Vikings and Magyars
On June 8, 793 AD, many ships appeared off the coast of Holy Island, England.
The ships had come from out of nowhere without warning and bore dragon’s heads on
their prows and disgorged marauders who brutally attacked the Lindisfarne monastery.
The invaders slaughtered several inmates at the monastery and looted it, bearing off as
many stolen goods as they could carry back to their ships. They boarded the ships and
were gone as quickly as they had arrived. Historians identify this event as the beginning
of the terror known as Viking raids. Almost exactly 100 years later, thousands of fierce
mounted invaders with black, wavy hair poured over passes in the Carpathian Mountains
of Central Europe on fast ponies. They fired arrows with deadly accuracy even at a full
gallop, a trait they shared with other tribes originating in Central Asia. These short,
stocky, dark-eyed raiders were the Magyars, the ancestors of most modern-day
Hungarians. Europe was assailed by land and by sea within four centuries of the collapse
of the Roman Empire. Both the Vikings and the Magyars changed the course of history
in far-flung regions beyond their homelands.
Alcuin, a scholar famous for other writings, also wrote this of the Vikings, “Lo, it
is some 350 years that we and our forefathers have inhabited this most lovely land, and
never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan
race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made.” These and
other chronicles have given us the typical view of Vikings as violent savages from the
north—North-men or Norsemen. More recent scholars have come to admire the Vikings
as brave explorers and expert tradesmen, fishermen, and craftsmen. They are even noted
as pioneers in legal matters and court procedures as well as being among the earliest
cultures to embrace representative government. Modern scholars have also clarified that
they did not wear horns on their helmets, a myth begun in the chronicles of their victims
who misinterpreted a piece of Viking artwork that portrayed one of their deities.
Vikings were the traveling warriors of Scandinavian peoples whose cultures
originated in what are now Denmark and southern Sweden and Norway. Most of these
Norsemen were merely farmers, but their basically Germanic religion predisposed them
to seek adventure and to engage in violent acts with impunity. Among their multiple
deities they worshipped Thor, the god of thunder, and his father Odin, the god of war and
death. Vikings went “Viking” (a verb in their languages meaning “to go by sea to make
war”) partly because they believed if they died in battle they would spend their afterlife
with Odin in his great hall called Valhalla. No one wanted to go to Niflheim, a dark
place where men who died of other causes went. Besides, if you died in battle, maidens
called Valkyries took you to Valhalla and . . . I forbear particulars.
Such beliefs created generations of skilled armorers and intrepid adventurers
questing for glory in combat. Vikings lived in heavily fortified settlements in their
homelands, even, let alone in lands they conquered (after years of preliminary raiding).
Viking lore is replete with sagas of great warriors lauding the exploits of their ancestors.
Like all great pirates, warrior chieftains among the Vikings loved treasure. We know this
because even the burial mounds we have excavated that show signs of having been
plundered contained significant hordes of gold and silver trinkets, glass ornaments, and
weapons. These great burial sites also revealed the other prized possession of chieftains
who had expanded their power and wealth—their ships.
By the year 700 Viking craftsmen had perfected their most important weapon,
their ships. Made entirely of oak, the Viking ships were expertly designed vessels with
which to raid coastlines, even coastlines across the Atlantic Ocean. The ships were
constructed in such a way as to be seaworthy in the open ocean in all weathers but also
with shallow enough drafts to permit following rivers far upstream. Vikings could put up
a large, central sail if the wind was behind them or row their ships right into the wind.
They could even carry them overland from one river to the next and keep on raiding! We
know all these details not just from written records but because the burial mounds of
chieftains were really giant clay repositories for ships. Several have been recovered and
restored (even the oars), the longest of which measures 118 feet long. Vikings didn’t
mind work!
With these beliefs combined with this technology, aspiring Vikings traveled to
and altered the history of such a long list of places as to seem incredible. I’ll attempt to
impress on you the most significant of these inroads, but even that list is daunting. The
deeper influence of Vikings in the history of Europe is such that we can only attempt to
convey it piecemeal as a part of our study of the origins of several European nations. As
we progress through the medieval period and toward the rise of nations, more will be said
within the history of each culture about what role the Vikings played there, even
including individual Vikings who became rulers of places they conquered. Try to
conceive of a steady stream of migrating brigands such that Vikings who conquered a
stretch of what is today France would send a force generations later to conquer England,
taking it from the descendants of the English who had made peace with Vikings from the
earliest invasions and only succeeding because the English defenders had just repelled the
invasion of an entirely new Viking horde in the North and were exhausted. I am not
making this up! And similar stories abound in the histories of Ireland, England, France,
Normandy (in France), Russia, Constantinople, and even in North America! Here we go.
While the first Viking raids in the British Isles occurred on the part closest to
Scandinavia (where Holy Island is), Vikings met with their first great successes in
Ireland. Both Ireland and England were thoroughly Christian, and monasteries dotted the
land. Monasteries proved to be easy pickings because while they were fortified enough
to serve as depositories of Church wealth and of wealth of the local nobles, they were
often not manned by local military forces. Vikings could thus get in and get out with the
goods before protection arrived, especially since the sea was usually incorporated into the
defenses of the great monasteries and did not stop seagoing thieves. Around the 830s
Vikings began moving inland and discovered that Ireland consisted of several contending
powers that could not mount a unified defense.
As they would elsewhere, Danish and Norwegian Vikings began building
permanent fortified settlements called longphorts in Ireland making themselves one of the
contending powers. A longphort consisted of a circular fortification within which were
built sturdy huts resembling nothing better than upside-down Viking ships. They were
always built adjacent to some strategic waterway. The most famous of these sites was the
origin of the modern city of Dublin from whence Vikings ruled portions of Ireland for
several decades, exacting tribute from the surrounding countryside. Dublin was founded
by Norwegians, then overrun by Danes, then conquered again by Norwegians with the
Irish playing both sides off against the other. All the while the Vikings used Ireland as a
base from which to attack England, conquering York in 867. With this distraction their
position grew weaker until finally in 902 Irishmen settled their own differences long
enough to combine forces and drive the Vikings off the Emerald Isle, but only for a time.
Vikings returned to Dublin in force and ruled it through the end of the 10th century.
Back in England large swaths of land fell to permanent Viking control mainly in
the north and along the eastern shore. The only effective English king to stand against
them was Alfred who ruled Wessex beginning in 870. He earned his title of Alfred the
Great by facing the Vikings in battle nine times in his first year as king. While he could
not drive out the Vikings, he did maintain his territory by a sort of truce that gave the
territory the Vikings occupied to them permanently, an area known as the Danelaw. The
Vikings then settled into an agricultural lifestyle using their warships only for trade.
Their skill as traders enriched their capital of York but also the English and other Vikings
in settlements around the North Atlantic. In England the Vikings even converted to
Christianity.
Other Danish and Norwegian Vikings kept raiding, however. England began the
practice of Danegeld, or merely paying raiding Vikings money in order to avoid being
sacked and losing more money. By various increasing demands and the threat of
violence, Danes came to rule England directly as kings, the most famous of which was
King Cnut or Canute. Before Canute died in 1035 he was known as the “lord of the
whole of Denmark, England, and Norway, as also of Scotland.” He is recognized as the
Viking who assembled the largest empire ever attained by any Viking ruler. He is said to
have had a largely peaceful reign and to have won the love and respect of the English
people.
Vikings also were drawn to continental Europe by legends of the wealth of
Charlemagne’s Kingdom of the Franks. While Charlemagne’s power kept them at bay,
they still pulled off successful raids. In the instability following Charlemagne’s death in
814 Viking armies exacted tribute to the tune of twelve tons of silver over the next
century. The bribes were never enough, and Viking raids followed the Loire and Seine
rivers deep into what is today France going so far as to repeatedly sack Paris itself. In the
civil wars among Charlemagne’s heirs Viking armies took sides as mercenaries and
basically followed the motto, “Secure the greatest wealth with the least effort.” French
kings could not gain ground against the Vikings until the 860s.
A new wave of Danish Vikings came to France, however, who did not want booty
so much as land for settlement. This new Danish force arrived in 900 and were led,
interestingly, by a Norwegian named Hrolfur, or Rollo as the Franks called him. By 911
Rollo’s forces had established themselves so far as to negotiate a settlement with the king
of the Franks, Charles the Simple. Charles agreed to give Rollo land in return for two
demands. One, Rollo had to defend the north of France against further Viking invasions,
and two, he and his people must convert to Christianity. Because Rollo consented to
these demands he is considered the founder of Northman Land or Norseman Land or
Normandy for short. The descendants of this most successful Viking kingdom in
continental Europe seemed to allow the best attributes of Viking culture to flourish in
Norman culture. Their stress on skill in craftsmanship and talent in artwork rapidly
combined with their skill in trading to create an energized, adaptive culture that in rather
short order led to their total social and cultural assimilation. Herein lies the origin of the
bizarre notion of a Viking-descended Norman claiming the throne of England and taking
it from Viking-appeasing descendants exhausted from repulsing new Viking invaders.
That tale is wrapped up in the exploits of William the Conqueror which will be told in
detail later. When he conquered England in 1066, however, historians agree he ended the
age of the Vikings.
Vikings had expanded east from Scandinavia in the interim, though. The origins
of Russia as a nation go back to the invasion of the Dnieper and Volga river basins by a
Swedish noble named Rurik in 859. The Balts of the Baltic area and a people known as
Slavs were eventually conquered by Rurik whose tribe was known as the Russes from
whence the word Russia comes. Rurik and his successors established trading posts at
Novgorod and Kiev with access by river all the way to the Black Sea. Oleg, a Rus who
seized power after Rurik’s death, went so far as to attack Constantinople, the wealthiest
and strongest city in the world at the time. From 860 to 944 Vikings from KievNovgorod Russia would attack the city four times. On Oleg’s second attack he had
amassed 80,000 mounted warriors to attack by land and 20,000 ships to attack by sea.
Since the defenders of Constantinople had placed a giant chain across the entrance to
their harbor, Oleg had his men build wheels and axles for his ships which he then rolled,
with their sails unfurled in the wind, toward the city. Just the sight of this overland sea
invasion caused the leaders of the city to sue for peace. Oleg was granted commercial
access to the greatest trading center of all. Oleg’s successor, Igor, also attacked
Constantinople twice to maintain these trading rights. The history of Russia was thus tied
to the East, but that is also another tale for later.
We cannot claim to have done justice to the legacy of the Vikings, however,
without mentioning their expansion into the sunset, west across the Atlantic. Norwegians
skirted around Danish England and settled Iceland around 870. Iceland is today said to
be the place where Viking culture and tradition have been best preserved, although it is
an independent, largely Christian nation. Icelanders, for example, still make wooden
ships the old way, by hand. Further west, Greenland was settled by Erik the Red in the
late 10th century. Documents called The Icelandic Sagas recount that Erik’s son, Leif
Eriksson, explored lands even further west that in their descriptions are similar to the east
coast of Canada. This reported discovery of the Americas 500 years before Columbus
was held in doubt until archaeological evidence discovered in the 1960s proved that
Vikings had in fact been the first Europeans to set foot in North America, appropriately in
what is today Newfoundland. These settlements were not permanent, however, and
retreated from pressure from tribes who lived inland that the Vikings called Skraelings.
Columbus called them Indians, although his Indians were much further south.
Equally rapacious to the Vikings were the Central Asian nomadic horsemen
calling themselves the Magyars. While it is thought that they were relatives of the Huns
that had harassed the Roman Empire, the origins of the Magyars remain mysterious.
Seven clans of Magyars crossed the Carpathian Mountains into Central Europe in the
winter of 895-96. Having united under a powerful leader named Arpad, the seven clans
were able to totally subjugate the Slavic people who led a more civilized agrarian
lifestyle in what is today Hungary. They especially favored the Great Plain of eastern
Hungary which resembled the Russian steppes from whence they came. According to
legend, Arpad was announced their king in a ceremony where Magyar chieftains drank
from goblets filled with human blood.
Magyars regarded the Slavs as weak and inferior and enslaved them. With this
area and a labor force secured, Magyars terrorized Europe for the next 60 years. They
launched raids containing thousands of mounted warriors as far west as France and as far
south as Italy. Like the Vikings, they plundered towns, villages, and monasteries
“looting, raping, and killing with barbaric glee.” What forces sent to stop them were
either defeated by a rain of arrows or declined to follow the hit-and-run tactics during the
run part because the Magyar warriors would turn around in their saddles and fire arrows
at any pursuers. Magyar raids yielded gold, silver, horses, cattle, weapons, fine cloth,
wealthy hostages for ransoming, and young women for population increase. Somewhere
along the way the alarm, “The Magyars are coming!” became “The Hungarians are
coming!” Hungarians is simply a term that means “those from the land of the Huns,” a
fact that shows how deeply those killers had left an impression on Europeans.
The German descendants of Charlemagne’s empire decided enough was enough.
Otto I trapped a Magyar force in open battle in 955 and destroyed it, an event which
would help launch the Holy Roman Empire with Otto at its head in 962. Magyars
stopped raiding west, then, and focused on consolidating their power over the Slavs.
While watching the formation of the great social, political, and religious structure of their
western neighbors, the Magyars became fascinated with European feudalism. German
Catholic missionaries began to come to what is today Hungary and win converts to
Christianity among the Magyars.
Geza, the great-grandson of Arpad, converted to Christianity in 972. His son,
Stephen, ordered all Magyars to adopt this religion and invited Rome to send priests to
help in the mass conversions. Any Magyar who declined was buried alive along with his
family and his horses! Still the transition to Christianity was resisted. An Italian bishop
named Gerard preached to a crowd from atop a 770-foot hill overlooking the Danube
River. We don’t know what he said, but the crowd became so enraged at the end of his
sermon that the bishop was captured and tied to a barrel studded with nails and then
rolled down the hill into the river! Magyar/Hungarian Christians now revere the bishop
as St. Gerard, and a statue to him is placed atop the hill upon which he died. Pope
Sylvester II was not deterred, though. He crowned Stephen a Christian king on
Christmas Day in the year 1000. Stephen worked tirelessly to establish Roman
Catholicism in Hungary and was rewarded with sainthood. All subsequent Hungarian
monarchs are said to wear the “Crown of St. Stephen.” They actually have his crown,
too, although for a time it was stolen.
Before he died Stephen married a German noblewoman to solidify ties to
Germany, codified Hungary’s first law code, and brought scholars from all over the
continent to otherwise turn his country toward European civilization. He did establish,
however, a firm social order that placed all Magyar Hungarians over all non-Magyar
Hungarians. A fitting end to this tale of murderous raiding on the part of both Magyars
and Vikings is that by 1241 more horse-warriors out of Asia, the Mongols, invaded
Hungary and slaughtered nearly half the population. But that is another tale for another
time.