If there was no Islam, would the Viking Age happen?
- Thread starter St. Just
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Donald Reaver
Donor
While the large amount of silver that arrived in Scandinavia from the Islamic regions was important it was a case of the Vikings reaching out to that area not the reverse. The reasons for the Viking age are mostly internal, they took advantage of the world outside there area the best they could. It would be different but the same reasons it happened are still there.
Depends. If you meant, would a wave of raiding over Northern Sea and Atlantic would still happens, then probably yes, but probably much reduced.
If you meant a period definied by a huge wave of raids, settlement, and restructuration, probably not.
Even if what provoked the Viking Age is still debated, we can discern two, three big explanations (and can write off the demographical explosion that in spite of being repeted over and over again in popular history, is contradicted by archeological studies).
- First, a reaction against Frankish takeover of Germania and clientelisation of Slavic principalties, while it's especially true for Danes. The conquest of Saxony, and the echo it had, pushed Danish king to be more confrontational, or at least wary.
A fortification (while more symbolic than truly military useful, a bit like Offa's Dike) called the Danevirke was digged out by the late VIIIth/early IXth century by Justish kings, facing Franks. You'd probably have operations against Slavic clients/principalties and Frisia as IOTL, and a general confrontation that would take the form of raids, that would by sheer mimetism be adopted by other Scandinavians, especially in Norway.
Now, relations wouldn't be as confrontational as IOTL, would it be only because you'd avoid the destructuration of Danes royal chiefdoms that plagued it in the IXth century. We know of alliances between Danish kings (as Harald Klak or his son Godried Haraldsson), that passed trough a process of military support and conversion, IOTL.
Without such destructuration, I'd think that a "Carolingianized" Jutland is possible, and could survive the still likely split of Carolingia. Which means Danish raids would be less tied up to "independent" jarls, but more directly tied up with royal "political programs", as the raids in Frisia in the 810's/820's. More limited, and maybe more akin to the Carolingian inner wars (with possible support from one or the other Carolingian).
- Second (and it's related to the first), the disappearance of Frisian thalassocracy. While Franks took over this trade hub and more or less fit in the shoes, you had still a place to take that neither Franks, neither Anglo-Saxons could immediatly fill. Scandinavian could, and would it be only for maintaining the flux of products they wanted from North Sea/Atlantic trade, would probably be present in North Sea and Channel.
But ITTL, it would be more of a concerted effort, and probably (IMO, at least), less violent than IOTL as more structurated.
-Then, the Abassid (and after Umayyad, especially with the decline of silver mines in late IXth Spain) economic decline : the decline of the Volga trade road (that, in all likehood, would not exist ITTL, at least not at this point) or other Baltic/Mediterranean trade roads, and the decline of flux of precious metal really provoked a crisis there.
Where to find product one wanted? How to sell goods one gathered?
Scandinavians made the same choice than Greeks before them, and Portuguese after : don't ask for permission, take goods that are needed, and "force" your access to trade points by either not giving it much choice to owners or creating them.
Without Arab-motivated trade, not only this crisis would, of course, not happen but Baltic trade would be more reduced, more Atlantic-focused maybe (or, passing trough the old Amber Road trough Western Slavic populations up to Byzantium). Meaning less wealthy and powerful (how much is let to everyone's appreciation) Scandinavian chiefdoms and elites, maybe making petty kingdom/cyclical chiefdoms unification easier.
So, while you'd still probably see raiding parties by the IXth century, up to the Xth, I don't think you'd have the snowball effect that happened IOTL, with Vikings raids growing out of it, making situation even more chaotic, making opportunities popping all around.
Overpopulation, the first glimmerings of political centralization, and other internal factors were the main reasons for the Viking Age, as was previously said. Also, don't you have your causality mixed up a bit? I'd be rather doubtful of the likelihood of Islamic bullion and other trade goods reaching Scandinavia when it was still as isolated and peripheral as it was pre-790.
Every archeological remain of the period show the absence of an overcrowed Scandinavia. And even without that, the important lack of massive settlement on the continent seems to not fit with the overpopulation theory.
Not at all : Scandinavia was a trade hub during the VIIIth century : recently was found, for exemple, products from Iraq (jewelry, notably) in a Scandinavian tomb of Birka for the early IXth century.
Or, of course, Helgö Island Buddha in a VIIth century trade center.
To quote one of the specialist of Viking Age, John Haywood, Scandinavians established trade exchange with remote lands way before the beggining of Viking Age.
Or, more completly.
Dark Ages Economics are a more complete study on Early Medieval North Sea trade if you're interested.
While this graph is simplyifying the situation, focusing on links with Arab trade too much for my own taste (and doesn't take in account political issues in Arabo-Islamic world, for a too vague "overspend"), it's still a good summary.
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I've always heard about overpopulation, but , now that i've checked, Wikipedia's only sources are non-scholarly websites and I couldn't find anything else. Touche.
About the buddha, Irish Archaeology.ie ( A blog by two actual archaeologists, which looked much more reliable than the other sources I could find, not including two barely related links on Google Scholar) stated that,"this small island [of Helgö] was an important Viking trading and manufacturing centre (6th-11th centuries AD)." By the ninth-11th centuries, Viking-created Varangian trade networks in Russia and the Volga to the Syr Draya could have eventually brought the statuette to Scandinavia. According to the same source, the statute is from the Sixth Century, which, given the slow pace of trade, makes it possible, but less likely, that it could have arrived significantly before the Viking Age.
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Well, while the Buddha may be from the VIth, I don't think that the trade would be that slow at this point. The Buddha is more a symbolic good, than a trade good : meaning it could have been made at some period, but as not specifically made to be exchanged, can be only travelling some time after*
If Atlantic long-range trade is any indication, we're talking of a relatively quick trade, relative to the technology at hand (tremisses seems to travel quite quickly, for instance, between the moment they're coined at Byzantium and when they hoarded in Anglo-Saxon England).
That said, I always found datation for the tomb, and not the Buddha, for the VIIth century.
The point is that (and your extract doesn't say otherwise) Scandinavia was a trade center already before the Viking Age strictly speaking, and that the disruption of trade and "political" solidarities due to both (we're not talking of two distinct events, but a conjonction there) Frankish takeover of Frisia/Saxony and Arabo-Islamic economical decline, may likely have been a major reason for the Viking Age.
ITTL, where Islam is butterflied away, Volga trade road and Caspian/Baltic road is likely so as well (I suppose, that said, that the Amber Road could know a revival).
Meaning less wealthy Scandinavia, but more stable as well by the IXth century, with possible consequences that I proposed above.
*Which I'd found more likely, mostly because the Volga trade road was essentially tied up with Arabo-Islamic ensemble, and that it didn't really existed before. It doesn't rule out an earlier exchange, that said, but a later date may be more plausible, IMO
Still, it indicated that there's a possibility it post-dated the era, which you didn't seem to consider.
I'm pretty sure I did : I don't said the Buddha couldn't be from the VIth century, I was talking about the archeological context that was dated from the VIIth/VIIIth century with other objects : ladle from Egypt (VIIIth), crozier from Ireland (VIIIth), Byzantine bowl and coins (If I understood well, a variety of era for these) and more mundane finds (as traces of jewellry workshop from the VIth/VIIIth centuries).
The diversity of the find prevents to give a more precise date than VIIth/VIIIth for their presence; but the context points to Helgo being an ancient and important trade center with remote lands, both in East and West. So while it can be post-poned, it couldn't be too late in face of other clues (or different sources about Scandinavian trade).
Not that I argued about a VIth century trade with India, or even saw anyone arguing so.
(I'm actually quite certain that I said above it was a trace of VIIIth trade)
But face to the situation in Atlantic, with a growing long-range trade (while trough Frisians), arguing of a slow pace of trade to make it the proof of a much later Scandinavian involvement in international trade seems a bit weird to me.
The only point we're arguing is about Scandinavia being or not as "isolated and peripherical" before the IXth, which can't really be supported IMO.
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Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
It would be limited to nothern Europe, to Britain, Ireland, France and Germany.
Since without Islam, Byzantium stays a major power Europe and we only country with a powerful navy, the Vikings will have big problems with raids in the Black See and the Mediterranean.
No problem : it's an era (and a topic) that is still much debated, so I may have made up my mind only to be pointed wrong with the next aggiornamento
That said, so far litterary and archeological sources seems to mostly converge (while you have some disagreements between "historians" and "archeologists" about, say, the part of Frisians in the VIIIth trade) towards Scandinavian having more and more trouble accessing Frisia (and therefore its trade network*) in the IXth century.
The sheer efforts made by Frisians to enter in Baltic Sea in the VIIIth, points that there was something there that interested them.
*While it's unclear how much non-Frisians were involved, as Frisians may have ended to name sea merchants/transporters, as Lombards named usurers and financials in classical Middle Ages.
Thank you so much LSCatilina for that detailed explanation.
So basically, trade would remain focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic, moreso than the Volga trade routes and the Caliphates, thereby starving Scandinavia of extra wealth and making it easier to unify?
And European powers on the continent would be better able to maintain the *Carolingian renaissance? So European stability would ultimately be greater, leading to an earlier coalescing of peripheral regions and the strengthening of more Euro-centric Mediterranean and Amber Road trade?
So basically, trade would remain focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic, moreso than the Volga trade routes and the Caliphates, thereby starving Scandinavia of extra wealth and making it easier to unify?
And European powers on the continent would be better able to maintain the *Carolingian renaissance? So European stability would ultimately be greater, leading to an earlier coalescing of peripheral regions and the strengthening of more Euro-centric Mediterranean and Amber Road trade?
Volga trade roads would probably be butterflied ITTL, at least in a first time : neither Romans or Persians had a real incitative or demonstrated much interest there.
That said, a revived Amber Road (that was still being used in the Late Antiquity, while much reduced) trough Danubian and Vistulian basins may appear instead. Eventually roads trough IOTL Russia would probably still appear but maybe not as strategical.
As for Atlantic, if you're expanding it to the growingly more important North Sea, then yes (in fact, Atlantic roads, strictly speaking may be less important ITTL, with Danube/Rhine roads still kicking in).
Carolingian Renaissance was essentially an elits' process, contrary to XIIth or XVth/XVIth Renaissances : meaning that it would depend a lot from political stability and capacities.
While Frankish (and maybe Peppinid/Arnulfid as well) rise is still likely to be a thing, even with Roman presence in Italy, I think that the separation of Francia into distinct kingdoms is such as well. You may see cyclical unifications, and a possible dominion from a ruler able to maintain Carolingian Renaissance or to pull something akin to Ottonian Renaissance, but that's not a given.
I think it's a distinct possibility : the disruption and damages caused by Vikings raids can't be underestimated (and Saracenic raids as well, butterflied too there, of course).
Not that you'd butterfly entierly raids (maybe something more akin to earlier and later royal expeditions), but yes, you'll end with a more stable Carolingian Europe (while many issues wouldn't be butterflied, the situation would be more managable) and possible post-Carolingian Europe in a forseeable future.
Note that it would affect Scandinavians as well, the question being how would absence of Islamic trade would affect the Scandinavian chiefdoms : probably less wealthy but how much so? How would it affect their number and behaviour?
Personally, but I could be convinced otherwise relatively easily, I'd say that we'd still have to deal with around 30 Norse chiefdoms and the same in Sweden in the IXth century.
As for Danes, I'd think they would beneficing it more : Jutland was probably roughly unified by the IXth century IOTL, and you may end with 4 kingdoms (Jelling, Lejre, Borre, Lund, for exemple) eventually unifying entierly earlier, without the IXth disruption or at least, without this disruption being as much a thing than IOTL, as it may be partially due to their elective nature, and taking in account still possible Frankish interventionism (as IOTL) in Jutland, with maybe an earlier christianisation of Danes.
As for Amber Road, yes, I'd think we'd see a greater structuration in the region, that was already a thing trough contacts with Francia IOTL, and the double deal with Amber Road would only make it stronger, IMO.
Richard Hodges. There was a version updated recently (2012 or 2014), but I've only the 90's.
Honesty forces me to say it's not an undebated work, but I usually saw it being considered as a fundamental basis for the early medieval North Sea studies.
Redbeard
Banned
Interesting thread and many good posts.
All in all I think the question about why the Viking raids started is quite simple: because they could!
And they could for mainly two reasons: First, they had the technology - i.e. longboats. Second, for some time enough accessible areas of Europe were relatively weak/disunited and not capable of putting up effective resistance. This even meant that around year 1000 raids had "converted" into Royal conquest.
Did Islam have anything to do with that? I really don't see that. Closest would be the Swdish Viking trade/raiding down the Russian rivers, but even if there hadn't been any Islam at the other end, there still would have been huge populated areas interesting to trade/raid.
All in all I think the question about why the Viking raids started is quite simple: because they could!
And they could for mainly two reasons: First, they had the technology - i.e. longboats. Second, for some time enough accessible areas of Europe were relatively weak/disunited and not capable of putting up effective resistance. This even meant that around year 1000 raids had "converted" into Royal conquest.
Did Islam have anything to do with that? I really don't see that. Closest would be the Swdish Viking trade/raiding down the Russian rivers, but even if there hadn't been any Islam at the other end, there still would have been huge populated areas interesting to trade/raid.
Which is more "how" Viking Age happened, rather than "why", IMO. It certainly played a role, but longboat technology was known elsewhere in the North Sea basin, and yet, only Scandinavians went into raiding : not Anglo-Saxons, not Gaels, not Scots.
But raids, at least in the two first periods, weren't about royal conquest. At the contrary, they were private entreprises often escaping real royal power and often rivaling it.
Conquest of Outer Hebrides or York didn't benefited either Danish or Norse chiefdoms but raiders themselves.
So, you're arguing that the rise of trade with Arabo-Islamic world, that became a huge economical boom; and its collapse by the IXth was entierly coincidental, and don't played a role into the political desintegration of Dania, and the Scandinavian progression (mercantile and fighting) along declining trade roads?
I'm a bit skeptic : why do you think it played no role?
But they didn't before Islamic conquests : it was because Byzantium was in the way of Abbassid trade interests and because Mediterranean/Central European trade roads massively declined after the Romano-Persian wars and Arabo-Islamic conquests that new roads appeared in Rus'.
No Islam means basically no Volga/Caspian trade road, and giving that Persia (being populated and much about international trade) never shown any interest on the region before, I've an hard time believing the road would devellop nevertheless no matter which political events would happen. (If it didn't happened before Islam became a thing, there might be a reason)
The continuity of old Roads trough Byzantium/Danube/Rhine, that took most of the consequences of early VIIth troubles, is much more likely without Islam.
And without Baltic/Volga/Caspian, you won't have a, proven at this point, important trade boost in the region, in spite of a trade growth in Channel/North Sea basin.
Not that the former wouldn't devellop in time, but it would take longer, maybe at the occasion of Central European trade roads being less interesting (for exemple, a Turkic or Ugrian takeover of Danube basin, making Volga road safer in comparison).
Well, it's a much narrower window than you are describing, in fact its likely two separate, narrow windows.
By the 9th century the pre-Rus "Varangian" Volkhov-to-Volga trade is in steep decline, gets a bit of a resurrection by the very end of the 9th/early 10th (see Balymery complex) and by the 11th c. it's deader than dead.
By contrast the Dvina-to-Dniepr and Dvina-to-Volga routes gets more popular in the 10th c. after what seems to be a setback somewhere in the 9th. with some (perhaps significant) Scandinavian settlements marking the waypoints.
Then, 11th c. arrives and by then every trade emporium with major Scandinavian finds is definitely abandoned with the exception of Ladoga itself, but you find specific Scandinavians using the Dniepr route as mercenaries and merchants (and leaving behind grafitti and memory stones).
The earliest coin finds are from the very early 9th c. (ca. 820s) with Runic grafitti on them, those are from a hoard found near Yaroslavl.
Redbeard
Banned
I don't know of any Longship technology found outside Scandinavia before the Vikings spread it - after which many longships were built outside Scandinavia (by Vikings).
Anyway my point is, that you exploit whatever opportunities you have and to the degree your capability allow. The Longship and no unified opposition on the British Isles, combined with quite an aggressive culture in Scandinavia then, gave splendid opportunities for successful raiding later evoving into Royal conquest (as Royal power consolidated in Scandinavia).
All this I really don't see related to Islam or not at all. But if you for some reason have a strong King on the British Isles things might be very different.
And then there is the part of the OTL Viking age going up/down the Russian rivers. Most likely that will have to be influenced to some degree by major events in the Middle East, but Russia, Ukraine, Byzantium, the Middle East etc. will still be there and thus provide some kind of opportunity, could vene be bigger. And even if this more or less deletes this part of the Viking age, Russia isn't called Russia etc. there still will be a Viking age over the North Sea pretty much like the OTL one.
You may have misread me : I said longboad, as with Utrecht-style ships being within the continuity of what existed in Frisian/Frankish trade (as hinted by Carolingian coins), not longships. (Although maybe the longboat/longship distinction is essentially an artifact on French)
I agree, but that's not "why" Viking Age happened, but "what" made it possible : naval superiority and opportunity, which weren't questioned there.
It's not like Vikings raids were only focusing on Britain at this point (and even there, Fortriu's hegemony was as important in Pictland/Scotland that it could go, for the exemple of Northern Britain).
But for opportunistic raiding in VIIIth/IXth raids on Anglo-Saxon England and Pict Northern Britain evolving in something more important, sort of snowball effect if you pardon me, as the political decline in Scandinavia (not unlike Roman collapse may likely have caused political desintegration in Vth Scandinavia, and subsequent raids and takeover of neighbouring regions, as Jutland), less ressources would be devoted to more or less private expeditions, and more to royal-lead expeditions (and these, due to the relative less wealthy situation in the region, being more scarce).
Earlier raids strike as well Frisia or other places on the continent when Carolingia was still at its apogee. And at the contrary of what happened in Britain, these were royal-driven. For various reasons, while early raiding-style as in Britain would probably continue, I think the kind of expeditions that existed in 800's/810's/820's Carolingia would be more the norm, more along what existed in the later Viking Age.
Because, all respect due, I think you're mixing up causes and means of Viking Age.
If you really read my posts, you'd have seen that I don't put in question that even without Islamic trade on Volga up to Baltica, and it's eventual decline, you'd still have Scandinavian raiding for the same reasons you mentioned and some else.
But, without all this, these raids would have been quite different and probably not as much destructive : weaker and less wealthy Scandinavian chiefdoms and cyclical chiefdoms but on the other hand, maybe more unified (at least for Danes), no incitative to compensate for declining trade (Abbasid in a first time, then Umayyad in a second, later time).
Meaning the "private" (pardon me the anachronism there) expeditions, rivaling royal prestige/authority, would have really less of an easier time appearing.
Thing is less for raids to not happen in the IXth/Xth centuries, but for they would be eventually not undergoing the snowball effect they had IOTL, thanks to old trade roads in Mediterranean being maintained and relatively stable (a decline in the VIIth/VIIIth centuries is still somehow likely, until Persia get its shit together), where Scandinavians wouldn't be really involved for obvious geographical reasons (even if you would probably see a South/North trade road appearing in Estern Europe in early MA; but giving the easy access trough Rhine and Frisia, it wouldn't be as meteoritic than Volga trade road).
So, we have great changes for Scandinavian trade, and therefore for Scandinavian polities and wealth, but somehow it doesn't affect at all Scandinavian history? Again, I'm skeptical.
With no trade boom in Baltica, it means a lesser interest from Frisian/North Sea trade in first place : IOTL you really had an expension in this region that didn't existed before (or, rather, nearly at the same rate). No Volga trade means lesser North Sea trade to Baltic, and that itself means a less important Scandinavian presence in North Sea.
Less wealthy, less involved Scandinavian presence on trade would certainly have an impact into the capacity of Scandinavians to have an as great access to weaponry equipment or even to naval technical development, as technology pretty much depend from one's capacity to apply it, and not an ideal existence of features without material base.
Not that, again, you won't have Vikings raids in North Sea. That's pretty much not debated : but it's rather how important changes on Baltic trade and its consequences on Scandinavia would influe on North Sea raiding.
Giving that, before Ummayad and Abbasid empires, neither Persia or Byzantium showed the slightest interest on the region, that strikes to me as convergent history. While you'd have eventually something in the region, it wouldn't be an obvious event, it wouldn't be bound to happen in VIIIth/IXth centuries, and depicting it as bigger or smaller or equivalent is an act of faith.
The only thing that can be said for sure is that, as ancient powers in the region couldn't be bothered with IOTL Russia, safe as negociating with local hegemonies to serve as a buffer entity or pressure third party on the Caucasus or Danubian plain; it would be astonishing they would change their mind suddenly to fit a change happening during Abbassid era in order to have a direct access to northern luxury products, with old trade roads being hugely declining.