WI: A surviving Vinland colony

Which is why they will never have friends. It is better to be respected than feared, for if you are feared and you show weakness, all those you have bullied will turn on you. If you're respected, all those who serve you might be willing to help you out in your time of need (or might not).

Yeah, too bad Dark Age Europe didn't have any power projection to invade Scandinavia and crush the Vikings were they lived.

People often get vikings and Norse mixed up. A viking was a Norse pirate, to go a-viking meant to go pirating and pillaging. This practice faded as the Norse became more civilized, much later than the rest of Europe because they had never been touched by Romans and were somewhat remote anyway. The belief that all Norse were pirates has stemmed from people thinking that the "Great Heathen Army" was more organized than it was, I would consider it more of a horde.
 
People often get vikings and Norse mixed up. A viking was a Norse pirate, to go a-viking meant to go pirating and pillaging. This practice faded as the Norse became more civilized, much later than the rest of Europe because they had never been touched by Romans and were somewhat remote anyway. The belief that all Norse were pirates has stemmed from people thinking that the "Great Heathen Army" was more organized than it was, I would consider it more of a horde.

No, they just don't bother differentiating between the two. Yes, I'm aware the word Viking is translated into something along the lines of raiding. If anything, it's just generalizing the whole thing.

I wonder how well they'd do in a Europe where the whole population war armed. Right to bear arms (or arm bears) if you will. Every villager with a pike would probably end up with a lot of dead villagers, but not before they gnaw the Vikings to death through attirition.
 
Yeah, too bad Dark Age Europe didn't have any power projection to invade Scandinavia and crush the Vikings were they lived.

I have thought of this before on occasion. If some Continental state had sufficient seafaring technology to do so, the obvious response to the Viking raids would be to take the fight to the Scandinavian homelands. Given that this is the Middle Ages, I suspect that genocide would be on the menu, perhaps similar to what Karl der Grosse did to the pagan Saxons.
 
Part of the problem is that the Viking raiders didn't have any centralized base to hit. They were spread out in villages and towns over a rather enormous and hostile area. Punitive expeditions could crush some towns and villages, and the next generation would just be even more militant.

Once the Nordic nations became actual countries, Viking raids were replaced by organized invasions. Norse Kings did not like their Jarls doing what amounted to declaring war on their own initiative.

As for how effective organized resistance were, it was pretty effective. For a while, vikings organized larger fleets, but when european nations got their act together, the small-unit raiding didnt do so well.

However, having the mobility advantage does mean you can hit the weakest target of a long list.
 

katchen

Banned
By somewhere in the 1300s the Norwegians are getting tied down to the land as serfs in Norway and in no position to colonize anywhere until they get free a lot later. In Iceland and Greenland too. And also by the Church. Which may be one of the reasons that people in the Greenland Colony starved to death. They were stuck in their feudal roles by their religious beliefs. Maybe they got to Heaven. They sure didn't survive the 15th Century on Earth in Greenland when they could have if they had thought more flexibly and made friends with the Innuit.
 
Perhaps ever manor, town, and whatnot has to have a militia if it is on the Baltic coast to protect from vikings. To solve the problem of vikings raiding monasteries and the problem of young knights being psychotic when they don't get enough violence, have them set up so that they are called to respond to any viking raids. Slowly the Nordic economy evolves past the need to go a-viking, but still sooner than IOTL. The seafaring gents go to Iceland and Greenland, then to North America, or whatever it wold be called with a surviving Vinland colony (Jotunheim is too pagan) The nations of Markland, Vinland, Iceland, and Greenland become allies in a war of independence against Norway, and this alliance begins the separation between European and American politics.
 
No, they just don't bother differentiating between the two. Yes, I'm aware the word Viking is translated into something along the lines of raiding. If anything, it's just generalizing the whole thing.

I wonder how well they'd do in a Europe where the whole population war armed. Right to bear arms (or arm bears) if you will. Every villager with a pike would probably end up with a lot of dead villagers, but not before they gnaw the Vikings to death through attirition.

They'd probably still kick ass and take names. They had a big advantage of being quick and able to kick down the door and start slaughtering before any kind of defense can be put up (because even without specially designed weapons a mob of peasants with farm implements is dangerous).
 
Given that this is the Middle Ages, I suspect that genocide would be on the menu, perhaps similar to what Karl der Grosse did to the pagan Saxons.

Considering they had the habit of attacking anybody weaker than them all the time, I'd say you're right.
 
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