The Viking Age

The Viking Age was the period in Scandinavian and wider European history, conventionally dated from the late eighth century to 1066, during which Norse seafarers from Denmark, Norway and Sweden undertook large scale raiding, trading, conquest and settlement across Europe, the North Atlantic and briefly North America. Longship technology gave Norse raiders and traders reach from the British Isles and the Frankish coast to the river routes of eastern Europe, where Scandinavian merchants and warriors became known as the Varangians. The period reshaped the political map of the British Isles, seeded the Norman settlement of northern France, and closed as Scandinavian kingdoms Christianized and were absorbed into the wider structures of medieval Europe.