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History of the Viking Invasions


            The Vikings main role was to increase their raids on the continent, and since they were opportunists with wisdom it would not have been a hard feat. Because of the civil war and the political confusion that occurred in Northern Europe, the vikings were able to raid the continent easily. Somehow the Vikings knew which areas were easier to raid and which areas had more profit for them. The raids that the Vikings pursued were not supported by the pagan kings of Scandinavia, where a majority of their raids took place, and were acts of piracy that eventually shifted over time.
             The Vikings had remarkable sailing skills and were able to use those skills to their advantages, unlike the Germans before them. They were also lucky to have larger ships which allowed them to raid larger quantities in a faster amount of time. Their ships were able to survive the rough ocean waves while also being able to sail through shallow and narrow waters. Ships were long and narrow and were able to hold up to two hundred people at a time but only needed less than twenty to sail them.
             Although the Vikings had such large ships and were able to cause a large amount of violence and disruption to the colonies, they happened to do very little damage to the economy. The Vikings were said to have murdered some of the villagers of the towns they raided, but because most of the information we have today is from the Vikings enemies, we cannot be sure if that is a true statement or not. One place that the Vikings targeted were monasteries and churches that just happened to be along the waterways and made easily accessible for them to raid. "The pagan Vikings knew that churches held the greatest repositories of movable wealth in the form of gold and silver objects (chalices, plates, crosses)" (Many Europe's: Choice and Chance in Western Civilization). The Vikings may have actually helped the Europeans out by circulating the goods that they had stolen, since the items and wealth had been previously attached to the monasteries and the churches.


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