This article about the Vikings in England is an excerpt from my book Endstation Brexit.
The British Isles have been accustomed to outside incursions from the earliest times. The Romans settled there for a few centuries and as soon as they left, the Anglo-Saxons arrived. With that, England should have gained its independence once and for all! The great island story was only just beginning, the story of Fortress Britannia, steadfast and strong in stormy seas, impregnable by all... "Wait a minute, what are those ships on the horizon?!" Oh yes, right! We're only getting to the complete conquest of the British Isles! And now it's getting down to business. Of course we are talking about the Vikings. In fact, within 300 years, these Norsemen would shake England to its foundations.
The Anglo-Saxons and their cute little kingdoms, which they so carefully cobbled together after the departure of the Roman troops, almost completely disappeared from the map during this period, and England was never quite the same. So the good old days were finally over. That's at least to be assumed, but maybe Nigel Farage can give us more information... At least that much can be revealed:It all had little to do with horn-carrying, drunk Norwegians on longboats. The classic image of the Vikings that we all learned from Wicki and the Strong Men is not quite as accurate as we used to believe. Unfortunately, the history of the Viking Age is not as simple as one would like it to be. You can't even rely on children's shows anymore! But back to the men from Flake:what did they do in England besides cleaning their horns?
These Danes could at least have knocked on the door in England
England may be on an island, but that doesn't mean it's unassailable. The reason for this is not surprising:the enemies could come on boats! A revolutionary idea. It is somewhat embarrassing that this simple realization caught the Anglo-Saxons on the wrong foot. At least since the ancient Greeks many centuries earlier, it should have been clear to everyone that ships were a much better means of transport than horses and chariots. Much larger quantities of goods and people - including occasionally soldiers - could be transported by ship than could be carried by the best roads. A look at ancient history quickly makes it clear how completely indifferent the great powers of the time were to the oh so separating water. As is well known, the ancient Greeks came to every corner of the Mediterranean with their ships and built colonies there. On the home Balkan peninsula itself, however, things looked quite different. There were always some wild Persians marching through who really didn't know how to behave at all. The Greeks mostly ignored this. Another example are the Phoenicians, who, coming from today's Lebanon, had several centuries earlier established colonies as far away as Carthage, which was to cause the Romans many years later so many problems, but this time not only with ships, but also with elephants trudging through the snow in the Alps. But you certainly know the story of Hannibal. No, not the cannibal, the other...
Not only the Mediterranean can be sailed quite well. With a bit of skill, this can also be done elsewhere, and in the North Sea a population group in the early Middle Ages gave impressive proof of this:the Vikings. However, these historical seafarers probably had very little to do with the stereotypes that are so popular today. It is now even known that they did not even wear horns on their helmets. And let's be honest:If a Viking doesn't wear horns, what's he worth anyway? He could just as easily be some random Celt!
In the early Middle Ages, however, one should rather keep some of them. The Vikings soon spread fear and terror wherever they went. And England was lying around in a quite favorable place in the sea. Can you blame the Vikings for wanting to exploit this green, fertile land just a two-day drive away? Anyone who has ever been to Norway can imagine how good farming was there. Suddenly the green, rainy meadows of Sussex sound really tempting. In fact, the climate in the countries of their origin could have been a reason why the previously rather inconspicuous Norsemen suddenly set sail in the 8th century to plunder foreign lands. But it is also quite possible that there was simply overpopulation in Scandinavia at the time. In other words:the Viking men simply had too many wives, ergo too many children, and as a result many of these children were left without an heir. That usually doesn't put you in a good mood. But fortunately there was this strange island a little further west, which was wonderful to plunder. On top of that, there were already enough typical European rulers, especially in Denmark, who were greedy for power and were looking for more influence in the world. It must have been a combination of these factors that drove the Vikings away.
When they left their countries in small combat groups in the 8th century to seek their fortune elsewhere, England was their first major goal. The beginning of the great Viking Age is then also traditionally placed in the year 793, the year of the Viking attack on the northern English monastery of Lindisfarne. The people of that time were able to get a very good picture of these northmen and their tactics at the first opportunity. A group of Vikings snuck up at night in their nimble, sailless boats, landed on the small north English island, stormed the monastery there, ravaged and killed anything and anyone who stood in their way, taking with them what the boats and before the monks could even wonder what the hell had just happened, the Vikings were gone and their boats were slowly disappearing over the horizon.
This type of raid became almost a habit in the years that followed. Not only in England, but also in Ireland and France, these drunken bands of bearded men would show up, wreaking havoc on everything in their path, robbing, killing, raping and doing whatever Vikings do. Today, such manners are almost only encountered in English hooligans and rocker clubs – so one might think that the beard has an effect on social behavior. In early medieval Europe, however, things were to get much worse. Just when the poor English, Irish and French had gotten used to the raids (people know they get used to everything), the Vikings changed their tactics.
So that's how bad it is for the Vikings in Scandinavia?
From the middle of the 9th century, the Vikings no longer only came to visit to plunder and then disappear again without further ado. No, now suddenly they set up winter camps! Apparently the winters in Scandinavia were so terrible that a stay in England or Ireland seemed downright tempting. If the UNHCR had existed then, England would probably have had to recognize the Scandinavians as climate refugees. Although … then someone would probably have set fire to their refugee homes. Whichever way you turn the story, someone always has to set something on fire. By the way, one of the first permanent settlements of the Vikings was the city of Dublin. Basically, the Irish can't complain at all, since they still haven't managed to build a second real city.
In England, incursions were concentrated in the north and east of the country, in present-day Yorkshire, Northumberland and East Anglia. This went so far that the native Anglo-Saxons soon referred to the region simply as "Danelag". "Lag" means something like "law" in Old Norse, literally "Danish law". And indeed:after a short time, Scandinavian culture prevailed in the region, Old Norse was widely spoken, and Danish law applied. But good. The north of England was as popular back then as it is now. It doesn't make much difference whether there are Scandinavians or some uncivilized northern Englishman. And anyway:Elsewhere things looked much worse! In France, the Vikings were already at the gates of Paris in 845! King Charles the Bald there had other concerns than his alleged hair loss and even paid the invaders a nice sum, the so-called "Danegeld", to persuade them to retreat. Well-mannered as the Vikings were, they gratefully accepted the offer and left - even if only for eleven years. Then they really invaded Paris, plundered, burned and - we remember - did what Vikings do. But the presence of the Danes also made itself felt in England. We've heard before that the Vikings had a little tendency to have many wives. Of course, that also meant a lot of children, and so the Danelag quickly expanded. It soon became a threat to the Anglo-Saxon kings, especially in southern England.
Here it is time to introduce a very great Anglo-Saxon king:Alfred of Wessex, known as "Alfred the Great". Incidentally, he is the only “great” of all English kings. Well, apart from – of all people – a Dane. But always in order. This Alfred led the Anglo-Saxon resistance against the Vikings or Norsemen or Danes or whatever in the 9th century. Let's be honest, the Danes from Danelag were almost as English as the Wessexers anyway, but complexity in the migration debate still doesn't work particularly well today. It wasn't much different in the 9th century. In any case, the Vikings felt threatened by Alfred's threatening gestures and asked for help at home in Denmark. In 878, however, Alfred was able to defeat the large Danish army in battle and also conquer London.
Since all other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had already been subjugated by the Norsemen by that time, this date is now considered by many to be the founding year of England. The kings of Wessex thus became kings of England. However, the House of Wessex had claimed for decades that they were rulers of all of England or even Britain, but no one really believed them. It seems, for some reason, to be easier to first go to war together and then unite the allied states than to try the boring, bloodless route. The Prussians under Bismarck were supposed to repeat the same trick in 1871.
Incidentally, the fact that this new state became known as England is telling. The ancient Saxon and Anglican kingdoms had only just died out, but the names of the Saxons and Angles had long been synonymous. The differences between the two groups were apparently no longer known, and there is no other way of explaining how a king from Wessex could found a state called England. The ‑sex in the name Wessex tells us which gender Alfred came from. A little tip:Today it is in East Germany. The eng- in England, on the other hand, comes from the fishing rods, of course. But it didn't matter. The newly minted Englishmen were not to enjoy their newly united kingdom for too long anyway. Because the Northmen - or Normans - were far from defeated.
What's next you ask? Well, you can find out in my book "Endstation Brexit". In it I tell from nine episodes of history - one of them the Viking Age - in which England and the rest of Europe really got at each other's hair. In all of this, Brexit is almost just a side note. Here I have summarized all the important information about "Endstation Brexit" for you.