Michelle StoryVictoria YangAlex Edquist

650 – The Vikings invent the longship. 793 – Viking raids on European ports and villages begin

with a raid on the English Lindisfarne monks. 825 – The Vikings move east and establish a trading post in

Kievan Rus, at Novorgod. 838 – The Vikings conquer Ireland. 850 – The Vikings conquer Scotland. 864 – The Viking leader Rurik conquers most of early

Russia. 874 – The Vikings establish a settlement in Iceland. 878 – The Treaty of Wedmore makes some of the Vikings

accept Christianity. 882 – Oleg conquers Kiev, and Viking trade helps make it

one of the world’s richest cities. 890 – Alfred the Great of England pushes the Vikings out of

Britain.

911 – The Vikings begin raids on France. 990 – The Vikings assault the English and demand tribute from

them. 1007 – Leif Erikson lands in Newfoundland and establishes a

trading colony there. He is the first European in the New World, although the the colony does not last.

1016 – The English ask Cnut, King of Denmark to become their king in order to avoid paying huge sums of money to the Vikings to avoid raids.

1066 – King Harold of England battles the Danish king and wins, marking the final major Viking raid and expelling the Vikings from Britain.

1066 – The Polish destroy the Viking’s vital trading post, Hedeby. 1150 – Christianity is widely accepted by Vikings in Scandanavia. 1175 – The Icelandic bishop forbids bearing arms in Iceland.

Politics Intellectual Innovation

Religion

• The Vikings would have various city states with one leader per state.

• A colony in Iceland was founded and ruled by the Vikings.

• The colonies that the Vikings founded all had weak city- states.

• Early Viking women were considered equal to men and had equal say in politics

• Sagas were written about the Viking people by Icelandic Christians.

• Laws were created to define many criminal acts and set compensations, fines, and penalties.

• The Vikings would spread out all over Europe by conquest and marriage.

• The Vikings followed the writings of the chronicles.

• The Vikings adopted French law and speech and continued in history under the name of Norsemen.

• The Vikings had a pagan religion that they followed.

• Their beliefs consisted of concepts of health and healing, death and the afterlife, spiritual aids, and religious conversion.

• The pagan Scandinavian countries became Christian kingdoms when the Vikings converted to Christianity

• The Vikings were buried with treasures.

Art and Architecture

Technology Economy Society

• The Vikings houses were made up of wood, which served as the roof and the wood surrounded the house and polls, which held up the house.

• The Vikings preferred type of wood used for housing was oak.

• The Vikings created Norse ships, called longships, marked by a distinctive long, narrow hull.

• The Vikings also created the Knar, which is a type of longship.

• The Vikings dragged the economy of Europe down by ransacking almost any city they could.

• The Vikings gained 16,000 pounds from the English in order to not be treated as an enemy and for the Vikings to convert to Christianity.

• When the Vikings would attack, they would ransack towns and take everything they needed.

• The women were treated differently based on their class:

• Women in the slave class wore old fashion clothes and served bread with broth in a basin.

• The women who were part of the yeoman class wore a cap and blouse with a handkerchief around their neck with brooches on their shoulders. These women would always keep their spindle with them to weave.

Politics Intellectual Innovation

Religion

• The Vikings invaded northern Russia and the Ukraine and founded city states located in Novgorod and Kiev.

• Foundation of Novgorod, central Russia, by Rus under Viking Rurik.

• Al-Ghazal's (Viking Leader) embassy in Turgeis was created.

• The colonies that the Vikings founded all had weak city- states.

• The Cyrillic alphabet was created.

• Various laws were created when the leaders of the Vikings, Halfdane and his brother Olaf, believed that violence should not replace laws.

• The Vikings would spread out all over Europe by conquest and marriage.

• The Vikings in Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary adopted Roman Catholicism.

• The Vikings were buried with their treasures in Eastern Europe.

Art and Architecture

Technology Economy Society

• The Vikings would create and decorate various types of ornaments.

• The Vikings also created and decorated different types of dinner plates and household dishes.

• The Vikings created houses that were build out of wood.

• The Vikings created Norse ships called longships, marked by a distinctive long, narrow hull.

• The Vikings also created the Knar, which is a type of long ship.

• The Vikings dragged the economy of Europe down by ransacking almost any city they could.

• The Vikings traded goods like furs on the Volga River.

• Cities that the Vikings had founded like Kiev became important trading ports.

• The population grew tremendously due to men who could afford it having more than one wife.

• The young Viking men were all sent out to go and find new land for settlements.

Rollo of NormandyRurik

Ragnar Lodbrok

Harald 'Klak' Halfdansson

Leif EriksonCnut the Great

They benefitted the area around the Volga economically by promoting trade. They made Kiev a wealthy city.

They devastated the British Isles economically by raiding so extensively and demanding huge tribute payments.

The Vikings became Christians first in England, when the Treaty of Wedmore states they must become Christians.They spread Christianity to Scandinavia.

Iceland and Greenland remained mostly pagan until almost 1200.They helped Vladimir of Kiev spread Christianity in Rus.

The Vikings established colonies, settlements, and cities wherever they went.

They conquered all of the British Isles and maintained control there until 1000 CE.

They also conquered most of Rus at the same time.

They established colonies and city-states in Normandy, the Mediterranean, and Iceland, though they did not control large tracts of land in Normandy and the Mediterranean.

The Vikings maintained a unified culture, even though they controlled diverse and separated lands. They acted as a culturally unifying force in these areas, much like:

Charlemagne in Germany and France

The Roman/Byzantine Empires

The Islamic caliphates

The Vikings were pagans at first, but starting around 850 CE, Christianity spread from the Viking centers in Britain to the rest of the Vikings in other areas. Almost all Vikings were Christian by 1300 CE.

The Vikings greatly profited from raiding from 800 CE until almost 1100 CE, at which point major raids ended because of stronger European monarchs that could better protect their subjects and fewer Vikings that could afford the boats and leisure time required for raiding.

The early Vikings allowed women equality with men in politics, but as they expanded into Europe, they adopted the local traditions of restricting women’s role in politics.

Beginning in 800, there were many small landowner Vikings who could afford to both leave their lands and buy boats to go raiding. Successful raiders used their new wealth to buy huge tracts of land. Eventually, Viking society became dominated by very few, extremely wealthy landowners and vast numbers of poor peasants, which meant that there were fewer who could afford to leave to go raiding or afford to buy boats for the same purpose.

Between 800 and 900, the Vikings were almost exclusively raiders. By 900, they had diversified to become traders as well, especially in Eastern Europe. By 1000, they used their considerable sea-faring skills to become explorers as well.

Before 900, the Vikings maintained their unique, distinctive culture wherever they traveled. Later, however, they assimilated into the local cultures. One example of this is the introduction of Viking vocabulary into the English language.

• Viking metal is a type of heavy metal music that is characterized by its galloping pace, its keyboard-rich authentic sound, bleakness, and its dramatic emphasis on Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. It is noisy, chaotic, and is often accompanied by soft keyboard melodies.

• There has been enthusiasm for historical reenactment, and the seriousness and accuracy of re-enactments have increased. The largest of these groups are “The Vikings” and Regia Anglourm. Most include an aspect of live-steel combat.

• Common Scandinavian place names include those ending in -by, –thorpe, and -thwaite. These were probably named by families from other Viking villages and moved to create new centers from farming and trade. Historians are able to determine the spread of Viking settlements.

• The name “Vikings” are used in various sports teams such as the Minnesota Vikings as reference to how Vikings are characterized as fast and swift.

• The Vikings were the breeders of Icelandic ponies, which are still in use today.

The Vikings were from Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark).

They were the inventors of the longship: Lief Erikson and the Vikings were the first Europeans

to set foot on what would become the New World; beating Christopher Columbus by almost 500 years.

The Vikings are mostly known for being pirates and raiders, but in many areas, they were primarily traders who helped to promote trade and prosperity.

They were originally pagans, but helped spread Christianity later; they devastated the economies of Britain and the other areas they raided but promoted those of Rus and the other areas where they traded; and they influenced political structures and laws of the areas they settled.

Michelle Story: PIRATES charts, comparisonAlex Edquist: Chronology, change over time,

putting timeline togetherVictoria Yang: Modern impacts,

charts/maps/images

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/evidence_01.shtml

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vikings/who.html

http://historyworld.net/timesearch/default.asp?conid=2&bottomsort=21014&direction=NEXT&keywords=vikings&timelineid=

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/religion_01.shtml

http://www.mirror.org/ken.roberts/king.alfred.html

http://www.viking.no/e/russia/index.html