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 ...
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.
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 ...
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
The first monastery to be raided was in 793 at Lindisfarne, off the northeast coast, and the first recorded raid being at Portland, Dorset in 789; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described the Vikings as heathen men. [13] Monasteries and minster churches were popular targets as they were wealthy and had valuable objects that were portable. [14]
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.
Reginherus's Vikings raided Rouen on their way up the Seine in 845, [8] and in response to the invasion, Charles—who was determined not to let the royal Abbey of Saint-Denis (near Paris) be destroyed [8] —assembled an army which he divided into two parts, one for each side of the river. [5]
As a result, the Vikings set all the buildings of the monastery on fire. The abbey burned down to the ground, "since there was no one left alive to fight the fire" . [ 14 ] Among the monastery's greatest treasures was one of the most precious relics of Western Christianity , the Sandals of Christ , which were carried to safety before the Viking ...