hello I wanted to make a video about the Vikings um and I'd like to apologize in advance I've got three big dogs with me in the room and at the moment they're sleeping um but they may get up and bark and I don't know disrupt I may have to pause the video so apologies in advance if that is the case so the Viking age uh was roughly from the late 8th Century to the late 11th century the Vikings are sometimes called the Norsemen um so Norse n North because they're they're from the extreme northern Europe so the Scandinavian countries essentially are where they're from uh Denmark Sweden Norway they're also sometimes called Normans uh and I'll get into that in just a little while so um the Vikings raided uh in this period and they had really practical reasons for doing so it's been mentioned a couple of times in this class that there was a mini ice age uh during this time and um the Vikings already inhabiting the extreme Northern um areas of Europe already before the mini Ice Age had a really short growing period where they could grow crops to live and the Ice Age shortened that growing period significantly so they had the choice of either leaving migrating to another location but of course keep in mind there are people I mean not everywhere but there are you know established uh communities so that could have meant war or they could just go and raid and take the things that they needed to live and they chose the latter so um where did they raid and sometimes settle all right well largely in Europe uh so Britain and well the British Isles including Ireland know so the British Isles and also France uh were the hardest hit um of Viking raids and the Vikings are were a preliterate society so they did not have a written language they didn't keep their own records so the written records that we have of the Vikings from this age come from mainly Britain and France um societies which had written language and recorded you know the drama of these of these Viking raids so while um the Viking raids were incredibly brutal and I'm not being an apologist or anything they they really were um keep in mind that the written sources we have come from the people who were Afflicted the most by them so you know it it's it's h good for historians to read it with with a grain of salt right keeping in mind the the source of these written records all right so however the Vikings also raided um as far as the Mediterranean uh Northern Africa the Middle East and even this may surprise you um went as far as New Finland in Canada the province of New Finland uh the Vikings settled there for a short period so they they traveled extensively they raided extensively it also may surprise you to know that in some instan say the Vikings were um invited by local leaders to settle down and make a community in that area and the reason you could probably guess is uh there were many bands of Vikings right you know Scandinavia is a pretty big place you've got lots of different groups with roughly the same uh modes of warfare and and rating but you've got different groups right so one way in which a ruler could keep his territory safe was to invite a group of Vikings to settle there and protect the community from future raids of other Viking bands so actually it's surprising but it's kind of a wise move this is most famously done in France in the area known as Normandy um so as I mentioned earlier the Vikings are sometimes called the Normans because these Normans are descendants of Viking settlers who were invited there uh by the ruler to stay and and protect the area um the Byzantine Empire also invited um some Vikings to come and work as bodyguards for the emperor because they were incredibly Fierce and the emperor was kind of paranoid uh he would rather have his life guarded by Outsiders who didn't stand to gain anything if you were killed so I guess that kind of makes sense um one moment let me consult my notes I tend to R if I don't oh okay uh now I want to talk a little bit about um the physical prowess of the Vikings they were incredibly the warriors were incredibly tough people um though they in their rage they they grabbed slaves absolutely and and used them for various purposes and sold them and you did various things right but interestingly unlike some other unlike some other groups and some other Empires like the Byzantine Empire used slaves in battle the Vikings did not they preferred to do the fighting themselves and there are lots of reasons for this um doing the fighting themselves and the training themselves kept them really strong and and agile and not relying on other people they didn't want to get soft right they wanted to keep the fighting to themselves um also they you know they had their own best interests in mind if they're going to go raid it's it's it's well if you recall the if you recall the notes now see I'm getting onto a tangent which is why I have notes but if you recall um the the U unit on Asia the Mongols used um Korean slaves to build their um boats that they used to sail and attack Japan and it didn't go so well because the the Koreans had no motivation to attack the Japanese they didn't they weren't really into it they were being forced to do it by the Mongols so lots of reasons why the the the Vikings just in battle they certainly had slaves for other things but they that that they sold and whatnot but they they uh for Marshal reasons they they relied on themselves and interestingly um I guess I'll skip ahead a little bit uh they they worked and fought in family units and if you're familiar with Sparta uh and the Spartan um tradition of um War then you'll you'll understand why this is so in Sparta if you if you know about Sparta um the young men were brought into military Barracks at like age five or seven it was they were very very young and they lived with the other boys and also the older boys like they had they were Apprentice ships and and all sorts of things but they lived with them they ate with them they studied with them they trained with them like they really formed a Band of Brothers um that these Spartan boys weren't really allowed to go and see their f amilies like it was very limited so the Spartans tried to create this Bond um so that when they were fighting they would really protect the other men in their unit because they looked upon them like family because they had been raised together well the Vikings uh thought it would be easier just to utilize the already existing uh family bonds of kinship and loyalty and affection and just have families fight so so on the Viking longboats um it would a one Longboat would hold between say 30 and 50 people and you'd have whole families of men on there so if you're a viking Soldier you may you may be in a boat with your brothers and your dad and your uncles and your cousins and then you've got your neighbors families like so they're they're already in tight-knit units so they're going to fight uh not only to to get what they want to raid but they're going to fight to protect their loved ones and their family um so that's how they organized that now about their long boats their long Boats were pretty incredible so they're made out of wood and they are as you can imagine long but they're also very shallow so they had a three-foot draft which that means they could go right up into a beach so as long as there's as long as there's only three feet of water they can go right up there and park their boat and run onto the beach and raid people but these boats could also go hundreds of miles on the oceans they're pretty incredible boats now they were um covered so they're made out of wood so lots of you know cracks and whatnot so they were covered with a with a tar to seal them up make them seaworthy make sure that you know water couldn't get into any of the cracks or things like that um and this tar was black um so it also had the advantage of these Black Ships they could they could come in at night and it was harder to see them because you know especially if it's a new moon um you know the ocean's dark uh it's night and you've got a black ship so so um an advantage there as well all right so the the the boats didn't only go um on beaches they could also go up rivers and this this was mainly to catch people off guard so everyone who lived along the coast especially in the places where the Vikings you know came pretty frequently knew to expect um Viking raids like it was just a part of life during this time like it depends on how often they came but you know it was a possibility if you lived on the shore in one of these places especially France or um Britain the British Idols you could expect Viking rates however the Vikings started going up Rivers again they could do this because their boats are really shallow I mean their boats could get into shallow water they just need three feet they can go right up a river they could row up a a river and keep in mind the men rode their boats themselves the Vikings did the physical labor of rowing their boats like hundreds of miles over the ocean so these are incredibly big muscles big Burly guys they can row up a river like it's not it's not going to phase them they can go against a river uh flow um oh I forgot to mention they also um raided in Russia pretty extensively so in Russia um they were known especially for going up these rivers and um attacking that way so that gave them the element of surprise villagers who were deep Inland didn't necessarily expect a raid um so they went up Rivers but once the word out that they were going up Rivers uh sometimes um the people being attacked would send an AR so let's say they're they're rowing up River right to get to to people and to grab their stuff and to grab them sometimes uh so the Army the defending Army would be Downstream and they would have like a blockade of boats Downstream and the thought was well they can't they can't go Upstream forever they have to come back Downstream and go back into the ocean because the rivers flow into the oceans right they've got to get out some um the Vikings however were loathed to fight a battle because their motivation was to raid was to grab things and go they weren't interested in fighting battles they weren't interested in you know they weren't interested in potentially dying in a battle uh they had the advantage if they were on the offensive so they didn't ever want to be on the defensive so they developed the technique of if they if they're if they knew that there was a blockade down river keep in mind these are incredibly Burly guys they would get out of the boat pick up the boat Walk It Out of the river go cut down some trees and make like um like line the logs up put the boat on the logs and use the logs as Wheels like you know take the last log and put it in the front and put it in front and just like kind of travel over land to the next River however far that may be uh so and then from that River they could go back out into the sea and escape and not have to fight the battle and they've already got all their stuff and they've just made an escape uh so incredibly resourceful that's one thing they could do another thing that they did sometimes was they um they um they sometimes would take an island as a base now this is of course if they're coming for well there are some islands and big Rivers but it would work better in in a bay like in in uh in the ocean so if if they could they would take an island for a base and just set up shop there they live there for a while and then they'd have raiding parties so every once in a while if they wanted something they would go on land and just grab it but then of course the villagers aren't stupid the villagers are going to like Escape further Inland so what did the Vikings do when they went Inland they would steal horses and then they would follow these poor villagers like hunt them down wherever they would go uh so quite quite a terror for the folks who were attacked certainly oh right I do want to talk a little bit about um the weapons uh and I I'm afraid this is going to be a long actually you know what I'm going to make part two because I don't know if YouTube is going to want to upload this so this concludes part one