Why did the Vikings stop raiding?

                          
The answer is hard to define not just because there no Vikings nowadays but also because they have ``disappeared´´ such a long time ago, but we can explain that changes took place in European societies that made raiding less profitable and desirable for the Vikings. Changes occurred not only in the Norse societies, but also throughout Europe where the raids took place.

Regarding to them, The Viking homelands were divided into separate kingdoms, led by rival kings, these new kingdoms became independent with leaders of their own.

On the other hand, by the end of the Viking age by AD 1100 , most European lands had strong central authorities, including trained, standing armies capable of mounting effective defenses against Viking attacks. Generally, the Vikings were not trained, organized troops. The violent attacks from the Vikings were ineffective against trained, professional soldiers supported by the king.

Another change that occurred as a result of the Viking attacks was that some of the more desirable targets were fortified or modified, making them less susceptible to Viking raids. Monasteries built easily defendable towers, where valuables and people could be moved quickly in the event of a raid. Some monasteries were moved inland, away from the reach of the Vikings´ raids.

On the other hand the Christian church arrived in the Viking lands at the end of the Viking age and they became Christians. Then, in my opinion this could be another important reason to the Vikings to stop raiding or at least to stop plundering monasteries, we have to remember that they loved to plunder monasteries because they had a lot of silver inside.

We could say that the Viking age ended when the raids stopped. The year 1066 is frequently used as a convenient marker for the end of the Viking age.  If you remember and read my articles, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the Norwegian king Haraldr harðráði was repulsed and killed when he attempted to invade England. It was the last major Viking incursion into Europe as we said in the previous publication.

My conclusion to the question of the title is that the raids slowed down and stopped because the times changed. It was no longer profitable or desirable to raid. In no way the Vikings weren't conquered ever.  Did the Vikings disappeared then? No, actually they just were setting up and became, not Vikings, but Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Greenlanders or whatever depending on where they set up although mostly these places were where they set up.

Why were they so powerful?

Well we must ask us in this point what did make the Vikings so successful and powerful men? Nobody could stop them and everyone feared them.
                                       

The answer could be obvious if you notice that they had got the most fast, resistant and best prepared ships to sail of the period. Their vessels or Drakkars that were longships, narrow and very flexible vessels were used by the them for trade, exploration, and warfare. They were also called "dragonships" because they often had a dragon-shaped. The Longships had been the symbol of the Vikings' naval power for a long time. They were expert sailors,  they didn´t even need ship's compass in order to orient themselves, they just took advantage of the position of the Sun, Moon or stars to get orientation or symply they sailed alonside the coast but not only they used the sea, they used the rivers as well, thanks to this, they got into all parts of Europe. Their vessels were not too much big and they could got inside any river, spreading out like a plague throughout Europe. One remarkable thing is that they had to put up with storms, torrential rains while sailing because of these vessels were completely open. Probably many Vikings would died from hypothermia and others things associated with the cold, just only imagine that dark nights throughout open sea during winter, with strong storms etc you can realice how terrible had to be and how powerful were these men.
                                           
Another important reason was their cruelty and wickedness bigger than the rest of the tribes of Europe at that particular time, they were plunderers and killers. Actually we can say that the Viking were warriors, fierce warriors without compassion of any kind, they killed everyone, even babies, children and women, although women alao used to be sold by the Vikings after being raped for the Vikings. Their most important weapon was the axe, they had a great skill using it, they threw them against their enemies with such accuracy that mostly the enemy died with the impact or got disabled.
                                                         

One easy target and too much desirable for them were the churches and monasteries, because of the monks didn´t put up any ``resistance´´ and they had so much silver inside them. For the Vikings silver was their more desirable treasure like gold for Spanish in the 15th century but actually they didn´t want these treasures although it was very important for them so these were a mean of exchange.

Ambition and greediness were other factors for the Viking´s conquest, the more they had got, the more they would want to. The conquests and plunders became in a current activity for them like commerce. These Viking warriors didn´t like work for a living, they prefered robbing.

Viking language

Good evening!


Today we are going to talk about the language that Vikings used and its repercution in the nowadays english language. I think it could be interesting to know the way in which it has developed over the time.

Here you can apreciate some of the letters of the viking alphabet and their pronunciation!

Old Norse pronunciation

What was the language vikings spoke?

Well, vikings started to speak Old Norse, which was an ancient Germanic language from the north of Germany. It is closely related to Old English and it was also the language the modern Scandinavian Languages sprang, such as Swedish, Danish or Norwegian.

Nouns had three genders; masculine, femenine ans neuter, two numbers as in nowadays english ( singular and plural) but declined into four cases; nominative, acusative, dative and genitive.

Verbs were conjugated for person ( first,second or third), number ( singular,plural or dual), tense ( present or preterite) and mood ( indicative or subjuntive). Most of this inflection has been lost in the Modern Scandinavian languages which have moved towards more analytical structure. 

Most probably that was a language similar to the one used by the Norsemen. Nowadays the most similar one would be Icelandic as an example of  isolated medieval Norwegian.

Now I wanted to show you some text written in Viking language. So I have found this one:

Sample texts in Old Norse:

Þórr heitir áss, ok er sterkr mjök ok oft reiðr. Hann á hamar góðan. Þórr ferr oft til Jötunheima ok vegr þar marga jötna með hamrinum. Þórr á ok vagn er flýgr. Hann ekr vagninum um himininn. Þar er Þórr ekr, er stormr.

Translation:

A god is named Thor. He is very strong and often angry. He has a good hammer. Thor often goes to Gianthome and slays many giants there with the hammer. Thor also has a carriage that flies. He drives the carriage through the sky. Where Thor drives there is storm.

 This text I have found it in the next web page: 

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldnorse.htm