The Viking Age: New Perspectives on History and Culture

The raid on the British island of Lindisfarne marks the beginning of the Viking Age. But should the story really start there? How did the Vikings engage with the world around them prior to and during the late 8th century? And do written sources reveal how the Vikings are remembered today?

It is impossible to understand the Vikings without understanding the climate, geography, and society that produced them. Trace the history of the term “Scandinavia” before surveying the region's early topography, dialectal development, and social and legal organization. And explore the influence of Rome on Scandinavian culture before the dawn of the Viking period.

Today, the Vikings have exceedingly violent reputations, remembered in history and popular culture for terrorizing Christian Europe through raiding, pillaging, and conquest. Investigate the enduring but misguided trope that has for centuries characterized Viking activities around Europe. Then, examine the weapons, armor, and ideas that propped up violence at home.

For centuries, women have been excluded from scholarship on the Vikings despite their profound impact within local society and politics, at the market, and on the battlefield. Correct the record with a lecture focused on how women warriors, weavers, queens, goddesses, and priestesses made waves in what was otherwise a rigidly patriarchal society.

Norse religion shaped the comic books, films, and even operas we know and love today. Become acquainted with the gods and giants at the center of it all. Dig into Norse cosmology and beliefs about the afterlife. And survey the purpose and power of common religious practices like feasting and sacrifice.

Continue your exploration of Norse religion with a focus on death and dying. Examine how burials and afterlife trajectories differed based on class, gender, and even battlefield experience. See how researchers use stable isotope analysis and ground penetrating radar to not only locate gravesites but to also study their contents—bones, booty, and all.

Go global by examining Viking activities in Eastern Europe, Byzantium, and Asia. Get to know the Rus people—the eastern descendants of Vikings, depending on who you ask—and the powerful polities they built through trade and military might. Investigate the powerful trade connections that bound Viking merchants to Constantinople, Syria, and even China.

Turn your attention toward the British Isles. What spurred Vikings to invade and subsequently settle England—children, livestock, and wives in tow? How did the Viking threat shape culture, language, and politics in Britain, transforming what was once a spattering of kingdoms into a formidable world power for centuries to follow?

The Vikings raided the Irish and French coastlines ferociously, but their involvement with the polities of both nations was complicated. Explore how the Vikings successfully integrated themselves in Ireland through political alliances, wealth, warfare, and marriage. And study the history of the French province of Normandy, from its Viking roots to its dominance in the region.

Turn west, focusing on Viking exploits in Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. Study the history of Viking settlement in Iceland, from Náttfari the slave’s arrival to the rise of proto-democratic government. And evaluate why Northmen—famous for their global reach—could not stick it out for long in North America.

Examine how Christian conversion and state building worked together to produce a Scandinavia we can recognize today. Track the slow and often tedious rise of Christianity within the Viking world—first around European settlements and then within Scandinavia itself. And get to know the Viking kings who used Christianity to unify their respective kingdoms.

Dive into the convergent political and military forces that pushed marauding Northmen out of Europe and back to Scandinavia around AD 1066. Track the rise of Viking Age scholarship across academic disciplines. And assess the Vikings’ enduring legacy on both high and popular culture today.