Vikings Targeted Monasteries and Churches

Vikings, the Great Raiders

The Vikings were feared raiders for roughly three centuries, or approximately 790 AD to 1065 AD.[footnoteRef:2] They took slaves, pillaged, raped, looted, burned, and leveled villages; later they began to winter over in the regions they conquered; and in England they even acquired their own kingdom known as Danelaw. These raiders were fierce, and accounts from Christian monks at the time reveal how absolutely brutal the situation must have been: one monk writing in 860 AD reported on the terror of seeing the Viking ships approaching: “The number of ships grows: the endless stream of Vikings never ceases to increase. Everywhere the Christians are the victims of massacres, burnings, plundering. The Vikings conquer all in their path and nothing resists them: They seize Bordeaux, Perigeux, Limoges, Angouleme, and Toulouse. Angiers, Tours, and Orleans are annihilated and an innumerable fleet sails up the Seine….”[footnoteRef:3] Another monk in 884 wrote “The Norsemen continued to kill and take Christian people captive, destroy churches, tear down fortifications and burn towns. Along all the roads lay the bodies of clergy and laity, nobles and commoners, women, children and infants. There was no highway or village where the dead did not lie, and all were filled with torment and grief to see the devastation of the Christian people, driven to the point of extermination.”[footnoteRef:4] In short, the Vikings were not just traders, merchants and farmers—they were also terrifying raiders who for nearly three centuries terrorized the coastal regions of England and northern Europe, meeting little to no resistance due to the political disorganization of the times. Thanks to their size, brute strength, disregard for manners or human respect, mastery of the navy, the element of surprise, and a thirst for conquest, the Vikings were masterful raiders for centuries until finally driven back to Scandinavia. [2: “Vikings as Raiders,” History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders] [3: “Vikings as Raiders,” History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders] [4: “Vikings as Raiders,” History on the Net, n.d., https://www.historyonthenet.com/vikings-as-raiders]

The very name “Viking” is said to have derived from the old “vikingr,” which meant pirate—and like pirates of the modern era, the Vikings would attack for the purposes of plundering: their mode of existence depended on their ability to take from others what they themselves lacked.[footnoteRef:5] However, the raiding of the Vikings was really only one aspect of their lifestyle—they also contributed to the development of societies and cultures as they penetrated, took over, and settled the regions they raided in previous generations. The fact is that the Scandinavian region which gave birth to the Vikings was in a mode of expansion at the end of the 8th century, and that expansion continued on for several generations as Europe itself had fallen into the Dark Ages and was only beginning to emerge from them under the leadership of men like Charlemagne. [5: Muneera Lula, “The Vikings: Raiders or Settlers?” Manchester Historian, 2015. https://manchesterhistorian.com/2015/the-vikings-raiders-or-settlers/]

In the 800s, Vikings used European rivers to launch their raids and attacks on Christian communities; in this manner they attacked Paris and other French communities, often targeting monasteries and churches because of the stores of wealth these places held. The Christian communities had long-standing traditions of giving alms and gifts of great wealth to churches and monasteries; the Vikings saw these places as prime targets, which is why the ancient reports of Viking assaults are often written by monks.

However, another writer from the time of the Vikings, who actually journeyed to the land of the Norsemen, was Ahmad ibn Fadlan, from Arabia. His story has been depicted in both book and film—Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton and in the film The 13th Warrior, directed by John McTiernan. In the film, Fadlan was a poet in Arabia who happened to encounter the Vikings after the Norse defended his party from an attack by Tatars. In reality, Fadlan was interested in the Scandinavian merchants who had settled along the Volga.[footnoteRef:6] He described the Vikings as a barbarous lot, quite distinct from the people of his Arabic culture: the Norse he saw were to him “the filthiest of all Allah’s creatures: they do not purify themselves after excreting or urinating or wash themselves when in a state of ritual impurity after coitus and do not even wash their hands after food.”[footnoteRef:7] Yet there was clearly admiration for the Vikings. Fadlan describes them as fearsome to behold: “I saw how the Northmen had arrived with their wares, and pitched their camp beside the Volga. Never did I see people so gigantic; they are tall as palm trees, and florid and ruddy of complexion. They wear neither camisoles nor chaftans, but the men among them wear a garment of rough cloth, which is thrown over one side, so that one hand remains free. Every one carries an axe, a dagger, and a sword, and without these weapons they are never seen.”[footnoteRef:8] Fadlan goes on to describe how these Vikings would built wood houses upon the Volga in which ten or twenty men would live. He would find these men often sitting upon couches with the women they were offering for sale: “They come from their own country, anchor their ships in the Volga, which is a great river, and build large wooden houses on its banks. In every such house there live ten or twenty, more or fewer. Each man has a couch, where he sits with the beautiful girls he has for sale. Here he is as likely as not to enjoy one of them while a friend looks on. At times several of them will be thus engaged at the same moment, each in full view of the others. Now and again a merchant will resort to a house to purchase a girl, and find her master thus embracing her, and not giving over until he has fully had his will.”[footnoteRef:9] Vikings thus had little use for manners: theirs was a lifestyle without much restraint, and wine was so often found in their hands that Fadlan described many of them as dying while still holding a cup of wine.[footnoteRef:10] [6: Albert Cook, “Ibn Fadlan’s Account of Scandinavian Merchants on the Volga,” Journal of English and German Philology, 22.1 (1923), 54.] [7: Hanne Jakobsen, “Old Arabic Texts Describe Dirty Vikings,” Science Norway, 2022. https://sciencenorway.no/archaeology-history-art-and-literature-forskningno/old-arabic-texts-describe-dirty-vikings/1388613] [8: Albert Cook, “Ibn Fadlan’s Account of Scandinavian Merchants on the Volga,” Journal of English and German Philology, 22.1 (1923), 56.] [9: Albert Cook, “Ibn Fadlan’s Account of Scandinavian Merchants on the Volga,” Journal of English and German Philology, 22.1 (1923), 57.] [10: Albert Cook, “Ibn Fadlan’s Account of Scandinavian Merchants on the Volga,” Journal of English and German Philology, 22.1 (1923), 59.]

Vikings succeeded at this lifestyle because they were driven to act this way by a lack of other culture in Scandinavia from where they hailed. If Europe had been converted to some extent by Christian culture, the barbarian tribes like the Vikings resisted the Christian code of conduct and embraced a brutal lifestyle. They are said to have had few women in their own land and thus resorted to raiding out of necessity.[footnoteRef:11] [11: “5 Reasons the Vikings were So Successful at Raiding European Villages,” Medium, 2021. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/5-reasons-the-vikings-were-so-successful-at-raiding-european-villages-744dcc6c3230]

Yet, these masterful raiders also succeeded because they crafted the art of surprise, and would often appear undetected among their target victims. They would creep up on them from the rivers and seas, with sails drawn so that they would not be spotted from a distance. By not revealing themselves, but rather drifting gradually and slowly towards their victims, they were like cats on the prowl—neither rowdy nor boisterous, but practiced, cool, calm, and focused; and only when the time for attack came would they unleash their unnerving war cries so as to drive fear into the hearts of their victims, paralyzing them from head to foot as they made their assault.[footnoteRef:12] [12: 5 Reasons the Vikings were So Successful at Raiding European Villages,” Medium, 2021. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/5-reasons-the-vikings-were-so-successful-at-raiding-european-villages-744dcc6c3230]

Having landed and dispatched with their victims, the Vikings would then move away as quickly as they came. Since most villages or communities, monasteries or churches of the time could not afford to have standing armies, there was simply no real line of defense against a Viking attack. Thus, Vikings were able to creep in, unleash their violent assault, and then fly away before any soldiers could be called to mount a resistance. No one ever knew when a Viking raid might happen or where it might happen, so defending against them was a fairly difficult job for many centuries. Vikings were content to make their raids and then sail up and down the Volga to sell their stolen booty.

The Vikings were masterful pirates of the sea as well, as their long-ships were far more stripped down and streamlined than larger European ships. Vikings could ram larger ships, board them, and take them over quickly, with the intention of parting them out, selling them, or enslaving their captives. Vikings thus were able to raid both at land and sea. They excelled because they were tactical, careful, and strategic in their raiding. Their own ships were built for quickness rather than for supporting an arsenal: they themselves were the violent force. They relied on their arms and their fearsome strength and giant size. But they also relied on knowledge, which for them was power—as they used a network of spies that they dispatched across Europe to find out where the best places to attack were.[footnoteRef:13] Vikings did not waste time attacking areas that they knew nothing about. They were not going to risk their lives for the sake of nothing. They attacked where they knew there would be booty. They knew exactly what they were getting when they went in for a raid because their network of spies had already given them good intelligence. [13: 5 Reasons the Vikings were So Successful at Raiding European Villages,” Medium, 2021. https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/5-reasons-the-vikings-were-so-successful-at-raiding-european-villages-744dcc6c3230]