# AD 793 were the Vikings really that bad **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2018, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991 "2018-07-16T05:39:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/41 "2018-07-17T19:30:50Z")
As an interesting aside, it seems the Vikings were post-apocalyptic. Recent research indicates that the Fimbulwinter is a reference to the 536-540+ period. Tree rings in Scandinavia shows a distinct lack of growth and archeological evidence shows a horrific collapse in population and development. Humanity seems to have gone extinct in some parts of Scandinavia during the period. Recovery of human populations do not seem to have taken place until around 650 and onwards. While these has some overlap with the plague of Justinian, no sign of palgue has been found. It seems the plague just backed off Scandinavia at the time going “Nope!” Cite: [Fimbulvinteren er ikke en myte](https://forskning.no/2017/12/fimbulvinteren-er-ikke-en-myte) (needs google translate) > [@rat\_avatar](#): > > The common story about [Rurik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik) as an example, which is suppose to be the _viking_ that helped unify Russian tribes as an example is problematic because genetically he appears to be an ethnic Finn of haplotype N1c1. Actually, a more detailed analysis of the Rurikid haplotype seemed to show that it was a very rare variety of the haplotype that contracts to an area of middle Sweden before the Rurikid dynasty. Was it Jaakko Häkkinen who did the analysis, or did he just write a paper on it? I am on vacation and have poor internet access. Of course the dating and location raises the intriguing possibility that it could trace back to the “lost nordic nation” of Kvænland. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/42 "2018-07-17T19:32:44Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > No need for long-ships probably, as Prague used the the Danube, and Venice would have been easier over land for the Frankish slavers. IIRC cities that rose due to the slave trade like Cadiz were much later. The main slave market in the Viking world was in Dublin, which was conquered in the early 9th Century. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/43 "2018-07-17T19:59:37Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > The main slave market in the Viking world was in Dublin, which was conquered in the early 9th Century. But that was a minor market, and 10% of England’s population were slaves in 1086 so this was not the case of the Northmen being more evil, just as evil. Note this is compared to the funding of the first renascence or the establishment of Venice which can be argued to be one of the first steps to the rise of urban-ism in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/44 "2018-07-17T20:38:45Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > But that was a minor market, and 10% of England’s population were slaves in 1086 so this was not the case of the Northmen being more evil, just as evil. Sure. It was so minor it was the largest in Europe by the end of the Viking age. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/45 "2018-07-17T20:48:05Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > As an interesting aside, it seems the Vikings were post-apocalyptic. > > Recent research indicates that the Fimbulwinter is a reference to the 536-540+ period. Tree rings in Scandinavia shows a distinct lack of growth and archeological evidence shows a horrific collapse in population and development. Humanity seems to have gone extinct in some parts of Scandinavia during the period. Recovery of human populations do not seem to have taken place until around 650 and onwards. > > While these has some overlap with the plague of Justinian, no sign of palgue has been found. It seems the plague just backed off Scandinavia at the time going “Nope!” > > Cite: [Fimbulvinteren er ikke en myte](https://forskning.no/2017/12/fimbulvinteren-er-ikke-en-myte) (needs google translate) > Actually, a more detailed analysis of the Rurikid haplotype seemed to show that it was a very rare variety of the haplotype that contracts to an area of middle Sweden before the Rurikid dynasty. Was it Jaakko Häkkinen who did the analysis, or did he just write a paper on it? I am on vacation and have poor internet access. > > Of course the dating and location raises the intriguing possibility that it could trace back to the “lost nordic nation” of Kvænland. No, it is simply a branch off of N1c1/n-m178, which is also my haplogroup, which is very common among the Finns, Karelians, and other Finno-Uric peoples. In Karelia about 60% of the population has a fairly recent common patrilineal ancestor with the Rurikids. The part of Sweden that you reference above was ethnically and genetically related to those peoples and not the more typical European Swedish groups until the past couple of 100 years. Really the cultural portions changed after Finland was lost to Russia in the 1700s. This poses a problem for those who subscribe to Nordicism, but yes it is developing rapidly. Everyone wants to be a Viking, and most of these groups historically discriminated against, or looked down on Karelian/Ugric/Finns. [![](http://www.raassinasukuseura.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/puu.jpg) ](http://www.raassinasukuseura.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/puu.jpg) As this is the patrilineal line, which is actually a tiny percentage of actual ancestry but critical to the belief that Rurik was a Viking, or Varangian, prince. Which by it’s nature is patrilineal and the fact that is not true is causing a bit of a crisis of faith among those parties. It will take some time for some historians to accept the empirical evidence, but that evidence is well established at this point in time that Rurik was not descended from Norse male lines. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/46 "2018-07-17T21:08:19Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > Sure. It was so minor it was the largest in Europe by the end of the Viking age. Dublin became the largest in 11th century, due to Papal decree and other bans, but was mostly trading captives northwards and the laws England passed in 1102 reduced even that. I am not saying anyone was being good here, but that is kind of like being the biggest buggy whip manufacture in the 1930’s, the writing was already on the wall (for the Eurasian sourced slaves) Charlemagne and others traded millions to the near East previous to that time. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/47 "2018-07-18T00:15:34Z")
I need to add in a post or it will bother me. There was no single group of the ‘vikings’ and the idea that it was even a single group has more to do with religious intolerance, myths mixed with some eugenics, and a desire to justify a racist “nordic” theory. In a world where the [eugenics based Nordic theory is popular,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passing_of_the_Great_Race) there is physical evidence that people were joining them from the UK/Ireland such as [rebukes](http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/anglica/Chronology/11thC/Wulfstan/wul_serm.html) for joining the north men or legal documents like the [Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum](http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/agu/). While it may have started among the Danes, that [was not the whole story](http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3721/037.002.sp705) and[the people who first sacked Paris didn’t call themselves Vikings but the “Men from Vestfold”](https://cjadrien.com/viking-sack-nantes/) And as that last link points out the Norwegians competed against their Danish rivals for land in Ireland. And who we call the “viking” that lead the attack on Seville in 844 A.D were the _Rus_ to the Danish Vikings. The cohesive melding of Gennti, Magi, Rus and Wicing into this “viking” term was [based on an idea of racial superiority and purity](http://www.academia.edu/390901/THE_ORIGINS_OF_THE_IMAGINARY_VIKING_VIKING_HERITAGE_4_2002_GOTLAND_UNIVERSITY_CENTRE_FOR_BALTIC_STUDIES_VISBY) While on one side I feel like this post is telling a kid that Santa Clause isn’t real, the reality is that [this myth is still used to justify murder today.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/31/white-supremacists-love-vikings-but-theyve-got-history-all-wrong/?utm_term=.6d74df02fafa) While most people don’t use the term that way, perpetuating the myth that these were the same groups, or that they were some specific genetic grouping is false. The Danes knew they could stack Paris because they heard of the success by the Men of Vestfold, and there was no awkward same village drama by Rollo related to these to events. Although I do admit to liking that show. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/48 "2018-07-18T01:24:52Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, but the children of the Freed slave were Citizens, with full rights. > > Whereas the Children of a free Black slave were still “subhuman niggers”. Yeah, mind the Roman Republic was centered on the actual city of Rome. Only people born within its borders was a citizen, and only if they were born of free Roman mothers I believe. Also women held a limited form of citizenship tied to the citizenship of their family and later husband. Initially as the Roman Republic accumulated vassal states, these states might have their own sub-governments and their own citizens, but these people were never _Roman citizens_. Later on, as an instrument to shore up the Republic and bind closer the vassal territories, the Senate would extend “grades” of citizenship with some portion of full Roman Citizenship rights to specific cities/regions at various times, based on various conditions. This practice continued on into the imperial era. It wasn’t until the 3rd century AD that a Roman Emperor issued a declaration that all non-slaves in the Empire were Roman Citizens, but for the prior ~400 years of Roman history this was just not the case. In the era of Julius Caesar, the recently conquered Gauls would be seen as essentially subhuman monsters/barbarians, no doubt about it. Interestingly because of the way Roman citizenship was classified some of the “barbarian” Kings who toppled the empire were actually themselves Roman citizens by law, having been born in the empire itself. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/49 "2018-07-18T01:27:57Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > And a lot of Varangians were Kievan Rus’, Vikings who had settled in Kiev for a while, and seem to have been mixed up with the local Slavs in various ways. Just like the Vikings in York were mixed up with the local Saxons and Celts. > > Recent genetic studies seem to indicate that both the Saxons and the Vikings only added a small amount of genetic heritage to the local population round York; the Celtic population was not completely displaced or exterminated in either case. Interesting if true, my understanding has always been that by the 800s the native Celts had all been pushed north into what today is modern Scotland, West into Wales/Cornwall, and modern day England was dominated by the Germanic peoples that had started pushing their way in hundreds of years before. I guess given the region of England we’re talking about (far northern), it isn’t too shocking it would have had significant remaining Celtic peoples. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/50 "2018-07-18T01:48:30Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Initially as the Roman Republic accumulated vassal states, these states might have their own sub-governments and their own citizens, but these people were never _Roman citizens_. Later on, as an instrument to shore up the Republic and bind closer the vassal territories, the Senate would extend “grades” of citizenship with some portion of full Roman Citizenship rights to specific cities/regions at various times, based on various conditions. > > This practice continued on into the imperial era. It wasn’t until the 3rd century AD that a Roman Emperor issued a declaration that all non-slaves in the Empire were Roman Citizens, but for the prior ~400 years of Roman history this was just not the case. Oh god, now I’m having flashbacks of third year’s Ant. Hist. module on Africa (the Roman province, not the continent) and cramming the differences between latin, Roman, peregrine legal statuses and the millions of possible exceptions, privileges, local treaties, sub-rules and so forth :smack:. That was a fun exam… But speaking of, one thing to mos def bear in mind is that “the Roman Empire” is very much a historian’s shorthand. Or, to put it another way, a complete political fiction. There wasn’t anything standardized anywhere in the Empire and every bit of conquered land ; hell every conquered \*city \*was administered according to treaties and compromises and give-and-takes quid-pro-quos established when that specific piece of land got acquired and how. To add to that, Roman administrators were parachuted into their foreign provinces all the way from Rome with a one year mandate (non-consecutive, I believe ? In theory at least, I know some administrators got extended stays to deal with punctual crises) and they spent most of that one year travelling around the province to meet-and-greet and hold judicial hearings. Also to rake in the moolah, of course. Suffice to say most of the \*actual \*legislative, judicial and administrative work was handled by more permanent local clerks - who by and large weren’t Romans (at least not Romans from Rome) and in many cases just ran things the way they’d been running them before the Romans came along. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/51 "2018-07-18T01:51:36Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Yeah, mind the Roman Republic was centered on the actual city of Rome. Only people born within its borders was a citizen, and only if they were born of free Roman mothers I believe. Also women held a limited form of citizenship tied to the citizenship of their family and later husband. > > Initially as the Roman Republic accumulated vassal states, these states might have their own sub-governments and their own citizens, but these people were never _Roman citizens_. Later on, as an instrument to shore up the Republic and bind closer the vassal territories, the Senate would extend “grades” of citizenship with some portion of full Roman Citizenship rights to specific cities/regions at various times, based on various conditions. > > This practice continued on into the imperial era. It wasn’t until the 3rd century AD that a Roman Emperor issued a declaration that all non-slaves in the Empire were Roman Citizens, but for the prior ~400 years of Roman history this was just not the case. > > In the era of Julius Caesar, the recently conquered Gauls would be seen as essentially subhuman monsters/barbarians, no doubt about it. > > Interestingly because of the way Roman citizenship was classified some of the “barbarian” Kings who toppled the empire were actually themselves Roman citizens by law, having been born in the empire itself. Just curious, wasn’t the Apostle Paul, born in circa 5 A.D. to a Jewish family in Tarsus (modern day Turkey) a Roman citizen? I know there is little information about his early life and maybe his citizenship was one of these various grades to certain cities. I just thought extending citizenship happened earlier than 300 A.D, but I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/52 "2018-07-18T02:29:18Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Yeah, mind the Roman Republic was centered on the actual city of Rome. Only people born within its borders was a citizen, and only if they were born of free Roman mothers I believe. Also women held a limited form of citizenship tied to the citizenship of their family and later husband. > . Pretty much by the late republic, all of Italia were citizens. And if you were born of a freedman, you were a citizen. > **[Roman citizenship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_citizenship)** > > Citizenship in ancient Rome (Latin: civitas) was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance. Citizenship in ancient Rome was complex and based upon many different laws, traditions, and cultural practices. There existed several different types of citizenship, determined by one's gender, class, and political affiliations, and the exact duties or expectations of a citizen varied throughout the history of the Roman Empire. > Th... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/53 "2018-07-18T02:30:37Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Just curious, wasn’t the Apostle Paul, born in circa 5 A.D. to a Jewish family in Tarsus (modern day Turkey) a Roman citizen? I know there is little information about his early life and maybe his citizenship was one of these various grades to certain cities. I just thought extending citizenship happened earlier than 300 A.D, but I could be wrong. You could “buy” a type of citizenship. Romans believed in bribery. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/54 "2018-07-18T02:44:28Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Just curious, wasn’t the Apostle Paul, born in circa 5 A.D. to a Jewish family in Tarsus (modern day Turkey) a Roman citizen? I know there is little information about his early life and maybe his citizenship was one of these various grades to certain cities. I just thought extending citizenship happened earlier than 300 A.D, but I could be wrong. I find it unlikely Paul’s father or Paul, Jews from Tarsus, would have had full Cives Romani. To try to keep it brief since this has nothing to do with Vikings: 1. Initially Roman citizenship was tied specifically to birth within Rome of people not slaves, to existing Roman citizens. (So a Carthaginian trader’s child born in the city was not Roman.) 2. This meant all territories loyal to the Roman Republic, were essentially tied to Rome by treaties (like you would have with a foreign power.) Each treaty with each ally was different and could entail different rights and privileges. The privilege to vote/hold office in Rome was not ever part of these early Republican treaties. 3. The Latin War from 340-338 was between Rome and its allies and the Latin League, Rome won and now had undisputed control of most of what is today modern Italy. As a means of keeping people happy Rome created what has been called by historians the “Latin Right”, which was extended to all non-Roman Italian cities allied to Rome before the war, and all the cities from the Latin League conquered during the war (initially they extended full citizenship to only the faithful, non-rebellious cities, but during the war they extended it even to the rebels out of a desire to end the rebellion). The Latin Right was a form of limited Roman citizenship that allowed: -Right to trade/enter into contracts on equal footing with Roman citizens -Right to marry, specifically to marry into a full Roman citizen family -The right to migrate various places and retain this right While it’s more complicated, in many circumstances (eventually all circumstances) Latin peoples who had the Latin right and moved to Rome, could actually assume full Roman citizenship rights. 1. Eventually this status became intolerable to the non-Roman Latins. Mind that these people had to provide soldiers to man the legions, had to pay taxes and such, but had no right to vote in Roman elections. They got upset and revolted in the 90s-80s BC, and as a consequence of that Revolt the Romans gave all the Latins South of the River Po full Roman citizenship rights. Keep in mind the Roman voting system was complex and varied from era to era, it was never “one man one vote”, there were always complexities to it that are too much to talk about here. 1. Roman non-Italian provinces were frequently given the “Latin Right” in the late Republican period. The Latin Right as mentioned above included significant rights but not the rights to vote or hold office. This right could be granted to entire cities or entire provinces. Sometimes true Cives Romani, full citizenship, was also granted to provincial by specific order to specific people. This was often done to local magistrates or military leaders, to help make them feel like they were part of Rome. Keep in mind that to my knowledge there was no absentee voting, even if you were a full Roman citizen you generally had to live in Rome to vote in Roman elections. My suspicion is that in the late early imperial period which is when Paul’s father was born (biblical sources tend to indicate it was his father who was a citizen, and are not quite as clear if he actually inherited that citizenship or was just prominent because he was the son of a citizen), I suspect he held a form of the Latin Right, but not the full citizenship. It was in 212 AD true full citizenship was extended to the entire Empire, albeit with tons of restrictions, limited franchise and etc. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/55 "2018-07-18T02:45:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You could “buy” a type of citizenship. Romans believed in bribery. Acts 22:28 has an exchange where a Roman soldier says he bought his citizenship and Paul replies he was a natural born citizen. Looking up that passage on biblehub it says it was extremely probable people born in Tarsus were citizens from a charter from Julius Caesar for who it was named Juliopolis, Tarsus is called a no ordinary city in the wiki article on it. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/56 "2018-07-18T02:46:28Z")
“Civis Romanus sum” > [@DrDeth](#): > > You could “buy” a type of citizenship. Romans believed in bribery. In the relevant passage of the Book of Acts, when Paul invokes his civil rights as a Roman citizen, the official mentions he paid a lot to become a citizen and Paul answers, I was born one. ETA: Rats! Ninja’d! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/57 "2018-07-18T09:09:42Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I’m trying to imagine how many slaves could be transported any decent distance in those Viking longboats unless they could help with the rowing…? Longships are only for the slaves you capture on an actual raid. For _serious_ slave trading, you’d use a [different kind of vessel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knarr). ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/58 "2018-07-18T14:52:05Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Of course, after 1066 England was under Norman control, and so the history of that period was written by the Normans. Who were descended from Vikings. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/59 "2018-07-18T16:21:34Z")
The Viking incursions were largely over after 1066 in any case, and the men still sort of viewed as Vikings (like Harald Hardrada) were by then pseudo-Christians, with rapid Christianization under way. I think some of our best sources for information on the pagan marauding Vikings of the 800s-1000s come from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which indeed is a biased source. Pagans in general are not represented well in any Christian texts from the era of Charlemagne through into the 1900s. By 1066 the Normans were an odd lot, they weren’t really Scandinavian culturally, remember the ruling line was descended from a Scandinavian, and he did bring Scandinavian settlers to his lands, but it was kind of a mashup culture. The Scandinavian rulers intermarried heavily with Frankish/French families and they were speaking their own distinct bastard language at the time (Norman, which later morphed into Anglo Norman in England and then slowly died out.) ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991/60 "2018-07-18T17:18:47Z")
Even most of the “Vikings” were Dutch kings that same from the same areas that the Anglo-Saxons had based their invasions from after the departure of Rome. Some of the invasions in the late 900s were actually people fleeing forced conversions, or failed attempts at forced conversions to Christianity in Denmark and in some cases the limited success by these refugees emboldened the Kings they were fleeing to invade and those invasions are still attributed to the _vikings_. Note that Briton had only really been converted in the 700’s so this can be thought of as local warring factions too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ad-793-were-the-vikings-really-that-bad/817991.md?page=2)