The Viking longships could average 70 to 120 miles a day. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That's just absolutely terrifying.
What do you think it felt like for Alcuin and the monks to see the Viking ships on the horizon?
Honestly, I think it's the end of the world, and I don't think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons, and this obviously meant to foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. But if you were brave, then you got taken to the House of the Dead, which was Valhalla. Every day you would fight, and whatever wounds you got would be magically healed that night, and then the next morning, you'd get up and do it again, so you're essentially practicing for Ragnarok, the final battle. You know, there's this poem by Tennyson, Ulysses, my favorite poem. I think it captures the Viking spirit. The last line of it is to strive, "To seek, to find, and not to yield." I think that's very much like the Viking, you know, my purpose holds, to sail beyond the baths of all the Western stars until I die. We may die, but I'm gonna do this, I'm not gonna yield.
The following is a conversation with Lars Brownworth, a historian and author of many excellent history books, including The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings and The Normans: From Raiders to Kings. He's also the host of two history podcast series. The first called 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire is one of the first, if not the first ever, history podcasts launched over 20 years ago in June, 2005. His second series, Norman Centuries, explores the remarkable rise of the Normans from Viking raiders to the rulers of kingdoms stretching from England to Sicily. In this conversation, we focus primarily on the Vikings, the seafaring Norse warriors and explorers who, over a period of just 300 years, reshaped the medieval world and the trajectory of Western civilization as we know it. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on. And now, dear friends, here's Lars Brownworth.
Your writing and podcasts take us from the Vikings to the Normans to Crusades, to the collapse of the East Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. There's a thread, I think, that connects the Vikings through all of it, so let's start at the beginning. Let's start with the Vikings. So the age of the Vikings was intense and violent, as you write about, often dated from 793 AD to 1066 AD. It lasted less than three centuries. So the start is often dated to June 8th, 793. What happened on June 8th, 793?
In June of 793, a group of Vikings, probably originating from Norway, arrived at the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, which was a monastic community, and they essentially slaughtered everyone, burned a couple of buildings and grabbed everything that had any value and left. And that was the first Viking raid that came in force. And I do think Lindisfarne is a good beginning date because the terror that it brought really signified what was to come for the next two to three centuries.
So the word of it has spread. Like there's a bunch of accounts, like the monk Alcuin wrote about this event in a letter to King Ethelred of Northumbria, quote, "It is nearly 350 years that we and our fathers 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." What made this race so psychologically devastating to this monk and to the many other monks on the island and then to all of Britain?
That's a great quote. Um, Alcuin was not just a regular scholar, he was Charlemagne's favorite scholar and he's largely responsible, as much as one person can be, for the Carolingian Renaissance that had done so much to elevate the early medieval world. In fact, the spaces we have, the punctuation we have, spaces between words are likely a result of Alcuin's work. He was an extremely literate man, and you can hear the terror creeping into that. Um, and part of that has to do with monastic communities, the Church and the- what they thought a monastic community was. So the Church was viewed as a sacred place. Everyone in Europe, everyone in quotes, is nominally Christian, and the Church is an area of safety. It's a literal ark from the troubles of the world that you can flee to. I believe there are even rules in England, for example, that if you had killed someone, you could flee to a church and the civil authorities were not allowed to enter for up to 40 days. So you could have sanctuary there. And to violate this would've been the worst possible offense you could have given, which is why, you know, Thomas Becket's murder is so, so horrible in England. And the monks had dedicated themselves to a life of studying the Bible, to copying scriptures to prayer, to removing themselves literally from the temptations of the world. And so they would seek monasteries that were remote, and the most remote locations you could find were islands in the North Atlantic, because it's just so difficult to get there.... So the ocean was considered a place of safety. Not sailing on the ocean, but these islands were literal havens of peace and security and closeness to God. And so the fact that the Vikings hit this place of all places you could hit was the worst, the most terrifying kind of offense against medieval sensibilities.
So there's a kind of line that you understand you don't cross. Like, everybody agrees.
It's the kind of thing that there's a social contract that most societies, most civilizations sign. There's a line that we don't cross. Let the scholars do their scholarly work. That's one line. The other line is more kind of from a military perspective, from a mobility perspective, you just assume the sea is not a place from which a threat could come-
Yeah, that's exactly right.
... especially the north. So your conception of the world is shattered by, one, the brutality that can come, two, that the sea can bring a threat, and three, that you don't give a damn about any of the lines that we as a society, as a Christian society, have established.
That's exactly right. I mean, even Alcuin, I think he writes a little later on that the dead were left as dung in the streets. So he's describing dead monks as literal dung in the streets. And, you know, who would do this to men of God? Inhuman monsters.
So who were they, the Vikings, coming from the north? How did they think of the violence that they were doing?
Now, that's a very good question because... and it brings up a central problem, of looking at the Vikings, which is the story is almost always told from somebody else's perspective largely from the pens of those they're attacking. So they're not gonna come across well. Um, they're often portrayed as demonic and inhuman. The Vikings themselves though, as much as we can piece together from archeology, from the stories they wrote later but that was another problem there, the written alphabet, the runes. It was mostly used for spells, naming your sword, things like that, cursing someone, but it wasn't really useful for writing long poetry or literature. So the only Norse literature we have comes at the end of the age when they had adopted the Latin alphabet. So it's... you can almost never see the Vikings in their own words as they saw themselves. But we can piece certain things together. Most importantly, Viking was not their day job. They were mostly merchants and farmers, mostly farmers who lived in little bays called Viks in Old Norse, which is probably where we get the word Viking from. Um, one other note about how hard it is to- to tease apart what's happening here is the- the English and the Frankish and the Irish writers all call them Danes, no matter where they came from. They didn't stop to ask, "Now, excuse me, are you from Norway, or are you from..." So they're all called Danes or Pagans, heathen, or Northmen. Um, so this is not very helpful in figuring out where they came from. Um, the language was interchangeable. You know, Old Norse was spoken in all three of those Scandinavian countries. But living in the north, so far up near the Arctic Circle, is... that's at the very limit of where technology of the time could allow humans to survive. And that kinda, that kinda harsh climate bred, I think, very hard people. Mercy was not a quality they seemed to favor, value. There's a very famous story of a Swedish Viking putting a sword in the crib of his newborn son, and saying, "May you have nothing in this life but what you can gain with this." I mean, I can't imagine doing that. You know, to any of my children, you know, putting a gun in the crib, or- ... you know, I'd be carted away. But the... I think that kind of underscores the kind of violent life that was... you could expect as a Viking. I mean, strength was valued more than anything else.
So the understanding of the world is harsh, and that strength is the way you must face that world. So when you have those people, and especially the ones that self-select to get on a boat, to face the ocean with all the uncertainty, that results in the kind of brutality that we got to see.
I think so. I mean, the way they would build their ships, they were clinker built, so they were overlaid, like planks overlaying. So they were undecked as well. And so they'd have tents. So can you imagine crossing the Atlantic, the northern Atlantic, you know, with these huge waves splashing over with an inch of oak between you and the ocean? I mean, the amount of bravery that must have taken to undergo is astounding. Plus they didn't have a compass. They navigated by, "Where's the sun? Where are the stars? What... are there birds in the sky? Do I see a different color of water? Do I see leaves floating?" I mean, it's terrible. If you're traveling 2,000 miles, that's not great. So it's kind of an intrepidness to them that I think is part of the reason why they're so fascinating to us in our sanitized, more or less sanitized world. That this incredible courage to do this, and some horror at what they did on the other end when they arrived. But, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about their religion, but they- they do not view the Christian God in particularly flattering terms. I mean, to them, he's a weak God who won't protect his adherence, and they can just come in and plunder as they... I mean, they'll... One Viking famously says, "On land, I'm a Christian. When I'm on the sea, I worship Thor." It was very much the kind of pragmatic take that the Vikings had.
Yeah. There are gods, and they have many, but Odin and Thor are pretty hardcore gods. So everything, just their whole philosophy on life is pretty- pretty hardcore. Probably some of the toughest humans to have ever lived.
I think so. Yeah. I mean, their gods are horrifying. They're polytheistic. There was no universally accepted head god. I think Marvel has also led people astray in this.
Well, we'll talk more about religion, but since you mentioned the boats, what- what do we understand about the technology that they were using? Can you just speak a little bit more to this one inch of oak idea? So, these were these long ships that were also able to travel on rivers. So they're not... Like, what- what is structurally, do we know about the boats that allowed them to be so flexible in terms of where they can travel?
Yeah. I mean, and this was the Vikings' great secret, and I think it's underappreciated. They built different types of ships, obviously for different purposes, but the thing that blows my mind is that they built these ships that could cross an ocean, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and at the same time, when they had a draft of less than two feet, so they could sail up rivers that were two feet deep. And if they came to an, you know, a block or something, 20 men could pick up the ship and port it around. They were incredibly portable and their speed, the speed was the most frightening thing about the Vikings.
So the... These are the same kind of ship that they sailed the ocean on.
Yeah. I mean, it's insane.
So they're pretty sufficiently robust to handle the ocean and sufficiently mobile to travel on rivers and do so really fast, so- ... you mentioned speed. That seems to be, from a military perspective, the great advantage of the Vikings- ... because they can move much faster than the land armies can. So, and not just the element of surprise, which they often had, but the element of speed was the thing that gave them such an extreme advantage against the British armies.
That was the big one. So, an English army, if it had access to a good Roman road that was well maintained, which frankly there weren't tons of them, but they could average something like 10 to 15 miles per day- ... on a good day, if they didn't have a large baggage train to slow them down. If you had a cavalry unit that didn't have to travel with the army, they could average about 20 miles a day. The Viking long ships could average 70 to 120 miles a day. So, they're just moving in super fast motion. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That's just absolutely terrifying.
What do you think it felt like for Alcuin and the monks to see the Viking ships on the horizon? Do you ever think about trying to put yourself in the mind of those folks and imagining... In that time, you don't have a full map of the world, right? And the oceans are not mapped, and you have a hazy conception of the world. And so out of the darkness from the ocean where you thought nothing can come, comes this terrifying, this brutal force. What do you think that felt like?
Honestly, I think it's the end of the world, and I don't think that's... I don't think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons. And this obviously meant to, you know, foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. I can't imagine the horror. It would shake my faith, I'm sure, to have these- these giant men jumping out of their ships with swords raised. And you're... What do you have? Your cross?
Were the Vikings aware of the fear that they had caused? So, did they use fear as a kind of weapon, or was this just a side consequence of their actions, or did they understand and use it? Like the Mongols, Genghis Khan, the Mongols used the fear and the terror on purpose- ... to increase the chance that they wouldn't have to avoid fights, basically.
Yeah, yeah. The Vikings absolutely used terror. It was a main weapon in their arsenal. They would attack specifically on high holy days like Easter, Christmas, because they knew there'd be higher value targets there with richer clothing, richer offerings. There'd be a lot of money available. So they were rather sophisticated, which I think is something also that they don't get much credit for. It's like they were just dumb brutes attacking and just destroying. But they were... It was very sophisticated. They would show up. That's what I mean when I say Viking wasn't their day jobs. They would be traders in say an English port, kind of looking around. They'd get everyone's schedule, then they would sail away and come back as Vikings, and they knew exactly where to go. They knew where all the money was held. They knew where all the, you know, the churches were, when to attack. They knew the entire Christian calendar. They knew when someone's baptism was, when someone's confirmation. I mean, they were aware of all of this. And they would... They would definitely attack to increase terror.
One of the signs of the intelligence of the Vikings is that the Viking Age is so short. So what happens is these explorers and these rough men who do the raids, they very quickly are good at conquering and then start state building, or conquering and then establishing trade routes and stop being the quote, unquote, "Vikings." So basically, they just... They conquer, and then they start doing the usual instit- build the institutions, start a state, and now they're normal kind of nation, civilization kind of thing. So this kind of force that is the conquering, raid, violent, intense explorers, it's like a short-lasting thing, a couple of generations at most.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, the Vikings were ultimately a pragmatic people who, if it worked, they would keep it, which is frustrating because they disappear so quickly because of that.
With very little trace in the records-
With very little trace. That's right.
... with very little writing.
No time for writing it down.
Yeah. Why were monasteries such good targets for these early raids?
This is where I imagine myself as a Viking and one of my ancestors perhaps. And sailing in... I mean, they must have thought they had won the lottery. You got this rich, these rich buildings, rich gold everywhere. Decorated books, jewels, all guarded by old men who don't know how to fight. You just take it.
I mean, we should make clear that the monasteries had... They were used as almost like storage for gold.
Yeah. And this goes all the way back to, you know, the Roman Empire where, you know, think of, for example, the Emperor Augustus. When he was writing his will, he put it in the Temple of the Vestal Virgins as well as Mark Antony and Cleopatra. They'd all done that because there's this additional protection of religion- ... and this taboo against violating that. And the same thing happened when Europe was Christianized. Monasteries were... I mean, rich people, their faith had to be an active faith. They couldn't just say their prayers and go to church on Sunday. They would have to do something to publicly show that they were, you know, worthy of forgiveness or, or whatever. And so they would donate huge sums to the church. I think, you know, by the time of the French Revolution, which is obviously way in the future, the Church is the largest single landowner in France. I mean, the monasteries where... These, these monasteries filled with monks who had taken vows of poverty were some of the richest places in Europe. It's kind of a strange dichotomy here.
And then we should also say that the Vikings, many of them pragmatic people, so a lot of them would eventually then convert to Christianity, so you get-
... you integrate yourself into the system.
In some sense, religion creates this backbone of a society that stabilizes it, and then you create a bunch of rules about behavior, how you're supposed to behave. One of the rules is you don't mess with the church buildings and-
... the religious- ... institutions and therefore they become great storage places for gold.
And then the Vikings here just test the system. Uh, I mean, it's the fortune of geography for them and the fortune of their way of life, to be able to raid, to become extremely rich and therefore this... It both spreads the terror across England, and the message across Scandinavia that there's a lot of riches to be had. And so the raids, that's why there's an explosion of raids.
That's right. And I think it's not a coincidence that it happens when it does. I mean, you have both... So there's two main theories about why the Viking Age starts. The first, Will Durant puts it, I think, the best. He says, "The fertility of the Viking women outstripped the fertility of the Viking land." It's basically overpopulation. Um, and then they're searching for food. And then the second is there's this technological breakthrough with the keel and maybe pressure put on Charlemagne's consolidation and a little worries like that. I don't see why both can't be true but I do, I do also think Europe... Like, Charlemagne puts together this vast empire that, you know, fairly approximates the Western Roman Empire. If you squint- ... it looks like the Western Roman Empire. He's calling himself the new Roman emperor. This will eventually mutate into the Holy Roman Empire. But it's very much this idea that it's back. The Roman Empire is back. He's crowned on Christmas Day in the year 800, and the empire is back. Unfortunately, it was sprawling. It hadn't been thought through. There was... The communication was terrible. You just couldn't do it. And so it was wealthy and weak, and that kind of attracts predators. By the time the Vikings crash into it, you also have the added bonus for them of really feckless rulers.
And we should say, going to Perplexity here, that Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great, is the Frankish king who became emperor in 800 and ruled much of the Western and Central Europe in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. And, there's a theory that the Viking Age was also a reaction to the South expanding north, as you're talking about. You tell the story of Charlemagne weeping because he foresaw the evil his descendants would suffer. Did the Franks accidentally wake the sleeping giant by crushing the Saxons and removing the buffer zone between them and the Vikings?
I'm sure that had something to do with it. But yeah, as power was consolidated throughout specifically Central Europe it did put a little pressure on the areas of Denmark. And those are the areas that first kind of erupt down toward, um... Norway and Denmark contribute most of the early Vikings that hit the Franks. And the Frankish Empire is the most wealthy state in Europe. It's poured money into religious houses for the reasons you outlined. And all sitting there, easy pickings for people who've just developed the keel.
And so the word of the raids sent terror through, through England and through Europe. How much of the raids were reconnaissance, and how much was it just raids, and how much was it preparing for greater scale?
That's a good... That's a really good question. I think a lot of the early raids are probing raids, to see what's there. Um, definitely when Ragnar Lothbrok, for example, sacks Paris in 845, that definitely results in waves of Viking attacks throughout the 860s, trying to copy that. And he actually is the template which everyone wants to follow. And so that provokes large-scale invasions. And they hit England. They kind of switch off. When France is pretty much exhausted, they switch over to England, and then when England is pretty much conquered, they switch back to France. So I think a lot of these are just probing raids at first, but they're proof of concept and then they come in force. For example, there was one king in England, his name was Ethelred the Unready, which is a pretty funny... Pun on his name. But he paid, in one year, 7.5 million silver pennies to the Vikings to get them to go away, which is a bit like someone's mugging you, so you pay them more money so they'll go away. It's-
That's not gonna work, is it?
It's not gonna work, but it will bring more muggers. Um, so he paid the equivalent of 50 adult elephants, 48,000 pounds of silver, to get the muggers to go away. And it's unsurprising that throughout the course of his reign, he paid something like 20 tons of gold and silver, which he had to tax his people for.
Um, yeah, the Vikings are not the kind of people that would make go away, right?
Nope. That's not gonna happen.
Yeah, they would just come back in force.
Yeah, they trust silver to do the work of swords.
Uh, you mentioned Ragnar Lothbrok. Who was Ragnar Lothbrok? Did he actually exist? Some people believe he's a composite from several real ninth century Viking leaders, versus an actual singular human.
Yeah, I'm a romantic. I would like to believe he existed. Um, I think probably he's a compilation of a lot of different... There probably is a seed of truth there. There probably was someone named Ragnar. The last name's a little suspicious. Lothbrok means hairy breeches. He supposedly had magic pants that would prevent him from being poisoned by dragons or snakes. That's maybe a clue. We're dealing with myth here. But he is really the template for Vikings. You want to figure out, like, what the Vikings wanted, who's their success story, it's Ragnar Lothbrok. He's born Norway, Denmark, countries argue over that. Maybe Sweden. Some sagas say he's in Uppsala. Anyway, he is, you know, penniless, and when he is in his late teens or early 20s, he decides to invade, sail up the Seine. Uh, there is a well-known city on the Seine and he raids it. Supposedly, he takes the hinge of one of the gates from Paris to prove that he's been there. The- the Frankish king, I love the Frankish kings because they- their citizens give them names based on how much they hate them. So you have- you have Charles the Great, right? Charles the Great, Charlemagne. He's followed by Louis the Pious. That's probably the best one. And Louis the Pious is followed by Charles the Fat- ... who's followed by Charles the Bald- ... who's followed by Charles the Simple or Stupid.
Nice. So you can trust the names-
- to give you the TLDR of how good of a ruler they were.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So Charles the Great, widely acknowledged as sort of one of the great leaders of the Frankish Empire- ... aka Charlemagne. Uh, so what else do we know about him? So, there's going to Perplexity, "Ragnar's portrayed as a Scandinavian warlord, often called a Danish or Swedish king," like you mentioned. Uh, "Active in the ninth century during the height of the Viking raids." And then descriptions of the raids and the exploits. "Medieval traditions link Ragnar to famous raids on the Frankish realms, especially the attack on Paris in 845, where he reputedly sails up the Seine and extorts a huge ransom from King Charles the Bald." He's also associated with repeated attacks on Anglo-Saxon England, embodying the archetypal Viking chieftain, charismatic, brutal, and focused on wealth, fame, and honor in battle. So that, those are the ideals of the Vikings. Charisma, brutality- ... and focusing on wealth, fame, and honor, especially honor in battle.
Then also, what does he do with it, right? What does he do with it? So, he gets about 7,000 pounds of silver from Charles the Bald, which destroys, essentially destroys Charles the Bald's kingship. But he goes back home to Denmark, and the Danish king doesn't want him around, because he's too powerful, he's too rich. He's a ring giver. You know, think Beowulf here, right? He's got this large personal army which wants to join him for ad- he can do, you know, they'll follow him, and he is a threat, and so he kind of is encouraged to go elsewhere. He ends up raiding England for something like 15 years, and then there's a, probably the most famous bit of the story is he's shipwrecked, and King Aella of Northumberland captures him and decides to kill him by throwing him into a pit with vipers. They throw him in this and the snakes are biting him, but he's got his hairy breeches on, so it's not working. So, he's singing a hymn to Odin and he gets pulled out and he's asked why he's not dying and he explains, rather foolishly, that he has these hairy breeches. So, they take the pants off and throw him back, and his last words are, um, "When the boar bleats, the piglets come."... by which he means, "My s- I have sons," he had 12 of them, "and they will avenge me." And they do, they lead the the Great Heathen Army to invade and eventually conquer England. Aella, fun fact, not so fun for him, is the, supposedly was captured by the son of Ragnar, his name is Ivar the Boneless, which is somewhat terrifying of a name. And he is, he's the first person that a blood eagle was performed on.
It's when they remove the lungs, they, while you're still alive, they cut you open and remove the lungs and put the lungs on your back. And then when you try to breathe, they flutter like wings, so it's called, like an eagle. It's called the blood eagle.
It's disgusting, yes. And this is what Aella, you know, deserves, according to, you know, Bjorn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless, the sons of Ragnar. Like, this is what they get.
This is the piglets coming- ... to their own boar, you know? One last thing about Ragnar, is his wife is also an important part. He had something like 12 sons, the accounts differ, and probably three marriages. But his most famous wife was named Aslaug, and she fell in love with him. He was on a ship, he was passing through, so- ... kind of a glamorous sea king, right? With his, he's living the dream. And she sees him and she wants to be married to him, and he says no. He says, 'cause he wants a clever wife, and so he says, "If you can accomplish these three things, you can marry me. So tomorrow, I'll be here tonight, and then tomorrow, I want you to come to my ship. I want you to have no clothes on- ... but not be naked. I want you to have not eaten a meal, but not have fasted. And I want you to come without a companion, but not alone." And so she shows up with a dog. She doesn't have a companion, but she's not alone. She's taken a bite out of an onion, so she's eaten. She hasn't fasted, but she hasn't had a meal. And then she has very long hair, and so she's using the hair to cover herself. So she has no clothes-
Oh, she shows up naked, but she's-
Yeah, so in this, so this is kind of the cleverness that would be expected of a, of a Viking woman. So they're well matched, they're like the ideal couple. And then they have 12 kids, 12 sons. Not just 12 kids, 12 sons.
And many of them end up...
Many of them end up almost as famous as their father.
Ivar the Boneless. Uh, Bjorn Ironside, and many others. These sons later appear as leaders of major Viking forces in England, particularly the so-called Great Heathen Army- ... that invades in 865.
And they are historical. They are, I mean, there's no, these were the names of Vikings who attacked and conquered England. They end up attacking Islamic Spain. They go all over Europe.
Well, for them, it sounds like glory in battle is really important.
And so it's not even- It's just part of the culture, it's part-
Men die, but names live forever.
Uh, as a small aside, since Ragnar is the star of the Vikings TV series, I don't know if you've gotten a chance to watch any of it. Is there any accuracy to it?
I think it's well done. My one quibble, Ragnar's brother is Rollo in the show, right? They weren't brothers. In fact, by some accounts, they were born 80 years apart. But as a storytelling device, I applaud that.
Yeah, they basically take all the main Vikings and put them all together. Just so it's a-
I mean, I get it. I get it, it's confusing. Honestly, in writing a book about it, the hardest part was coming up with an organizational scheme. Like, what's the overarching thing that links them together?
Well, there's certainly an overarching thing, but we don't have information about it. This is, the problem is we get to see just slivers of the information-
That's right, that's right.
... from the raids. There might be just this rich history that we know nothing about. Like where did this warrior culture come from? Like, what was the evolution of these ideas of honor and battle? I mean, maybe it's being overly romantic, but you can imagine the ideals of battle from the Roman Empire, from the Roman Republic and the early imperial period coming up north to Scandinavia. And we just know very little traces about that.
Yeah. Even the name Scandinavia is from a Roman author. I mean, they thought it was an island. They thought Scandinavia was an island with one tribe, the Scandia tribe, but you know, close enough.
And uh, who was the, what was in this Great Heathen Army that invaded England in 865? What can we say about that?
Well, there's this famous scene in the Viking siege of Paris in 845, which is really the Europeans' introduction, or Europe as a whole, to a Viking army, not just a raid and then what it could do. And the king, the emperor, Charles, said, "You know, let's find out what they want and how much do I have to pay to get them to leave?" And so his ambassador went to a Viking and said, "Who is your king?" And the Viking looked at him, he didn't understand, and he said, "We have no king. We are all kings." So they're very like decentralized, tough. They only valued leaders who could prove that they had, they had won. You know, could give out the rings.
So flat organization, very meritocratic.
If you're good at what you do, you demonstrate that skill in battle. That means you get to have maybe a leadership position.
And the moment you're no longer effective, you don't get to have this leadership position. We're all kings. That's gangster. Throughout history, the Mongols, Genghis Khan was famous for this meritocracy.
That's one of the components of an extremely effective military force is if meritocracy is prized. Same is true for who gets to rule. How do you determine the succession? If you're just giving it to your oldest son, that's gonna be a problem.
Yeah. Yeah, that... I could not agree more. There are some problems with, with meritocracy in civil war because it tends to... The only way you can find out, like Alexander the Great, right? Who does your empire belong to? To the strongest. That kind of guarantees the civil war. At least with giving it to your older son, you know who's gonna be... There's an element of stability there although you may end up with a Caligula. More likely than not, you're gonna end up with a Caligula, I would say, human nature being what it is.
It's— It's... Yeah, yeah, it always converges to the asshole, and the asshole holds power, a crazy asshole. Uh, so yeah, Great Heathen Army, 865.
So the Great Heathen Army, they were war bands that... Each followed this guy and this guy. "And I'm gonna sit you down in this room. I'm gonna tell you my plan. You're gonna listen or you're gonna push back. I'm gonna push back, and we'll just have this kind of creative discussion and come up with a plan we all agree on."
So it used to be relatively small Viking groups that were doing raids. And then the Great Heathen Army is this large coalition of Viking groups-
... without a real leader that was able to somehow stabilize enough to have something like governance. Basically, there seems to be a very rapid evolution of a Viking in every part of the world they touch. You go explore, raid, conquer, establish state- ... and trade routes, and always maintaining a grand ambition, but no longer doing the violence, and always being sufficiently programmatic and flexible where you can accept a conversion to Christianity, for example, if it's useful-
... and then they accept the culture, accept the language. So that's why they integrate and the thing that we think of as Viking dis- kind of dissipates and disappears pretty quickly.
Yeah, and I think the best example of this is France, right? So the Vikings, which is we'll talk about this more probably with Rollo, but, you know, the Vikings settle in France, in the North Man's Duchy, which is shortened to Normandy. And they, within a generation... I mean, Rollo, whose real name is Hrolf, he names his son William. That's not a Viking name. And within a generation, the language is gone. The Viking names are gone. The worship of Odin is, as far as we can tell, gone. And the Normans are building churches and marrying into the local aristocracy in there. Their... Essentially, their Viking-ness is gone except for one thing, their, like, incredible vitality, which the Normans essentially conquer kingdoms at both ends of Europe, Sicily and England, and found two of the foremost powerful states in medieval Europe.
Yeah, so the ambition is there.
The vitality is there, but it's-
The methods have changed.
Yeah, and they change rapidly, which is fascinating. So you have a book. You have a podcast series on The Normans, so let's talk about Rollo. Who was Rollo? The famous Viking war leader who became the first ruler of Normandy, Northern France.
Well, first I should say, as someone of Norwegian descent, I'm gonna fall down on the Norwegian side of the argument here because- ... Norway and Denmark almost came to blows over which was the birthplace of Rollo. But the consensus seems to be Norway- Not just biased. Um, so he was... The only thing we... The only glimpse we get of Rollo as a young man is he was very tall, so he's called Hrolf the Walker, Hrolf Ganger because he was so tall he couldn't ride the little Viking ponies. So he had to walk everywhere. But... Kinda poor probably raised on stories of Ragnar and the other Viking lords, and he goes. He may have participated in some of the earlier, like the 860 raids that the Vikings did on Paris or the Seine, you know, and then he eventually ends up plundering the, what will become the Norman coast. And in the, in the year 911, he makes a treaty, the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte with the Frankish King, Charles the Simple, which is not stupid. It's, it's more like straightforward. There's no guile in how he talks. Uh, and Charles makes a really interesting deal with Rollo, which is, um, "Why don't you settle here, integrate into the local aristocracy and defend the French coast against the Vikings?" Which I don't know. It's like putting a burglar in charge of your security or some- I don't know, but it works. It works. And Rollo, by the time he makes that deal, he's probably in his mid-fifties to mid-sixties. It's unclear when he was born, but the point is he's lived the Viking life. He's, he's got something like 20 or 30, if you add up all the sagas they say that he... they gave him this many coins or whatever. He has probably 20 or 30 tons of silver that he has acquired and then probably given out to whatever. So-
So yeah, so he's done the full-
He's done the thing. Yeah.
... and then the conquering and then-
And then the king says, "Can you settle here?" "Can I give you legitimacy?"
So he does the diplomacy of a treaty. ... then he does the good statecraft and state building and then becomes, I mean, European. In one life, he goes through the full journey.
And then his son, William Longsword- ... succeeded him and, uh ...
Gets assassinated, but he does enlarge Normandy. So basically, every ruler after Rollo enlarges Normandy until it- it essentially becomes more powerful than the king— ... By far. There's a wonderful scene when Rollo signs the treaty. He becomes a liege lord of the French king, and there's this great scene 'cause Rollo has to bend down and kiss the foot of the king. So Rollo's probably, you know, he's a Norwegian Viking. He's probably, I don't know, six foot. Charles, this little Frank, he's probably five ten. So he's like Rollo's towering over him, and there's a large- both armies are watching. There's a bunch of people who have come in from the countryside. They've heard something's going on, and this important part of this feudal ceremony, you have to kiss your lord's foot to- to, you know, be in a subservient role. And Rollo says, "I'm not gonna do that." So he turns to one of his guards and says, "You kiss the foot," and the guard's probably taller than he is. So he bends down and he picks the king's foot up to his mouth-
... which Charles goes falling on the back. I mean- ... I can't think of a better example of the relationship between the Norman dukes and the French kings. I mean, it's perfect. It's perfect.
Oh God, I love the Vikings. So as you've covered, and maybe you could speak to that a bit more, for a long time to come, Normans have influence on Europe and beyond.
Yeah, it's hard to overstate Normandy's impact on Europe in the Middle Ages. Of course, they will go on to conquer England as well. But Rollo, when he signs the treaty, it's an ambiguous treaty. He's given a title which is rather ambiguous. He's not a duke, and it's not clear. He's not an earl. He's not a duke. He's just subservient to the king. Which means Normandy is not a duchy. It's not a principality. It's kind of this ambiguous, no one really knows what it is. And so Rollo, being a good Viking, and his descendants being good Vikings, despite becoming French, they just call themselves Duke. And they essentially seize whatever power they want. There's one Norman duke, I think he's the grandson of Rollo. He's kidnapped by the French king when he's 14. He escapes the captivity and kidnaps the king. As a 14-year-old, I mean, it's just- these are- these guys are crazy.
How far geographically and in time does the influence of the Normans and Normandy go? So what should we understand about the impact of Normans- ... in history?
I'm a romantic, so I, when I read history, I usually end up rooting for the losers. Um, I want Harold Godwinson to beat No- William the Conqueror. You know, I want Hector to beat Achilles. Never works, no matter how many times I read it. But I was always interested in the Normans because of the Norman conquest of England. And my I have a twin brother, and he asked me, we were taking a walk, and he asked me, "How did Europe..." Uh, 'cause we, I was reading about the Dark Ages at the time, the the early Middle Ages. "And how did Europe, this kind of backwards place, become the dominant-" "... force in the world?" And I started thinking about that, and my answer really is the Normans. The Normans, that's the great change between Europe as a backwards, inward-looking place, and Europe as a kind of confident, outward-looking place. And that change happens under- under the Normans. I mean, the Normans, it's not a coincidence that they- they lead the charge in the First Crusade. They create the state of England. If you look at England before the Vikings arrive, there are seven, it's the Heptarchy, there are seven kingdoms in England, and the Vikings destroyed all but one. Only Wessex is preserved, and they've conquered about half of Wessex. And there's a young king. What's he gonna do? But that king is Alfred the Great, and he conquers the rest. And then his grandson, Athelstan, is the first man called King of England, king of all Angles. And then they do the same thing almost wherever they go. They help create modern France by ripping apart, uh, Charlemagne's empire, which was unwieldy. It looked good on paper, but it was unwieldy. It was replaced by this leaner, meaner, compact thing. They figure out how to deal with the Vikings by essentially building fortified bridges, changes to their army, and so forth. The Vikings, I—I like to call it creative destruction. It—they, by destroying the things they destroyed, they cleared the ground for something stronger to grow.
Uh, that's brilliant. The creative destruction engine that created Europe was the Normans and the Vikings. And then you also, you have another book that talks about the Byzantine Empire, so you have the creative destruction that resulted in Europe, that Europe led to this Western, quote-unquote, civilization that we think of now. And the thing that protected Europe for centuries was the existence of the Byzantine Empire, the East Roman Empire, because of all the threats-
... that came towards Europe. This strong, stable empire that is the Byzantine Empire protected the forces from everything that came from the east.
They were a buffer, giving Europe this kind of vital time to develop the way it needed to develop.
So it's— it's interesting to think that the world as we see now was a result— ... of a sequence of quite lucky geographical and leadership decisions in history. I mean, it really does pivot on a few points of geography and a few special leaders- ... that conquer.
Yeah. Had Constantine chosen his side a little less wisely, the world's going to be very different.
Yeah, so Constantine is the guy who moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople, thereby giving a lot more focus to the east. Thereby protecting Europe from the gigantic threats that—
That's right. And the Islamic invasions of the seventh century, they couldn't get past that choke point of Constantinople. So they had to take the long way across Africa. You know, and by the time they get to Spain, and conquer Spain and into, that's the Battle of Tours, you know, Charles Martel is able to stop them, and they're, they're massively overextended. You know, I think it's a very different story if they can come in through the Black Sea.
And all the times the East Roman Empire almost died from all the invasions, all of those invaders would have just conquered the entirety of Europe.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think they would've met much resistance.
Yeah. So rewinding back, what was the religion, the religious beliefs, the gods that the Vikings believed that we've mentioned a little bit of? Thor and Odin, how did they see this, this world and the universe?
It's, so the Viking gods are... I mean, they've been sanitized, but they're quite terrifying. But their basic conception of the universe is an eternal struggle between chaos and order, which chaos will eventually win. So I think the best view of cosmology is of concentric circles, with Utgard is the outer realm and that's where the chaos is. And those are the, that's where the frost giants are, all the monsters that seek to destroy. The gods represent order and stability, and the monsters represent chaos, and it's an eternal war between the two of them. Um, so there are different categories of gods depending on which circle you come from. The gods don't all like each other. They're not... Sometimes they engage in wars. Some of the most famous gods, the Norse gods, you know, Loki or Freya, come from outside the Aesir, the main gods. So it was kind of a fluid thing.
It's more a way to understand the world.
I think so, yeah. The thunder is Thor fighting the ice giants, and that's what that is.
Uh, going to Perplexity. Vikings followed the polytheistic, ritual-heavy religion centered on a pantheon of gods and spirits with no single holy book or unified church, and practices varied a lot by region and family. And so the major gods were Odin and Thor and Freya. Odin was, his domain was war, kingship, wisdom, death. Thor was protection, thunder, fertility. Freya was love, magic, battle dead. Um, typical worshipers for Odin were chieftains and elite warriors and poets. Typical worshipers for Thor were farmers and "ordinary people," and typical worshipers of Freya were women, magic practitioners, and lovers.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've heard it... I think you can break it down saying like, Odin was the elite. He's kind of more aristocratic, right?
He's the god of poetry, you need to read, et cetera. Only the elite would know how to do that. A farmer wouldn't really care about that. Wherein Thor is a more earthy god. You know, you want the waves to be less, you know, pray to Thor. Um, I find Odin, I think, most disturbing. He's the god of madness and the god of poetry, which, I guess those are related.
Um, but in battle, I mean, the berserkers, probably the most famous type of Viking warriors, were considered to be Odin's chosen warriors. They would show no pain, and they'd just run at the enemy and attack with their nails and their teeth. Even if they could have their arms hacked off, they would still keep going. Like they would just... And they would attack other Vikings. They were berserk. That's where we get the word from.
Uh, what do we understand the mindset leads to that? I mean, it wasn't religious in nature. There's not this kinda ideology. It's just the way of life and then the prized honor and intensity in battle.
Yeah. I mean, one of Odin's names is the raven feeder. I mean, you were, by creating corpses, which ravens feed on, you are, you're doing the work of Odin. And, you know, the, the Viking view of the afterlife was unique. There weren't really punishments, not really, for doing bad things. Unless you did something really bad. Then you ended up as basically an evil spirit, haunting your grave. But if you were brave, then you got taken to the house of the dead, which is Valhalla to... And you were resurrected. Every day you would fight, and whatever wounds you got would be magically healed that night. And then the next morning you'd get up and do it again. So you're essentially practicing for Ragnarok- ... the final battle, which you would lose. So I'm not sure. It seems, it's rather pessimistic.
The battle's what... I mean, it sounds like losing is not a thing. The battle itself is what matters, so Valhalla... It's a place where you fight a battle every day.
Unlimited food, there's like a boar or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
And you can die as much as you want-
As much as you want, yeah.
... and you'll be born again. And this is the idea of the highest... This, I guess, if there's such a thing as heaven in this kind of construction of the universe, this is heaven.
This is the highest form. This is the highest place you can go to is Valhalla. Is fight every day, eat as much as you want, drink as much as you want, die and are reborn the next day. And this is forever, preparing yourself for the final battle of Ragnarok.
So this is where, this is the end of the world, this is the cataclysm.
Mm-hmm. That's right. Odin's gonna die, Thor will die. He'll get killed by one of Loki's children, the Midgard Serpent. Odin will be devoured by a wolf. The sun and moon, which are being chased by monsters, by giants, will be caught and swallowed by the giants, plunging the world into eternal darkness. Essentially all the gods will die and darkness and chaos will then ensue. And then at the very end the... This is mostly from a guy named Snorri Sturluson who was living right at the end of the Viking Age and writing this. And he was, I believe, a Christian. So there's... I think we're fusing things here. So then there would be a new Earth and a new heaven and a new god, who's all powerful.
Yeah, if you think of religion as a kind of technology, a social technology that stabilizes or helps guide the evolution of a society, it's interesting to see what the Vikings came up with. And do you ever think from a history, the grand view of history, how effective these different technologies of religion have been?
Yeah, I mean, I think that's certainly... I'm thinking of the Viking rituals. Hospitality is very important in a northern climate where, you know, food is scarce, winters are long and harsh. And if you don't share your hearth with, you know, someone knocking on your door, then someone else might not share it with you and you could be facing death. So in this case hospitality becomes a core belief and— ... you know, the idea was that Odin would travel incognito, knocking on people's doors, and he would remember if you let him in or not. And if you were hospitable, he would bless you, and if you were inhospitable, he would murder you. And— ... you know, I think these rituals are obviously intended for, "How do we survive this winter?"
Yeah, how do we effectively spread the message that hospitality is pretty good thing and it's characteristic of religion. If you do a good thing, you'll be rewarded. If you do a bad thing, you'll be punished. And then different religions play the different ways of communicating that.
Yeah. I mean, I think also religion gives you, it gives you a world view, right? It gives you a morality and these are core parts of society.
And the beautiful thing about religion is it interplays with human nature and it guides humans. But then of course, human nature and humans project themselves onto the religion, sometimes they use their religion. It's to accomplish goals in a pragmatic sense, in a political sense, in a geopolitical sense, in a military sense, in a social sense. And so there's that dance of how religion invigorates and guides the peoples, and then how the peoples use the religion to guide the direction of the world. And that's certainly the history of Christianity has a big role to play in the history of Europe, in the history of the Byzantine Empire, and that part of the world. And it was an incredibly effective religion, once Constantine converted. It spread extremely quickly, relatively speaking, across a couple of centuries. Just to linger on the Viking views of the world and the afterlife. So we mentioned Valhalla. There's the Norns, which are the three spirits that represent the past, the present and the necessity. They spin the fates of all men and gods at the Roots of Yggdrasil.
Yggdrasil. So there's a notion of like determinism and fate to the Viking life. And there's Valhalla, there's Hel, Niflheim. This was the destination for the vast majority of people. So if you don't make it to Valhalla, this is where you go.
Unless you're a real bad person, then there's some punishment for the truly wicked.
And we should point out that Hel, spelled with one L was a daughter of Loki- ... and was not the same as the...
Hel with the two L's. Very different.
It's more like purgatory type of situation.
Yeah, so it's the house of the, it's like the house of the dead, the house of the underworld.
A colorless twilight, not necessarily a place of punishment but simply the inevitable end for most, unless you end up in Valhalla, which means you're a great warrior dying in battle.
It reminds me of the Greek view of the afterlife, right? Where you essentially get amnesia and forget who you are unless someone makes a sacrifice and says your name, and only then you'll remember it. So your destiny is ultimately to just become gray and fade away. So you might as well- you might as well be brave. You might as well run at that spear.
So that was the engine of their- the warrior culture that was core to their society.
I have to ask about Vikings as explorers. They were... truly one of the greatest explorers in history. What can you say to, what is it in their spirit that motivated them? I mean, they sailed, they
reached North America 500 years before Columbus. They sailed, obviously to England, Spain, Italy, Russia, North Africa, the Middle East, Paris, and I'm just showing here a map of the ocean routes and the river systems that they connected to and sailed. What do you think drove them to explore the unknown?
This boggles my mind. This, like this map here just, it messes with me because they didn't have a compass. I mean, can you imagine shoving off from some fjord in Norway west. That's your only, west. And there was a Viking named Naddodd. He's actually the first Norseman to reach Iceland, though it was a total accident. But here's the, here's the mind-blowing part. He decides to land and explore, and he gets off and he sees two humans. They're monks from Ireland. They got there in a canoe. You look at Ireland, look at Iceland, that's even more impressive. They got in a canoe, a skin boat, and they just went north because they were trying to get away from the world. They found Iceland, and in a very excellent move on their part, they ran away as soon as the Vikings arrived, which is, you know, pretty smart.
I don't know if you know there's this video of the deranged penguin with the Werner Herzog documentary, where Werner Herzog is like, overdubbing, explaining the thinking of the penguin. But the penguin leaves the tribe and he just goes out into the mountains. I have to show you this video. This is my favorite video of all time. There's this low-key documentary where they're talking about penguins, and then there's one penguin that leaves, leaves the tribe and just goes towards the mountains, and as Werner Herzog says, 'Towards certain death.' It always reminds me of this kind of Viking spirit or the monk spirit. There's something, one human or a small group of humans just decide to go.
