Vikings

• The pagan raiders know that monasteries hold great unprotected riches
• In earlier times people living in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were mostly known as traders.
• The purpose of the Knarr was to carry goods, livestock, and people across the ocean
• The longships had a shallow draft, meaning they could sail up rivers and could be beached easily.
• In 1997 a longship was unearthed and could carry 180 men.
• Vikings who travelled east founded the kingdom of Russia
• Vikings found abundant fertile land in Iceland and treasured it the most.
• The Icelandic sagas contain a blend of history, poems, myth, and religious fables.
• The Althing is the longest running national assembly in the world.
• Within 200 miles of land a raven is released into the sky and would head towards it.
• The Vikings released ravens because to aid them in navigation on long voyages, and if they did not return, it meant that land was near.
• 85% of Greenland is covered by ice
• Icelandic sagas tells us how Vikings lived and what meant to them.
• There were 50 ships and 180 men
• Anne Stine led archaeological digs at L'Anse aux Meadows when she found indisputable evidence of Viking settlements.
• Leif Erikson had set foot in America nearly 500 years before Columbus.
• Vikings in Greenland lived on for nearly 5 centuries after the Vinland voyage.
• Celtic peoples fled to regions of safety. Violence became a way of life so everyone lived in fear. Most people lived short difficult lives, scraping a living off the land.
• The three groups: Angles, Saxons, Jutes move in to what now known as Germany
• The Celts were pushed into Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and Ireland.
• These invaders become known as the Anglo Saxons or the English.
• The lifestyle of Anglo Saxons were farmers, lived in small villages, men and women shared the hard work of farming. Carried weapons and were expected to protect their villages from wolves and human enemies.
• Many men belonged to a militia called a fyrd
• Anglo Saxons had skilled metal workers and great storytellers.
• Beowulf was the first major work of English literature.
• The only places of safety that time was the halls of warrior kings.
• The 1st story written down in old English was written around 1000 CE.
• The Anglo Saxons traded for amber, copper, and, iron
• There were a few coins in circulation which made trade difficult.
• Roman society had been very cosmopolitan, that they were willing to meet & trade with people all over the empire. Anglo Saxons were the opposite. Its focused on farm or village life, and people didnt travel.
• From about 500-800 CE, Anglo Saxons were constantly fighting among themselves and increased their wealth by attacking their neighbors.
• Things drastically changed in 746, when the Vikings made their 1st raid in Lindisfarne.
• The Viking raids lasted for more than 200 years in Britain.
• Alfred the Great lost many battles with the Vikings, it was only when he gathered a large Anglo Saxon army to beat the Vikings. Another of his strategies was to allow the Vikings to settle in 1 large area of England as long as they leave the rest of England alone, it was called Danelaw.
• After Alfred the Great William the conqueror was the next king.