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The Beginning of the Viking Expeditions

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Viking expeditions were a serious menace to Western Europe and the British Isles towards the end of the eight century.
The Anglo-Saxon chronicle says that in King Brihtrics days (he was the king of the Wessex empire from year 786 to 802) the first vessels with Danish men on board came to Britain (in the sense of vikings beyond doubt). 

Three vessels arrived and when the bailiff of the king 
rode   to them and asked them to follow him to the royal castle – he thought they were dealers – they killed him. As early as in 792 King Offa of Mercia – another of the British empires – began organizing a defence in Kent against ”the heathen” who sailed across the ocean on wandering fleets. In year 800 the Emperor Karl den Store (Charlemagne) inspected the defence against ”pirates who infested the Gallic sea” which he had ordered along the northern coast of the Franconian empire as far as to the Seine.  

In year 793 the attack was committed which traditionally heralded the viking period. The plunder of the convent in Lindisfarne on a small island lying close to the coast of north east Britain. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle tells about this.

This year some terrible signs appeared over Northumbria which frightened the inhabitants out of their wits. Enormous whirlwinds, lightings and fire-breathing dragons were seen flying in the air. A hard famine followed these signs and later that year on 8 June heathen men destroyed God´s church in Lindisfarne through ravages, plunder and murder.

The learned Alkuin from York, who was the leader of Karl den Stores (Charlemagne) Court school in Aachen at that time, was shocked and wrote letters to Britain containing admonition to lead a good life in order to avoid the punishments from God which the viking attacks had to be an expression of. Furthermore, he wrote to King Ethelred of Northumbria:

Bear in mind, that for almost 350 years we and our ancestors have lived in this sore beautiful country, and we have never before experienced such a terrible act in Britain as the one witnessed from the heathen people. Neither would one have believed that such an attack from the ocean could take place. The holy Cuthbert´s church is spattered with blood from God´s priests. It has been robbed of all treasures, the most venerable place for all people in Britain has been plundered by the heathen.

In year 795 the vikings had reached Scotland and the island Iona where their rage was vent upon the venerable St. Columba´s convent. They also reached Ireland. In year 799 St. Philibert´s convent which was situated on the island Noirmoutier in the estuary of the river Loire was plundered. In the following period an interaction between viking activities on all British islands and between them was seen as well as expeditions on the mainland and the colonizations of the North Atlantic islands and areas which were totally or almost empty of people. Building on Iceland probably began about year 870. The colonization of the Faroe islands may have started a little earlier while the settlings in Greenland which originated from Iceland began about year 985. About year 1000 Northerners from Greenland reached America.

Towards the east people from Central Sweden and Gothland settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic even before the expeditions in the west began. During the ninth century northern communities emerged on several locations along the south coast of the Baltic as well as in Eastern Europe. There was contact with Byzantium and the caliphate and there were expeditions as far as to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.  

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