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Keeping your homeland safe from Vikings was no easy task in the Middle Ages. These hardcore warriors were strong, proud, and often unpredictable. Still, the clever, the tough, and the lucky managed to overcome Viking forces and keep their people safe. Viking raids were usually opportunistic and lightning fast. Defending against them was not as important as outlasting them.
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Keeping your homeland safe from Vikings is relatively easy today, but in the Middle Ages
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it was no easy task. Vikings were strong, proud, and often unpredictable warriors, but those who were clever, tough
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and lucky enough managed to overcome Viking forces and keep their people safe
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So today, we're going to take a look at how you, yes, you, could have survived a Viking raid
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Next stop, Minnesota. Oh, wait, wrong Vikings. Our first basic strategy for surviving a Viking invasion might be the most difficult
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Basically, you have to be so unbelievably awesome that you win the Vikings over
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and they let you live. Good luck. One man to go this route was King Alfred of Wessex, who lived from 848 to 899 CE
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He was driven from his palace by Vikings and forced to withdraw to the marshes of Somerset
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with a small remainder of his army. This would have encouraged most men to give up and flee for safety
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But Alfred was not most men. Instead of running for his life, he organized a guerrilla opposition to the Danish raiders
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That's guerrilla with a U-E. Because while he was fierce, he wasn't command the planet of the apes fierce
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Over time, Alfred and his army were able to gain more territory and resources
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and he eventually won a key victory at Eddington in Wiltshire, England
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Their resistance so impressed and intimidated the Vikings that they made peace with Alfred
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via the Treaty of Wedmore. He partitioned his territory with them and then made preparations to deal with any future invaders
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You know the old saying, fool King Alfred once. Most people think Vikings generally limited their campaigns to Northern Europe, but in
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one famous instance, they struck Seville, Spain during its period of Muslim rule
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Guess they were on a study abroad program. Although the Moorish Caliphate, led by Abdul Rahmani II, was caught off guard by the first raids
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they soon rallied into an effective defense. First, the Moors fought the Vikings to a standstill, preventing them from re-entering the city
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Then, as the Vikings tried to retreat with their loot, the Moors trapped them at river ports and used catapults to sink the ships from a distance
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Some of these catapults launched Greek fire, a powerful concoction similar to modern napalm
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Or that stuff Tyrion used at the Battle of Blackwater in that Game of Thrones episode
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You remember, the one where all the boats blew up? When Vikings, led by Ragnar Lodbrok, sailed down the Seine in 845, they found the major city of
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Paris relatively undefended Surrounded by nothing more than rivers a few walls and a small army the wealthy city quickly fell to the Viking force King Charles the Bald had to pay a massive ransom to send them away
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How much would it have cost him to get a better nickname? In the years after, Count Odo of Paris, who is unrelated to the Star Trek character as
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we know, built walls around the city. Subsequent kings helped finish and reinforce the walls, and added two sturdy bridges on
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either side to prevent Viking ships from passing through. These bridges were guarded by defensive keeps, which could launch projectiles at any enemy ships below
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Picture the coolest T-Man playset. In fact, those may have been Count Odo's exact instructions to the builders
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As a result, when the Vikings returned in 885, presumably because they really liked croissants
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they found Paris a much harder target. They were unable to penetrate the city walls and gave up trying to conquer the city
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C'est très triste, n'est-ce pas? Goffrail was a powerful Viking king of Denmark
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He was also known as Goffrail, or Goffrai, presumably when people showed up to collect
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the debt. When his territory came under threat from Charlemagne in the early 7th century, Goffrail
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initially considered diplomacy. However, his advisors persuaded him that diplomacy was for losers, and instead talked him into
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a vicious campaign of resistance and sabotage, rallying behind Goffrail, or Goffrail, or
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whatever his name was, the people of Denmark eventually drove back Charlemagne
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proving that you should never give up, never surrender. Unfortunately, when Gaufrot was unexpectedly slain in 810
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he was succeeded by his nephew, Hemming, who apparently didn't get the memo about the whole resistance thing
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He also didn't get the memo about having multiple burner names at the ready. The younger Viking quickly surrendered
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and agreed to a peace treaty with Charlemagne the very next year. They say, if you can't beat them, join them
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And if you can't join them, hire them to go beat someone else. That second thing has been a remarkably versatile strategy throughout history
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In June 860, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was beset by Vikings because, well, they're Vikings
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That was kind of their whole thing. This particular group of Vikings, known in Eastern Europe as the Rus, ravaged the city
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several times during the 7th and 8th centuries before being defeated in a conflict in 941
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Still, the Rus gained a fearsome reputation. So when Byzantine Emperor Basil II faced a rebellion, he recruited a warrior force of
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6,000 Vikings called Varangians, distinguished from the Rus, and ordered them to stomp that
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rebellion nonsense out Pronto And Basil was so pleased with the success of his rent that he hired enough Varangians to establish an elite personal guard after the conflict
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You know that scene at the end of an action movie where the hero defeats the leader of the enemy army
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and the whole army just stops fighting or shuts down if they happen to be robots or aliens
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It may seem like a lazy Hollywood trope, but as it turns out, it really worked
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And it makes a certain kind of sense. it would be difficult to finish an at-bat if your Little League coach were suddenly attacked by the
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other team. After the passing of King Edward the Confessor in 1066, his son, Harold, was set to take
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the English throne. Unfortunately for Harold, there were several other people who wanted to
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take that same throne, and things got rough. Harold's safety and territory quickly fell under
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threat from conquerors and invaders, including William of Normandy, Harold's own brother
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Tostig and an army of Vikings led by Harald Hadrada of Norway. Harald on Harald crime
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you hate to see it. Aided by Tostig, Hadrada was initially successful in his conquest
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but Harald surprised them at Stamford Bridge. Harald's army fought its way across the bridge
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and successfully stopped Hadrada with an arrow. The already low morale of the Viking warriors
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plummeted further once Tostig fell in combat and the survivors retreated to their ships
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The Viking threat on England was over, and Harold lived happily ever after
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until he was defeated by William of Normandy, which is why they call that guy William the Conqueror
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We'll get to how to survive one of his conquerings in another video. Vikings were always in search of new places to plunder, possibly because they got bored easily
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Evidence indicates their voyages took them all the way to North America. While the exact details are lost to history, information gleaned from Norse sagas suggests that a group of Scandinavian families, led by Tolvin Karthsefny, established a colony on the east coast of modern-day Canada
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But Karthsefny and his crew immediately picked a fight with the Native Americans, who already lived there, leading to conflict
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The Vikings held out for more than a decade, but even they couldn't last forever
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Historians believe that in addition to the natives, the Vikings faced vicious winters that were raging throughout North America at the time
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Being so far from home or anywhere they could resupply, they had little choice but to pack up and head home
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Somewhere in Denmark, the Viking mom was furious her son didn't pack a scarf
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Ireland was not especially powerful throughout the early Middle Ages, due largely to its highly divided population
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roughly 150 different local kingdoms existed, which themselves were overseen by larger kingdoms
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and all of them were constantly fighting for power Picture the departed with like 150 more double crosses and then you close When the Vikings came from Norway some Irish kings actually invited their
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arrival because they thought the plunderers could weaken their rivals. Viking leaders, for their
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part, had ambitions of conquering Ireland. But ironically, Ireland's same fractured political
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system prevented the Vikings from succeeding. Without a central power or leader, there was no
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one to surrender or accept any decisions. The Vikings had to deal with dozens of leaders
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individually, and after decades of failed attempts, they either integrated into the
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Irish population or just left. The easiest way to survive a Viking attack is to not get attacked
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by Vikings in the first place. And since Vikings were all about that sea life, the best way to stay
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off their radar was simply to not live too close to the water. It's like Jaws rules. Most Viking
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raids were really just opportunistic. They would find their targets by scouting rivers and seaports
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searching for wealthy but poorly defended townships accessible by water. The Vikings would then strike
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take their loot, and escape before a larger group of soldiers could arrive. Other Europeans eventually
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caught on to this and began to move their homes and valuables inland to decrease their chances of
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being plundered. To keep up, Vikings would have had to evolve into motorcycle gangs, but the motorcycle
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didn't exist yet. Everyone has their price, even a Viking. And while Vikings were stubborn combatants who rarely gave up a fight
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they could sometimes be persuaded, given the proper financial motivation. They were plunder-motivated, after all
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For example, in the case of both Viking raids of Paris, it was a bribe that convinced the warriors to go home
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The first time, the Vikings easily conquered the poorly defended city and intimidated the king into paying a ransom of gold and silver so huge
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it took two months to raise the wealth. The second time, a formidable defense stopped the Viking onslaught
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So they agreed to leave and attack rebels in Burgundy for a smaller but still pocket-lining
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haul of silver. For the Vikings, it really was all about the Benjamins, baby
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In 794, a group of Vikings sailed up the River Tyne to strike St. Paul's Church in
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Gero, England. Like a lot of monasteries and religious settlements, it was poorly defended, making it easy prey
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for the opportunistic plunderers. As you might imagine, the campaign went pretty well for the Vikings at first
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but then their leader was slain during a fight with the local soldiers. When the Vikings then withdrew, two ships sank in a terrible storm
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and the survivors were forced to swim to shore. As they arrived near defenseless, they were slain by the villagers they had just raided
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When karma has you in its crosshairs, you should always check the Weather Channel