Vikings: The Rise and Fall

Episode 1

The Road to Lindisfarne

Fri, Jun 24, 2022 43 mins

Vikings is a term applying to the Nordic Germanic people who lived in and sailed from Scandinavia, but specifically for the macho 'way of life' of their fearless, fierce, feared warriors. As excellent sailors, who developed superior rowing ships and learned to add a sail, they became redoubtable raider-pirates. Although raiding was common in the chaotic feudal early Middle Ages, the barren land kept them struggling worst for subsistence, so the climate worsening practically forced them to raid far more. Their reach increased, and plundering weak Christians for treasure and slaves proved far more profitable then trade, which they almost abandoned. England, divided in rivaling Anglosaxon kingdoms, proved the ideal prey, especially the rich monasteries by the coast. The first recorded strike, on island Lindisfarne in AD 793, was such a triumph they returned there and all over the British isles for two centuries. Yet later they learned the land and people enough to start conquering territory and settling.

Episode 2

The Great Heathen Army

45 mins

The Siege of York occurred from 866 when Great Heathen Army laid claim to Northumbrian capital of York.

Episode 3

As Far East as Baghdad

43 mins

While West Europe still reviles the Western Vikings who mainly raided and settled the British Isles in sailing ships, Eastern Norsemen became known as Rus, probably meaning 'rowing people', as they set out from the Baltic to the main rivers, notably Volga and Dnjepr, using light rowing boats one can drag over land, through modern Russia (named after them), to the wealthy East, to trade with Byzantines and Muslim empires. On the long way the Rus also founded settlements, captured slaves and started mingling with various local populations, exchanging cultural and possibly religious elements with Finnish, Baltic, Slavic, Turkic and other Tatar tribes. Remaining superior heathen warriors, they once raided the Bosporus bank opposite Constantinople, but also supplied elite troop to the imperial Varangian Guard. Later they converted to Christianity and became more settled and civilized.

Episode 4

The Fall of Francia

Having lucratively raided the weak kingdoms on the British isles, bands of (Western) Vikings raided the continental coasts and sailed up main rivers to rob locals and especially church treasures. After the dispersed Frisians, they engaged the land of the Franks, which Charlemagne forged into a new empire reuniting many former Roman provinces in Catholic faith. The mainly monastic sources -Vikings wrote none- paint them a barbaric scourge of God for the people's sins, the lack of effective defense lured them back to raid again and kidnap people for ransom. Garrisons and defensive fortifications proved little use, especially after Charlemagne's empire fell apart in three rivaling Frankish kingdoms. Under Louis, who ruled Western Francia (roughly Gaul), Vikings even raided his capital Paris. Ultimately, some Vikings bands were invited to settle in order to defend coastal areas, mixing with and actually largely assimilating with Catholic natives. Rollo thus became the first duke of Normandy (so called after the Norse men), from where his descendant William would conquer England.

Episode 5

The Wild West

44 mins

As real Viking kings managed to forge the loose tribal confederations of chiefdoms into organized Norse realms, with laws and taxes, notably in Denmark and Norway, some craved to regain independence by emigrating. Apart from settling during raids on the British Isles and the European continent, superior seafarers took West to the unknown at sea. They reached Iceland, where a 'democratic' society flourished a few centuries, a republic where power resides with the thing (assembly) of free men, but farming ultimately proved too hard when winters got frostier. Meanwhile new expeditions had reached Greenland -the name being a ploy to attract colonists to this glacier island- and even the Nory American North Atlantic coast, notably on Newfoundland, which was already properly inhabited. All these far settlements ended up abandoned.

Episode 6

The Second Viking Age

44 mins

The 10th century reign of Harald Bluetooth, king of a newly unified and powerful Denmark, marked the start of a second Viking age. With the Normans finally taking the English Kingdom in 1066, we look at the final days of the Viking empire.