The popular image of the Vikings is of tall red-headed men, raping and pillaging their way around the coast of Europe, stopping only to ransack monasteries and burn longships. But the violent Vikings of the 8th century became the pious Christians of the 11th century, who gave gold crosses to Christian churches and in whose areas of rule pagan idols were destroyed and churches were built. So how did this radical transformation happen, and why? What...

The Vikings hold a particular place in the history of the West, both symbolically and in the significant impact they had on Northern Europe. Magnus Magnusson's indispensable study of this great period presents a rounded and fascinating picture of a people who, in modern eyes, would seem to embody striking contradictions. They were undoubtedly pillagers, raiders and terrifying warriors, but they were also great pioneers, artists and traders-a dynamic...

By 1100, the Viking age had passed. On the eve of the Black Death (1347 - 1351), all three Scandinavian kingdoms shared similar fiscal and institutional weaknesses. The three kingdoms were united under the treaty of Kalmar, a weak union that dictated the

Many Danes settled in the northern areas of England conquered by the Great Army. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Anglo-Danish rule brought lasting changes in language, customs, and legal institutions. But in adopting Christianity and becoming a landed clas

Norse religion was integral to Scandinavian life. A creation myth tells of primeval frozen wastes and sacred trees. The pantheon contained gods of war (Odin), sky (Thor), and fertility (Frey and Freya). The afterlife in Valhalla and other great halls was

Iceland filled with settlers between 870 and 930. Some sought relief from an overcrowded Norway, some sought free land, and others desired freedom from the tyrannical Norwegian king Harald Finehair. On this remote, barely habitable island just below the A

In 432 - 433, St. Patrick brought Roman Christianity to Ireland, but not Roman government. So in the Viking Age, Ireland possessed great, learned, clan-supported monasteries surrounded by chieftain-led tribes. Norse Vikings devastated the monasteries, dom

As the Roman political order collapsed in Western Europe, Scandinavians poured in: Anglo-Saxons in England, Franks in Gaul, Swedish Goths in Italy and Spain, Danes in Frisia. Cultural ties were so close that Scandinavian legends celebrated legendary West

Prince Vladimir of Kiev's momentous conversion to Orthodox Christianity in 989 was revolutionary. The Rus adopted literacy and the Slavic language, imported Byzantine builders to create masonry churches, shifted patronage from pagan poetry to Christian wo

The shift in Swedish trading activity from the Volga in the east to the Dneiper in the west was also a shift away from the Islamic world and towards a Byzantine Christian civilization that greatly impressed the Swedes. The Rus became mercenary allies and