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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5121352" data-attributes="member: 463">The Vikings had the following advantages over their usual opposition:1.  Size/physique 2. Equipment - chainmail especially3. Weapons TrainingPotential disadvantages: inferior numbers, lack of cavalry.Not much could be done about #1 given differentials in diet, climate etc.  #2 & #3 could be countered by developing a class of professional warriors - knights, sometimes themselves of Norse origin (Normans).It wasn't the case that peasants were deliberately kept disarmed, untrained and helpless in the face of Viking raiders.  Usually the opposite was true - the local lord would be trying to get the peasants to train and fight, more warriors for him = more power.  And Yeomen and some peasants would themselves be descended from the Germanic warrior tribes who overran the Roman empire.Look at Vikings vs Saxons in pre-Norman England.  The Saxons were not much different from the raiding-then-invading Danes, their ancestors came from almost the same place!  And the Saxons were willing and able to fight.  Yet for hundreds of years their hirds were not effective against the Vikings; eventually under a great leader they did defeat the last great Viking invasion at Stanford Bridge, only to be then immediately overcome by the Normans: Vikings-with-cavalry.</blockquote>