What Did the Vikings Take When They Raided

The Second Period of Raids
A second phase of raiding began in 914, with the arrival of a large fleet of Viking ships in Waterford harbour. They promptly re-captured their settlement of Vadrefjord [Waterford] from which the Irish had expelled the first Vikings half a century earlier. Reinforced by a second fleet which arrived the following year, the Vikings launched a series of offensives deep into the province of Munster, and later Leinster, where they met little Irish resistance as they pillaged both ecclesiastical and gr�d Fh�ne (commoner) settlements. They plundered the monasteries of Cork, Lismore and Aghaboe, among others.

In 917, the Vikings re-captured the settlement of Dubhlinn [Dublin] which the Irish had captured in 902. The king of the U� N�ill, Niall Gl�ndub, who was the most powerful king in Ireland, decided that the Vikings had to be stopped. He brought together a combined force from the U� N�ill and enlisted the help of the forces of Leinster. They marched against the Vikings in Munster in 917. However, the Vikings routed the Leinstermen, while the forces of the U� N�ill retreated from Munster with no decisive success. Two years later, in 919, Niall Gl�ndub tried again and attacked Dubhlinn. However, his forces were again routed by the Vikings and Niall Gl�ndub himself was killed and "the cream of the U� N�ill fell with him" [2]. It was not true to say that it was "the Irish against the Vikings". In fact, some Irish kings and lords formed alliances with Vikings to attack other Irish lords.

The Vikings continued to raid inland from their towns of Dubhlinn, Cork and Vadrefjord. In 921, they founded a new town on the south-east tip of Ireland called Weisfjord (Wexford) and a year later founded the town of Limerick near a ford at the mouth of the river Shannon on the west coast. The Vikings in Ireland, however, spent a lot of effort consolidating the Nordic Kingdom that their Viking collegeaues had been carving out of Anglo-Saxon England (by defeating and assimilating Northumbria, East Anglia and parts of Mercia - see a map of England before the Vikings came). This kingdom would become known as the Danelaw. Back in Ireland, as the influence of the Vikings declined, they concentrated more on developing Dubhlinn as a trading city and by 934 exercised control over the other Viking towns in Ireland. In its day, Dubhlinn was one of the most important cities in the Nordic world, as a trading and slaving centre. In 952, Dubhlinn split from the Danelaw and from then on Dubhlinn had its own dynasty of Viking Kings.

See below for a map of Ireland around 950.

The Vikings eventually settled down in the lands they had conquered. By 950, the Vikings had stopped raiding in Ireland and developed instead as traders and settled in the lands around their towns. The Vikings in England [3] largely became farmers and fishermen. In France, the Vikings formed the Kingdom of Normandy on the north coast - which would play a major role in history a century later when William of Normandy would defeat England in 1066. The Vikings left many placenames in Ireland including: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, Strangford, Leixlip, Carlingford, Youghal, Howth, Dalkey and Fingall [an area of modern-day Dublin]. A few of their words were also adopted into the Irish language.

Everyday Life in the Viking Period
This must have been a terrifying period for the Irish who were subjected to these raids. Scribbled in the margin of a manuscript, the words of a 9th century monk reveal some of the emotion: "The wind is fierce tonight. It tosses the sea's white hair. I fear no wild Vikings, sailing the quiet main" [2]. Many of these hand-written illuminated manuscripts - being of no financial value - were burned by the Vikings and today we only have a handful of those that were written. While these were great setbacks for the ecclesiastical community, few of the monasteries in Ireland failed to resurrect themselves after raids. Unlike Britain and France, where whole monastic communities disappeared, the Irish seem to have been spared the worst of the Vikings' wrath [2]. In fact, Cork monastery was practically next door to the nearby Viking settlement but it emerged from the Viking period largely intact.

The ordinary gr�d Fh�ne (commoners) found that their ringforts had been rendered obsolete by the character of the Viking raids. The earthen walls and ditches around their houses may have been an adequate defence against relatively infrequent Irish attacks, but the Vikings came in such numbers that they easily breached the banks to steal animals, plunder and burn property and capture slaves. Thus both ringforts and crannogs fell out of use over the course of the 900s. They were replaced by a more heavily defended underground chamber called a souterrain. A souterrain is built by digging a deep ditch, lining it with stone walls, putting a roof on it and covering it over. Used mainly as places of refuge, as opposed to storing goods, the tunnels of souterrains could be over 100 metres (330 feet) in length. Although difficult to find due to their hidden nature, over 3500 known souterrains survive in Ireland.

Christian Songs

Some Celtic Christian songs survive from the Viking period. Perhaps the most famous is Be Thou My Vision, written around 1,200 years ago. It is clearly a reflection of its turbulent times, with its comparison of to God to a "strong tower". Verse three is:

Be Thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight,
Be Thou my whole armour, be Thou my true might,
Be Thou my soul's shelter, be Thou my strong tower,
O raise Thou me heavenward, great power of my power.

At the start of the Viking period the Irish monasteries consisted of earthen enclosures containing a church, various outbuildings and the monks' residences. The Vikings found that it was very easy to ransack these largely defenseless settlements. In time, the monks learned how to frustrate the Vikings, by building tall stone towers known as Round Towers. The door was placed one floor up, accessible by a ladder. Inside the tower, each floor was accessed by further ladders. If Vikings were sighted, the Monks would grab as much food and valuables as they could, climb into the tower and pull up the ladder. The Vikings would then raid the empty monastery while the monks watched from the safety of the tower. Even if the Vikings did get into the tower - and they did not try hard to do so - the Monks simply retreated further up the tower by pulling up more ladders. Such a strategy did not save the monastery itself, but did save the Monks and some of their belongings from being captured. Round towers were constructed across Ireland, a large number of which are still intact today. The picture above shows the round tower at Devenish, county Fermanagh [the steps are a modern addition] (photo by Edwin Smith). [5]

Another feature to appear at this time was the High Cross. It was customary for monasteries to display a wooden cross, but from the 700s onwards it became common to carve them from stone. Some had Biblical scenes carved on them, to assist in teaching the largely illiterate population. Some have theorised that they were made so large to prevent the Vikings from stealing them or knocking them down, although this is conjecture. The picture on the left shows the High Cross at Monasterboice, county Louth (picture from [4]). [5]

References / Sources:
[1] Various authors, "The Oxford Companion to Irish History", Oxford University Press, 1998
[2] RF Foster: "The Oxford History of Ireland", Oxford University Press, 1989
[3] Simon Schama, "A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? 3000BC-AD1603", BBC, 2000
[4] Se�n Duffy, "Atlas of Irish History", Gill and Macmillan, 2000
[5] G. Stout and M. Stout, writing in the "Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape", Cork University Press, 1997, pp31-63

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What Did the Vikings Take When They Raided

Source: https://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/pre_norman_history/vikings.html

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