1000 AD: A Tour of the Viking World // Vikings Documentary

this video is sponsored by audible biking's fans sign up for your free book using the link below but more on that at the end of the video in the summer of 1986 a solitary trading vessel plied out into the deep waters of the North Atlantic dwarfed by immense columns of ice looming over the frosted sea ways bombarded by waves as tall as the sky disheveled frozen to their very bones and constantly wet from the salt and foam permeating the air söderling even the hardy waterproof animal pelts worn by the crew the captain of the ship had promised a mighty reward once his man pulled into port though that goal seemed ever remote to those unfortunate sailors for the most part they were Norwegians hailing directly from the fjords and valleys their ancestors had inhabited for time immemorial though some likely hailed from the colonies in Scotland and Ireland a few even Iceland that vast open land of fiery mountains and frozen plains these man were used to enduring the elements they'd been journeying on the high seas since their early teens this voyage however had pushed them to the very limits of human endurance little did they know it at the time but they may well have travelled farther than any other Europeans before them [Music] the name of their leader was biani Hurley Olson and several weeks before he had promised his man a relatively easy journey to the new colony of Greenland [Music] in truth that newest addition to the Norse world was a frosted wasteland named as such by its Discoverer the exiled Icelander Erik the Red in order to attract the much-needed lifeblood of settlers from the other Norse lands now long after they were supposed to have come into port grumbles amongst some of the man had become standard murmurings on their lips there was nothing green about this place only a frozen grave perhaps the whisperings amongst some of the more devout crew members called for a sacrifice maybe they even thought of using the captain to appease the gods and save their own lives no place in Valhalla awaited those who drowned on the high seas finally after weeks of isolation with food and fresh water supplies running agonizingly local one of the man spotted something on the horizon a sight they had long hoped and prayed for drifting high up in the air above the horizon riding the thermal waves of the Atlantic wind a seagull the tell-tale sign of land nearby salvation utilizing their expert navigation techniques honed through a lifetime at sea and passed down from generation to generation since the beginning of time the crew acted quickly using the last ounces of their strength to follow the signs and row to land within a matter of hours mountains were seen emerging from the mists of the horizon half delirious from hunger and cold some of the man might have suggested that they looked like they were home others thought them back at Iceland yet beyond II knew better he hoped that this was the land his father had moved to the green lands just beyond Iceland though he couldn't be sure as they came closer to this mystery continent the mountains rose up higher and higher stretching upwards impossibly as far as the eye could see and below them the men gasped at the potential of the place timber so much of it enough to build 10,000 ships they weren't in Greenland at all they'd bypassed it altogether taken South and West woods on a strong wind they'd fallen off the map of the known world [Music] though they scarcely realized it at the time as far as the medieval saga traditions are concerned biani and his men were the very first two Europeans to arrive in North America in time the place would come to be called Vinland like Greenland before it named in an auspicious attempt to attract settlers although the evidence suggests it really was a more hospitable place than Greenland at least it seemed that way until they met the natives [Music] scray lakes the saga writers call them Native Americans their technology wasn't as advanced as the Europeans but what they lacked in metal they certainly made up for in courage and sheer numbers eventually after a couple of aborted attempts at settlement the existence of the Skrillex would in part seal the end for the Vinland colony [Music] biani and his man soon successfully arrived in Greenland using the North American coastline to guide them there again what they found wasn't particularly promising although it did turn out that Greenland was a land almost entirely devoid of trees Greenland us would be back in North America and soon most famously in the year 1000 under the famous explorer Leif Erikson son of Eric the Red the first to establish a working colony in the place as we shall see this remarkable people from the far northern reaches of Europe launched similar missions all over the world during this time ultimately transforming what they found and creating a truly interconnected northern European system for the first time for many historians at least in part the basis for the modern world the colony which be Arnie's father had emigrated to was small but it was Hardy its inhabitants the hardiest of the hardy outcasts or ambitious people whom Iceland either hadn't been enough for or they had been exiled from for crime there weren't as many people as there were in Iceland yet but there was land aplenty [Music] most of those in Greenland had themselves originated in Iceland if the sagas are to be believed Leif's father eric had emigrated to iceland from norway after he was exiled for murder before getting into a dispute and being exiled again mountains of fire and ice held sway there the brutal and unforgiving land though one that would soon breed the hardy people two out of the thralls taken from Ireland and the Scottish Isles in time it would be the last bastion of Norse culture thriving well into the late medieval period and writing down the stories we know today further west still between Iceland and Britain lay the Faro Isles a land of sealers and whalers when the Norseman first arrived here they found world ender Christian priests huddling for warmth under rocks for almost no vegetation grows on these isolated promontories those Christian priests had traveled there to escape the world bringing their magic spells and crow's ears with them to emulate Christ by going to the nearest things to a desert that they could find unfortunately for them the world came looking on dragon headed long boats the Pharaohs were just a few hundred miles off Norway they were likely the first of the many Island colonies to be taken by the north men possibly inhabited as early as the seventh century yet it was only a matter of time before these early Vikings and settlers moved on in search of richer pastures it wasn't Iceland that they went to not yet anyway the first place they went was a small archipelago of islands off the north coast of Britain we know them as the Shetlands here some Norseman may have mixed with the natives others were placed them before pushing on further south over the generations to come the next stepping stone in the gradually expanding norwegian sea world with the Orkneys dwelling place of the elusive pics painted men the Romans called them descendants of the mysterious Brock dwellers Orkney was a land of ancient edifices burial mounds stone circles and ancient gods though it offered a similar landscape and lifestyle to that which the newcomers had originated from opinions remain divided as to the ultimate fate of the Acadians whether they've been enslaved massacred were integrated into a new society is anyone's guess though by beyond eased a the region was almost entirely scandinavian and culture so much so that few even comprehended that these lands had once been entirely independent and a realm of their own by the turn of the millennium Orkney had been home to a semi-independent Viking state for well over a hundred years the finances of its Earl's the latest being Sigurd the stout heavily supplemented by near yearly raids of the Scottish mainland and the shores of the Irish Sea according to the Orkney Inga saga written by an anonymous Icelander in around 1200 though nominally a Christian now as was the new trend sweeping through the Northlands Siegert still terrified his enemies by fighting under a raven banner a throwback to the pagan days of his ancestors times were changing however Sigurd son Thor Finn the mighty born to a Scottish mother though still rolling from a Viking island fortress had almost as much in common with the Scots as he did with Norway only begrudging Lee acknowledging Norwegian suzerainty when pushed into it and heavily involving himself in mainland Scottish affairs in the early 11th century further south lay the Hebrides the Western Isles of Scotland another bastion of Norse culture though one with more of a tinge of those that had come before the Isles had once been a thriving center of Gaelic culture one of the most important in Northern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire [Music] the kingdom at the heart of it all was once known as dal Riata countless fierce and bloody struggles had been fought there in the windswept valleys and archipelagos of the sea kingdom for supremacy over the far north of Britain though by the 9th century the latest newcomers to the region soon came out on top but beyond each day the uniquely nor scale culture have began to form on the islands one that would thrive well into the late medieval period and to a certain extent still exists today originally the northern mainland had been dominated by Hardy ancient people their might forged back during the days when the tendrils of Rome stretched all the way to their borders later still when Rome fell Irishmen made the short voyage across the sea and began to infringe on Pictish lands between the time the ships of the Norseman finally arrived in the late 8th century those Irishmen known as Scots merged with the mainland picks until eventually they became one people but beyond his time but the turn of the millennium the Scottish Kingdom named Alba had been in existence for more than a century and he just a few years under its king malcolm ii sought to expand its power at the expense of its anglo-saxon neighbor for this was the time of the first wars between the English and the Scots further south they a haven for Corsairs and traders the irish sea homeland of vikings for hundreds of years in beyond each time fleets of these fierce pirates many of them norse in culture though for the most part born and bred on this side of europe ravaged all sides of the sea that will since the collapse of English sea power in the early reign of King Ethelred the unready the capital of this C lay in the very center like the Western Isles a unique culture that once thrived here though now it was a bastion for Norseman and later capital of the kingdom of the Isles like Iceland some of the earliest parliaments in the world things were held here yet the native culture survived tear to in time creating a unique hybrid of Norse Gale and Britain and a unique language known as monks [Music] on the west side of the sea sitting on the River Liffey sat one of the most important Scandinavian seaports in the world their vessels from as far away as Spain Sweden and the Baltic came into port to sell their wares all manner of items came in from Central Asia northern Africa and the Middle East as well as human cargo for Dublin named for the Blackpool that was founded on was one of the primary slave markets in Europe the rulers of Dublin had once been some of the most foremost in the British Isles holding hegemony over the other Viking towns of Ireland and several native Irish kingdoms too until finally in 980 their long reigning king veteran of brunnen / Olaf Citrix urn finally lost a significant battle at the Hill of Tara the ceremonial ancient capital of the Irish kings which significantly reduced his power and the power of all Scandinavians in Ireland there were other ports to Cork Limerick Waterford and Wexford being the most important though Dublin always came out on top the Irish king who would be to know that on that day was male shook nail high king of the OE Neil the traditional holders of that title for five centuries stretching back into the now mythic time of the 5th and 6th centuries though it wouldn't be him that would unite island into a political hole like it happened in England and Scotland albeit briefly for a new power was arising from the South in the Kingdom of Munster and his name was Bryan Burrough the Age of Norse supremacy in Ireland was over though fleets still crossed the sea to raid Wales Northumbria and Wessex in the wake of the decentralization of English power there was no getting rid of them and the descendants of Scandinavians there would remain a force to be reckoned with though for the most part they now gradually integrated into Irish society acting as soldiers merchants and mercenaries and above all else the builders of Ireland's very first stones one of the trade routes played by those Irish Vikings had long been down the Atlantic seaboard type area where there could always be found eager buyers for slaves for a time close to two centuries before beyond eased a Raiders had come down to island loose to forcibly take what they wanted and furthermore on at least one occasion to raid deep into the Mediterranean enslaving and plundering wherever they went though now for the most part Scandinavians only cannabis traders the defense fleet of Al Andalus being too much of a force to be reckoned with the river systems of Frankia had been an easier option plied into by thousands of Vikings though these were mostly Danes dens of them existed in Frankia for more than a hundred years though eventually the Northlands formerly known as new stria had been formally ceded by the French to one of the most powerful amongst them a giant of a man known as Rollo the Walker within a couple of generations despite repeated attempts to dislodge them these Vikings settled down to integrate into society we know what follows as Normandy brew art a haven for Viking merchants and warlords well into the 11th century alongside Dublin and your vaq and despite its Christianity was one of the most significant of all Viking ports in 1991 the Pope attempted to mediate an alliance or at least Understanding between the English King Ethelred the unready and the Normans under their Duke Richard the fearless yet despite this Richard apparently still preferred his Scandinavian cousins allowing Viking ships to not only come into harbour truant but to openly trade their worse though Christian now the Lords of Normandy were well aware of their heritage some notably on the rugged Cotentin Peninsula home to Norse warlords originating in Ireland and Brittany still spoke the language of their forefathers for the most part though Normans were forward-thinking and in order to survive began to adopt Frankish customs and marry Frankish princesses some however married Danish princesses and even called on Danish military support on occasion such as when count Richard the first stood on the verge of being wiped out and relied on the support of the Danish King Harald Bluetooth [Music] by the turn of the millennium the Norman Lords had begun to record their own histories cementing their newfound Franco Scandinavian culture along with vicious suppression of any and all rebellions against their rule one such rebellion raised just after the death of the Duke in 996 during the transitional period to the rule of his young son Richard the good seems to have been fought with the aims of mitigating some of the harshest feudal laws put in place by the Norman rulers of the region yet it wasn't to be after a vicious bloodbath fought all over the county once finally rounded up the leaders of the rebellion suffered a variety of grim fates Richard Stuart rode off of ev'ry indiscriminately having hands and feet cut off whilst others were blinded impaled and burned alive eventually this unique fusion of Scandinavian and Frankish customs would coalesce to create one of the most effective fighting forces in the world [Music] the unique enclave of adventurous and warriors who were transform lands from Italy to Greece to Palestine and two generations after be our nice day would conquer England but that was in the future in the late 10th century England was beset by a more ancient foe the Irish Sea Raiders weren't the only ones to capitalize on the newfound English weakness ethelred's reign had seen a resurgence of Viking attacks this time led by Kings illustrious figures such as Spain Forkbeard and Oh laughter grasan yet despite its divisions England was still powerful and rich just after the Millennium launching an ultimately unsuccessful raid on Normandy in an attempt to bring the Duke Richard the second to heel for England though fragmenting into societal chaos on a good year had far more resources to call on the Normandy originally seven distinct kingdoms possessing a culture not too dissimilar to their Scandinavian cousins in the mid-90s Saxons saw their lands invaded on mass at first by small raiding parties not long after the Norse meant first arrived in Ireland and Scotland to the north but later by vast are modest led by rulers who called themselves kings of the sea those who invaded England from around 850 onwards at first taking the outlying Isles of Kent and Essex in the southeast were mostly Danes some of whom were also active in Frankia at the same time where they infested the river systems unlike in Frankia the danes had much more lasting success in england very nearly wiping the anglo-saxons out for good [Music] only a valiant last stand by the man of Wessex and Mercia stemmed the tide seeing just one kingdom in a rump state left behind by 878 and an island divided between Englishmen and Dane it was the ensuing struggle fought by one generation after another to reclaim the lands of the Danelaw that saw the birth of a single anglo-saxon kingdom reaching its heights in the nine 30s during the reign of the Great King Athelstan first to bear the title king of the English Norsemen and Dames marched in his ranks alongside men from murcia Wessex and Kent and though Northumbria relapsed in the nine 40s and nine 50s seized by the kings of Dublin as well as for a time by Eric Bloodaxe rogue Norwegian Prince steeped in the Viking ancestry of his forefathers by the 960s and nine 70s the land was consolidated reaching its apex under King Edgar the peacemaker his fleets manned by Anglo Danish sailors descendants of the great even army traversed the British Isles and the Irish Sea ending piracy there and Edgar even standing his church over the disputes of lesser Kings rather than infringe on their Danish culture English rule Lent the Anglo Scandinavian settlers of the Danelaw a newfound sense of stability and invulnerability to carry out their business without fear of attack which they did on a massive scale leading your Vic to become one of the foremost seaports in Europe archaeological excavations carried out here have uncovered not just coins and items from all over Eurasia but mints to make coins - a sign of the immense wealth and stability enjoyed here during the first half of the 10th century though ultimately it was precisely this success that was to be the downfall of the anglo-saxons with no more lands to conquer ambitious sons of Lords could only inherit part of their father's lands and no more factionalism just like in Frankia a blight on the European mainland too became rife and then right on cue the Dames returned this time led by a king [Music] in the year 1000 at the same time as Lafe Eriksson and his man clung on to their settlement half a world away on the far side of the Atlantic a brutal sea battle took place somewhere amidst the wild archipelagos of the Danish sea much had changed since the time of the great even Army 140 years before where once hundreds of petty chieftains calling themselves Kings had ruled over Spitz of land from Dublin to Sweden now in the Scandinavian mainland at least just a handful held that title with any real authenticity at the top of the pile sat just to man the first was perhaps the more impressive of the two [Music] standing atop his flagship the mighty long serpent for the saga writers of 13th century Iceland the greatest long ship ever built the decked with glittering golden armor and Scarlet cape stood Olaf trig fashion king of Norway a Christian now due to the power the new faith from the South held the potential to bestow yet a man who had been raiding on the high seas for decades ravaging lands from Russia to Ireland ever since he was forced into exile as a boy at this time tarik Ruslan was attempting to convert the other northerners to Christianity more often than not at the tip of a sort often hideously torturing people who defied him in adhering to their pagan traditions before trig Hassan's time Norway had still been divided into various petty kingdoms the most important of which situated around modern-day Trondheim in the west of the country held similar amounts of power to the Crown lands of the south were ruled over by descendants of Harald fairhair the first unifier of Norway and Trigg vasant's ancestor the easy Isles of late staunch pagans remained a perennial thorn in the side of Norwegian kings in the year 1000 trig vasan sailed north from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea perhaps after securing aid from the Slavic power brokers who ruled there waiting for him however along with an armada of over a hundred long ships was a man just as feared and respected throughout the Viking world and his main rival for power Spain Forkbeard King of Denmark by the Year 1000 Denmark the strongest and most populous of the scandinavian kingdoms was home to a number of small towns the most important of which had to be jewel in the crown of the Danish kings straddled the southeastern reaches of the Jutland Peninsula acting as an artery of trade from the Baltic through to the North Sea according to later chroniclers such as Adam of Bremen ships came into port here from all over Europe including Greece and Spain though unlike its brother ports at your Vic Rouen and Dublin head to Bea's days were numbered in a Viking world there is always the threat of oblivion if the wrong political moves are made in just a handful of decades Hedeby would be wiped off the map by the vengeful Norwegian King Harald Hardrada after the Danes opposed his invasion attempts never to be rebuilt though other power centres remained at sites on the more defensible islands such as Roskilde [Music] on paper Spain had a much better pedigree than the charismatic and ruthless Olaf being the grandson of Gorn the old first unifier of Denmark and son of Harald Bluetooth a man who having been taught the art of statecraft by Imperial Germany had claimed authority over much of Norway in the previous decades Bluetooth had built giant fortresses in Denmark to cement his authority as well as refortified the Great Dane Berk against the South though ultimately the Germans simply went round this in the early 10th century before being thrown out again only after Denmark converted to Christianity though he was likely a Christian himself Spain had masterly unified the resentments felt against Olaf throughout Scandinavia into a resurgent pagan alliance of sorts there in the frosted waters of the Baltic Spain's ally Erik Hawkinson the Yala flayed only second in power in Norway - Olaf and possessor of a similarly famous long ship the iron beard made a beeline for Olaf ship finally after slaughtering scores of men sent against him the outnumbered and exhausted Trigg vassan left from his vessel into the icy waters of the Baltic Sea never to be seen again the path was clear for Spain to unify the north the first ruler to truly hold sway over the entirety of Norway and Denmark [Music] the disparate realms of the Swedes were soon brought to heel - and Spain could finally dedicate his time to England finally conquering it in 1013 and forming a North Sea empire for the first time in history ultimately Spain would not live long enough to enjoy his newfound Empire dying after only a few weeks as king of England though his young son Knut would carry the torch inheriting his army unifying the north and ruling as a new Charlemagne it wasn't just Dame's Norwegians and Swedes who forts and Knut sarnies his mother may have been Slavic princess and when Knut conquered England in the early 11th century significant contingents of poles and whens likely fought in his armies to these mostly still pagan fighters had long proven stalwart allies against their common foes to the south in the form of the all-powerful and expansionist German Kingdom and eventually they stood side by side in the shield wall along with Saxon housecarls Danish Salus Swedish mercenaries and Norwegian Raiders but this alliance between poles and Norseman goes back much further it has long been known that early medieval Germany aided Denmark in its transformation to a modern unified Kingdom but what isn't generally known is the role that Scandinavians in turn had in state formation for their southern Slavic neighbors most notably the patchwork of tribes that around the turn of the millennium would become the kingdom of Poland in the latter half of the 10th century ruled over by Duke Mieszko a powerful military leader known by some as the king of the north mieszko constructed vast fortresses all over his realm and was said by one near contemporary writer to have a force of three thousand mounted warriors at his disposal all equipped with the most up-to-date military equipment of the age recent archeological finds in Poland have shed some light on the origins of some of these elite retainers of the Juke with at least some of the origins of these swords for hire residing in Scandinavia suggesting either Viking heritage or polish warriors with a career in Scandinavia under their belts eventually Poland and demisch gosun boleslav would join Sweden under Olaf Scott's Colonel Denmark under Swain Forkbeard and Norway under Olaf trick vasan in converting to Christianity at around the same time with coins minted during these kings reigns or looking remarkably similar suggesting a linked up cultural system despite what later chroniclers say to the contrary boleslav wasn't the only king to hold significant power in modern-day Poland on the shores of the Baltic Sea resided at least one stronghold of Vikings a mercenary band of warriors whose exploits later became the subject of their own saga for this was the home of the young Vikings [Music] but of course Scandinavia wasn't just a LAN defeatist for the most part Norse men were settlers explorers and traders first in the ninth century traders such as author of hello girl and made expeditions far to the north to the frozen white sea the edge of the Arctic Circle there he found a land of polar bears walruses and Inuit reindeer herders [Music] others travels to the far south along the Atlantic seaboard to the Iberian Peninsula and Africa beyond to trade their slaves for the rich wares of the Islamic world and yet more took the sea roads east to the far shores of the Baltic Sea [Music] there they found a land of lakes and forests a similar culture to the Norseman though a very different language more similar to the Magyars who once ravaged East Frankia and now settled down in the Pannonian Basin to become the Hungarians but not before launching their own Viking s grades far and wide throughout Europe Finland a near impenetrable place of frozen woodland like Lapland to the north a home to sorceress and wizards perhaps a reference to the differing religious customs of the people here this land known as the Finnmark remained largely depopulated during the Viking Age though when Vikings did travel here in the sagas such as the future Norwegian King Olaf haraldson allegedly did in his youth they suffered some of their worst defeats at the hands of Finnish archers it would be many centuries yet before towns and cities sprang up erred in the harsh conditions though Finn's would leave their homeland to take up lucrative service in the war bonds of Scandinavians if you can't beat them join them by far the most numerous nationality besides Norwegians and dames in Forkbeard and Knut armies were Swedes large numbers of them would also find later service in the armies of the norwegian king olaf haraldson hailed as a christian saint joining him as they marched to their deaths against Knut chanting pagan songs of old these men were descended from the Vandal culture very little is known about this elusive preliterate period though incredible amounts of archaeological evidence remains arguably more so than the Viking Age interestingly when these helmets were made they are very similar to those found at Sutton Hoo in England perhaps signifying a linked up cultural sphere in the 5th and 6th centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire yet Sweden was by no means a unified land the lake area of the swedish uplands were separated from the south of modern-day sweden by vast tracts of wild forest and wilderness for this was the land of the Geats legendary homelands to the Goths and home to the eponymous hero of the Beowulf legend of later anglo-saxon England by the turn of the millennium the gates and the Swedes had waged ceaseless yet mostly unrecorded wars against one another within the dark forests and groves for hundreds of years by the year 1000 ad ina ste of Swedish Kings are to a certain extent unified the country though their power was still limited by independent minded Nobles perhaps best exemplified by their complete inability to push Christianity upon the people unlike in Norway and Denmark despite many of the best warriors hailing from this kingdom the latest king of the Swedes Olaf Scott Cohen whose name may in fact translate as rent paying king owed his crown to his neighbouring monarchs legitimized simply by his affiliation with the other Scandinavian kings despite Olaf converting to Christianity just like the other kings of the North search was the decentralized nature and remoteness of his state that Sweden would remain largely pagan until the 12th century [Music] further to the east lay a harsh and unforgiving land of forests and groves they're a collection of fiercely pagan clans resided within the mysterious land Scandinavians had headed across the Baltic for centuries in search of slaves and plunder but found little in terms of riches nor any towns to speak of the ancestors of today's Latvians and Estonians were a hardy folk and forced tooth and nail against anyone who came their way one of the earliest accounts we have of the Baltic coasts is from a trader who frequented the court of King Alfred the Great Wolf stand of head to be and it seems likely the trade links and cultural exchange flourished for centuries in the year 1000 than the owl saga records a raid into the modern-day Baltic States by a certain Icelander named Gunnar Hammond arson just one of innumerable such literary accounts as far as the sagas are concerned at least the realm Gunnar and his man entered was populated by sea Rovers near indiscernible to those found in Scandinavia perhaps due to its proximity to Sweden the island of Sarah Mayer is thought to have been the wealthiest County of ancient Estonia and was the home of notorious Estonian pirates often called the eastern Vikings for hundreds of years to come more recently pre viking age burials known as the sound ships have been found in Estonia s-- sawed off Peninsula lending further support to the multitude of Baltic people's found in the sagas fighting in Viking war bands alongside Finn's sami Welshman Scots and Irish Minh to name a few though when Scandinavia proper converted to Christianity these links would fairly quickly be severed when the descendants of Vikings fought their Crusades in the centuries to come they were fought against these Baltic people's [Music] during the Viking Age the Swedes had much more luck to the south beginning in the 9th century just as Norse men arrived in Britain from the port at Astoria ladoga on the shores of Lake Ladoga their longships plied further south still into the wild river systems of Eastern Europe there they found marshlands forests and plains and people fiercely independent and split into a multitude of tribes and clans circle Eber the Arabs called them we know them as Slavs those opportunistic Swedes who plied the river systems were only the hardiest tattooed brutal warriors they subjugated and enslaved some of the locals and intermarried with others by beyond eased a a unique culture had long been forged and those distant ancestors for the most part had become slava sized for this was the kiev an ruse though their kinsmen from the north were always welcomed marriage alliances were frequent between ruse and scandinavian and countless princes and magnates from either area when exiled fled to kinsmen in the other only to return at a later date accompanied by significant forces of scandinavian swords for hire mostly sweets who as time went on would become known as Varangians or pledged givers though the ruse began worshipping Slavic gods such as Peru the deity of thunder for many these were simply the same gods with different names the roofs traded with the vulgar bogus distant kinsman to the Bulgarians who has now become Christian and mostly been subjugated by the Eastern Romans after a lengthy brutal conflict in part caused by the ruse leader status laughs [Music] now resembling a step calm more than a Viking warlord soon enough the ruse would convert to with their ruler Vladimir converting to Christianity in 986 like moths to a flame these ruse and Swedish Warriors had long been drawn to the richest and oldest state in Europe ancient Rome never fell in the East it merely relocated to Constantinople they knew it as McClurg art the great city a metropolis of hundreds of thousands during a time when most of Europe's cities numbered no more than 5,000 and in Scandinavia much less than that but between the ruse and the Romans lay a vast open sea and above that a wild step land populated by a people perhaps even more fierce than the ruse step riders for Christian writers the descendants of Gog and Magog the Horsemen of the Apocalypse the Pechenegs had once been subjects to a vast conglomeration of semi sedentary step tribes themselves descendants of a once mighty empire that had spanned the entire step from China to Europe the Khazar Coggins though now their power had been shattered largely through the actions of the roof's prince spatter Slav whose rampage across the north of the Black Sea saw their subject peoples the Pechenegs and the August Turks ancestors of the seljuqs escape from their suzerainty the destruction of the Khazar gave the roofs access to a new area one they had already played into previously but could now do so even more the caspian sea the land they knew a circle and for hundreds of years scandinavian adventurous had made the long journey down through the river systems of eastern europe to trade slaves and furs for the silver of the islamic world we know this from the staggeringly enormous amounts of Abbasid coins found in places such as Gotland and the swedish uplands but what happened when the Arabs didn't want to trade with the man who'd lugged their ships all the way down to their Shores by the turn of the millennium a silver supply of the once mighty Caliphate had largely dried up and with it but gone much of the trade but of course the Scandinavians at other ways of acquiring wealth at this time the southern and western shores of the Caspian Sea were controlled by breakaway Islamic dynasties most notably the soon-to-be all-powerful salmonids Empire and it was they who bore the brunt of Viking aggression once Abbasid silver rider in the 10th century and beyond that for the most hardy of travelers lay an even greater city than Constantinople perhaps numbering close to a million people in its prime arguably the mirror image of Mike Lagarde the beating heart of the once-mighty abbasid caliphate Baghdad [Music] from there the road went even further east into Central Asia and the trade cities of the Silk Road Samarkand Baqarah and Merv huge metropolis far larger than any in Europe coins from here show up as far away as Northumbria illustrating the trade links between these disparate lands and beyond that one could travel all the way to China rune stones in Sweden record journeys well into the 11th century some Hardy sweets such as in bar the far traveled became embroiled in wars on the eastern side of the Byzantine Empire in the nation of Georgia and beyond into the Middle East smaller unrecorded expeditions surely must have occurred too though just like the Bulgarians before them the ruse more and more came into the cultural sphere of the great city as the years went by increasingly seeking to gain access to its riches through diplomacy rather than war by the turn of the millennium in one of the most momentous events in history a force of 8,000 roofs entered the service of the Emperor basil ii their descendants would continue to serve byzantine emperors well into the late medieval period defending the great city that had once sought to conquer until its final defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453 before the Viking Age post-roman Europe was inward-looking after it lands from North America to China were linked up into a singular economic system the most wide-reaching since the fall of Rome the Viking Age continued near seamlessly into the Crusades and eventually the opening up of Europe into a truly global world system for the first time in history I'm often asked where I find the information that goes into my videos and there's a very simple answer books books and more books and for me there's nothing better than getting stuck into a great audio book I'll do this when I'm on the bus and I'm out walking when I'm cooking pretty much all of the time that previously would have been wasted I can now use to read I'm honored to announce that this video is sponsored by my favorite audiobook provider and probably my favorite app on my phone audible it is incredible since I first got audible a couple of years ago I've used it a ridiculous amount seventeen days of my life and I don't regret a second of it I listened to audio books before this but I can honestly say that audible is the best audiobook provider in the world it's so satisfying having everything in one place and for such a cheap price what you get is an absolute bargain one of my main issues with audiobooks used to be the narration with older versions being quite difficult to listen to but I can honestly say that practically all of the books on audible have absolutely stellar voice actors of course I mostly listen to history books with some standout titles being a brief history of the Vikings by Jonathan Clements Viking Britain by Thomas Williams the Norman Conquest by Mark Morris and the fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather but this is just scratching the surface there is so much more on there than just these you've got fantastic blockbuster adaptations of classics like Lord of the Rings June and the War of the Worlds popular science books memoirs and historical fiction such as those written by the mighty Bernhard Cornwall you get a new book every single month for a ridiculously cheap price you can listen on any device and seamlessly pick up right where you left off at any time even if you leave it for months and listen to ten other books in the meantime if you don't like a title you can even return it completely free of charge in exchange for another book and of course your credits build up and roll over to the next month if you don't use them even if you cancel you get to keep your books forever seriously if you've listened this far and you don't already have audible and go and sign up for your free trial now that's right you get one book absolutely free and if you don't like it you can cancel there and then at no cost whatsoever and you get to keep that book forever you also get two audible originals completely free of charge it's an absolute no-brainer go and sign up for audible now using the link below or by going to audible.com/veritasium me inaudible 'he's good books thanks so much for watching this video don't forget to Like and subscribe if you enjoyed it and let me know in the comments what you'd like to see covered in the future you've been watching history time I'll see you all on the next one [Music]

Channel: History Time

Views: 1,671,068

Rating: 4.8321052 out of 5

Keywords: iMovie, the viking world, vikings, viking, viking age, vikings documentary, documentary, vikingr, early middle ages, viking history, teaching vikings, gone viking, longships, longship, viking longship, Ragnar lothbrok, history documentary, early medieval, early medieval warfare

Id: G3_iLTpTYhY

Length: 57min 1sec (3421 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2019

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