Dbq Vikings

The Vikings were a group of Germanic sea dwellers who traded with and raided towns all across Europe out of their Scandinavian homeland. During the late 8th to 11th centuries they ruled all of Europe through their barbaric ways. Even other cultures outside of Europe saw the barbaric ways in which the Vikings acted towards the villages that they encountered. One such case of this was a Muslim Chronicler, Ibn Fadlan, recounting of the Vikings as “[T]he filthiest of God’s creatures.” While they were very savage in their actions, this very trait gave them the ability to be able to roam through and ravage an entire town fully unopposed and within a very miniscule timeframe. According to another one of Fadlan’s writings, “Each man has an axe,

In one such way, the Vikings invaded France and met next to no opposition. This was due to the weak government in which the King sat on a pedestal and took weeks to respond to imminent danger. Eventually the French citizens realized that this system did nothing for protection and only made them weaker. According to one document, Annals of Xanten, the King of France was so weak as to offer the blunderers thousands of pounds of precious metals if they were to leave, “give them many thousands of pounds of gold and silver if they would leave Gaul... Nevertheless the cloisters of the most of the saints were destroyed, and many of the Christians were lead away captive.” These events that occurred within France are only one example of weak hierarchies defending their citizens. Due to the falling of the Roman Empire many European countries became immensely more vulnerable simply because without an entire Empire, there was no strong leadership system to protect from attacks. This is what the Dark Age in Europe was like but eventually, due to the seemingly barbaric acts of the Vikings, Europe would prosper once

As the Viking constantly roamed through the rivers of France, raiding towns as they went, they exposed how awful the French government really was. As they travelled to each location, the military would’ve had to be sent from its central location of Paris which was too far to be able to reach the Vikings in time. In an attempt to end the raids of France the king decided to give them the Duchy of Normandy to live in, but by this time, the King had been exposed as extremely weak and not worth having in his position so power was transferred to local Nobles. This allowed each section of France to have its own ruler and own militia to fight oncoming attacks. The nobles may not have been successful fighting wise but having a local power system meant that other problems could be taken care of faster, locally, and with a person who understands their