The Viking Age An Invention Of The Romantic Era

The Scandinavian Vikings – in contemporary sources known as â€Å"Northmen,† â€Å"heathens,† or â€Å"foreigners† – are imagined as rough, wild and unkempt men in horned helmets, plundering, pillaging and raping in early medieval Europe (Somerville McDonald 2014; xv). However, this image of a wild, barbarian nation which is popular in modern fiction, TV-shows and movies, is far from true. The horned helmets are an invention of the Romantic era in the nineteenth century and the Vikings were more than raiders and were renowned merchants, seaman, explorers, mercenaries and poets (Somerville McDonald 2014; xv-xvi). The Viking Age is considered to have begun in the late eighth century, when the Scandinavian raids in Western Europe started (Somerville †¦show more content†¦This resulted in a period of unrest. In Anglo-Saxon England, the kingdom of Mercia rose to power when two kings of stabilized kingdoms were removed and one took the power: King Offa (Keynes in McKitterick 1995; 28). So we see stabilized kingdoms and the growing power of Mercia as the kings of Wessex and Kent were removed. In the Carolingian empire, there were definitely periods of political unrest; after the conflict between Louis the Pious and his sons for example (Middleton 2015; 151). However, this period of political weakness and unrest in the Carolingian empire was not contemporary with the earliest Viking raids. The first Viking raids started by the end of the eighth century, when Charlemagne ruled the Carolingian empire and when the king of Mercia ruled a stabilized kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England: ‘The earliest recorded Viking raids were paradoxically contemporary with the existence of strong hegemonic powers in both Anglo-Saxon England (Offa’s Mercia) and continental Europe (Charlemagne’s Fra nkish Empire), (Barret 2008; 678). 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