So as I understand the primary reason for the Vikings success (at least earlier on before they started settling in large numbers in N Europe) wasn’t that they were militarily vastly superior to the Medieval kingdoms they were raiding, but they were too mobile for them. By the time the kingdoms they were raiding (that had nothing close to a standing army) levied an army and turned up to fight them, they were long gone with all their booty.
The Kingdoms of Northern Europe, while pretty fragmented were reasonable military powers, with navies of some description (typically merchant ships that had been called into service as warships on-demand, but a navy nonetheless, by some definition at least)
Given the cost of the viking raids, both to the monarchs’ ability to protect his subjects, which pretty much the only duty they had to them at the time, and the church and clergy. Did anyone seriously consider mounting a retaliatory raid into Scandinavia? Or even carry one out?
Realistically (given what we know now) it would at best have resulted sacking an impoverished village unrelated to whichever raiders were being retaliated against. But they would have not know that at the time. and there would you’d have thought been a lot of pressure to do something.
Wasn’t there some kingdom or village in France that paid the Vikings annually like 200,000 pieces of silver or something not to attack their city? I’ve always wondered how that worked did a small detachment show up to take the money while a large fleet of Viking ships waited in the harbor. If it was an annual thing seems like their would have been ample time to prepare some kind of trap instead of paying protection money but I admit I’ll have to do more research on the topic.
Yeah the famous Dane Geld, though I think those annual tributes (versus just paying the army that’s outside your gates right now to bugger off, as a less risky alternative to fighting them) were from later when they had permanent settlements (e.g. Normandy or the Dane Law in England)
That was pretty much it. There really weren’t any significant targets to hit - you were dealing with mostly highly decentralized states and chieftainships throughout much of the period and intelligence/geography was hazy. A lot of the early negotiations were actually conducted through merchant intermediaries since they were the ones who had some idea of where to find people. Sending a substantial force to tramp through mostly unknown and often harsh lands with lousy early medieval logistics trying to hunt down some raiding party that may or may not have loosely originated from that vicinity was kind of a non-starter. There just wasn’t much to gain - you were far more likely to bleed out resources to zero effect that were better used defending at home.
There were more regular campaigning around Jutland occasionally where there was a land border. But it was a hard area for pre-modern armies to fight, again there weren’t a lot of sites worth damaging and whatever local Danish ruler claimed sovereignty in the area could be negotiating a local peace without in any way reducing viking raids coming from outside his territory or even inside his territory but outside his direct control.
Worse than “you’ll never be rid of the Dane,” is that with the decentralized society alluded to above, you’ll have other chieftains showing up on your doorstep saying, “Hey! You gave Ragnar money. We want some, too.”
And I don’t think I’d term Paris a village, even back then.
That was pretty much it. There really weren’t any significant targets to hit - you were dealing with mostly highly decentralized states and chieftainships throughout much of the period and intelligence/geography was hazy.
I mean we know that now, with our 21st century knowledge of the structure of later 1st millennia Scandinavian society (and a few centuries of military history).
But as a 9th century European monarch it seems that it must have been tempting when long boats start turning up and pillaging your towns and killing your priests, to send a few boats over to “them” to pillage their towns and kill their priests (or some towns/priests that look and sound like them).
I’ve just never heard that it was even discussed (out of all the nations that were attacked over the whole era that the vikings were active), even if it was immediately shutdown by advisors who know more about the practicalities.
For reasons I don’t remember, I recently read most of King Alfred’s Wikipage. He spent pretty much all of his reign fighting Vikings. And it wasn’t just isolated raids. The Vikings actually had an army out there. Not sure how big it was, but at one point, it moved from France to Britain. It set up a base in the Danelaw and then constantly sent out raiding parties, sometimes by land, sometimes by sea.
Alfred developed tactics to fight them successfully, but they were defensive tactics. I don’t think he even tried to attack that base in the Danelaw.
The Vikings developed ships were capable of operating safely (much of the time) hundreds of miles from land. I wouldn’t assume that anyone else could match that technology at the time.
I think you’re also making some big assumptions about things like “the monarchs’ ability to protect his subjects, which pretty much the only duty they had to them at the time”, " pressure to do something", etc. 9th century rulers did not necessarily think the same way as 15th or 20th century ones.
In general the Saxons spent a couple of centuries fighting vigorously against the Danes, often successfully.
But the Saxons were not a seagoing people, and they were never strong enough to invade Denmark or Norway, even during periods when the Danish areas in England had submitted to them.
The only contemporary accounts we have of the Lindisfarne raid, which are Alcuin’s letters and poetry. (But I would not characterize Alcuin as “some monk” at all).
And I think you commit the standard modern mistake of discounting just how influential “some monks” could be in those times.
We’re not talking about the very first raid. There were centuries of conflict.
I stopped reading that article when I got to:
ending with the invasion by the great Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (1046-1066 CE), known as “the last of the Vikings”, whose victories over the Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson (1066 CE) contributed significantly to William the Conqueror’s Norman victory over Harold
In fact, in their only encounter, Harold Godwinson totally defeated Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and Hardrada was killed in the battle, along with most of his men.
An article that gets a basic, well-known fact like that wrong is not worth reading.
the countries were far far for being as united and homogenous than now. A viking raid on a village was the problem of the local baron (with 2-3 knights and 50 peasant levies approximately). The upper noble (a count or maybe duke) would have not been concerned, and the king even less. So, only local measures.
geography was not well known, and especially the Scandinavia, which was not known to the Romans ( main source of knowledge), so the Vikings are coming from the sea… but from where ? if you don’t know, well, you can’t go ther…
the european navies were not adapted to high sea faring: galleys were the military ships and they need to shore every 50 to 60 nautic miles. Commercial naves weren’t used outside of seeing range of the coast. So no possibility for a long range raid… except on viking knorrs!
there wasn’t any unity in the lands, and each little baron was more inclined to launch the Vikings to his neigbors than ally with them against a raid.
I didn’t cite the article for its scholarship, just the quote from Alcuin. You asked for a cite, I gave you a cite. I can find plenty of others for him saying exactly the same thing, that was just the first to come up on Google. All that concerned me was the quote, not the rest of the article. Which quote, I will add, has an academic citation.
So the only thing that matters to my point is whether that was what he wrote or not. Do you think he didn’t? Otherwise what’s your point?
And who cares if it was the first raid or the 100th? All we have to go on how they were thinking was what they wrote, and Alcuin was the only one writing at the time, and for the next little while.
the countries were far far for being as united and homogenous than now. A viking raid on a village was the problem of the local baron (with 2-3 knights and 50 peasant levies approximately). The upper noble (a count or maybe duke) would have not been concerned, and the king even less. So, only local measures.
Saxon England wasn’t feudal. In France, dukes and counts controlled the different regions and considered raids to be very much their concern. How could they not, if the raids endangered their territory?
The King of France (or at least of West Francia) was very much involved in fighting and then settling the Normans in Normandy.
geography was not well known, and especially the Scandinavia, which was not known to the Romans ( main source of knowledge), so the Vikings are coming from the sea… but from where ? if you don’t know, well, you can’t go ther…
We’re not talking about the Romans, but about Britain and France in the 8th-11th centuries. There was plenty of trade and communication around the North Sea.
the european navies were not adapted to high sea faring: galleys were the military ships and they need to shore every 50 to 60 nautic miles. Commercial naves weren’t used outside of seeing range of the coast. So no possibility for a long range raid… except on viking knorrs!
Again, we’re not talking about Roman galleys.
there wasn’t any unity in the lands, and each little baron was more inclined to launch the Vikings to his neigbors than ally with them against a raid.
Not the case. Both in Britain and France the people united against the Norsemen.
So you’re claiming (on the basis of what one prominent clergyman thought about the first raid on a monastery) that they didn’t retaliate in general, for centuries, because they considered Norse raids a punishment from God?
I think you’re also making some big assumptions about things like “the monarchs’ ability to protect his subjects, which pretty much the only duty they had to them at the time”, " pressure to do something ", etc. 9th century rulers did not necessarily think the same way as 15th or 20th century ones.
Actually my point was that none of the other things a modern (or early modern) ruler would consider a duty to their subjects applied to a 9th century one EXCEPT the duty to prevent some hairy-arsed warriors with big axes from turning up and pillaging them. Once a 9th century monarch failed to prevent that they were on dicey ground.
No. Perhaps you can quote where I said anything like that?
What I said was that kind of thinking was an indicator that it is nonsensical to ascribe modern sensibilities or motivations to medieval people. It was a direct reply in agreement to the post above mine. You’ve clearly read waaaaaay too much into it. “face_with_raised_eyebrow” right back at you.
That was the only encounter between Hardrada and Godwinson in person. But immediately prior to that Hardrada had won a pretty decisive encounter at Fulford. That comment you quoted is a bit of a misstatement, I’d agree. But it is substantially correct in its reasoning, even if a little off in the particulars. The northern levies, if not exactly annihilated, seem to have been very heavily bled at Fulford. That northern campaign was a massive stroke of luck for William and quite possibly fatal for Godwinson.
But we are talking mostly about galleys. That was the primary sea-going war vessel of the early medieval age. Alfred’s fleet that he had built in the 9th century to counter the Danes was basically galley-based.
