Question For Viking Experts

[hong]

What was the Scandinavian region like in the time of the Roman Empire? Did the Vikings (if such they even were at that time) have the same gods (Odin, Thor, etc.) as later in their history? I believe they were around, as the Norsemen had contact with the Irish fairly early on.

Well, they had names like Huntingseassen, Nogoodreassen, Haraldwilssen and Herendethelessen.

Also, they used weird 8-bit non-ASCII characters in their speech.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The cultural landscape of scandanavia probably changed a great deal over the time period of the Roman Empire.

This was certainly true of Germany, which goes from being inhabited by the scattered nomads that Ceasar encountered to the much more settled/civilized and complex groups of Tacitus to the powerful if odd Roman satellites of the early dark ages.

My impression is that there was a lot of flux outside of the Celtic areas.

Roman expeditions into Denmark describe it as pretty much empty country that German refugees would have to chased into.

There would be more Lapps and fewer, but growing, Finns.

 

[Desdichado]

As southern Scandinavia and northern Germany are considered the be the homeland of the Germanic language family and culture, it's propably fairly safe to conjecture that the "proto-Vikings" were about the same as their relatives that lived north of the Rhine in what Caesar called Germania. Certainly some aspects of their culture can be reconstructed back to that era, including the names of many of the deities, which can be reconstructed to proto-Germanic (interestingly enough, Grimm (more famous for Grimm's fairy tales probably, but professionally he was a brilliant linguist) believes that the Odin-Wotan cult is a later phenomena, and Thor-Donnar was the original king of the gods. He even believed that the Odin cult never actually even reached remote parts of Iceland and Greenland before Christianity.)

All of these Germanic peoples have traditionally raided each other for loot, slaves, etc., but several factors led to the "Viking age" in which the vikings arose as a culturally distinct and recognizable phenomena out of the incessant raiding that was already happening. These include:

• A linguistic shift that turned very closely related languages into two distinct familities or dialects, Western Germanic and Northern Germanic (the former being the ancestor of German and English, amongst other languages, and the latter the ancester of today's Germanic Scandinavian languages.)
• A religious shift -- the norsemen remained pagan whilst their southerly Germanic languages became Christian.
• A cultural shift -- the southerly Germanic nations became somewhat "Romanized" culturally. These three items served to essentially seperate the Norsemen into a distinct ethnic group from the morass of closely related and inter-related Germanic federations that existed before that.
• The development of the classic viking longship, which was technologically superior to any other European sailing craft of the time, at least certainly in terms of coastal raiding was concerned.
• The supposed (although not proven) "population boom" of the north. There's no evidence of this except for historians who have tried to look for something to explain the apparent explosion of Viking raids. I believe, however, as do some other historians, that this is more perception than reality -- the now distinct cultural groups and the technological superiority of the Vikings led to spectacular successes and the appearance of a "new" threat when really all that was happening was what had been happening for centuries already.

Of course, the development of a distinct viking culture is a post-Roman phenomena. You can't talk about vikings per se before the time that they actually arrive any more than you can talk about 9th century Americans, because the culture simply didn't exist even though the ethnic groupings that later developed as vikings (or Americans) were certainly already in existence. At most you can say an un-differentiated early Germanic group that lived to the north of the range of the Germanic culturo-linguistic area.

Ireland was indeed populated by celts during the Roman times, but it wasn't until the 11th century that the Gaelic celtic language that is dominant now came to the fore. The Roman era "irish" were more akin to the welsh or the cornish prior to the spread of the Gaelic celts into Ireland and from there to Scotland.

 

[tarchon]

Ireland was indeed populated by celts during the Roman times, but it wasn't until the 11th century that the Gaelic celtic language that is dominant now came to the fore. The Roman era "irish" were more akin to the welsh or the cornish prior to the spread of the Gaelic celts into Ireland and from there to Scotland.

I would have to disagree with that. Old Irish is (naturally) well attested in Ireland, and the earliest remnants of it go back to the 6th century.
This sounds like it's based on the idea of the transplantation of Goidelic Celtic speakers from Spain, but I've never seen anyone posit a date for that as late as the 11th century. I'm personally skeptical of the whole Spanish scenario regardless of the date, but I guess it could have happened. Scotland of course may or may not have been Goidelic speaking before the Dal Riad invaded - there unfortunately isn't much left of Pictish to go by.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I think it would be difficult to dispute the intermittent appearance of coastal raiders throughout the history of the North Sea, but I also think it would be difficult to say that the Viking invasions represented a new spin of an always present phenomena.

There must have been a fairly extensive period in which coastal raiders were a much reduced threat in order for the British system of Island and peninsular monastaries to have developed. Communities of people who have largely disavowed violence and commerce have to be built for defense. The fact that these communities were among the first to suffer heavily under the Viking threat indicates that coastal raiders were a threat that the generations who had built the monastaries were completely unaware of.

I do agree, however, that the Norse population explosion does seem to me to be a rather unnecessary theory. Sometimes a people just develops the right combination of technology and ancyness at the right time to go Viking.

 

[med stud]

I have a quote from a Roman important person on Scandinavia: "It is a cold land of forests and marshes populated by brutal men who only wants to fight."

And I dont know if this is true, but I think Western Roman emperors used the Vendes (an ancient Scandinavian tribe) as body guards. I know that Scandinavians were used by Byzantine emperors for body guards.

 

[Umbran]

Communities of people who have largely disavowed violence and commerce have to be built for defense.

True. But defense from whom? As if the British Isles themselves didn't contain anyone who'd take a pick at a community of people who have largely given up violence?

 

[tensen]

Fridag (Fredag): Day of Frej/Freja (Frejs/Frejas Dag)

I have also seen Friday as named after Frigga...
Frigedaeg

Probably depended on whether the particular area dealt with both the Aesir and the Vanir.

 

[Desdichado]

I would have to disagree with that. Old Irish is (naturally) well attested in Ireland, and the earliest remnants of it go back to the 6th century.
This sounds like it's based on the idea of the transplantation of Goidelic Celtic speakers from Spain, but I've never seen anyone posit a date for that as late as the 11th century. I'm personally skeptical of the whole Spanish scenario regardless of the date, but I guess it could have happened. Scotland of course may or may not have been Goidelic speaking before the Dal Riad invaded - there unfortunately isn't much left of Pictish to go by.

Whoops! Yeah, my mistake. Sorry, I don't have a date for the replacement of putative brythonic speaking celts with goidelic speaking celts from the mainland.

 

[Desdichado]

I think it would be difficult to dispute the intermittent appearance of coastal raiders throughout the history of the North Sea, but I also think it would be difficult to say that the Viking invasions represented a new spin of an always present phenomena.

There must have been a fairly extensive period in which coastal raiders were a much reduced threat in order for the British system of Island and peninsular monastaries to have developed. Communities of people who have largely disavowed violence and commerce have to be built for defense. The fact that these communities were among the first to suffer heavily under the Viking threat indicates that coastal raiders were a threat that the generations who had built the monastaries were completely unaware of.

I do agree, however, that the Norse population explosion does seem to me to be a rather unnecessary theory. Sometimes a people just develops the right combination of technology and ancyness at the right time to go Viking.

New spin isn't exactly true -- I think the development of the viking longship made coastal raiding a much more lucrative and succesful venture than it ever had been, thereby probably increasing its frequency. Early Germanic peoples had always been raiders, just not necessarily amphibious coastal raiders, at least certainly not to the extent that they were in the viking era. That, combined with the suddenly sharper ethnic split (linguistic and religious) between the vikings and, say the Franks or the Anglo-Saxons, combined to give us the impression that the viking raids were something that was entirely new. All I'm saying is that I don't believe that's true -- it increased in scope, most likely, but it wasn't something new.