Viking expansion
To the west, Vikings under Leif Erikson, the heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up a short-lived settlement in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada.
Longer lasting and more established Norse settlements were formed in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Ireland, Normandy and Sicily.
[9][10] Polygynous marriage increases male-male competition in society because it creates a pool of unmarried men who are willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors.
[13] Another theory is that it was a quest for revenge against continental Europeans for past aggressions against the Vikings and related groups,[14] Charlemagne's campaign to force Saxon pagans to convert to Christianity by killing any who refused to become baptized in particular.
Viking settlements in Ireland and Great Britain are thought to have been primarily male enterprises; however, some graves show nearly equal male/female distribution.
[39] According to the 12th-century Anglo-Norman chronicler Symeon of Durham, the raiders killed the resident monks or threw them into the sea to drown or carried them away as slaves – along with some of the church treasures.
[62] In 1070, the Danish king Sweyn Estridsson sailed up the Humber with an army in support of Edgar the Ætheling, the last surviving male member of the English royal family.
[62][63] Five years later one of Sweyn's sons set sail for England to support another English rebellion, but it had been crushed before the expedition arrived, so they settled for plundering the city of York and the surrounding area before returning home.
[62] Some raiding occurred during the troubles of Stephen's reign, when King Eystein II of Norway took advantage of the civil war to plunder the east coast of England, where they sacked Hartlepool, County Durham and Whitby, Yorkshire in 1152.
[73] The early Normans in Wales shared the maritime history of the Vikings, tracing their lineage back to the same wave of raiders and settlers that harried the Welsh coast in the ninth century.
[75] The modern English name Anglesey (Welsh: Ynys Môn) is of Scandinavian origin, as are a number of the island's most prominent coastal features.
[78] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that heathen men (the Danes) raided Charmouth, Dorset in 833, then in 997 destroyed the Dartmoor town of Lydford, and from 1001 to 1003 occupied the old Roman city of Exeter.
[82] Their attacks became bigger and reached further inland, striking larger monastic settlements such as Armagh, Clonmacnoise, Glendalough, Kells and Kildare, and also plundering the ancient tombs of Brú na Bóinne.
[87] During the next eight years, the Vikings won decisive battles against the Irish, regained control of Dublin, and founded settlements at Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick, which became Ireland's first large towns.
[95] Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy (the Conqueror) became King of England after he defeated Harold Godwinson and his army at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066.
The reign of Charles the Bald coincided with some of the worst of these raids, though he did take action by the Edict of Pistres of 864 to secure a standing army of cavalry under royal control to be called upon at all times when necessary to fend off the invaders.
They set up bases in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil at the mouth of the Loire, in Taillebourg on the mid Charente, also around Bayonne on the banks of the Adour, in Noirmoutier and obviously on the River Seine (Rouen) in what would become Normandy.
[100] Knowledge of Vikings in Iberia is mainly based on written accounts, many of which are much later than the events they purport to describe, and often also ambiguous about the origins or ethnicity of the raiders they mention.
[102] Quite extensive evidence for minor Viking raids in Iberia continues for the early eleventh century in later narratives (including some Icelandic sagas) and in northern Iberian charters.
Harald Hardrada, who later became king of Norway, seems to have been involved in the Norman conquest of Sicily between 1038 and 1040,[112] under William de Hauteville, who won his nickname Iron Arm by defeating the emir of Syracuse in single combat, and a Lombard contingent, led by Arduin.
[117] On the other hand, many Anglo-Danish rebels fleeing William the Conqueror, joined the Byzantines in their struggle against Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, in Southern Italy.
[118] In the spring of 1109, as reported in Snorre Sturlason's Heimskringla and in the Morkinskinna, King Sigurd I of Norway aka "The Crusader" and his entire entourage of Vikings arrived in Sicily (Sikileyjar), where they were welcomed by Duke Roger II of Hauteville in his castle in Palermo, who was only 13–14 years old at the time.
[119] The Vikings settled coastal areas along the Baltic Sea, and along inland rivers in what is now Russian territories such as Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod and along major waterways to the Byzantine Empire.
The Varangians or Varyags (Russian, Ukrainian: Варяги, Varyagi) sometimes referred to as Variagians were Scandinavians who migrated eastwards and southwards through what is now Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine mainly in the 9th and 10th centuries.
Engaging in trade, colonization, piracy and mercenary activities, they roamed the river systems and portages of Garðaríki, reaching and settling at the Caspian Sea and in Constantinople.
Rurik's successors conquered Kiev and established control of the trade route extending from Novgorod to the Black Sea through the Dnieper river.
[123] Around 1036, Varangians appeared near the village of Bashi on the Rioni River, to establish a permanent[clarification needed] settlement of Vikings in Georgia.
[133] For example, a 2015 study showed that there were substantial mitochondrial DNA similarities between mice living in the Azores and Scandinavia,[134] and the idea was put forward that they might have travelled on Viking ships from there.
[136] Evidence for Norse ventures into Arabia and Central Asia can be found in runestones erected in Scandinavia by the relatives of fallen Viking adventurers.
A news article by Roger Highfield summarizes recent research and concludes that, as both male and female genetic markers are present, the evidence is indicative of colonization instead of raiding and occupying.
