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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XIV. THE NORTHMEN AND THE NORMANS TO 1066 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Scandinavia and the Northmen   * The Viking Age   * Scandinavian Heathenism   * The Northmen in the West   * The Northmen in the East   * Conquest of England by the Danes; Alfred the Great   * Norman Conquest of England; William the Conqueror   * Results of the Norman Conquest   * Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily   * The Normans in European History

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NORWAY

Norway, in contrast to Sweden, faces the Atlantic. The country is little more than a strip of rugged seacoast reaching northward to well within the Arctic Circle. Were it not for the influence of the "Gulf Stream drift," much of Norway would be a frozen waste for the greater part of the year. Vast forests of fir, pine, and birch still cover the greater part of the country, and the land which can be used for farming and grazing does not exceed eleven per cent of the entire area. But Norway, like Greece, has an extent of shore-line out of all proportion to its superficial area. So numerous are the fiords, or inlets of the sea, that the total length of the coast approximates twelve thousand miles. Slight wonder that the Vikings, [3] as they called themselves, should feel the lure of the ocean and should put forth their frail barks upon the "pathway of the swans" in search of booty and adventure.

[3] The word perhaps comes from the old Norse vik, a bay, and means "one who dwells by a bay or fiord." Another meaning assigned to Viking is "warrior."

PREHISTORIC TIMES IN SCANDINAVIA

The Swedes and Norwegians, together with their kinsmen, the Danes, probably settled in Scandinavia long before the beginning of the Christian era. During the earlier part of the prehistoric period the inhabitants were still in the Stone Age, but the use of bronze, and then of iron, was gradually introduced. Excavations in ancient grave mounds have revealed implements of the finest polished stone, beautiful bronze swords, and coats of iron ring mail, besides gold and silver ornaments which may have been imported from southern Europe. The ancient Scandinavians have left to us curious records of the past in their picture writing chiseled on the flat surface of rocks. The objects represented include boats with as many as thirty men in them, horses drawing two-wheeled carts, spans of oxen, farmers engaged in ploughing, and warriors on horseback. By the close of the prehistoric period the northern peoples were also familiar with a form of the Greek alphabet (the "runes") and with the art of writing.

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

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IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy