Читать книгу Western Civilization - Paul R. Waibel - Страница 53

The fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and the resulting civil strife of the ninth century exposed Europe to a new wave of invasions during the ninth and tenth centuries. The new invaders were the Muslims, the Magyars, and the Vikings. Of the three, the Vikings were the most devastating and had the greatest historical impact.

The Muslims were defeated by the Franks in 732 at the Battle of Tours, thus preventing their advance into Western Europe beyond the Pyrenees Mountains. During the ninth century, they raided the southern coast of Europe, especially Italy, from bases in Muslim‐controlled North Africa. By the middle of the ninth century they occupied Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and southern Italy. They sacked Rome in 846 and again in 876, and burned Monte Cassino in 883.

The Magyars were a Turkic people related to the Huns who migrated from the Russian Steppes to the Carpathian Basin, where they founded the principality of Hungary at the end of the ninth century. From their base in Hungary, they were able to conduct swift raids throughout Central Europe. Their armies consisted mostly of light cavalry armed with a reflexive bow. Their raids were so destructive and terrifying, that contemporary Christian authors likened them to the biblical Gog and Magog who will wage war against God at the end of the world. The Magyars were decisively defeated at the Battle of Lechfield in 955. They settled down and became the founders of modern Hungary.

The invaders who had the greatest impact on the future were the Vikings. They came from the area referred to as Scandinavia – Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Their significance is evident in that the period from the late eighth to the end of the eleventh century is sometimes referred to as the “Viking Age.” Why they began migrating is open to many interpretations. Overpopulation was one reason. Given the agricultural technology at that time, it was easy for the growth in population to outstrip the food supply. The gradual appearance of strong central monarchies in the Scandinavian kingdoms was another.

As pagan warriors, adventure and booty were also motivations. The absence of any strong central authority capable of mounting a rapid response to the swift Viking raiders left the towns and monasteries along the coasts and rivers of Europe and the British Isles easy prey. As pagans, the Vikings did not have any scruples about burning a monastery and nailing the monks to the church door, as they sometimes did. The monastery of Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumbria was looted and burned in 793. Lindisfarne was a center of art and learning, a bright light in a dark age. The Anglo‐Saxon Chronicle records the tragic event:

This year came dreadful fore‐warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery, dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy‐island [of Lindisfarne], by rapine and slaughter.

(The Anglo‐Saxon Chronicle 2019)

“God, save us from the wrath of the Norsemen” was a prayer offered up from the churches and monasteries during the Viking Age.

The Viking migration followed three main routes. The Norse followed a northern or eastern route to Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and eventually the island of Newfoundland off the eastern coast of Canada. They colonized the Faeroes, Shetland, Orkney, and Hebrides Islands, Ireland, and the Isle of Man by 800. They settled Iceland in 874 and Greenland in 986. The Norse established two settlements in Greenland, one on the western coast (Western Settlement) and one on the southern tip (Eastern Settlement). Together, they accommodated several hundred farms and more than 3000 settlers at their peak. The Western Settlement was abandoned around 1400, and the Eastern Settlement within the next 50 years.

The Norse Vikings established a presence along the Canadian coast, an area they called Vinland. The exact location of Vinland has been disputed. Popular myth has placed it as far inland as Minnesota. Excavations undertaken at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland beginning in 1960 uncovered the remains of a Norse settlement. The style and structure of the buildings found at the site are identical to those found in Greenland and Iceland from the same period. Recent excavations during 2016 at Point Rosee on the southern tip of Newfoundland reveal a second Norse settlement on the island. No archeological evidence has been found of Norse settlements or trading posts on the North American mainland, but New Brunswick is a likely location for future discoveries.

The Vikings out of Sweden, called Rus or Varangians, took an eastern route down the rivers of Eastern Europe, especially the Don and Dnieper. They engaged in a profitable trade between the Baltic and Black Seas. Byzantine merchants and Arab traders along the Volga River and on the shores of the Sea of Azov engaged in trade with the Vikings. The Vikings traded amber, furs, honey, slaves, wax, and weapons for silks, silver, and other luxuries. There was a major trading center on the future site of Novgorod as early as the middle of the ninth century. According to the Russian Chronicles, Prince Oleg of Novgorod (r. 879–912) founded the state of Kievan Rus' in 907 with Kiev as its capital. Prince Oleg negotiated a trade treaty with the Byzantine Empire in 911.

The Vikings (mostly Danes) raided down the rivers of continental Europe as the Carolingian Empire fragmented. Their longboats were long, narrow, and had a shallow draft that made them ideally suited for swift raids on monasteries and settlements along the rivers. A longboat could carry 40–60 warriors. The raiders could appear suddenly and be gone before word of their arrival ever reached the one who was expected to raise an army for defense. The Annals of St. Bertin, records the Danish raid on Dorestad, a trading center, in 834:

Meanwhile a fleet of Danes came to Frisia and laid waste a part of it. From there, they came by way of Utrecht to the emporium called Dorestad and destroyed everything. They slaughtered some people, took others away captive, and burned the surrounding region.

(Nelson 1991, p. 30).

By the middle of the ninth century, the Viking raiders came in fleets of as many as 350 ships and several thousand warriors. They began to winter over in the lower Seine Valley in 851. From there, they were able to harry the largely defenseless former Carolingian empire.

In 911, Charles the Simple (879–929) signed the Treaty of Saint‐Clair‐sur‐Epte with the Viking leader, Rollo (b. c. 846), in which Charles ceded to Rollo the territory later known as Normandy, “land of the Northmen.” Rollo became a Christian and agreed to serve Charles and protect the Seine estuaries from further Viking incursions. It was Rollo's great‐great‐great‐grandson, William, Duke of Normandy, who invaded and conquered England in 1066. The Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066), where Harold Godwinson defeated King Harald III Hardrada of Norway, and the Battle of Hastings, where Duke William defeated Harold Godwinson, mark the end of the Viking Age.