To help resolve their problems of scarcity in Scandinavia, the Vikings developed longboats that could sail on both the open seas and down rivers and began a series of explorations that included the pillaging and plundering for which they are remembered today. The first of the Viking raids occurred at the English monastery at Lindisfarne in Because monasteries housed so many treasures that could make the raiders extremely rich, coupled with the fact that the monks who lived there were not well-armed and prepared for an attack, monasteries were particularly susceptible to Viking raids.
They mainly targeted monasteries in what is now England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland during the first few hundred years of their voyages. Because the Viking longboats enabled them to travel on both the open seas and down rivers, the raiders were able to explore from Canada to Russia. Leif Erikson took his crews to Iceland , Greenland , and then North America , where they established the first European colony in the Americas at Newfoundland, Canada — years before Columbus!
In fact, due to their advanced sailing navigation skills, the Vikings had almost reached North Africa and Russia! History says they had managed to come as far as south to North Africa and east to Russia, apart from Constantinople and the Middle East. For almost years, the Norse descendants of Erik the Red built churches and manor homes and expanded their settlements on the icy fringes of Greenland. According to an Associated Press report, new findings on why Viking colonies flourished and fell there have been found in the DNA of medieval walrus bones housed in more than a dozen European museums.
The age of the Vikings is said to have ended when the raids stopped. The year is usually taken as a convenient marker for the end of the Viking age.
In today's world, the Vikings continue to be remembered in different parts of the world with festivals and historical re-enactments being organised to celebrate the Norse heritage in the UK, Scotland, Spain, Denmark and other parts of Europe. Nifty 18, Zomato Ltd. Market Watch. ET NOW. Brand Solutions. Video series featuring innovators. ET Financial Inclusion Summit. Malaria Mukt Bharat. Wealth Wise Series How they can help in wealth creation.
Honouring Exemplary Boards. It is more likely that local chieftains or aristocrats who felt themselves under threat by powerful neighbours, or by rulers who wanted to strengthen their grip by uniting their territory into one kingdom, opted to look for new lands across the sea.
We know, however, that the Vikings left their homelands and travelled into Europe including Britain and Ireland, and settled there. Well-documented parts of the Viking world such as England, Ireland and Carolingia, seemed to have endured many decades of sustained attack before there was any attempt by the Vikings to settle there permanently.
In the Scottish Isles and around the Baltic Sea, however, there seems to have been some settlement relatively soon after the first contact was made. Land was either seized or taken by reaching agreement with the previous landowner. If we cannot say for sure why the Vikings left their own homelands and settled abroad, what we can be clear about is why they decided to raid other lands.
These secular raiding sites were limited in Europe, but rich ecclesiastical sites were plentiful. Ecclesiastical sites were the focus for the exchange of imported goods, from wine to high-quality textiles. Agricultural produce and raw materials taken from the surrounding lands, and used by the religious community living there, provided attractive pickings for the raiding Vikings.
On top of all of this, secular magnates also used churches to store their own portable wealth. Therefore, when a Viking sacked a monastery he literally hit the jackpot.
The Vikings soon realised that they could increase their profits from raiding churches by taking the lavishly decorated manuscripts and Bibles from them, and then selling back these prized possessions to the monastic communities or their benefactors.
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