History of the Viking Age (soft spoken ASMR)

hello everyone by the end of the 8th century as a medievorial rap was slowly emerging from the Dark Ages people coming from the north by sea began to launch unexpected raids against coastal towns and villages around the Baltic Sea and to North the sea in a few decades they went always further adventuring as far south as Spain North Africa and the Mediterranean and as far east as the Volga River in some regions they attacked and rooted only to disappear as fast as they had arrived in other regions they settled they also explored from the vast steps of what would become Russia to the cold Waters of the North Atlantic Ocean all the way to Iceland Greenland and America these people were Norse men Twee or so-called Vikings we will see where the term Viking comes from European Chronicles of the time depicted them with a mix of fear and condemnation because they were looters and merciless Warriors they were also pagans at a time when many of the regions they attacked were populated by Christians the fear of the nose men only receding the 11th century as they had settled and assimilated in regions out of their cradle in Scandinavia and progressively christianized the particular way other Europeans came into contact with the most men during the Middle Ages strongly influenced historiography for a long time even centuries after their Reds had indeed they were seen as mere barbarians until the beginning of a Revival in the 18th and 19th centuries the Revival that sparked interest in their culture and made a non-scandinavians realized that they also had had an original culture that had formed long before the Middle Ages this revival period also gave us new stereotypes or myths about the Vikings stereotypes that are still very much alive today I will tell you a little bit about that too that just to give you a doubt an example the way they are often pictured with helmets that have horns on them horned helmets is an invention of the 19th century there was no trace of such helmets in contemporary descriptions or in archaeological remains the way they are also often depicted as violent wires predominantly is also very narrow no Society can sustain itself only on welfare they were also Farmers fishermen Hunters Craftsmen they had a complex society and a majority of them stayed in Scandinavia in what is now Denmark Sweden and Norway so tonight we're going to take a look at the history the culture and the societies of the Norseman where they came from why they suddenly expanded out of Scandinavia how this changed the world and left the trace from Russia to Normandy and Great Britain this is going to be an overview of the Viking age so make yourself comfortable take a deep breath and relax we have a lot of things to explore I also made a story about Norse mythology if you are interested in their myths and Pantheon a story you can find on my channel I will put links in the description and also re-edited and narrated by Sarah my American Alter Ego on the new channel and podcast we recently launched lights out Library you will also find the links to it in the description and the first comment pinned under this video I also invite you to check my patreon page if you wish to support this channel between other things it helps keep the Channel free of outbreaks even before videos and if this is more convenient for you you can also listen to my stories on Spotify Apple music and other audio streaming platforms after a few months of delays due to technical problems releases of new stories are back on these platforms I just had one about the history of submarines released the history of the Silk Road we'll follow shortly so audio streaming will quickly catch up with what you can find on YouTube but for now all you have to do is let me tell you the story and it begins more than 1200 years ago when the sales of Viking ships began to multiply on the Baltic and the North Sea traditionally the beginning of the Viking age is dated to 793 A.D when an attack took place against the Abbey of Lindy's Farm in England at the time an important center of learning where possibly dozens of monks lived it was located off the coast of Northern Berlin in the north of England near the frontier with Scotland the monks were thrown into the sea all carried away as slaves the obey was rooted and the north man disappeared this date 793. was chosen because this attack was impressive but it was not necessarily the very first one the archeology reveals that there were already contacts earlier in the 8th century between Scandinavia and Great Britain the same with the Southern Shores of the Baltic Sea which were close to Scandinavia which is today Germany Poland and the Baltic states these rates only intensified in the following decades they reached new regions and along the 9th century a viking scale spread to many coastal regions of Europe and even inland because on their ships the Norse men also sailed on rivers and they could attack settlements dozens of miles away from the sea but who were these Warriors what did they look for and why had they began to explore out of Scandinavia the Norse men or those people had settled in Scandinavia centuries earlier in antiquity as a branch of Germanic peoples productively with the Celts the Greeks the italic peoples and many others they were part of Indo-European peoples that migrated in successive waves from the steps of Eurasia starting thousands of years ago I already told you about this ancient migration in various stories so I am not going to repeat everything that indo-europeans generally strongly influenced the regions where they arrived mixing with the locals we don't exactly know how peaceful this was but it happened and they brought with them cultural traits that became dominant in their new homelands their various languages their belief systems or their social organizations depending on the geography the climate the history or the local cultures they were influenced by these peoples formed different cultures along the second and first Millennia RBC their languages diverged from others in a process that was not straightforward they often migrated several times and in different directions sometimes encountering other peoples of Indo-European descent and mixing with them we don't always know the exact ancient history of these migrations and mutual influences but what is established is that around 2000 years ago Nordic peoples that occupied to Scandinavian peninsula had acquired enough cultural specificities to form a common area a cultural area why consider them as a single cultural entity because apart from similar social structures and customs they also spoke the same language protonals the ancestor of Old Norse the language that replaced it later around the 8th century at the time of the Viking age Old North became in turn the precursor to the different languages spoken today by the swedes the Danes or the Norwegians and for that reason these three languages share a lot of words and structures so the Norse men were at the same time an ethnic group descending from indo-europeans and to local prehistoric population of Scandinavia and they were also a linguistic group they spoke the same language it didn't mean they were United politically for example in the 9th century the loudest North State in existence was probably in Denmark but it barely covered half of modern Denmark it was centered on to jute land peninsula the part of Denmark that is connected to the continent at the same time in no way it is estimated that around 30 different small kingdoms existed probably a consequence of geography Norway has mountains and Fields that create as many natural boundaries in terms of Technology Scandinavia in the 8th and 9th century was on a similar level to Western and Northern Europe at the time we see it in the metal work the houses to build their craft but there is one field in which the nose had acquired a big advantage in a sailing technology and this is what made their seafaring and reds possible in the first place these developments include the use of larger sales and navigation techniques techniques like taking for example that is to say turning the bow of a ship toward and through the wind so that's the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other and this allows progress on a Sailing Boat toward a destination that is Into The Wind which otherwise would be impossible with the wind against the ship if we try to advance in a straight line so the nose were good sailors and they had a long tradition of building ships especially these long ships that are also sometimes called racquels the design of these long ships if you for a long time the oldest traces of them that archaeologists found were from the 4th Century BC more than a thousand years before the Viking age it is logical that the north were drawn to the Sea to travel trade or go to war in the fields of Norway or in the islands of Denmark the sea was offender fastest and the easiest route no Throne ships were made of wood obviously with a woven wool clothes for sales and an advantage of these ships is that they were at the same time relatively light and very stable they could work on seeds oceans and also on rivers this made them perfect for Reds they could Embark a few dozen men they could work whatever the weather except really big storms but because they had a loud sale and could also be propelled by rowers they were very adaptable these sheeps had a shallow draft we could navigate in waters only one meter deep only a few feet deep so this router ending on almost any Beach and because they were Allied they could be quickly carried out of the water to secure them and sometimes use them upside down as shelters there were different types of long ships somewhere small and to dry cows or draki try again wear the largest ones with dirty rowing benches or more in North sagos the stories and histories return in the Middle Ages there are accounts of spectacular trackers but it is uncertain they ever existed because no archaeological remain of them or proof of existence was ever found but regardless of whether it is super long ships ever existed or not the point is that at the time of the Viking age the nose certainly had the best chips in Europe and without them it is unlikely they could have traveled that far from Scandinavia why did they decide to expand or explore like this in the 8th century after so many centuries of staying on their lands what are the causes of this Norse expansion there was probably a combination of reasons one could have been what I just told you about their sailing technology the Innovations they introduced made this long-distance rates possible and they did them because they could but there were other possible factors another one could have been political in the decades before the Viking age in Scandinavia the very decentralized political organization that had prevailed for centuries began to change louder kingdoms emerged in Sweden in Denmark even in Norway despite its geography and these new States expanded they grew at the expense of many independent Chieftains that were forced out of their lands if they refused to submit they had to find Refuge or resources elsewhere this could have motivated many of them to start raiding Western the British Isles or to start exploring for new land as the only possibility to remain independent and in Western Europe they found states that were very decentralized and weak without Navy is able to oppose them or land armies that could oppose their attacks there were also many isolated religious sites a base on asteries that were defenseless so politics and the organization of states in the 8th Century could have been a major factor at the same time Viking Raiders were pushed out of Scandinavia and pulled to the rest of Europe by attractive and easy targets yet another Factor could be the demography along the 8th century there could have been a demographic boom in Scandinavia and the lack of agricultural capacity would have made it necessary to look out beyond their ancestral land now this explanation that is often used as a hypothesis to explain migrations is a bit uncertain or controversial because there is no proof that demographic boom ever happened in the decades before the start of the Viking age it is possible but it could also just be a cliche it is obviously hard to know how many inhabitants they were at the time in Scandinavia that one estimate I found of the population in European countries around the year 1000 suggests a number between one and one and a half million five hundred thousand in Denmark four hundred thousand in Sweden and two hundred thousand in Norway for comparison at the same time the whole of Great Britain would have had about 2 million inhabitants Italy had 7 million Germany five to six and France 9 million so it is true that Scandinavia did not have large expenses of continual land but it was still relatively scarcely populated who knows Kingdom with a few thousands or tens of thousands of subjects would have been already rather loud because they didn't really have the numbers the Vikings always operated in small groups rather than large armies except in very particular cases they just couldn't feel the armies of several thousand so the demographic explanation is uncertain another factor that sounds probable is the economic explanation the 8th Century around Western Europe and the Mediterranean so increased prosperity after the disaggregation of the western and Roman Empire Europe had fallen into a long period of demographic and economic decline this period called the Dark Ages trade collapsed in the 5th Century and regions that were connected by roads and the same Administration became isolated on these ruins a new society organized around the local Chieftains local Lords slowly formed over several centuries fieldal type of society that would reach its final form later in the Middle Ages in the seventh or 8th centuries this transformation was taking place and many communities Villages or chief Doms still lives almost in economy kotaki they lived on the food they produced and they traded very little with the rest of the world blood cities had almost disappeared from Western Europe and most of the population lived in Emirates in villages or occasion in small towns along them Christian monasteries had grown either near Villages or isolated standards of living and general wealth was still well below what it once had been and the Roman Administration but in the 8th century there was an improvement modest but real some towns sometimes some Two Towns grew some monasteries became more prosperous a typically owned the land that they exploited an example of this in Anglo-Saxon England at the time is the development of towns that worked as emporiums settlements that had a significant trade and artisanal activity don't imagine something big at most they had a few hundred inhabitants but in comparison with previous centuries there was a little movement of concentration of wealth in some places the beginning of reorganization and these were has many attractive targets to sack before the Viking age there were occasional trade connections between Scandinavia and these towns so the north knew their existence and they could probably notice that their prosperity had increased further south in the Mediterranean Sea the Islamic world had also Consolidated after its fast expansion and with it so did the trade routes that helped push a bit of that wealth further and further north the Vikings also noticed that and later they would also venture to Spain and North Africa that were under Muslim control at the time so the economic appeal of Regents to the south of Scandinavia could also have been a factor and finally one last hypothesis about the triggering of the Viking age is an ideological or religious Factor by the late 8th century Christianity continued to expand to the north and to the east of Europe through a mix of conversions of pagan populations and walls for example in 772 so that's 20 years before the attack on the Abbey of lindisfan that marks the beginning of the Viking age Christian Emperor Charlemagne who ruled over France the benedex Northern Italy and the west of Germany launched a campaign against the Saxons in Germany who were pagans and the Saxons would be converted by force or longer the following decades so the Pagan world was shrinking and occasionally missionaries would travel to Scandinavia trying to spread their faith here again this is hypothetical and we like elements of proof but the beginning of France Huda also have been a response to the perception of a threat or the threat could have Justified them that makes a lot of possible factors behind the triggering of the Viking age technological demographic economic particular ideological Maybe and it is likely that's a combination of these factors explain this sudden interest in expanding which was not a decision taken by a particular state or a council of North people that did not exist rather it was a broad movement that an entire cult Rule and hit me group got invested into so now let's take a look at how things are unfolded as the Norseman became increasingly adventurous until around 8 30 A.D Viking raids are mostly targeted Island they were also attacks against England or the north of the empire of Charlemagne that Island was a target of choice because it was less defended in England and the Carolina Empire the Empire of Charlemagne there was always the risk of finding Garrison's troops that would fight them off that after 8 30 the Carolina Empire fractured the laws of the Franks regarding successions did not let the firstborn son inherit everything the inheritance was shared between the sounds so even a successful Kingdom or Empire like Charlemagne's would not survive the deaths of its ruler if he had several Sons this made to a political map of Western Europe unstable so the Carolina Empire vanished and as the Vikings launched bigger raids with several ships and more wires ingrand also became almost defenseless from 8 30 and for several decades it became almost open bar for the nose they could land wherever they wanted in these parts of Europe sac and disappear or sometimes stay and establish bases they did that in the 9th century on the coasts of England and Scotland and in the 10th Century in France in the region that is now Normandy they could navigate on the same river deep in land and challenged an attack CT Zach parries in practice regions like Yorkshire in England or Normandy in France became Viking colonies in France there was no hope of expecting them anytime soon so the Frankish King of West Francia the Western belt of Charlemagne's empire that later transformed into the kingdom of France so the King Charles the simple an unedged situation and dealt with the nose their Chief was Rolo a Chieftain of Danish or Norwegian origin it is uncertain the king granted him the title of Duke of Normandy and full ride on this land which was attractive because it was fertile and in a strategic position at the crossroads of northern and southern Europe and in front of Great Britain in return Rollo swole fealty to charge the symbol which made him one of the main roads of the Kingdom and he pledged to defend it from attacks by other Vikings this deal happened at the beginning of the 10th century in the year 911 and the Normans now established in Normandy started to assimilate they converted to Christianity and over a few Generations they are they are switched from Old Norse that they abandoned to the Norman language which was a romance dialect dialect of French and they prospered enormously their descendants kept disadventurous Outlook Norman's worked as mercenaries in other parts of Europe especially in the south of Italy where they ended up establishing few terms I told you about that recently in the story about the Crusades and of course in England that the Duke of Normandy Guillaume Willie and the Conqueror invaded in the 11th century Western Europe was not the only region the north were interested in most attacks in Western Europe were carried out by Norseman from Denmark and to a lesser extent from no way but the Norwegians also explored the tea authentic and they colonize different Islands the chatmans north of Scotland the Pharaoh Islands Iceland Greenland that they reached in 982 and all the way to Finland in America Finland this American colony was known only through the sagas and medieval historiography for a long time so historians had doubts debts the Norse men had actually reached America until 1960 when evidence of a North Side was discovered on the Northern tip of the island of Newfoundland in Canada proving that the North had crossed the authentic centuries before Christopher Columbus or maybe their colonies there in America only one was found but maybe other existed their colony did not prosper at an unspecified time it died down or they all left and there is no trace of further exploration Inland in Canada the nurse who lived in Sweden looked more to the Baltic Coastline and to the east towards what would become Russia and there too they had a major impact on these regions most men who settled or traveled to the east are also called varangians and they contributed to shape the history of Russia and Ukraine in 859 a Chieftain called rurik from the tribe of tarus r-u-s would have conquered or be invited to reign in navkarad in the north of Western Russia would because rurik is a semi legendary he might have existed but his name only appeared in Chronicles two centuries later but what is certain is that this region of Northwestern Russia fell but it agree to the north and from there they went further south to Ukraine where they founded the state of Kevin ruse by the end of the 9th century Kevin because its capital was give the population was Slavic their impact in this region cannot be overstated because the Kevin Ruth became a powerful state of the Middle Ages that persisted until the Mongol conquest in the 13th century and the Kevin ruse is regarded as the historical predecessor to the Russian and Ukrainian States her Uric Dynasty continued until the end of the 16th century when it was succeeded on the throne of Russia by the romanovs following waterways the nose reached the Black Sea to the south of Ukraine and from there Byzantium with which they established trade connections some of them even served as mercenaries in Byzantium employed by the Eastern Roman emperors through a trade Network that crossed Ukraine and Russia goods from Byzantium reached Scandinavia and some of them were even transported to the West for example Byzantine goods and coins may have reached Britain fayadi's Network in the tent or 11th centuries however successful it had been in the 9th and 10th centuries the Viking expansion began to stall first because locally defenses had been put in place against them with some success in the 10th and 11th centuries the Saxons all the Slavs had began to train a mobile Cavalry forces to react quickly to Viking attacks at sea or on rivers to know swear and touchable but they had to move on hand too and against footsoldiers the Cavalry Force had the upper end the advantage of Mobility which made it harder for writing Invaders to fight inland sometimes they were spotted in time and confronted this happened in a 80 84 in East Frasier in the northwest of Germany a small army of Danes was defeated and this put an end to their attacks on this region another way of dealing with them was through assimilation as we saw in the paths of Russia or Normandy once established as rulers in foreign lands the Norseman no longer wanted piracy and attacks on their doorsteps so they felt against it but rather than welfare it is a political and control change that indeed the Viking age the rise of larger centralized Kingdoms in Scandinavia and their conversion to Christianity which accelerated in the tenth and 11th centuries as I told you earlier there were many small kingdoms or chiefdoms in Scandinavia and they had their rivalries leading to infighting to battles between Norse men Kings in Denmark Norway Sweden tended to be expansionist to try and unify bigger and bigger territories and this had existed for centuries including before the Viking age but when some of them converted to Christianity it added to the animosity by turning these walls into a cultural or religious conflicts ultimately Christian Kings won everywhere in the three countries and the older those beliefs declined sharply to the point of going extinct in the 12th century naughty kingdoms that were no Christian who are strongly influenced by a feudal States from the rest of Europe their conversion connected them to a religious area that now covered most of Europe and the culture of exploration and raiding that that had prevailed four generations disappeared in this new order even though they kept different languages and traditions Scandinavian populations became bound to a Christian Europe and Their Kingdoms now played by the same rules The Taste for long-distance Expeditions did not fully disappear the maritime tradition lived on and Scandinavians participated in the Crusades for example I also told you about that in the story about the Crusades but there was no longer these independent Chieftains ready to launch Expeditions Beyond the Seas for a profit or expansion different dates for the end of the Viking age have been proposed by historians that they all are in the 11th century in the following centuries Nordic Chiefs retained some of their conquests out of Scandinavia that were retaken by force for example The Western Isles and the Isle of Man between the Great Britain and Ireland we are still in the Scandinavian control until the 13th century or Scotland to kids present form when it regained territory from the north between the 13th and 15th centuries until 1469 orkney and Shetland belonged to the kings of Norway so it was not all settled in the 11th century but the loud raids and the Viking scale that came with them indeed in the 11th century the perception of Norseman in history has always been very influenced by external looks because even though they had an alphabet and described themselves on runestones that is to say engraved rocks with runes they produced no literary Legacy to sagas or texts called the headers for their mythology were written later after they had been christianized the norseware or so feared and rejected by European populations they threatened they attacked a lot of monasteries and churches so they became an archetype of violent and civilized and Pagan barbarians this perception stayed for a long time it lasted until the 18th and 19th centuries when the interest in pre-christian cultures and the new appraisal appeared one that also had its biases but different biases with the influence of Romanticism the north were increasingly pictured as Noble Warriors with a strict code of honor it is also the time when cliches like the old helmets I mentioned at the beginning appear appeared to a rediscovery of their mythology with the colorful stories creatures and gods were so excited some people's imagination no Smith became a major source of inspiration for Fantasy literature but beyond that as we have seen the nose men were much more than Warriors found the traded they had a complex society so let's take a look at that what was it like to live in Scandinavia 1200 years ago first their society was divided into classes and there were three main ones trials the cows and the yards the first one the Thrones was the lowest ranking class and these were basically slaves they could comprise as much as a quarter of the total population and the Thrills belonged to other people they worked as servants and Farm Workers they were also employed for heavy construction work like roads or fortifications new Thrills were supplied by the Sons and Daughters of Trials they were born into that grass or by capture in rights prisoners would be made and either taken back to Scandinavia or sold one of the traits that the Vikings put in place was to take them to the Mediterranean and sell them to the Arabs in exchange for silver slavery was widespread in Northlands totally accepted and it ended only with christianization that condemned it the second class the curls paid the biggest part of the population probably more than two-thirds and these were free peasants they owned farms land cattle if they were wealthy enough they could also own slaves but the majority of them didn't and they were the ones who produced the food and turned into food soldiers in expeditions finally on top of the pyramid where the yards the Lords the aristocracy of Viking Society he also owned the loudest States long houses horses and often many slaves that made their Estates work they were in charge of administration politics welfare and they took the initiative to go abroad on expeditions sometimes when they died their thralls would be sacrificed and buried next to them to accompany them in death people were born into these crashes but the grasses were not completely closed it seems occasionally someone could descend as punishment will rise for distinguished service there were also systems of mutual obligation between individuals on top of their social class people belonged to communities around a certain trade around the ownership of a sea vessel or they had military obligations to a certain road to a certain leader there were also assemblies in villages to which Free People participated there were local courts of Justice they were religious leaders and her religious calendar in each community and also special counsels called the things to discuss important issues and decisions so as you see Society was complex like in other traditional societies of the time women were subordinated to their husbands and fathers and they had very little political power their situation also depended on their social class but overall they may have had more rights than in the rest of Europe for example they couldn't hear it from their husbands and occasionally if they were unmarried widowed they could become heads of a family or Clan leaders this position would be transferred to their new husband if they remarried the woman that did not get married after the age of 20. was considered a free subject of Rights like a man a woman could also divorce her husband and remarry something that was Unthinkable at the time in Christian Europe now these were the rules the law that in practice most free women from the Cal and the all classes were Housewives marriage gave them a social standing and a degree of Economic Security being single as possible that precarious and it may have been frowned upon socially someone's social standing their class was immediately recognizable in their appearance men and women of the years the aristocracy where typically well groomed quite far from the disheveled appearance that they are sometimes depicted with and they showed off their status by wearing expensive clothes often silk that came from afar and a lot of crafty jewelry blue cheese belt buckles necrasies arm rings most of these species were crafted in Scandinavia with refined patterns that showed a craftsmanship of the nose at the time archaeological finds suggest that to taste for grooming and hygiene was developed and not just for the yards for example in tombs of yards and cows it is very common to find the Combs of all quality their food was also rather Diversified there were different kinds of meat products meat could be boiled fried grilled cured or smoked there were plenty of seafood bread porogies dairy products nuts vegetables berries fruits of course it depended on the location and harvest that we are not always favorable but overall archaeological discoveries point to a relatively healthy population compared with the standards of the time in average men wear 1.7 meter high that's 5 feet and seven inches and women 1.55 matter that's five feet and one inch for the time period that was a relatively tall preparation they dressed in clothes made of linen and wool flax was a very important crop for the nose provided oil and food and importantly also it was a raw material for the production of linen they also had an important rule protection that served for clothing and also to make sales they also fancy the number of exotic products that they obtained from trade apart from silk that came from Byzantium and was imported in really large quantities silk was found in many tombs they were spices grass glass was often made into beads for decoration and wine from Germany and France that complemented their production of beer and Mead to pay for these valuable Imports the solder Ember that is frequently found around the Baltic Fair slaves as I mentioned earlier and textiles to know swear skilled Spinners and Weavers of wooden growth these are just a few traits and there was much more to know sculpture and everyday life but as you see with the old is crafts their heart the variety in their diet the customs and complex society with rose their writing system we are far from here and cultured society that Chronicles of the Middle Ages and after the big we are probably equally far from the Society of free brave and Noble men that the Romantic vision of the Vikings wrote in the past two centuries starting with the word Viking itself it is used today as a synonym for nose and the etymology of the world is still discussed that the term Viking was launched in English in the 18th century at the time of the Viking Revival to name the Warriors coming out of Scandinavia entering the 20th century by extension he came to name all the Scandinavian population of the Viking age so that now when we hear the Vikings we think of medieval laws that before that they had different names sometimes they were called as Scandinavians in Northern Germany as comedy literally Ashman inner Island the Gale or fingale meaning dark and fair foreigners respectively the uncros Accents in Britain called them Danes the Franks in France call them Normans and as we have seen before they were called varangians by the slabs and the byzantines with the end of the Viking age paganism when extinct the Scandinavians lost their reputation for ferocity as they joined the Christian Dome and the north men enter the history as their Old Norse language kept evolving towards a modern Scandinavian languages vegetation covered to runestones and the memory of their gods their rituals their adventures and their worldview slowly faded we have reached the end of our historical Journey for tonight I hope it makes you want to know more about the novels I'll be back soon with the new one and in the meantime you can close your eyes and Let Yourself Go or if you don't feel sleepy yet pick another story from my library sleep well sweet dreams oh wow foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign

Channel: The French Whisperer ASMR

Views: 84,490

Keywords:

Id: QzT8zWJVTpo

Length: 138min 59sec (8339 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2023