Sadly, nowadays it seems that much of the world is at war, going to war, or preparing for war.
In many respects, the 80 years of peace and stability that many of us in the West have enjoyed since the end of the Second World War is very much the exception, not the rule.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe was again plunged into war. One of the reasons why the European Union is so miraculous is that many of the nations within it have spent centuries fighting one another, harking back to at least the early medieval period.
Despite the insecure and tense geopolitical environment we find ourselves in nowadays, this is nothing compared to what people throughout the early medieval period had to endure.
The concept of a nation-state was slowly being formulated and was very much in its infancy.
Whilst by the end of the Viking Age (c. 750–1100 CE), there were three kingdoms in Scandinavia—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—these provided no services and no real security for their inhabitants.
There was no police force or standing army to keep the peace, crime was rife, and lethal violence rampant.
It was in this environment that we find the Vikings emerge—ferocious warriors who spread out during the early medieval period to encounter a dozen more technologically advanced cultures and civilizations, including the standing armies of Constantinople, Baghdad, and parts of the British Isles.
Given that Vikings were only a small minority of the societies that produced them, how did they come to consistently defeat enemy armies many times larger?
How did the Vikings fare against some of the mighty militaries of their day?
Using longships, Vikings could appear suddenly, raid quickly, and vanish before organized resistance could form. Photo: Odd Roar Aalborg (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sneak attacks, hit and run
Napoleon did it. Hitler's Wehrmacht, too. And even the U.S. military did it in Iraq back in 2003. Hit and run. Shock and awe. Lightning war.
Yes, launching an attack on an unsuspecting enemy is a tried and tested way to get one up on your military opponent that even Sun Tzu would be proud of.
For much of the early medieval period, Vikings had the upper hand in battles and fights due to their guerrilla "hit and run" style tactics.
Utilizing the most impressive and advanced piece of maritime technology of the era—the Viking longship—they could as easily strike coastal towns and communities as they could strike deep into the heart of enemy territory, far upriver.
As Ben Raffield writes in his chapter in the 2024 book Landscapes of Movement and Predation: Perspectives from Archaeology, History, and Anthropology:
"...many Viking raiding groups possessed the capacity to strike their targets unawares, appearing on the coast, major rivers, or even traveling overland to attack their victims before quickly retreating to safety."
An example of the brilliance of these Viking raids was at Lindisfarne, off the northeastern coast of England, in 793 (so devastating that it traditionally signaled the dawn of a Viking Age for centuries), Sevilla, southern Spain, in 844, or the raid on Aachen, the then imperial city of the Frankish realms, in 881.
Living off the land
This naval mobility allowed them to launch lightning attacks whereby perhaps only a small warband of warriors would quickly appear, strike, and then sail away.
For much of the pre-modern period, water-based travel was a lot quicker than land-based travel; therefore, the Vikings had a speedy advantage in conducting raids and then getting the hell out of there quickly.
This agility made them not only appear seemingly omnipresent but also left coastal and river-bound communities in a constant state of paranoia. These small warbands were also self-sufficient and lived off the land.
The Viking Great Army, often referred to as the "Great Heathen Army," was never a singular force and not entirely "heathen," but it serves as a classic example of this approach.
Several warbands, at their peak, perhaps numbering around 5,000, landed in what is now East Anglia, in eastern England, in 865.
From there, they roamed up and down Anglo-Saxon England, marching as far north as the Tyne, in the Kingdom of Northumbria, and as far south as Exeter, in the Kingdom of Wessex.
Over the next thirteen years, they laid waste to much of Anglo-Saxon England and had, by 878, conquered all of Anglo-Saxon England aside from Wessex.
The rise of castles, cavalry, and military reform enabled later medieval states to limit Viking reach and raiding. Photo: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock
Medieval armies: Heavily armored and fortified
The early period of the Viking Age was one where cultures and civilizations of Europe and West Asia were on the defensive, in "crisis mode," if you will.
Viking longships appeared on the horizon just as rapidly as they had raided and left. Given the small population and organizational capabilities of these medieval societies, they could not protect entire coastlines or rivers with military force.
Due to the military, technological, and logistical sophistication of larger medieval armies, Viking warbands often tried to avoid them.
By the end of the Viking Age, medieval armies could field mixed arms, including infantry and heavily armored knights.
Much of what is the southern Mediterranean world—think the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa—was dominated by Islamic civilizations and cultures during this era. Their logistical might and military brilliance saw Viking raids easily fended off.
Further north, King Alfred the Great of Wessex initiated the "burgh" system, which was a network of fortified settlements.
These burghs were built, as David Hill writes in his 2003 book The Origin of Alfred's Urban Policies, "to reflect their functions of defense, trade, and refuge...[and]...were backed by military reforms and included the early warning of the beacons."
Furthermore, these burghs were deliberately placed at strategic chokepoints, near rivers or the coast, to ward off Viking incursions and attacks.
These "burghs" would be improved following the Norman Conquest and turned into castles. From here, whole garrisons could be deployed to dominate an entire region, secure from predatory Viking attacks and raids.
So how did they go?
During the early phase of the Viking Age—say, the first century or so—Viking warbands very much had the upper hand.
Not only could they conduct devastating raids, like Lindisfarne, but they also struck deep into the territories of much of Europe and West Asia, even going so far as to raid the imperial capital of the Holy Roman Empire.
Utilizing their longboats to sail across oceans and down rivers, they laid waste to coastal and river-bound communities from the British Isles to the Black Sea, from what is now Poland to Portugal, and everywhere in between.
However, following decades of Viking raids and attacks, the cultures and civilizations south of the Viking heartland in Scandinavia caught on.
Battlefield tactics changed, chokepoints were fortified, and military technology—be it Byzantine "Greek Fire" or the heavily armored Frankish knight—soon proved too much for a mere ragtag bunch of axe-wielding Vikings.
Viking attacks, battles, and raids proved to be the testing ground for many medieval armies. By the end of the Viking Age, by the 12th century, the once fearful Frankish realms or British Isles could easily fend off predatory raids.
- READ MORE: 5 Viking raids that shaped European history
The Bayeux Tapestry shows Norman knights using shock tactics and coordination that evolved from both Viking and Frankish traditions. Source: Public domain
The Normans: The best of both worlds?
It can be argued that the Normans—descendants of people from Viking societies who had been granted land between the rivers Loire and Seine from the early 10th century onwards—combined the best of both worlds.
They still possessed a mighty warrior ethos but mixed it with the latest military advancements from the Frankish world, including heavy cavalry.
The result was a devastating military force that would go on to conquer much of the British Isles and southern Italy and would dominate parts of the Levant.
One only has to look at the Bayeux Tapestry (surely one of the most beautiful pieces of medieval propaganda ever commissioned) to see how the Normans used longships, cavalry, and heavy infantry to devastating effect during the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath.
For more information on a modern-day battle over a place where Vikings fought and died, visit the BBC here.
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