WI; an earlier Viking Age

[Otto Kretschmer]

What if for some reason(s) the Viking Age started 300 years earlier, i.e. around 493 AD instead of 793 AD?

For sure this would've complicated stuff for the Anglo Saxons (delayed Christianization + possibly majority Norse England) in England but what else would've changed?

Would politics in Western Europe (mostly France and Germany) be different to any significant degree?

[simon darkshade]

There is far, far less loot and available targets for them to pillage in England, whilst Gaul and Germania are similarly sparse pickings.

Should they persist, their homelands/bases get it in the neck from the Fimbulwinter of 536 AD, which some historians have speculatively ascribed to being one cause of the subsequent Viking Age.

[575]

Jul 4, 2024 10:23:58 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

What if for some reason(s) the Viking Age started 300 years earlier, i.e. around 493 AD instead of 793 AD?

For sure this would've complicated stuff for the Anglo Saxons (delayed Christianization + possibly majority Norse England) in England but what else would've changed?

Would politics in Western Europe (mostly France and Germany) be different to any significant degree?

There was a kind of Vikingage prior to 536 - a Danish King Colchilaitus raided the Frisland coast and was killed by a Frankisk Army. This would have happened in rowing boats as the sail hadn't reached Scandinavia yet.

A "real" Vikingage would only take off some 200 years past 536 when population had climbed out the black hole left by the Fimbul Winter - estimated population loss some 80%. There may have been raids on the Wendish Baltic Coast or in parts of Christian Europe too small to be written about by Monks in the Frankish Annals.

Earlier Viking ago - no.

[Max Sinister]

So - why did it start in the first place? Did they find out how to build longboats?

[575]

Jul 5, 2024 22:56:12 GMT Max Sinister said:

So - why did it start in the first place? Did they find out how to build longboats?

No did that during Bronzeage (though this is the only found vessel and date to early Iron Age):

And just prior to Fimbul Winter 536 a raid was done on Frisland which may have used boats as these like the one in East Anglia:

There is a stone with an image of a sailing ship dated to ca 600 which is like the above one just with a sail. I have a pic of it somewhere just can't find it at the moment.

Edit: did find it:

Coins from the early trading markets in Denmark had ships depicted:

The sail's another matter. It generally believed that Scandinavians acting as Roman Army mercenaries had seen roman ships and sailing ships had visited Scandinavian water since 325 BC - Pytheas and others.

The Sutton Hoo ship is dated to 7 century though is a row boat.

Sometime following end of the Fimbul Winter about 546 the new rulers had amassed peoples to be able to do agriculture and rearing Sheep in numbers to begin experimenting with sails. Nobody seems to venture a guess.

I think that once some kind of rule had been established in Scandinavia and boats and ships begun building they began exploring their "new" World. Remember about 80% of everybody had died due to the effects of 536 so the World was new to them. Locally peoples knew the lands lay waste and they had begun tilling but their horizon was limited. Previous agricultural lands had become shrubbery and young forest and little communications if any existed - everybody was trying to rebuild and then look around themselves. Its just natural behaviour.

With much less peoples you needed something different from a labour crawing row boat so the sail was tried. And found to work. The Viking age was born. Hence also why both sexes would take up arms - peoples were in short supply.