Infopanel 33

The first Europeans

The Vikings are often referred to as the first Europeans since ancient times. No wonder, since they sailed and settled large parts of Europe, leaving their mark almost everywhere. Starting in Scandinavia, they began colonizing the North Atlantic islands of Orkney, Shetland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and even Newfoundland, as well as parts of Scotland (Caithness) and Ireland (Kingdom of Dublin). They also settled on the Isle of Man, the entire northeast of England, Normandy, the coasts of the Baltic Sea, and the Eastern European hinterland: today's Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia.

Their direct descendants, the Normans, expanded this territory even further through their conquest of southern Italy, Sicily, and, for a short time, the coasts of western Greece and smaller parts of Catalonia on the Iberian Peninsula. As a result of the First Crusade in 1099, the huge Duchy of Antioch in the southeast of present-day Turkey was also added.
Such sustained territorial expansion was only possible thanks to an openness towards other ethnic groups and peoples. The Vikings seemed to be pioneers of successful integration: anyone who could offer economic and cultural advantages to the local population was accepted. The Vikings also had no problem adopting the languages of the conquered territories instead of imposing their own. The fact that there appear to have been hardly any language barriers or communication difficulties can be explained by semi-communication, the partial understanding of related languages. Such almost frictionless communication must have already been functioning in the early Middle Ages, otherwise Danish and Norwegian Vikings would not have been able to communicate with Frankish kings.

Religious prejudices did not stand in the way of Viking expansion either: as traders, the Vikings were quick to accept the so-called “primsigning” (“first blessing”) of the Christians in order to be allowed to trade with them. As robbers, they plundered pagan burial mounds as well as Christian churches and monasteries.

Their lack of ethnic resentment also led to marriages with the Sami people of northern Scandinavia, Finns, Balts, various Slavic peoples, Irish, Anglo-Saxons, and French, as well as the Lombards of southern Italy. Only with the indigenous peoples of North America did the connection seem to fail – presumably because the cultural differences between the Vikings and the natives, who still lived in a Stone Age society, were too great. 

Many of these connections are still evident today: numerous European surnames, place names, and even genetic traces can be traced back to the Vikings. The idea of an open, interconnected Europe is also reminiscent of the role they played as early “global players” of their time – similar to how modern trade and communication networks connect people and cultures.