The Vikings Perceptions Of The Viking Era

“. . . [T]he men of Devonshire fought against the heathens. . . The heathens stayed in Thanet over the winter. . . The heathens stormed Canterbury. . . Next, the heathens went south. . . This battle was the greatest massacre of a heathen army. . . [They] massacred a large heathen force. . . (Somerville 2014). Vikings, as these people have come to be known, were referred to as “heathens” six times within a single paragraph contained in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a compilation of important events, which occurred in England from before the birth of Christ until the mid-twelfth century. It seems to be that this “heathendom” is a distinguishing feature of these “. . . [S]avage and barbarous peoples, which are said to have sprung forth in various different ways from the island of Scanza (Scandinavis). . .” (Christiansen 1998). It is in this sentiment that one finds Norse Mythology to be the distinguishing feature of the Viking Era. Christians of the time’s perceptions of the Vikings, archeological relics being found in the 21st Century, and evidence that this

The Annals of Ulster features passages stating the Vikings murdered, burned, and kidnapped innumerable people throughout Ireland (MacNiocaill 1983). Walafrid Strabo called these men and women barbarians and described an event in which they tore a monk “limb from limb” for not turning over the monastery’s gold (Anderson 1992). In an attempted to deliver a religious message about refraining from sin, Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, spoke of the Vikings in two sermons; he spoke of them as killing, raping, and destroying everything in sight (Mango 1958). If it was not for Viking’s lack of Christianity, and the Christian ignorance of secularism, the stereotypical Viking persona may have never came into being. Eventually, the Christians won, and the people of Scandinavia, which was not mutually inclusive of being a Viking, converted to