Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
These raids continued for the entirety of the Viking Age and Vikings would target monasteries along the coast, raid the towns for their booty, and were known to set fires in their wake. While there is evidence that Viking arson attacks did occur, more recent scholarship has cast doubt on quite how severe the physical damages (rather than their ...
Medieval monasteries and abbeys were frequently the target of Viking raids because they were wealthy landowners, [3] and stored vast amounts of gold and other precious materials. Vikings plundered abbeys, like Iona Abbey, for riches, food, and even their holy texts—which were, at the time, often inscribed with gold leaf.
Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries.
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
The opportunity for rich pickings drew other Vikings to the area, and by the end of the decade all the main rivers of West Francia were being patrolled by Viking fleets. [34] In 862, the West Frankish king responded to the Vikings, fortifying his towns and defending his rivers, making it difficult for the Vikings to raid inland. The lower ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 26 January 2025. Period of European history (about 800–1050) Viking Age picture stone, Gotland, Sweden. Part of a series on Scandinavia Countries Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden History History by country Åland Denmark Faroe Islands Finland Greenland Iceland Norway Scotland Sweden Chronological ...
Thus, in the absence of Charles III, the population of the Rhine was almost defenceless and at the mercy of the Vikings' attack, and fleeing was the best course of action to save lives and goods. As a result, the Vikings often captured entire towns, villages and monasteries without fighting. [3]
Vikings had been raiding Britain since the late eighth century. In 793, the monastery at Lindisfarne was sacked. [2] Iona Abbey was also repeatedly attacked by Vikings: In 802, the Annals of Ulster note that "Iona was burned by the heathens", in 806 it states that "the community of Iona, to the number of sixty-eight, was killed by the heathens" and in 825 the monk Blathmac was brutally killed ...