Original subtitles

This is a story about the people who came sailing across the ocean.

It's a story about a long and perilous journey of upheaval.

Which came to change populations, and

influence politics, trade, culture, religion and entire societies.

It's a story about the Vikings... and how they transformed the world.

For most people, the Vikings are seen only as plunderers and pirates.

But is that the whole truth?

The process of converting Scandinavia to Christianity is a long story.

They were skilled tradesmen, in part because of their ability to travel.

They're going abroad to take what they seek.

In this series, we will dig deeper and gain more insight

into who the Vikings really were.

And the truth turns out to be surprising.

THE LAST JOURNEY OF THE VIKINGS

In the late eighth century,

the Vikings started appearing along the coast of Europe.

With their longboats adorned with dragon heads

and loaded with well-armed warriors,

the Vikings soon became infamous for their swift and brutal raids.

Initially, they mainly targeted monasteries,

pillaging them for gold and silver.

The monks whose only weapon was their Christian faith,

were an easy prey, and would seldom be spared the wrath of the Norsemen.

Over the years, the Vikings' strategy changed.

They weren't only brutal warriors, but also skilled diplomats.

Not afraid to mix with powerful rulers

who wanted to create a new Europe.

In fact, the Vikings would reshape several European countries.

One of these was Francia.

A kingdom that we will come back to over the course of this series.

But why did the Scandinavians set sail

across the seas and become pirates?

In order to answer this,

we must go back to a time before the Vikings' journey into Europe...

to sixth century Scandinavia.

THE EMIGRANTS

The sixth century is a really interesting time.

Not just for the Nordic countries, for the whole of Europe in general.

It's the period following the collapse of the Roman Western Empire.

And characterised to a great extent by political instability and turmoil,

conflict, and also large scale human migrations, and

it's that aspect of the period that lends its name

to how we characterise this time,

which is often as the migration period.

We need to keep in mind that Scandinavia at the time

was an essentially rural region where communities lived

from the exploitation of natural resources and agriculture.

The resources needed for survival existed.

But still, for some reason, the people of Scandinavia migrated.

There are very many various political, social

factors that would contribute to all of this, but

there is a suggestion now that part of this might be linked to

some kind of climatic event that takes place around

the mid sixth century.

What has been suggested is that, either in the 530s, around 536,

or over a slightly longer period of time, between the 530s and the 550s,

what we're looking at is a series of one or more volcanic events.

These eruptions spewed out ash into the atmosphere

and the ash lingered for several years.

This led to a dimmed sun,

colder summers, or frost in the middle of summer.

This caused crop failures several years of bad harvests.

And in the early medieval world,

a couple of bad years of harvest

would be enough to really enforce some quite dramatic changes.

First, the animals die for lack of food, and then the people die.

And in 541 and a few years afterwards,

we don't really know how many died, but we assume

maybe between a third of, or half of the population,

both down in Europe and up here in Scandinavia.

This creates terrible change for those who survive it.

How do we know that the climate crisis actually happened?

What evidence do we have?

That climate disaster is rather well documented

in contemporary written sources in the Mediterranean

and other regions of the northern hemisphere.

We have descriptions of a veil of dust that was covering

the sky and the sun.

They couldn't see the sun for a few months.

It's there, but it's dim. It's not giving out heat.

It's not even creating shadows during the day.

The sun, essentially, isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

Now, we also have scientific evidence.

For example, in ice cores from Greenland.

We can see a layer of volcanic dust that we

can link to that event.

We can also see it in the way trees grew during that time.

The research was conducted in Ireland.

They managed to measure the growth of the trees for those years.

Trees normally grow each year.

For the years 536 and 537,

we can see that the growth was negligible or even non-existent.

We can also see the archaeological remains,

as many villages were abandoned. Large farms that people left behind,

no one lived there anymore.

It also seems that large areas

of agricultural land are returning to forest

and, on top of this, there is some quite dramatic evidence

for violence.

As we can tell from the archaeological evidence,

we see certain settlements that seem to have been attacked.

Sometimes burnt down.

And the main, key bit of evidence that leads us to believe that

these were attacks, not accidents, is that in some of these places,

people are left unburied within the burnt houses.

It is believed that, around the year 580,

more than one million people may have lived in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Of these, perhaps 300,000 or 400,000

would suffer an early death because of the climate crisis.

It seems that powerful landowners

used the climate crisis to brutally seize even more land and resources

from rival villages and families.

It could be said that the power struggles that took place

during these years transformed the society's ruling class.

After the immediate crisis,

it's more then 50 years before the dust in the atmosphere clears,

and the temperature returns to normal.

Soon the population starts to grow again, however,

Scandinavian society has changed.

So, of course if such a climate disaster happened,

the agricultural production was limited for several years,

which caused famines that affected those populations.

It doesn't necessarily mean that populations

in their entirety disappeared.

But they were deeply affected when it came to

having access to natural resources.

This is what we connect to that new organisation of territories

with abandoned villages.

That's where most of the agricultural production was set.

The survivors of these catastrophes grew up in a brand new world

that was less crowded, there weren't as many people.

There were plenty of abandoned farms and villages.

Basically, you have large tracts of land that can then be snapped up,

essentially by those who are seeking to preserve their lives and status.

It was fairly crowded prior to these natural disasters.

All arable land was already held by someone.

Suddenly there was room to grow again.

It seems to be much more hierarchical,

in which power is, to a great extent,

based on the ownership of land and territory.

So, if we are looking at a time where

we're seeing increased social stratification,

that's going to make the social and economic differences

between different social classes, if you want, become more apparent.

It may be time where we see an intensification of slavery or

dependency of the lower classes on the aristocracy,

and, as a result, that gives the aristocracy the means and the power

to consolidate their hold on the landscape.

But, as well as this, we also have increasingly stratified societies,

and people's roles might become more defined. Of course,

Scandinavia, like other medieval societies,

they're essentially subsistence societies, they...

people need to produce what they need to live, so agricultural practices

are incredibly important, as are all kinds of production processes

that take place within the household to produce what people need

to live out their daily lives.

The warrior ideal became more important during this time.

So the ideal man was a strong warrior.

He needed to be honourable. He had to honour his family and his lineage.

He had to be a strong fighter and take care of the weak in society.

And now, when the warrior ideal is upheld to an even greater extent...

powerful leaders start to emerge.

Leaders who will play important roles in what lies ahead.

Societies are becoming increasingly militarised.

Warfare becomes a really prominent theme

in material culture of the period.

Leading to a time where we have the highest status of boat burials

in places like Vadstena in Sweden. These beautiful, ornate pieces

of arms and armour speaking to a militarised aristocracy

who are engaging in endemic, perhaps smaller scale conflict.

But this becomes an essential aspect of elite power at the time.

The women of the time lived relatively good lives.

It's easy to believe that women were viewed as inferior

because men held such dominant positions,

but their society had clearly defined roles for men and women.

Women were essential for society to function.

Marriages were a large part of it. When a couple married,

their lands were merged,

but women's main responsibility was to ensure that homes and households,

fields, cattle and so on were taken care of,

especially when the men weren't home.

When a man and a woman married, the woman was given a large dowry.

If they divorced, which was possible at the time,

the woman was granted the dowry as her own property.

So even if they divorced, she would have been fine.

And if she remarried, even more assets would have been merged.

Women served a particularly important role as crafts specialists,

especially in the process of textile production,

which, during the Viking age, would have ranged from producing everything

from, in addition to the everyday items the family needed

to survive, their clothes, for example, but also travelling clothes.

So in this, they're in a very important place in the organisation

and the ability of communities to engage in travel and warfare.

It's an issue about the Middle Ages that has been debated.

Did they have a concept of childhood that was similar to ours?

At what age did they become adults?

And what were the children's roles?

I think that in the Viking society,

based on the very few pieces of information we have,

the concept was rather different from ours when it comes to childhood.

We have found toys from the Viking Age, wooden toys.

Little horses and boats, wooden swords and the like.

So there was of course a time for playing,

but it was also a society

where learning happened as part of domestic life.

It's quite possible that in many ways, they were simply perceived

from quite an early age as just small adults.

In that they would take on the same roles

as their family members before them, their extended kinship networks,

and the communities that they lived within, so they would take part in

agricultural practices, in cleaning and learning to cook and produce

certain craft items.

These roles, as they were learned,

would probably vary across society. Especially for higher status children

there might have been an element of training in warfare,

to become a professional or at least semi-professional fighter.

And looking at what's happening in the period,

that would be quite an important skill.

And, of course, we can expect that a lot of parents were

deeply attached to their kids,

but I also believe that in many cases there was a sort of detachment,

especially during the first years.

This is what we notice in the burial grounds.

Children burials were relatively rare

from early childhood to adolescence.

They are not very present.

Much less present than they should be considering the infant mortality

estimations we can expect for a society like this one.

So it's possible that child deaths

were treated in a different way.

Maybe they were buried in a different way,

not necessarily with the adults.

Apart from this, I think we can expect,

as in many societies in Europe at the time,

that childhood was a time for learning.

And from quite, what we would call a young age,

perhaps in the mid-teens, children living in the Viking age might have

actually started to participate in overseas travel

and, perhaps, raiding.

And this would be part of their continuing education, as it were,

in warfare and travel.

After the climate crisis, in this new society,

the role of the sea becomes increasingly important,

and the people of Scandinavia strive to travel further and further out,

in search of a better life.

To do this, they need ships suitable for long journeys.

The Scandinavian people have known about

shipbuilding techniques for a long time,

but in the past they have mainly built rowing boats.

In the 600s, however, in the wake of the climate crisis,

they learn how to build a new type of ship. Sailing vessels.

You needed three things to cross the sea in these large ships:

You had to master the technology to construct the ships,

a social structure that enabled the construction of ships,

and you needed people to crew the ships.

Despite having known about sailing vessels earlier,

through their contacts with the Roman Empire,

the Scandinavians didn't copy this,

but, instead, built their own type of ship, one more suited to their needs.

It was a ship that could be operated by a small crew,

and had a keel that allowed beating to windward.

This would prove to be very useful to the Vikings in the future.

Even though the men built the actual ships,

the women in Scandinavian society also played a vital part.

One of the most important elements in navigation during the Viking Age

is the sail.

The fabrication of the sail itself requires a lot of work.

The women were tasked with creating the sails.

From harvesting the wool, combing the wool,

spinning the wool, and finally weaving it together.

The sails could also have contained linen.

It's hundreds of hours of work for several people.

So the sail in itself is probably one of the most expensive products

when it comes to building a boat.

Each ship would go through a number of sails during its lifespan.

Eventually they wore out.

Experimental archaeology is showing that just to produce or to spin

and weave the wool needed for a single sail would take someone

working on their own years of full time work.

What this implies is that there had to be a level of production

among these societies that actually in all likelihood far exceeded

the kind of standard subsistence demands

that were made on them during everyday life.

After months of hard work, the new vessels are finished.

Sails have been made, and the first expeditions are being organised.

We don't have much textual evidence from the beginning of the Viking Age,

we know more about the end of the Viking Age.

We see that these expeditions were prepared collectively.

It was often a group of people,

partners in their undertaking.

We often see it in runic inscriptions.

Particularly in Sweden, where those men, who pooled resources

to prepare an expedition or often to build a ship,

used to call each other "fellag".

It is a word we know in English as "fellow",

so the partner in this expedition.

And also in those runic inscriptions, we find the expression,

"to leave for a Viking",

which means going on an expedition by sea.

It can have different characteristics,

it can be a commercial or military expedition.

They don't necessarily differentiate between the two in the language.

But, generally speaking, this is what they focus on. It's a group decision

to gather resources to build a ship and to go on an expedition together.

In order for this structure to function and for people to have

enough free time to work exclusively on the construction of ships,

their society must have had an abundance of resources to ensure that

workers were given food and housing during construction.

This required a large structure,

perhaps a chieftain, a wealthy farmer,

or a king that made sure the ships were built.

But as well as this, you need a crew.

You need someone to operate these vessels and, when you reach your

destination, to do what it is you need to do.

We're not quite sure exactly who participated in these raids.

It could have been almost anyone, to some extent.

Certainly, I think it's possible that members of the aristocracy,

for whom an element of their power depended

on being able to project a kind of marshal identity.

They might have certainly chosen to undertake raiding,

taking with them the professional warriors of their household.

But in addition to this, if you need to think about

equipping a ship with thirty to forty or perhaps more individuals,

you might take members of the local farming community,

so, essentially, we might refer to them as part time Vikings,

for whom their daily life was consumed by agricultural work

and, again, subsistence.

But during certain seasons of the year, there might be the opportunity

to increase your status and your wealth

by joining one of these expeditions.

And, especially during the early Viking age, the period where

we see the first raids, I think it's likely that these ventures were

organised probably more at a community level.

With relatively small numbers of people and small numbers of ships,

which is why we see them generally attacking quite small targets.

With their new ships, the Scandinavians could finally set sail

across the seas in search of fortune and a better life.

They were now able to reach more distant places than ever before.

The first Viking attacks to be referenced

took place in Western Europe,

in the late eighth century.

Those first Viking attacks take place mostly on the British islands,

on the coastal areas and tend to mostly target monasteries.

The monks are blissfully unaware of what's about to happen.

As the sailing vessels swiftly approach from the sea.

Raiding the shores, the Vikings prove just how efficient their ships are.

This is where the ingenious Viking ships came into use.

They were easily manoeuvred and fast.

Perhaps they arrived at night and rowed rapidly and silently.

They could pull the ships onto the shore, which meant they could

disembark practically anywhere and then quickly withdraw.

Obviously, monasteries are quite exposed to this kind of attacks

since they are defenceless and they hold a lot of portable wealth.

Liturgical objects, books, etc.

Those were made out of valuable materials,

noble metals, such as silver or gold.

Those are easy to steal.

And they are also easy to turn into something else.

The most famous Viking raid was the raid of Lindisfarne,

off the eastern coast of England in June 793.

A large number of ships practically sneaked up to the island.

There was a monastery on the island and the monks believed

themselves to be safe because they lived on an island that could

only be reached for a brief period of the day when the tide was low.

Suddenly these Vikings appeared.

They came running with their axes, hair flowing in the wind, shouting.

The poor monks were completely caught off guard and many were killed.

The monastery's treasures were looted.

It is said that they managed to hide some of the important items,

but most of the monastery was plundered.

The Vikings brought the loot to their ships and considered it a success.

This particular raid is so famous because it was documented

shortly after by one of the surviving monks who could tell their tale.

He described these terrifying heathens that came by sea,

almost like monsters, and just looted and plundered without any respect

for the holy church, or the monks, or Christianity as a whole.

They simply helped themselves to things, killed and then withdrew.

The Anglo-Saxon chronicle especially is quite silent

on what's taking place at this time.

In fact, it was believed for many years that there was a kind of

pause after the initial raids before we move into the later ninth century.

But there has been some, what I feel is really quite convincing,

recent research which has taken into account a number of charters

concerning Anglo-Saxon Kent, the southeast of England.

an area where we don't read of any early Viking attacks.

And, actually, what this research has shown is that

even in the 790s and early 800s, the aristocracy and

monasteries are being tasked with insuring that

they are properly prepared against people described

as pagans. And in this period, I'm not sure who else

we would think these people are, aside from Viking raiders.

And they are told, for example, to make sure that they

continue to maintain fortifications, to construct and maintain bridges...

Also actively engage these people

when they encounter them in the field.

It's quite striking that we read of none of this

in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

And it's been suggested that,

actually the historical record has essentially been,

for want of a better word, whitewashed.

'Cause it's not until slightly later into the second quarter

of the ninth century that we start to see a real surge in Viking raiding.

The Vikings had often been described as pirates.

Violent pillagers who spread fear and terror

as they set out along the coasts of Europe in their long ships.

But is the word "pirate" a fitting description for the Vikings?

When we look at the available sources from Western Europe,

we see Viking raiders and raiding parties being

portrayed as incredibly brutal

and unsophisticated groups.

All the clichés of burning monasteries and killing monks...

But it's quite clear that

even to engage in this kind of overseas raiding,

a great deal of organisation is needed both of materials and people.

Pirates are marauders living on their ships and are considered lawless.

They do not belong to any social structure.

They do not abide by any social norms.

The Vikings, on the other hand, came from a solid social cohesion.

They had their homeland, their farms, their chieftains.

They were backed by a strong social structure.

There are quite important differences,

since Viking expeditions

weren't only about attacking and plundering others.

They could also be trade-oriented expeditions.

What is also included in the Viking phenomenon

is an expansion in a colonising goal.

Their final goal is to settle.

It's not only about plundering in the short term.

They simply found a new way to build wealth.

Plunder by disembarking, looting, and withdrawing using their ships.

This was considered to be

part of the social norms for them.

They may have been considered outlaws in the countries they attacked,

but the Vikings themselves viewed it as completely normal.

It all depends on how we define the term "pirate".

If we define it as an armed gang in possession of a ship

and using it to attack and plunder other people, cities or other ships,

in this case, yes, the term fits quite well.

If the Viking phenomenon is defined in a very simplistic way.

So I think when we're talking about the early Viking raids,

the term "piracy" is actually quite apt.

But perhaps not quite in the way we would understand it today.

I think certainly in Scandinavia these people would not have been

perceived as acting outside of the law in any way.

They're not committing violence among their home communities.

They're going abroad to take what they seek.

What we're looking at here is fairly indiscriminate seaborne raiding.

These are groups that are operating independently,

engaging in opportunistic raiding in search of plunder

without a sense of overall strategy.

These very much seem to be at this time opportunistic seasonal raids.

That doesn't mean they're not well-organised

and they're not well-planned.

But I think what this kind of model of seaborne raiding fits into,

it does kind of fit very well with what we would,

in the modern day, call piracy.

It's really quite interesting to look at how these groups organise

themselves and how they operate,

especially as we move into the later ninth century in Europe

where we have lots of individual Viking groups

which range in size from a single ship's crew

to a much larger number of ships coming together

and operating together for short periods of time

in pursuit of mutual goals.

Before quite suddenly splitting up to literally sail off

in opposite directions in pursuit of plunder elsewhere.

And so I think in doing this and trying to not directly compare,

but to construct analogies between these groups,

I think that offers quite a lot to how we understand

these Viking groups and what they're doing overseas.

It was not uncommon that men failed to make it home.

Widows raised stones to honour their husbands

who departed on raids and never made it back.

The widows would have inherited their husbands' farms

and possessions and emerged as significant power-brokers

in society.

When the men were travelling, the women took responsibility in society.

This required a social structure that's grounded by women,

to ensure society could function without the men.

Early on, the Vikings had good fortune as pillagers,

and they were soon looking for new areas to plunder for wealth.

But when they start attacking the coasts of the Frankish Empire,

they suddenly face resistance unlike any found on the British Isles.

For the ruling emperor here has no plans of surrendering

his Christian lands to the pagan pirates.

His name is Charlemagne.

A great climate crisis in the 6th century

was one factor that changed Scandinavia,

leading to long-term transformation of societies and territories...

which provided them the opportunity further out,

and reach easily plundered targets, such as monasteries.

They had now become Vikings.

During the 9th century, the Vikings try to advance into Francia,

something that greatly increases the violent conflicts between

the Northern pagans and the Christian Francians,

and sets off a rivalry between two kings.

When the Vikings begin attacking Francia,

Charlemagne is determined not to let plundering pirates

into his country.

And the Francian defences work;

the raiding Vikings are held back at the coast. At least initially.

But due to tumultuous and unexpected events in Denmark

as well as in Francia,

the Vikings will finally be able to travel up the rivers

and further inland.

And soon, great cities like Paris are under attack.

Subtitles: Lily Ray www.plint.com