Vikings and Violence
The Vikings have a singular reputation for cruel and extreme violence, which is one reason why it is difficult to imagine a History of Violence without a chapter on Vikings. As we have seen, however, most of what appears to make Viking violence unique does not quite hold up to critical scrutiny.
They caused devastation across Europe, and they were for a time a military force to be reckoned with. The shock of their earliest, entirely unexpected attacks continued to colour how they were understood. Berserks, blood-eagle rituals and utterly devastated European landscapes belong to the medieval and modern imagination, not to history.There is no doubt that the Vikings were violent, and that they relished and celebrated their violence. In this, they were little different from other warrior groups. They clearly embraced an ideology that promised just rewards for forceful and courageous fighters, although this belief surely drove their endeavours less than their thirst for wealth.
More on the topic Vikings and Violence:
- “The world of the Vikings was extensive. It stretched round the whole of Europe: from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, along both easterly and westerly routes, and to the north-west to Iceland, Greenland and America. Throughout the Viking Age many sought their fortune in distant lands. Some remained there.” ―Else Roesdahl (The Vikings)
- Chapter 3 Vikings on the Dnieper
- PART 1. VIKINGS IN UKRAINE?
- Violence against the Self, State Violence and Interpersonal Violence
- Within the world history of violence the Bible is relevant for our reconstructions of the lived experience of violence among ancient Israelites and Judeans;
- The theme ‘religion and violence' or ‘religious violence' gained worldwide attention after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001.1
- The Interwar Moment: Violence versus Non-Violence
- Violence and representations of violence abound in the literature of ancient and late antique Judaism and Christianity.
- The advent of the Early Historic period in northern India in the sixth and fifth centuries bce saw the emergence of monarchical and oligarchic states and the beginnings of a sustained discussion of the relationship of kingship with violence and non-violence.
- Chapter IV Growing Up with Violence in Northern Ireland: Making Meaning of Institutionalized Violence
- The archaeological evidence for violence and for the symbolic representation of violence in Iron Age Europe is abundant and complex.
- Violence, Non-Violence, the State and the Nation: India, 1858-1958
- Imperial Chinese society accepted and even lauded certain types of violence. Fundamental views of sanctioned violence developed in reaction to that culture's particular views of masculinity.
- This chapter examines the diverse communities of Britain from the ninth century bce to the early fifth century ce, and uses a Web of Violence model to examine the archaeological and primary source evidence for violence in both periods.
- Werner Reiss, author of the most detailed recent discussion on the subject of violence in the Greek world, defined violence as ‘a physical act', stating further that it is a ‘process in which a human being inflicts harm on another human being via physical strength’.1
- To ask what state-sanctioned violence meant in medieval Japan (1185-1615) is to be confronted with two attendant questions: what counted as violence; and what counted as state-sanctioned?
- Kingship, Violence and Non-violence in Indian Thought, c. 500 bce to 500 ce
- The Function and Purpose of Viking Violence
- The Ideology of Violence
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