The Vikings Weren't That Big of a Deal
Rethinking the impact of the Vikings | The Empress and Her Wolf | Author Update
Welcome to the newsletter, where history, storytelling, and inspiration meet. Every week, I share some of the fun historical research I’ve done while writing my novels, writing reflections (and sometimes tips), and sharing updates on my work and journey. If you were forwarded this message, you can join the weekly newsletter here.
Today’s Dispatch
The Vikings weren’t that big of a deal.
The Empress and Her Wolf cover reveal.
The first stop on the European book tour is confirmed.
This week’s book recommendation.
Viking History
The Vikings Weren't That Big of a Deal
Two years ago, when Terri and I started our Vikingology podcast, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Matthew Ponesse, a specialist on 9th-century Frankish monasticism. We both expected Dr. Ponesse to have lots to say about the Vikings since he specializes in the history of their preferred victims. The first words out of his mouth left us both speechless:
“I’ve spent my entire career ignoring the Vikings.” - Dr. Matthew Ponesse.
Within a few seconds, a significant portion of my preconceived notions about the Viking Age came crashing down. I realized I had focused so narrowly on the Vikings and their exploits that I had assumed they were a big deal during their time. Dr. Ponesse poignantly demonstrated that the Viking incursions were a mere blip on Christianity’s map. The number of monastic institutions attacked and destroyed by them was a mere fraction of the number of institutions present in the Frankish realm by the 9th century. As far as monasticism was concerned, they just weren’t that big of a deal.
Since that conversation, I’ve thought a lot about the biases I bring to the table about the Vikings’ ultimate impact on the Carolingian world. Charlemagne’s successors needed no help at all to dismantle the Frankish empire—they were pretty effective at imploding the whole of it on their own. In fact, Viking incursions in the Frankish realm remained peripheral until the implosion. The Vikings exploited a vulnerability rather than creating one.
I believe the Vikings’ popularity in our modern media and psyche has caused us to blow their historical place out of proportion. Modern scholarship has sought to bring them down to the right size, but still, they feel more important than they possibly could have been. In later podcasts, with guests such as Dr. Claire Downham, Dr. Tom Horne, among others, we have explored the idea that not only were the Vikings a small group of people, but new evidence suggests that what we had once considered their conquests were, in reality, the hijacking of strategic trade “nodes” that allowed them to exert a disproportionate influence on the lands they roved.
Consider the graphic below, composed by Neil Price. It shows all the known raids from 789 to 999 A.D:
I counted up all the dots. Around 250 of them represent all the raids that occurred over a little more than 200 years. Granted, some of these represent clusters, and the map ignores the larger invasion attempts of Western Britain and Brittany. Still, what we are looking at, in a sense, is a Viking Age characterized by around one major raid per year in all of Western Europe. That’s it—one raid per year, on average.
Take, for example, the island of Noirmoutier. According to an 830 cartulary granting the monastery the right to move to a new establishment on the mainland, it suggests that the Vikings raided the island seasonally (i.e., every year). This is echoed by an 819 letter involving Abbot Arnulf, describing the incursions as frequent and persistent. Assuming the Vikings did raid Noirmoutier every year for 30 years, if we look at other major raids at the time, there are few. There’s a raid in Frisia in 810, another on Bouin in 820, and a handful in Ireland over that same period. Further, we know from Carolingian records that the island’s chief export, salt, appears to have been entirely unaffected by the raids. It was business as usual. The raids were sparse, spaced apart by years, and, except for the people directly involved, inconsequential.
So what does this all mean for the Vikings? It means that, ultimately, they may not have been all that big of a deal. We romanticise them today and give them out-of-proportion significance, but historically, they were a mere blip that got some great PR from a ruling class with an agenda.
I’ve been thinking of it along the same lines as how Islamic terrorism has been used by Western nations to justify the consolidation of their power, restricting rights, and so forth. 9/11 was a cataclysmic event that so shook the U.S. that we created new national security agencies, ramped up military spending, and passed sweeping legislation that has eroded some of our freedoms in the name of security. In the quarter century since, there have been fewer attacks than I can count on one hand, yet we have reoriented our entire society toward security. France has done the same following a spate of attacks, including the Bataclan, but again, these events are infrequent, and yet the security measures remain. It’s less about the actual threat of Islamic terrorism and more about our collective fears. Many people in the political class have much to gain by stoking those fears.
Similarly, following the first raid on the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne ordered the construction of defensive fleets and bridges to repel the Vikings. He mobilized his land-owning gentry to prepare for further attacks, at great cost to them, and as a means to consolidate power. According to his biographer Einhard, the defenses were successful, but I question whether this was because of the defenses or a gap in raiding. Still, the Carolingians used the threat of the Vikings to justify all manner of defensive measures, which ultimately crumbled under internal strife. The monk Alcuin had no small part to play in his letters denouncing the attacks, which are rife with a political agenda. As the map above shows, future incursions occurred, but if we track their frequency, we find that they were spaced out across generations, so their impact would have been limited. Many in the ruling class benefited from stoking fear.
Now, raiding is but a single part of a more complex tapestry of activities that characterizes the Viking Age. There was an impact, especially in the British Isles, Ireland, and Normandy, where there were colonization attempts. Still, in the grand scheme of things, we should consider that we are talking about small groups of people who, while they did some pretty cool things, may have had a much more limited impact on the world at large than we give them credit today.
I imagine a monk in a Frankish monastery along the Loire confiding in a fellow brother his fear of a Viking attack. The brother dismisses the concern, saying he's more likely to be struck by lightning—and, at the time, he would have been right. I'm grateful to Dr. Ponesse for joining the podcast and helping me reorient my thinking and broaden my perspective on the Viking Age. I hope our conversation inspires you, dear reader, to deeper reflection, fresh insights, and a greater appreciation for this fascinating period.
Writing and Publishing
The Empress and Her Wolf
Mark your calendars and sharpen your swords: book 5 of the Saga of Hasting the Avenger has a release date! Prepare for a bold adventure in the heart of the Byzantine Empire, releasing on July 1, 2025. You can pre-order the e-book on Kindle here: https://geni.us/empressandwolf.
Blurb:
Power. Revenge. Forbidden love in the heart of a dying empire.
When Viking warlord Hasting arrives at the gates of Constantinople, he knows he can’t conquer it. Not with deeds of arms alone. But fate has other plans.
A failed raid turns into a devil’s bargain: serve Empress Theodora as her sword-for-hire, or die. Hasting chooses survival and quickly proves himself more capable than the generals she no longer trusts. But the empire is a viper’s nest of betrayal, and when an attempt to scare off his men ends in the death of his lover, Hasting’s mission changes.
He came for wealth and glory. Now, he wants blood.
But revenge in Miklagard is no simple feat. The city runs on whispers, not war cries. Enemies hide behind silks and smiles. And as Hasting grows closer to the empress—ally, ruler, and eventually lover—he finds himself torn between love and vengeance.
One wrong move could cost him everything.
Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Giles Kristian, Peter Gibbons, and Conn Iggulden, The Empress and Her Wolf is a heart-pounding saga of war, loyalty, and ambition set against the glittering, dangerous world of the Byzantine Empire.
Author Update
First Stop on My European Book Tour Confirmed!
I’m excited to announce that the first stop on my European book tour will be the Salon du Livre de L'Épine, taking place August 1–3 on the beautiful island of Noirmoutier.
L'Épine is just a stone’s throw from the very beaches where Viking longships once landed—a perfect setting to share my novels about the Norsemen who raided and traded along these coasts. If you're in the area, come say hello and dive into the world of The Saga of Hasting the Avenger.
Book Recommendations
The Vikings, by Neil Price and Ben Raffield
Blurb:
The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians.
In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers, and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process, they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation-states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today.
Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society, economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.
And, as always…
Buy my novels!
This makes huge sense once it’s pointed out. A raid a year, once the weather was favourable and the tides were running the right way. Decide on a place to raid, then home with the booty and slaves for a quiet winter.