Wi: No Vikings

  • Thread starter Deleted member 67076
  • Start date

Deleted member 67076

So what would be the political and cultural (especially modern day) on the world if the raiding/exploring culture of the viking had never come about/was destroyed before making an impact?
 
You'll need something that butterflies the Vikings. There was an earlier thread with a Carolingian POV that neutered the Vikings somehow--I think it was a Frankish conquest (or at least crippling) of Denmark.

That being said, there'd still be the Swedish Vikings (who colonized Russia) and the Norwegians (who raided Ireland and western Britain) to contend with.
 
Well, for starters, there would be no russia (or at least, not as we know it) as it was founded largly by sweedish vikings(Ruric himslf was a swede). Even the name, as far as I know, comes from them.
 

Deleted member 67076

You'll need something that butterflies the Vikings. There was an earlier thread with a Carolingian POV that neutered the Vikings somehow--I think it was a Frankish conquest (or at least crippling) of Denmark.

That being said, there'd still be the Swedish Vikings (who colonized Russia) and the Norwegians (who raided Ireland and western Britain) to contend with.
Alright, well, have the Volga Bulgars fight and destroy the settlers, the British to not fragment (maybe a Roman General founds a stable kingdom) and the Franks going North. Alright, assuming that happens how would politics and culture change, especially modern day culture, which seems to love the whole Barbarian hero the last few decades
 
Alright, well, have the Volga Bulgars fight and destroy the settlers, the British to not fragment (maybe a Roman General founds a stable kingdom) and the Franks going North. Alright, assuming that happens how would politics and culture change, especially modern day culture, which seems to love the whole Barbarian hero the last few decades

Well, prehaps we would have more populare culture(ir such a thing were to exist) based of noble, civialised warriors comming to civilise the barbairan. Somthing like alot of victorian litriature.
 

katchen

Banned
It would have taken complete Roman conquest of the Germanic people--all the way to Trondheimfjord. Which would not have been easy. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were after all, Vikings too.
Had the Romans conquered Germania only up to and including the Heruli, it is possible that the Nyorsk and the Svenski would have gotten their raiding and conquest over with in the 5th Century.
 

Deleted member 67076

It would have taken complete Roman conquest of the Germanic people--all the way to Trondheimfjord. Which would not have been easy. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were after all, Vikings too.
Had the Romans conquered Germania only up to and including the Heruli, it is possible that the Nyorsk and the Svenski would have gotten their raiding and conquest over with in the 5th Century.
So your saying all the Germanic peoples were in essence, vikings? Well for this scenario I'm specifically refering to the Scandinavian Raiders/explorers of the 600-900s, so those 3 don't count. I should have clarified that.
 
Assuming the Viking Age is somehow butterflied away that would mean no feudalism as we know it. The threat of highly unpredictable, sudden Viking raids were one of the biggest reasons for the breakdown of the centralized royal army of the Carolingians and its replacement with the more decentralized feudal approach. Stopping all that from happening means centralized states would get started in continental Europe sooner. England might also drift out of the Mediterranean-centric sphere which the Franks and the Papacy were building thanks to no Normans and no Duke William.
 
I think what you'd need is to get Scandinavia christianized earlier. At least by 750 or so conversion need to be essentially complete. So some kind of sustained missionary pressure from UK, or similar.

That would at least enourage earlier state formation in Scandinavia. Trading would be heavier, and the local population surplus whold add to Europes efforts against the muslims.
 
Well, for starters, there would be no russia (or at least, not as we know it) as it was founded largly by sweedish vikings(Ruric himslf was a swede). Even the name, as far as I know, comes from them.

Rurik was specifically not a Swede according to the original chronicle, just another kind of Norseman like Geats, Swedes, Englishmen, Danes or Germans ;)

Those individual people who we know by names and intersected with the Russian nobility are almost evenly distributed between Norwegians and everyone else, with Swedes a bit more common than Danes. Not that the division was very clear even back then.

Novgorod might not have been founded, that's possible. Novgorod is actually fairly late in origin as a town, archaeologically. Ladoga already existed. Kiev possibly would have not have developed into a major city because the high town was small, it was the Rus-era podol that gave the place its economic importance.

So the settlement pattern might be somewhat different. Norse colonies were always tiny (4% or so of total population by object finds), but they were likely the economic engines of the 9th and 10th c. towns. At the same time they were already created in fairly populated places that apparently were fairly easy to organise. So you might have forts + agricultural hinterlands rather than cities-on-rivers.

The name itself may not have been applied to the whole territory either, there may be no Russia at all...perhaps a Slovenia or a Polonia or a Severia :p

That said - going "viking" was not something people DID on Russian waterways from Scandinavia Estonia or Curland were far more common targets and that didn't even last that long. The "Varangans" operating in Daghestan and Azerbaijan and so on clearly operated from Russian centres (Slavic, Finnic, Bulgar or Khazar).

So in terms of "what happens to Russia" I guess the first question is "what is a viking?"

If it's a seasonal raider, there weren't any great amounts of them. If it's a professional warrior-merchant, then why aren't they around even if there are organised kingdoms in Scandinavia.

Of course without the Eastern route Scandinavia itelf is going to be even more marginal than it was historically.
 
Last edited:
So what would be the political and cultural (especially modern day) on the world if the raiding/exploring culture of the viking had never come about/was destroyed before making an impact?

Not a big impact but still: no European settlements on Greenland and Vinland in that time?
 
Not a big impact but still: no European settlements on Greenland and Vinland in that time?

That might have one interesting ethnological impact in that it gives the Dorset culture a better chance of survival. Once put under pressure by the Inuit, the Dorset would have a whole bunch of virgin land to their south to flee too. The Inuit would also expand to there, mind you, but the greater amount of space could allow for some Dorset villages to survive (though by European contact, their culture and language would have taken on a lot of Inuit influence).
 
This would have huge butterflies across Europe. No Normans so an Anglo- Saxon England, France would be drastically changed and the Rus may never exist.

-----------------
Zoroastrian Avars? Sassanid Superpower? Pyrrhus, Basileus of Macedon? It's all there in "An Alternate History if Macedon"!
 

katchen

Banned
I seem to recall that Finns lived further up Norrland from Troondheim'fjord. Any chance that they could have learned to go a viking if the Norse didn't?
 
This would have huge butterflies across Europe. No Normans so an Anglo- Saxon England, France would be drastically changed and the Rus may never exist.

An Anglo-Saxon England indeed, but what type of England as the Norsemen altered the pre-Norman history of England as well.
 
Top