ~870. Why would the expert expect a church to be built? Edit-apologies as I totally flubbed the date of the voyage as I was double checking dates.
Leif Erikson is estimated to have travelled to Newfoundland in 1000. He was a character in the sagas and may not have existed at all.
@@HistoryHit sorry but it seems like there is possibly Christian bias at play. He was born ~970. Iceland didn’t fall to Christianity until 1000. He would have left at that time & there is no reason to believe that everyone just immediately gave up their religious heritage.
There is also the work of Adam of Bremen that is only a max of 76 yrs from the excursion.
Give me contemporary evidence for Jesus existing.
The best Norse military, history and religion content I can recommend are Schwerpunkt's videos series
YOU DO NOT HAVE THE VOICE
We need more Cat Jarman. A full-length, 50 to 90 minute documentary featuring Cat as the presenter. That’s what the people demand! Don’t worry, just trust me, I already polled everyone. They’ll agree in the comments 🙄😬
Or a 4-part series of 50+ minute episodes would also be acceptable 😉
Google 'Great Heathen Army documentary' and your demands will be answered.
@@HistoryHit … a _second_ Cat Jarman Viking doc lolol Thank you for replying! That is a PHENOMENAL documentary!
Wait… so I’m subscribed and paying for the History Hit app, but this isn’t even on the app?? So, _what_ exactly am I paying for if I can play all the videos from the app, and videos from HH that aren’t even on the app, and I can get them to play on a playlist on CZcams but can’t in the app? Kinda seems like a ripoff.
We have some CZcams only films... these are a very small % of the films we produce and will be added to the app soon. The app has a much bigger collection of documentaries and ad-free podcasts.
The Viking Age may have endrd in 1066 but the vikings did't all go away.
Western paerts of Scotland, the slands and the Isle of Man were ruled by Noresemen intil the early 13th century. (Ain fluence that may have led the the consolidation of the Kingdom of Scotland.)
Shetland and the Orkneys didn't come under Scottish rule again until the last part of the 15th century.)
Then there's Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, (possibly Cork) and Limerick.
And language (basic every day words, pronouns, and grammar), place names and family names in England too.
But there were time constraints.
I think it's not wrong to say that while all vikings were norse not all norse were vikings. Being viking was pretty much job that some norse did between other things like farming and fishing.
You missed to mention that Dublin was established by Norseman.
CAN I BY CHANCE BE ABLE TO BUY A KNIT HAT WITH HORNS ON THE SIDE THO? LIKE IS THAT SOME MERCH OR SOMETHING CAUSE IT WAS KICK ASS
You know its of quality when they show a Vendel era helmet in the first 2 minutes claiming it as Viking.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarm_helmet
vinland id thought to mean "grassy field" qnd and have no connection to wine.
You never mentioned the slave market in Dublin which was one of the biggest if not the biggest in Europe at the time. You also never mentioned that the English women in the Danelaw quiet liked the Danes and Norsemen because they bathed more often than the local men :D
according to their Public Relations Firm the Vikings had invented Universal Healthcare and Education. the Vikings had invented a Public Library System and the 1st Oceanographic Research Center. they tried to make sure all the slaves they had taken were treated ok if possible. like most aggressors they only undertook their actions in order to help those they attacked. it is surprising that given their ability at attack Europe and other places at will for centuries Scandinavia became a backwater and missed out on the Age of Discovery. also the Europeans never attacked the Viking homelands until 1940 when the Germans crushed them.
1. They went to norway because they could smell the bacon already in germany.
2. They go south every now and then, because when they passed a signpost in germany on their way to get to said bacon, Thor saw a signpost with a picture of beaches and ladies in bikinis on it. So that's what we call vacation.
Hey Jarl, are you jelling?
1) Columbus did not ever find North America.
2) Women raided, were leaders, and held property.
As for the Norse being the first Europeans to cross the Atlantic: Farley Mowat, in his book _The Farfarers_ , advances a strong hypothesis that they were preceded by people from the northern islands of Britain, who were already settled on Iceland when the Norse arrived. They may also have made it to Greenland and North America as well.
How can a hypothesis be "strong"? If there's enough evidence supporting it, then it's a theory. A theory can be strong.
A hypothesis is simply an idea or proposition that can be tested and falsified.
He also claims that these people were Albans, who were the original inhabitants of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa, until the Indo-Europeans invaded.
He claims this simply based on the fact that the phonetic "alb" exists in more than 300 place names.
All of his claims are silly, fantastical and without any proper evidence. Instead they have overwhelming evidence against them.
The Vikings were in North America for just a short time, and we have archeological evidence from them.
If these people had settled before the Vikings, and made their home there for any significant amount of time, then where are the archeological finds?
There's absolutely no archeological evidence that these people ever existed anywhere.
His book is fiction. A great story. Nothing more.
@@PohjanKarhu you sound upset 😂
I thought they were called Normans, not Vikings. As far as I know joining a hunting party they organised was called ‘going (to) viking’ so that’s why they call them Vikings. But it’s not the people themselves that are Vikings, it’s just that a part of the Norman population would ‘go viking’
Correct me if I’m wrong
Wow! I thought the horned helmet was a Hollywood invention, never realised it went back to Wagner.
just wondering do we get any reparation for being enslaved by the Vikings . asking for a friend?
Were the Finnish people ever considered to be Vikings? Did they ever invade England?
i wish i could go a'viking
Nothing really started with the vikings. Scandinavians have criss crossed Europe and the east since the brons age
Did the Vikings make it to America before Columbus???
Yes. Archaeological evidence for this.
Norse seafarers led by Leif Erikson established a temporary settlement in Newfoundland almost 500 years before Columbus' first voyage.
Firstly - as a CANADIAN - we don’t like being referred to as AMERICAN - anymore than the Irish/Scottish/Welsh like being called English, and vice versa! We like our American neighbours and get along well for the most part, but there is a massive difference between our culture, language, heritage, customs, and history!
Secondly - Greenland is part of the NORTH AMERICAN content! Why make a distinction between Greenland as a country and not Canada?!?! NO other country in the world is constantly referred to as another country - except Canada - probably due to the fact that we are known for our politeness…until…we are called Americans! I’m certain Americans wouldn’t like to be confused and labeled Canadian!
Thirdly, as a NEWFOUNDLANDER, I want to make mention of the wonderful BEOTHUK peoples. Sadly, they are no longer with us, but we have many archaeological sites they left behind. We have MANY different Indigenous peoples in Canada that stretch to all 3 coastlines. There are more than one from Newfoundland and Labrador. However, it was the BEOTHUK, who Erik the Red encountered while in Vinland - current day area where L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS is located. L’Anse Aux Meadows is a FRENCH name with the speaking peoples in this community being descendants of the FRENCH who populated the area, during France’s colonization, before Britain successfully took over and dominated the area. Today, Newfoundland is dominated by an Irish accent, but there are other populations represented on the island.
Cheers🇨🇦😊🇨🇦
Settle down. Canada is the largest constituent part of the continent of North America, you know what he meant. Also, aside from many Canadians being bilingual, the difference in language isn't "massive," it's almost negligible
As much as I hate to admit it, this is a prime exemplar of our national insecurity and compensatory defensiveness.
@@cleverusername9369 Tell the Francophones there isn’t a difference - or those in New Brunswick! My family would certainly disagree with you! I had family in New Brunswick, who couldn’t talk to those who weren’t bilingual…brothers even…because of their French grandparents!
Personally, I like this channel, as well as, Dan (He is half Canadian and proudly so)…just as I like our southern neighbours. I have family spread throughout the UK, EUROPE, and the US. But, there is one thing that really upsets CANUKS…and that is being called American and assuming we are exactly the same! You don’t have to take my word for it - ask other Canadians. Even my family, who live outside Canada, quickly inform others of their Canadian heritage and citizenship.
Cheers!🇨🇦
Take a breath, Shelley. The world doesn't care about "CANUKS" (sic), and at least one other Canadian is just embarrassed right now.
@@andrewforbes1433 YOU are a CANUK? Perhaps, you should do some research, before attacking someone online and hiding behind a screen!
The Vikings followed the Papers, Irish fathers, to the new world by several centuries.
The word viking from older Scandinavian languages and in todays language group, "-ing" means person of. So Vik-ing. Person of Vik. Now before i get "oh it just means inlet" it also means fold or bend. i.e the fold of Skagerrak, or as it was known, Viken (The Bend/Fold) and it is found as a norwegian state as of today. The vikings came from the south of Norway, western coast of nodern day sweden, and denmark. Various runestones point to this. One such found in stockholm states the people of Viken come over the lands. Their wors for that however was Uíkingr, or the Vikings come over the land. In family trees you will see people who come from Viken. And the vikings didnt create the Rus. The Rus of Roslagan did. They landed and settled on what is now SPB. And thats where we get Russia from.
Viking comes from Norwegian " Vik" that means bay, vestern Norway has many bays and Viking is a reference to pepole from this earia.
Ok, History. Hi from a Dane, with roth's from that time..
Basically a pirate
Too many ads
Learn the difference between norway and denmark
Vikings were the ones who went on raids...
yes.
rhodri mawr enters the chat
A Viking man can impress women by demonstrating how he takes his longship up a canal to deliver seeds which can be planted in fertile places.
😅 plow my field.
They were actually quite impressed with the way that we bathed weekly and combed our hair.
@@John.Flower.Productionsdidnt you keep your tweezers and ear scoops in a little pouch at the waist? Hot stuff!
Don't say, that the eastern vikings were so less violent raiders and so much more traders. What was their main export? Slaves. And where did they get those? By raiding villages in eastern europe. The difference to western europe is that nobody in those eastern villages could write accounts about that raids. But raids they were, and violent ones too.
"Vikings were more or less peaceful traders" ist nothing more than (swedish) propaganda. They were slave-raiders and slave traders, with a little bit of amber and walrus-ivory sprinkled on top.
Good point that not all historians agree on.
Reminds me of Sandi Toksvig on QI claiming that the Vikings were peaceful and would wear perfume in their hair and all the women on the British isles fancied them, and the british men in charge were jealous and that's why they wrote all the accounts of them being violent raiders..........
It's not propaganda.
Yours is propaganda.
As a Swede I've never heard anyone claim that the Vikings were ONLY traders.
The fact is, they were raiders etc, but they were traders too.
And you claiming that they ONLY were raiders and slave traders is peak propaganda.
The Vikings weren't one unified peoples. Anyone sailing out for whatever reason is what we consider viking.
That means, vikings were also peaceful traders and even settlers.
Unless you're a racist who thinks that no Swede ever could be peaceful, and are only violent barbarians 😂
@@user-zp4ge3yp2o
Fact is, women of the British Isles did fancy Norsemen, who did take care of their hair a lot. That's documented fact that even people at the time wrote about.
And why bring up slaves and slavery?
What was the main export for literally EVERYONE and EVERY culture at the time? Slaves. It wasn't exclusive to vikings. Slaves was what everyone traded in.
You forget that the Vikings sold these slaves in eastern Europe. And they bought slaves in Eastern Europe. Byzantine Empire had the largest slave markets in Europe.
The Vikings did not enslave more people than any other peoples or tribe did at the time.
You really think eastern European peoples weren't violent raiders and slave traders too? Lol 😂
Eastern Europeans raided tons, even in Scandinavia. And violent were they too.
The “Vikings” never existed like that. This means much more (north) Germanic tribes of the early Middle Ages.
Enough with the horned helmet debunking. We know!
"There was no single viking ethnic group", but they were ethnically Norse 😅
Norse was a language. Viking is a label. Neither is an ethnic group.
HOW ACCURATE CAN THIS GUY BE IF HE RELIES OF "WIKIPEDIA"...?
Viking means peoples of the Bay they haven’t done their research!!!
if it wasn’t for this comment I would’ve never known that! thanks!
Learnt this whilst living in Orkney from a Norse expert and she herself was Norwegian. To go Vikinjr means to explore from memory…
It is not a correct word, "Vikenger" ....it is "Víkingur"
The person who wrote this script does not understand old Norse. We in Iceland still speak old Norse. The word "vík" means "Cove" in English. So it mean persons who come from a cove ... Víkingur... very difficult to explain, but if you speak old norse, you understand the meaning.
And it was Iceland, who wrote most of Viking saga.
Greetings from Iceland
No, it's Vikingr.
And no, you don't still speak old Norse. Ffs 😂🤦
You speak MODERN ICELANDIC.
The fact that it's a very conservative language doesn't mean you speak old Norse.
God, that's hilarious 🤣
Are you just gonna completely ignore the entire linguistic development from old Norse, to old Icelandic, to modern Icelandic?
Modern Icelandic is grammatically conservative, but is very different pronounciation and spelling wise. There are still tons of differences.
The old Norse word is "víkingr" and "víkingar".
"víkingur" is peak modern Icelandic.
Again, your language being conservative doesn't mean you can claim to speak old Norse.
Don't be so arrogant in your Icelandic viking larping that you forget your brain in the process.
Compare reconstructive Old Norse, and modern Icelandic, and you will see that there are tons of differences.
You do not speak old Norse. You speak modern Icelandic.
All Scandinavian languages have some aspects where they are even more conservative than Icelandic. Many dialects are very conservative. Does that mean that I speak old Norse as a northern swede? Absolutely not.
Likewise, you do not speak old Norse just because you speak a conservative language.
Old Norse refers to the language spoken in the olden times. You speak a modern language. Therefore, you do not speak old Norse.
And yes, Icelanders wrote most of the sagas. Because y'all were Christ lovers and converted so fucking fast.
And all the Irish slaves and monks that were brought there.
Iceland had more of the Christian monk culture that revolves around writing stuff down and documenting it and preserving it.
Scandinavians were more culturally pagan for far longer, and had a predominantly oral culture for far longer.
Whatever was written down wasn't taken care of as much. Stories were written down more as just a way to help people memorize it, because the culture was still oral based. It wasn't to document and preserve it.
But there's also a huge part of survival bias. Tons of stuff were written down in Scandinavia, but were lost in fires throughout history.
Icelander converted not so early, it was exactly on the year 1000 @@PohjanKarhu
how you know??? Do you speak Icelandic?
All Icelandic children read old Icelandic saga and I understand it good, of course my forfathers spoke strange, but I understand easlily. Very strange people coming and telling something they know little of... YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT@@PohjanKarhu