I believe muldoonthief and I were questioning your comment:
because it appears to be a misunderstanding that you appear to be asserting that it is “part of history” that Ragnar converts to Christianity, not that missionaries had not come to Norway.
That part blew away my suspension of disbelief.
Fact is, the Danes and Norse knew all about sailing to England for many centuries (England was, at the time of the show, settled by the Saxons - who were in part the descendants of earlier waves of barbarian invaders from much the same culture as the later Viking raders).
Norse, Danes, etc. had traded with the Saxons for a very long time. The “viking” raids represented a difference of attitude - raid instead of trade (as you may know, “viking” is a description of an activity, like “pirate”, not an ethnicity); it did not represent a new discovery by the Norse, Danes, etc.
Depicting Viking “surprise” at discovering England is a historical absurdity.
The other thing, of course, is that Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and Old Norse were pretty close, linguistically. Not mutually intelligible, but not as crazy-ass different as they make the languages out to be.
But I’m still watching. It’s not very good, but it’s got a hook in me for some reason.
I’ve enjoyed it so far, but I know very little of Viking history. I was hoping a thread would show up here and point out some of the inaccuracies.
Well dagnabbit, I don’t know much Viking history either and I was hoping to not fill my head with a bunch of inaccuracies while being entertained.
Maybe our particular Vikings aren’t very well informed? That is part of the premise I think, the Earl knows and has kept the information hidden for a long time. And he’s crazy.
It’s the equivalent of a party of Canadians in 2013 hacking through trackless jungle in America and, after much soul-searching (and some murder of Canadians who doubt their mission) finally “discovering” New York City. 
Well, perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole. But not by too much. 
If you look at the map of the North Sea, you will see that a handy bunch of islands located smack-dab inbetween the British Islands and the Norweigan coast-- such as Orkney and Shetland. In the 8th century (the time this series is allegedly set) they were used as stepping - stones for raiders and traders alike to access the British isles - in the 9th century, they were colonized by Norweigians (and made bases for piracy directed against Norway itself!).
Point being that the North Sea was hardly an unknown at the time; and any Viking who knew anything about long-distance sailing would surely have known the basic layout of the North Sea. The raids on monestaries came as a horrible surprise to the monks, but the existence of England wasn’t a big surprise to the raiders …
Actually, it was my impression that they did that to test the monk’s character, in exactly the same way that the Earl did to his own man - who failed.
I think Ragnar did that to make sure that the monk was someone he could trust his children with. And didn’t he actually say that to him the next day when he announced that they were leaving and the monk would be caretaker? He said something like, “You have already shown me you can be trusted with my children.”
Anyway, I’m liking this show. The raid on the Abbey was not only historical and time-accurate, it is generally considered to be the event that kicked off ‘the Viking age’. Ragnar Lothbrok was a real person of that era, although very little is known about him so the production has a lot of wiggle room for accuracy. That’s true in general of the Vikings - most of the literature about them was written by their enemies and is bound to be distorted by that fact, so it gives the producers a little room to play.
I won’t mind if they compress history a bit and move later events up in time to move the story along, or invent new events that could plausibly have been lost to history and can’t be disproved, so long as they stay reasonably true to the nature of the people at the time.
Granted, but is it possible that it was unknown to these particular Vikings? I have my suspicions that the Earl knew all about it and was preventing travel to the west for his own reasons - perhaps because raiding to the west was forbidden by convention because of trade or some such. How literate was the average Viking, and how much did they know about the world other than what they knew from their own travels?
I believe it’s true that the attack on the Abbey was the first Viking raid in England, so if they knew all about England for a long time before that, something must have been stopping them from doing it. The show suggests that it’s the invention of new navigation devices that allowed the sea voyage. The ‘sunstone’ that the show depicts has not been found until recently Not just the stuff of legend: Famed Viking ‘sunstone’ did exist, believe scientists. The floating disc in a barrel is also a known navigational aid believed to date to the Viking era.
Again, the sparse historical record gives the producers a fair bit of leeway in how they present the facts. If they maintain the correct broad strokes, I don’t really care if they compress events by a few decades or engage in some speculation about the minutiae of the culture.
The viking raids were indeed a new thing. That did not mean no Norse or Danes ever visited England (or were unaware of its existence). Far from it.
What was “new” was that instead of visiting to sell and buy stuff, they were visiting to kill and enslave people and steal stuff. This came as a horrible surprise to the English exactly because they Norse and Danes had, prior to that, been (relatively) inoffensive traders.
In fact, the first victim of the “Viking Age” was not the monestary, but an unfortunate customs official, who attempted to tax the first vikings! He gets an axe in his skull for his pains.
[Emphasis added]
What made the Norse and Danes turn “Viking” (that is, to steal and kill, and eventually, to invade)? No-one really knows for sure, though all sorts of theories have been advanced.
I concede that there was much prior contact between the Scandanavians and England. What I’m questioning is whether any particular village with Vikings in it would know about that. Books were a luxury, and I imagine most knowledge was passed by word of mouth. So it may be plausible that, although there had been trade between some Scandanavians and England before, this particular bunch of them wouldn’t know about it except for perhaps the Earl. In that era, people routinely lived and died within a few miles of where they were born, never received much education, and other nations were just the stuff of hearsay or legend. If these Vikings always raided to the east, is it not plausible that they knew nothing of the west even though other Norsemen did?
It sounds like that killing of the tax official is roughly depicted as the fight on the beach. The man who met them certainly seemed friendly and assumed they were traders and wanted to take them to meet the king. Sure, it’s out of order from the real history, but that doesn’t really bother me.
Well, they have a ship. I’m assuming they have some among the crew who know how to sail it. That precludes them from being completely ignorant bumpkins, or totally isolated - as the only way one becomes a sailor is by sailing.
It strains credulity past the breaking point that folks who make a living at sailing and long-distance raiding (albeit only in the Baltic, in the series) would have literally never heard of sailing conditions off their own coast, in the North Sea.
I have no problems with them re-arranging the timing of events to suit themselves, every maker of historical epics does that, but having a major plot-point centre on such a bizzare assertion - that viking raders had literally no idea of the existence/location of England - is a major problem.
I’m also enjoying the series and you have to accept that this is mainly fiction.
Have some major nit-picks though.
Viking history is unfortunately very sparse and much of it comes from the Icelandic sagas which has elements of fiction. A better source are the first-hand experience of those who encountered the Vikings. And finally there is archaeology which may not reveal actual events but rather the daily lives of the Vikings.
First nit-pick: Raiding in the East. The fact is the Vikings didn’t do much raiding on the Eastern Baltic because there wasn’t much to raid. The original inhabitants were hunter gatherers at best and there weren’t many of them. The land was mainly uninhabited. Settlements and farms came from what is now Sweden and started earlier than what is considered the Viking era. In fact the Swedes built trading posts all along the eastern Baltic, especially at the mouth of rivers. Sure there were raids conducted between Viking tribes, but that went on all over Scandinavia and were usually a means to settle feuds. The eastern raids against Christians and Muslims only started as the Vikings explored the rivers. As they made their way south they set up trading posts on the way. Novgorod and Kiev for example stand out. Novgorod was most likely a settlement whereas Kiev may have been conquered by the “Varangians” as the Vikings were known as in the east (so named by the Greeks). Eventually they started raiding the Byzantine Empire on The Black Sea and Arabs on the Caspian Sea, but those raids were later than the raids to the West. So when they are talking about raids to the east, it would have had to have been against other Viking tribes or, for a lack of a better word, against “Cavemen”.
Second nit-pick: Viking lords were known as Jarl (pronounced yarl). I realize that Earl is the English equivalent of a Jarl, but my impression is that most English speakers are well aware of the Scandinavian word Jarl.
Third nit-pick: Not knowing where England was??? Archaeologists have dug up evidence that the Scandinavians were already sailing and trading back in the bronze age (1700-500BC). In fact there are plenty of bronze age rock carvings which depict ships as well as stone burial mounds shaped as ships indicating that trade was important even back then. It’s simply inconceivable that the Vikings almost two thousand years later would have no idea where England was.
On a side note; The raid on Lindisfarne in 793 is considered to have been the beginning of the Viking era, or at least the first reference of a Viking raid in England, but it could have been earlier. Scholars have found earlier references of Viking raids in Ireland. Since you’d have to go around England, or at least Scotland to get to Ireland, needless to say there were likely raids in England before 793. Lindisfarne is assumed to be the first Viking raid only because it was the first time it was referenced in England.
Somebody up thread mentioned Christianity and how disappointing it would be if Ragnar would convert because of the monk. I fully agree. Historically, it took a very long time for the Scandinavians to convert. Not until the establishment of kingdoms did Christianity actually take hold. Can’t deny there may have been rare individuals who converted in the early days, but the first important converts were the kings of the established Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Even then, the civilian population didn’t convert until Christianity was forced upon them long after the Viking age ended.
By the way, some historians theorize the Viking raids started because of early conflicts with Christians. Mainly Charlemagne’s war against the heathen Saxons just south of Denmark. Charlemagne’s relentless campaign to conquer and convert the heathen Saxons to Christianity earned him the nick name the Saxon butcher. Many Saxons fled to Denmark and as the news spread, the Danes were undoubtedly nervous that the Saxon butcher would target them next. In addition, Christian ports banned trade with Scandinavians because they were considered to be heathens. Considering the Christian threat from the south and the breakdown of trade relations, it’s easy to see what triggered the Viking age. At least theoretically.
That got a bit long. So let me stop here. Apart from the above nit-picks, I still find the show entertaining. Just have to keep it in perspective.
My guess is that the monk isn’t going to convert Ragnar to Christianity, but he will educate him and help him to become a great leader by teaching him things the others don’t know. After all, that’s why Ragnar brought him back in the first place - the guy said that he had traveled to many places and learned many things, and Ragnar decided, “Hmm, that could be useful.” For example, the Monk told Ragnar about Christian churchgoing, and Ragnar used the information to make it easier to plunder them. I read that the historical Ragnar Lothbrok was supposedly known for raiding on holy days for precisely that reason.
Yup, I’ve read that theory. Not sure I buy it though. For one, the first targets were Ireland and England, who had nothing to do with Charlemagne. Though perhaps it could be argued that to a Viking, one Christian is as good as another, to my mind a simpler answer suffices - a group of Norse or Danish traders simply decided to try stealing instead of trading, and found that it paid off, big-time, as Christian monestaries were (1) easily reached by sea in many cases; (2) isolated from armed protection; and (3) repositories of much easily portable treasure.
Once one group came back with piles of treasure, others saw that raiding paid, and took up the practice. Eventually, the raiders moved to bases closer to their victims, and raiding lead to invasion and occupation.
After this weekend’s episode, it seems more likely that the monk will start worshiping Odin and become a full Viking. Which would be cool.
My objection to Ragnar converting is that it’s got too much of a “Just So Stories” feel to it. The guy who’s convinced he’s seen Odin, leads raids to the West against the Earl’s wishes, and presumably supplants the Earl by the end of the series, also becomes the first Christian?
Not necessarily true. Like Ireland, historians are finding accounts of Viking raids on the Frankish and Frisian coasts which predates Lindisfarne. Francia and Frisia at that time were under Charlemagne’s rule.
You also have to consider that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in which the raid on Lindisfarne is described was written 100 years after the event. It was not a first hand account and was written somewhere else. Unfortunately, the accuracy of the Chronicle is in question. However, it is still a very interesting and famous document and historians have described it as the official start of the Viking age even though raids may have actually been going on up to 20 years earlier.
And although it’s not confirmed, the Franks may have experienced the first raids under Charlemagne’s rule.
The series is really more of a compression of history, different points and ideas being polished and arranged to tell a realistic, but not perfectly accurate, historical fiction. This is very much a compilation of ideas that focus on the experience of Vikings and their culture, as well as that of the peoples they were raiding. I don’t think the historical nitpicks matter at all and greatly enjoyed the series, despite noting all of them mentioned so far.
Ragnor finds out about both England and the method of sailing there from someone else, and the other villagers are at least aware of rumours that there’s a place to the East, so I took it as other Scandinavians being aware of the place, just not the particular group the show is focused on.
Anyways, historically accurate or not, its apparently been renewed for a second 10 episode season
Been watching this, and will probably keep watching. Not as bad as I feared, but not as good as I hoped.
Overall, my main complaint is that the writing is somewhat lazy and unimaginative. There have been far too many scenes that seemed shoe-horned in for the obvious purpose of showing someone’s character, rather than feeling natural. The worst is the Earl - we get a scene where he entraps (and uses as an excuse to kill) one of his henchmen for seemingly no reason, and later we get another scene where he gets a teenager to bury his gold and then kills the teenager to have him serve as a guard to Valhalla. Neither of these situations makes much logical sense, and seem to exist only to make sure we get that the Earl is a Bad Guy.
The earl is dead. Long live Ragnar. Didn’t see that coming, probably because the writing is not cohesive. And yet, I watch.