140Chapter 8
rivers. From the western branch of the Dvina, which
flows into the Baltic at Riga, they were able to reach
the headwaters of both the Dnieper and the Volga and
to float from there to the gates of Constantinople. In
the process they founded Novgorod and established
themselves as the ruling aristocracy at Kiev, but they
had little impact upon what was to remain a thoroughly
slavic culture. Somewhat ironically, they gave Russia its
name: “Rus” or “Rhos” was the slavic word for Viking.
The establishment of these Viking enclaves, like
the contemporary colonization of Iceland and Green-
land and the exploration of the North American coast
by Bjarni Herjolfsson (c. 986) and Leif Ericsson
(c. 1000), indicates that hunger for arable land was an
important reason for the great raids. In the two cen-
turies between 850 and 1050 the North Sea became the
center of a cosmopolitan society in which interaction
between Scandinavian and non-Scandinavian cultures
grew increasingly complex. The Norsemen were even-
tually assimilated as the medieval kingdoms of France
and England evolved, but their incursions had helped
to provoke a reorganization of European society.The Emergence of Feudal Institutions
The great raids, whether Muslim, Magyar, or Viking,
brought something like anarchy to most of Europe. The
normal bonds of social interaction were submerged in
an orgy of violence. No one’s person or property was
safe. Agricultural production fell, and the tenuous lines
of trade and communication that held the empire to-
gether were virtually severed (see document 8.1).
The raids were inflicted on a political order that
was in the process of disintegration. The empire of
Charlemagne had been doomed from the start by
poverty and by the problem of distance. Little surplus
wealth was available to support either war or gover-
nance. Harvests, never abundant in the Carolingian
age, may have declined even before the destructive ef-
fects of the raids were felt. The European climate had
entered one of its cold, damp cycles, and yields of one-Illustration 8.1
Viking Longship.This Viking longship has elegant, and sea-
worthy, lines. The general impression is one of both beauty and
menace.