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What if the Viking Age continued for several more centuries? And what if Scandinavia remained an international locus of trade and military power well into the Middle Ages and Renaissance?

How could the Viking Age last longer? Here are a few different possibilities.
  1. Prolong the flow of silver from the Middle East and Central Asia, by keeping the Abbasid Caliphate, the Khazar Khaganate, or the Samanid Empire, alive as states. The trade networks created in Kievan Rus' persist in greater strength, allowing the Northwest European emporia (artisanal trading posts) to remain connected to the Silk Road. This would encourage further Norse maritime expansion, which had always been driven primarily by economics.
  2. Have the Norse take over England permanently. Hence, the Norse-Gaels in Ireland and Scotland could receive more Anglo-Danish (or Norwegian) support, and the wars between England and France would become a direct continuation of Norse raids on Francia.
  3. Varangians become more prominent in Poland's drużyna (retinue), and Poland is founded in the same way as Kievan Rus'. A Viking Poland would threaten East Francia and preclude German dominance of the land east of the Elbe, preventing Hanseatic prominence in the Baltic Sea trade.
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