...
perceived
...
vilified as
...
conquerors
...
romanticised as
...
adventurers
...
employed
...
nation-building
...
topic of some interest
...
Norse or Norsemen
...
are also known as
...
greatly influenced
...
blunder
...
snub
...
coming from
...
origins
...
obscure
...
Scandinavian pirate
...
refer to
...
inlet
...
modem-day
...
doubts
...
historical confusion
...
Loosely speaking
...
endured from
...
late eighth
...
mid-eleventh centuries
...
sailed to
...
storm coastal monasteries
...
subsequently
...
large swathes
...
fell under Viking rule
...
indeed
...
several Viking kings
...
sat on the English throne
...
generally agreed
...
Battle of Hastings
...
Norman French
...
invaded
...
marks the end of the English Viking Age
...
ended earlier
...
Viking colonies...did not dissolve
...
until around AD 1500
...
territory Vikings
...
is also in dispute
...
their reach east and south
...
uncertain
...
plundered
...
settled down
...
traded with
...
archaeological record
...
has yet to verify that
...
raided
...
as far away as
...
control and extent
...
assimilated into local populations
...
To some degree
...
is defined by religion
...
polytheists
...
believing in many gods
...
by the end of the age
...
had permanently accepted
...
a new monotheistic religious system
...
transition from
...
so-called
...
pagan plunderers to
...
civilised Christians
...
is significant and is the view promulgated
...
throughout much of recent history
...
schoolchildren
...
were taught that
...
the Vikings accepted Christianity
...
nasty heathens
...
rampaged throughout Britain
...
By contrast,
...
today’s children
...
visit museums
...
Vikings are celebrated as merchants, pastoralists, and artists
...
a unique worldview
...
other interpretations
...
constructed their own Viking ages
...
nationalistic reasons
...
were in crisis
...
had been beaten in war
...
ceded territory to what is now Germany
...
had become independent from Sweden
...
but was economically vulnerable
...
sought to
...
create a separate identity
...
in the past as well as the present
...
was adamant it was his forebears
...
had colonised Iceland
...
had relinquished Norway to the Norwegians and Finland to the Russians
...
late nineteenth century
...
was keen to
...
boost its image with rich archaeological finds
...
show the glory of its Viking past
...
In addition to
...
augmenting nationalism
...
nineteenth-century thinkers
...
were influenced by an Englishman
...
described peoples and cultures in evolutionary terms
...
similar to
...
those of
...
coined the phrase
...
survival of the fittest
...
includes the notion
...
over time
...
technological but also moral progress
...
Viking heathens’ adoption
...
an advantageous move
...
compare cultures in the same way
...
in this case,
...
heathen Vikings and Christian Europeans
...
were equally brutal
...
Views of Vikings change
...
according to
...
forces affecting historians
...
at the time of their research
...
according to the materials they read
...
much knowledge of Vikings
...
comes from
...
literature composed up to 300 years
...
after the events they chronicle
...
historians cal1 these sources ‘mere legends’
...
written language
...
carved on large stones
...
as few of these survive
...
reliable contemporary sources on Vikings